A Place to Enjoy Oneself: Anti-Renewal Activism, Citizen Involvement, and the Limits of Urban Amenity

The outlines of a relatively new form of urban planning in Halifax began to appear in the final phases of an expanding struggle over postwar urban renewal. A struggle that began in the mid-1960s as a relatively isolated contest over the fate of certain historic buildings gradually widened and intensified in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as new activist organizations, newly elected politicians, and newly formed state institutions entered the fray. Collectively, these opponents of urban renewal represented a diverse and sometimes conflicting series of constituencies, objectives, and ideologies. And yet, the extensive and multifaceted consequences of renewal policies