Zoe Duquette
Zoe Duquette is a 4th year undergraduate student majoring in Sociology.
Inspired by urbanisation efforts in her hometown of Calgary, her honours thesis explores civic engagement and the narratives about Calgary’s urban character.
Zoe’s research interests include land use planning, municipal decision-making processes, and data visualization. She is entering into Dalhousie’s Master of Planning program in fall 2025 — with aims to become an urban planner and foster thriving communities. She occasionally goes on stage in an attempt to make people laugh.
Cities across Canada are struggling with increasing their urban density, often requiring them to rethink their housing supply and zoning bylaws. Calgary, Alberta is a nexus for the issues surrounding urbanization efforts — immensely car-centric, suffering from population sprawl, and having recently passed a rezoning policy. Notably, this policy was controversial city-wide. Why is this the case?
In order to find an answer, the following research question was used: What are the perceptions of Calgary’s 2024 blanket rezoning policy of low density land use districts as expressed by individuals who commented on the policy to Calgary City Hall?
The data for this analysis was compiled from a Verbatim Comments report released by Calgary City Hall and a transcription of the public hearings conducted for this policy. This information was analyzed in Communalytic, a social science research tool for analyzing public discourse, to gain insight into recurring topics and themes. In addition, the demographics of the hearing speakers in relation to Calgary’s 2021 Census of Population data was analyzed in Microsoft Excel to reveal patterns in demographics.
This research reveals commenters’ perceptions of this policy’s impact, urban forms important to their lives, and narratives about Calgary’s urban character. Recurrent topics include urban density, parking, community character, affordable housing, and democratic processes. Analyzing the nuance of these comments reveals how commenting Calgarians perceive the policy and how it affects their lives in Calgary.
This research is one of the first to be done on perceptions citizens have on densification policies and can be used to address concerns over these types of policies in other car-centric North American cities.
How did you become interested in this topic? Why did you choose it for your thesis?
While brainstorming topics for my honours thesis in early 2024, I was following the news about Calgary City Hall rezoning all low density residential. Calgary is my hometown and I have always been interested in its politics, so I had been following this story for several months.
Eventually, I realized this would make an excellent topic for my thesis. After that, I only needed to decide what interested me the most about the rezoning process and begin my research.
Can you summarize your project and its main findings for us?
In 2024, Calgary City Hall voted to approve a city-wide densification policy, allowing any parcel of land that may have initially only allowed for a single detached house to now allow rowhouses and secondary suites.
I’ve analyzed the public’s engagement with the rezoning process, analyzing public hearing speeches and comments sent to Calgary City Hall. I compared this data with Calgary’s census data to reveal trends in who spoke and the topics they spoke on.
I have found that the people who engaged with the rezoning process held diverse opinions, primarily on the topics of environmentalism, car-centricity, housing prices, and transit. This reveals the existence of important narratives among Calgarians, such as green urbanism and the cultural importance of the single detached house. In addition, I have found that the neighbourhoods that spoke out the most at the public hearing were neighbourhoods with low home ownership and a lower median income.
What was your favourite part of doing research?
I loved having the time to explore a topic that has held my interest recreationally for many years. As well, I enjoyed learning different softwares and research skills, and applying them to explain a topic that I care deeply about. I feel much more knowledgeable about the culture of my hometown, the municipal engagement process, and the politics of urbanisation policies.
What have you learned during your research that has surprised you the most?
When I began my research, I expected a majority of the comments and speeches to hold NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) viewpoints. This moniker is growing in popularity to describe people — typically older, richer, and more conservative — who speak out against any urbanisation policies that would affect them.
There were certainly trends in my data that aligned with this generalization, for example, seniors were overrepresented in the public hearing. However, this unified group did not appear in my findings. In particular, many hearing speakers who spoke against the rezoning were renters, living in areas with lower median incomes, or offering arguments for increased high density housing.
Has this experience influenced what you want to do after you complete your degree and how?
Definitely. During my thesis, I began to critically think about urban planning, municipal engagement, and the regulatory details behind the design of cities.
As my research into this topic moved forward, I realized that I want to have a career in urban planning. In particular, I realized that I want to have a say in the urban development of cities and to engage with the public on a topic I think is often overlooked. Now, I have been admitted into a Master of Planning program, and I hope to one day become an urban planner.
