Urban transformation and Indigenous-settler reconciliation: Discursive (dis)connections between municipal reconciliation strategies and area redevelopment plans in five Canadian cities

Municipalities in settler colonial states are currently engaged in seemingly conflicting projects of urban redevelopment and Indigenous-settler reconciliation, given the role the former plays in reproducing colonial dispossession. However, state-led reconciliation itself can also reinforce the settler colonial relationship through its selective recognition of colonial violence, Indigenous presence, and new pathways forward. In response to these tensions, this article examines how emerging municipal reconciliation discourses are reproduced, transformed, or ignored within new area redevelopment plans, and the extent to which this “dialogue” indicates discursive shifts to settler planning norms and ideals. A textual analysis of reconciliation documents and redevelopment plans in five Canadian cities - Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Hamilton, and Montréal – reveals that reconciliation discourses of relationship-building, Indigenous presence, and unity and inclusion are consistently translated in ways that maintain the settler planning status quo. Crucially, these concepts are transformed in interaction with planning discourses of urban authority, redevelopment as capital accumulation, and the inclusive city, underlining the need to challenge both capitalist planning norms and unnuanced ‘inclusion’ as a response to inequitable development outcomes.