Lecture Me! Disabling Cities: Stories about Food, Barriers and Safety

Attend free monthly lectures by UTM faculty members as they highlight their research in a fun and approachable way. Disabling Cities: Stories about Food, Barriers and Safety with Ron Buliung from the Department of Geography, Geomatics and Environment Cities are often celebrated as places of opportunity, connection, and inclusion. Yet for many disabled people, everyday activities such as buying groceries, travelling across town, or crossing a street can become difficult, frustrating, and dangerous. The problem is not disability itself, it is often the ways cities are designed, organized, governed, and experienced. More than one quarter of Canadians aged 15 and over identify as disabled, and most live in urban areas. Many report disabilities related to pain, mobility, flexibility, and mental health, ways of being that shape how people move through and experience city life. Using stories from research and everyday life, Professor Ron Buliung will examine three interconnected issues: the hidden relationship between disability and food insecurity; the nature of barriers that can turn an apparently accessible city into an impassable one; and the ways traffic and pedestrian environments can create disproportionate safety risks for disabled people. Taken together, these stories show how disability is shaped not only through bodies and minds, but also through the design and organization of urban life.