Simon Fraser University

Peter V. Hall

Where to find me
Office: HC 2123
Telephone: (778) 782-6691
Fax: (778) 782-5297


Postal Address
Urban Studies Program
SFU at Harbour Centre
515 W Hasting Street
Vancouver
BC, V6B 5K3
CANADA
Updated: May 2023
Peter V.Hall


BSocSc (Cape Town, 1989), MSc (LSE, 1995), PhD (Berkeley, 2002)


Welcome! You’ve found me in Vancouver, on the west coast of British Columbia. I grew up in and around another west coast port city, Cape Town, South Africa. My research program bridges the disciplines of geography, planning and economics, often combining qualitative and quantitative social research methods, to address three areas related to development at the local, urban and regional scales:


New:

    2022 “The Qingdao Olympic Sailing Centre: A Case Study of Urban Financing of Waterfront Redevelopment Projects Under Chinese Neoliberalism”, PORTUSplus. 14, (Dec. 2022). [with X Wang] (paper)


    2022 “Balancing Consistency and Flexibility: Challenges and Opportunities in Conducting a Cross-Country Longitudinal Study with Youth Participants in Work-Integration Social Enterprises”, Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research 13(2), 1–17. [with Simpson, L., Luk, A., Hall, P., Vieta M., & Chan, A.] (paper)


Port Cities, Seaports and Logisticstop

Ports and waterfronts are fascinating and important because they are places where communities, cities and regions meet global economic actors and forces. Across the city-region, the port-logistics industry is comprised of a network of activities that begin at the waterfront and extend to suburban warehouse distribution centres. I am interested in the connections between these shipping and logistics networks, the port institutions that govern and regulate them, and the resulting patterns of employment and development in port cities.

Video links:

Publications in this area:

    2021 “Global Value Chains and regimes of Urban Governance: Reflection on Four Canadian Gateway Cities”, Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 30(1): 1-15. [with C DE Fuentes, JM Montsion, D Brunelle] (paper)


    2020 “Moving beyond land and water: Understanding the development and spatial organization of inland ports”, Journal of Transport Geography. Vol 84 (link)


    2019 “Reinventing urban waterfronts beyond the urban core: Public space and redevelopment in the Vancouver region”, Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 28(1): 1-18. [with Annika Airas] (paper)


    2019 “Seaports and maritime transport geography in prospect: more of the same for the next 25 years?”, Journal of Transport Geography (25th anniversary edition). Vol 81 (paper)


    2018 “Traffic Planning in Port-Cities”, Discussion Paper, International Transport Forum (ITF-OECD), Paris. (paper)


    2018 “Trucking regulation as a critical chain asset in port complexes”, Research in Transportation Business & Management, 26: 122-127. [With Thomas O'Brien] (paper)


    2018 “How people green the port”, in Monios, J and Gordon Wilmsmeier, G. (eds) Maritime mobilities, Chapter 4. Abingdon: Routledge. [2nd with K Hendricks]. (publisher)


    2018 “Connecting to What?: forgetting history, finding risk”, in: Curran, W and Hamilton, T (eds) Just Green Enough, Chapter 5. Abingdon: Routledge. [with Pamela Stern]. (publisher)


    2017 “Ports”, in: Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree, Mike M. Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi, Weidong Liu, and Richard A. Marston. (eds) The International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment, and Technology. John Wiley & Sons. (publisher)


    2016 “How can joint urban and port planning facilitate the next economy - flexible frameworks of port and city?”, Invited presentation at AIVP World Conference, 2016, Rotterdam. (pdf)


    2016 “Dockworkers and the creation of synergistic pathways for a sustainable port city”, Internet contribution to the AIVP World Conference, 2016, Rotterdam. [With Flavia Nico Vasconcelos and Kristianne Hendricks] (pdf)


    2016 “Reflections on (Re)Claiming the New Westminster Waterfront, British Columbia, Canada”, Journal of Transport History, 37(1): 87-91. [With Pamela Stern] (link)


    2015 “The social life of truck routes”, in: Cidell, J and Prytherch, D. (eds) Transport, Mobility, and the Production of Urban Space, 117-133. Abingdon: Routledge. (publisher)


    2015 “Manufacturing logistics”, in: JB. Bryson, J Clark and V Vanchan. (eds) The Handbook of Manufacturing Industries in the Global Economy, 58-70. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. (publisher)


    2015 “Planning for Urban Freight Transport: An Overview”, Transport Reviews, 35(5): 583-598. [With Jenny Cui and Jago Dodson] (abstract)


    2015 “Asserting historical 'distinctiveness' in industrial waterfront transformation”, Cities, 44: 86–93. [With Annika Airas and Pamela Stern] (abstract)


    2015 “West Coast Marine Logistics Employment Trends, 1980-2010”, A Preliminary Analysis / Briefing Paper. (pdf)


    2015 Book review. “Three books, mostly about seaports: (1) Port-City Interplays in China, James Jixian Wang. Ashgate, Farnham (2014). £60.00 (hardback). ISBN 978-1-4724-2689-5. (2) Institutional Challenges to Intermodal Transport and Logistics, Jason Monios. Ashgate, Farnham (2014). £65.00 (hardback). ISBN 978-1-4724-2321-4. (3) Hub Cities in the Knowledge Economy, Sven Conventz, Ben Derudder, Alain Thierstein, Frank Witlox (Eds.). Ashgate, Farnham (2014). £65.00 (hardback). ISBN 978-1-4094-4591-3”, Journal of Transport Geography.(publisher)


    2014 “A Gateway to Good Jobs? Opening up the conversation”, A Good Jobs Economy in BC Conference, November 21, 2014. CCPA-BC. (pdf)


    2014 “Port-city governance: Vancouver Case Study”, in Y. Alix, B. Delsalle and C. Comtois (eds). Port-city governance, Le Havre, Fondation Sefacil.(chapter) For more on this publication, (go here).


    2014 “Opinion: Why you should care about truckers strike”, Vancouver Sun.(link)


    2014 “Transport Geography in Canada”, Journal of Transport Geography, 36: 163–164.(publisher)


    2014 “Implicating Waterfronts in Regional Sustainability”, Local Environment, 19(6): 591-604. [with Pamela Stern] (abstract)


    2014 “Les ports interieurs et leurs villes en Amerique du Nord”, in: Beyer, Antoine et Jean Debrie(eds). Les Metropoles: Concilier amenagement et logistique pour un developpement urbain durable, 285-292. (“River and lake ports in North America, and their cities”, translation by the editors). (pdf)


    2014 “Ports and Waterfronts”, in Elmer, V and Leigland, A. Infrastructure Planning and Finance: A Smart and Sustainable Guide. Abingdon: Routledge. [with Peter Brown] (publisher)


    2013 Cities, Regions and Flows. Hall, PV and Hesse, M (eds). Abingdon and New York: Routledge.(publisher)


    2013 “'Resolving' Spatial and Scalar Mismatches in North American Freight Logistics”, in: Klaus Benesch (ed), Culture and Mobility, 39-50. Publications of the Bavarian America Academy, Volume 15. Universitätsverlag Winter Heidelberg. (publisher)


    2013 “Environmental innovation and the role of stakeholder collaboration in West Coast Gateways”, Research in Transportation Economics. 42(1): 87-96. [With Thomas O'Brien and Clarence Woudsma] (abstract)


    2013 “Guest editors’ introduction: institutions and the transformation of transport nodes”, Journal of Transport Geography. 27: 1–3. [With Adolf K.Y. Ng and Athanasios A. Pallis] (abstract)


    2012 “Connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting: Port-logistics and Vancouver’s Fraser River”, L'Espace géographique. 41(3): 223-235. (abstract)


    2012 “Why are maritime ports (still) urban, and why should policy makers care?”, Maritime Policy and Management. 39(2), 189-206. [With Wouter Jacobs] (abstract)


    2011 Integrating Seaports and Trade Corridors. Hall, PV, McCalla, RJ, Comtois, C and Slack, B. (eds). Aldershot: Ashgate.(publisher)


    2011 “The Location and Global Network Structure of Maritime Advanced Producer Services”, Urban Studies. 48(13):2751-2771 [With Wouter Jacobs and Hans Koster] (abstract)


    2010 “Shifting Proximities: the Maritime Ports Sector in an era of Global Supply Chains”, Regional Studies. 44(9): 1103-115. [With Wouter Jacobs] (abstract)


    2010 “Maritime ports and the politics of reconnection”, in: Desfor, G, Laidley, J, Schubert, D, and Stevens, Q. (eds) Transforming Urban Waterfronts: Fixity and Flow, 17-34. Abingdon: Routledge. [With Anthony Clark] (publisher)


    2009 “Container ports, local benefits and transportation worker earnings”, GeoJournal. 74(1): 67-83. (abstract) (pdf)


    2009 “Ports in Proximity, Proximity in Ports: towards a typology”, in: Notteboom, T, De Langen, P and Ducruet, C. (eds) Ports in proximity: essays on competition and coordination among adjacent seaports, 29-40. Aldershot: Ashgate. [With Wouter Jacobs] (publisher)


    2008 Global Logistics and Local Dilemmas. Proceedings of the International Conference on Gateways and Corridors. (pdf)


    2007 “Seaports, urban sustainability and paradigm shift” Journal of Urban Technology, 14(2): 87-101. (abstract) (pdf)


    2007 “What Conditions Supply Chain Strategies of Ports? The Case of Dubai” GeoJournal, 68(4): 327-342. [With Wouter Jacobs] (abstract) (pdf)


    2007 “Which link, which chain? Inserting Durban into global automotive supply chains” in: Wang, J, Olivier, D, Notteboom, T and Slack, B. (eds) Ports, Cities, and Global Supply Chains. Aldershot: Ashgate. [With Glen Robbins](publisher)


    2006 “Guest Editorial: Re-Exploring the Interface between Economic and Transport Geography” Environment and Planning A, 38(8): 1401-1408 [With Markus Hesse and Jean-Paul Rodrigue]. (abstract) (pdf)


    2005 “Inter-firm relationships and the evolution of transportation systems: the case of the car carriers and automobile importers to the United States” Maritime Policy and Management, 32(3): 279-295 (Special Issue on Shipping in the Americas). [With Daniel Olivier] (abstract) (pdf)


    2004 “’We’d have to sink the ships’: Impact Studies and the 2002 West Coast Port Lockout” Economic Development Quarterly, 18(4): 354-367. (abstract) (pdf)


    2004 “Mutual specialization, seaports and the geography of automobile imports” Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 95(2): 135-146. (abstract) (pdf)


    2004 “Persistent variation: flexibility, organization and strategy in the logistics of importing automobiles to the United States, 1980-1999” Environment and Planning A, 36(3): 529-546. (abstract) (pdf)


    2003 “Regional Institutional Transformation: Reflections from the Baltimore Waterfront”. Economic Geography, 79(4): 347-363. (abstract) (pdf)


    2003 “Development Opportunities at Seaports” in Frey, A. (ed) Just- in-time real estate, Washington: Urban Land Institute.


    2000 “Regional Development and Institutional Lock-in: A case study of Richards Bay, South Africa”, Critical Planning, 7 (Spring): 87-102. (pdf)

Yantian Container Terminal, Shenzen
© PV Hall, 2005


Local Labour Markets and Employmenttop

I am interested in the dynamics of local labour markets, and in the public policies that may reverse the rising inequality in contemporary labour market outcomes. Recent research projects have examined the various transport sector labour markets, and employer-paid transit subsidies for hotel workers. I have also worked on analyzing the costs and benefits of local living and minimum wage policies.

Employer Transit Subsidy Study, 2020:

Read the executive summary here.


Read the full report here.


2021 “Employer-paid transit subsidies and travel behaviour: Experimental evidence from Vancouver hotels”, Journal of Urban Mobility, 1. [with A Perl, K Sawatzky, S Tornes] (paper)


2021 “The quality of life effects of enhancing public transport subsidies for hospitality workers in Vancouver, British Columbia”, in Transport in Human Scale Cities, Chapter 5. Edward Elgar. [with A Perl, K Sawatzky] (publisher)


The anonymized survey data is available on the Federated Research Data Repository here.


Publications in this area:

    2021 “Ride-hailing applications in Vancouver, Canada: Representation, local empowerment and resistance”, Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 30(1): 53-66. [with Isamara M. Vasconcelos] (paper)


    2018 “Vancouver (Canada): Equitable sustainability planning within the post-industrial urban development model”, in Sébastien Darchen and Glen Searle (eds) Global Planning Innovations for Urban Sustainability, Chapter 5. Abingdon: Routledge. [with Wes Regan]. (publisher)


    2017 “Precarious work a reality across employment sectors in BC”, Policynotes. Blog of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. (link)


    2015 “Seeking and securing work: Individual-level predictors of employment outcomes for psychiatric survivors”, WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment & Rehabilitation, 52: 91–101. DOI: 10.3233/WOR-141973. [With P Montgomery, S Davie, K Dickins, C Forchuk, M Jeng, M Kersey, A Meier, P Lahey, A Rudnick, M Solomon, L Warner] (link)


    2014 “Liftoff: Living Wages at San Francisco Airport”. In: Reich, M and Jacobs, K. (eds) When Mandates Work, 70-96. University of California Press: Berkeley. [with Michael Reich and Ken Jacobs] (publisher)


    2013 “Course Correction: Reversing Wage Erosion to Restore Good Jobs at American Airports”, Report of the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Labor Research and Education. [with Miranda Dietz and Ken Jacobs] (pdf)


    2013 “Pathways to Immigrant Employment in the Port-Logistics Sector”, Metropolis BC, Working Paper No. 13-02 [Alireza Farahani, Kaleigh Johnston, and Choo-Ming Yeak] (paper)


    2010 “The value of ’experience’ and the labour market entry of new immigrants to Canada”, Canadian Public Policy 36(2): 181-198. [With Tulin Sadouzai] (abstract)


    2009 “Migration, hukou status and labor market segmentation: the case of hi-tech development in Dalian”, Environment and Planning A, 41(7): 1647-1666. [With Chuncui Velma Fan and Geoffrey Wall] (abstract)


    2009 “The Targeted Wage Subsidy Program: How Program Design creates Incentives for ’Creaming’”, Just Labour, 13: 56-72. [With Pam Lahey] (abstract)


    2008 “Differences in hi-tech and native-born immigrant wages and earnings across Canadian cities”, The Canadian Geographer. 52(3): 271-290. [With Amir Khan] (abstract) (pdf)


    2006 The Labour Market Situation Of Highly Skilled Immigrants In Canada’s Hi-Tech Clusters. Working Paper 2006 D-18, Skills Research Initiative, Industry Canada / Human Resources Skills Development Canada / Social Science and Humanities Research Council: Ottawa.


    2005 “Living Wage Policies at San Francisco Airport: Impacts on Workers and Businesses”, Industrial Relations, 44(1): 106-138. (Symposium on Living Wages). [With Michael Reich and Ken Jacobs] (abstract)


    2001 “A small raise for the bottom”. In: Lincoln, J and P Ong,. (eds), The State of California Labor. Institute of Industrial Relations: Berkeley.


    1997 “Unemployment and Urban Development in Gauteng”, Development Southern Africa, 14 (4): 395-411.

Uneven Geographies: Off-Port Logistics, Shenzen
© PV Hall, 2005


Community and Local Economic Developmenttop

My work in this area has addressed a diversity of topics: social enterprise, neoliberal funding regimes, small town development, housing, urban management and regional governance. A recent project with Dr Pamela Stern examined citizen engagement in community and economic development in the Northern Ontario town of Cobalt. I have served on the Canadian CED Network's Research Advisory Committee.


Publications of the Social Enterprise Sector Survey (SESS) are available here.

Datasets from the 2014-2015 SESS surveys in all Provinces and Territories, except Quebec, are available here.

Publications in this area:

    2019 “Professionalism, Variety, and Knowledge Production in the Social Economy: Keynote Address to the 2019 Association for Nonprofit and Social Economy Conference. ”, ANSERJ, 10(2): 6-15. (abstract&paper)


    2019 “I don't want my town turned into a spectacle: Community museums as tactics”, Museum Anthropology, 42(1): 28-41. DOI:10.1111/muan.12194 [with P Stern] (abstract&paper)


    2018 “Scaling up Community-Based Research: A case study”, Research for All, 2(2): 374-392. [with P Elson and P Wamucii] (abstract&paper)


    2017 “Linking online social proximity and workplace location: social enterprise employees in British Columbia”, Area. [with O Keane, P Kingsbury, N Schuurman] (abstract)


    2016 “Canadian Social Enterprises: Who gets the non-earned income?”, VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. [with C Liston-Heyes, P Elson and N Jevtovic] (abstract)


    2015 Stern, P and Hall, PV. The Proposal Economy: neoliberal citizenship in "Ontario's Most Historic Town", UBC Press. Read the introductory chapter here (pdf).


    2015 “Social Enterprises in the Canadian West”, ANSERJ: Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research / Revue canadienne de recherche sur les OSBL et l’économie sociale, 6(1), 83–102. [with P Elson, S Leeson-Klym, D Penner, and J Andres] (pdf)


    2015 “Global flows: making the city, made in the city”, in: Filion, P, Walker, R, Vinodrai,T and M Moos (eds) Canadian Cities in Transition V (Chapter 3). Don Mills: Oxford University Press. [updated version of “The Global Imperative”, published in Canadian Cities in Transition IV in 2010] (publisher)


    2012 Community-university research partnerships: Reflections on the Canadian social economy experience. Hall, PV and MacPherson, I (eds). Victoria, BC: University of Victoria.(eBook) (pdf)


    2012 “Canadian Social Enterprises: Taking Stock”, Social Enterprise Journal, 8(3): 216-236. [With Peter Elson]


    2012 “The role of a good food box program in fruit and vegetable consumption and food security”, Canadian Journal of Dietetic Practice and Research, 73: 59-65. [With Christiana Miewald and David Holben]


    2012 “The 2010 Cultural Olympiad: Playing for the Global or Local Stage?”, International Journal of Cultural Policy . 18(2), 131-150. [With Duncan Low] (abstract)


    2011 “Introduction: Special Issue on the Urban Legacies of the Winter Olympics”, Urban Geography. 32(6): 761–766. [With Karen Ferguson, Meg Holden and Anthony Perl]


    2010 “The Proposal Economy”, Critique of Anthropology. 30(3): 243-264. [With Pamela Stern] (abstract)


    2010 “Historical Limits: narrowing possibilities in ’Ontario’s Most Historic Town’”, The Canadian Geographer, 54(2): 209-227. [With Pamela Stern] (abstract)


    2009 “Reluctant Rural Regionalists”, Journal of Rural Studies. 25(1): 67-76. [With Pamela Stern] (abstract) (pdf)


    2008 “Decline and No Growth: Canada’s Forgotten Urban Interior”, Canadian Journal of Regional Science, 31(1): 39-57. [With Heather Hall]


    2002 “Economic Development for a new era: an examination of the adoption of explicit economic development strategies by Durban local government following the April 1994 elections”. In: Freund, W and Padayachee, V (eds), (D)urban Vortex: A South African City in Transition. Durban: University of Natal Press. [With Glen Robbins.]


    1997 “Regeneration Policies for Peripheral Housing Estates: inward- and outward-looking approaches”, Urban Studies, 34 (5-6): 873-890. (link) (pdf)

Snow in November? Research team in Northern Ontario
© PV Hall, 2005