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The geographic divide in Toronto

King of Kensington

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Most cities have a more clear geographic divide (north/south, west/east), it seems north and west are generally better off than south and east in most North American cities. That is true of Vancouver (east/west), Montreal (east/west), Chicago (north/south), L.A. (West L.A. vs. South Central and East), San Francisco (north/south), Seattle (north/south), Washington DC (NW vs. SE or east/west of Rock Creek park). It's also true of London (West End vs. East End, North London vs. South London). It was true at one time in New York City, the better off moved "uptown" in Manhattan - but then it basically stopped around Central Park (Upper East and West Sides. North of Central Park Manhattan takes on "outer borough" characteristics; the whole borough system, the gentrification of Lower Manhattan and sheer largeness of NYC really makes such a classification difficult). Of course there are exceptions like Winnipeg (River Heights in the south vs. the North End).

Toronto is interesting that our street direction system doesn't represent a socioeconomic divide. Yonge St. doesn't do for Toronto what St. Laurent does in Montreal, Main St. does in Vancouver, and Madison St. in Chicago (NOW magazine's efforts to create an east/west rivalry notwithstanding; either way the divide is more cultural than economic - i.e. who is more "hip"? Either way the area between University and Jarvis is kind of a neutral zone, neither east or west. City Hall and Bay St. isn't the "west end" nor would too many Rosedalians consider themselves "east enders").

Historically, the socioeconomic divide was more north/south than east/west. During the 19th century, the southern part of the city was more Irish, Catholic and poor and the northern part was more WASP and affluent. Following the construction of Jarvis St., the wealthy went northward along Jarvis and Sherbourne (our "upper east side"?) The University of Toronto was also very much "uptown" when it was established.

By the turn of the 20th century, the wealthy had largely migrated north of Bloor. In the 1890s the Annex, the city's first "streetcar suburb" was well-established, Rosedale and the Avenue Rd. "hill district" took off in the early 20th century and Lawrence Park and Forest Hill in the 1920s. Meanwhile, south of Bloor the divide was more ethnic than class-based. The Jewish and Italian immigration of the early 20th century started off downtown in "The Ward" (immigration to that reception area had changed from the British Isles to the Continent in the 1890s), by 1914 they spread west of downtown (leaving the Ward more to the Chinese) and by the 1920s west-central Toronto between University and Dovercourt south of Bloor was home to most of the city's ethnic communities and immigrants, a distinction it retained through the 1960s and 1970s. Cabbagetown and what was then known as the "East End" meanwhile was also poor but home to mostly British, Irish and native-born Canadians; east of the Don was sort of an anglo working class "semi-suburbia" especially after the construction of the Prince Edward viaduct. There were of course exceptions - like the northwestern industrial suburb of the Junction.

Gentrification and just the sheer expansion and population growth in the GTA since the 1970s have made social geography more complex. There is still a north/south divide in the central city - the wealthiest districts are all north of Bloor and the poor remain concentrated in the south. If we use University as the boundary for west and Jarvis as the boundary for east, there is somewhat of an east/west divide, but it's not as pronounced as north/south - that is the highest poverty concentration is east of Jarvis, but if we use DVP and Bathurst for east and west, the east comes out a little ahead but that's largely because the west has more "inner city" characteristics (more renters, apartments etc.) Across the GTA as a whole, closeness to Yonge St. seems to be the main divide (and there's no "southern suburbs"), with regard to east/west there are more better-off western suburbs than eastern ones (i.e. central Etobicoke, Oakville, etc. vs. Scarborough, Pickering and Ajax) but then again...northwest generally means more working class in the Toronto context (whether the Junction a century ago or Brampton, Malton, Rexdale, Downsview and Weston today)...
 
Incidentally, an east/west divide - with the west being more affluent - seems pretty common in other Ontario cities - Hamilton, Ottawa and Kingston all come to mind.
 
Toronto's socio-economic divide roughly takes a U shape, with the lower-income areas running from the northwest Jane-Finch area down to Parkdale, Regent Park, up to Malvern etc. Affluent areas tend to run up Yonge Street or lie outside the U.

You can see the pattern in some of the maps here:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001956-toronto-three-cities-more-one-way

The City's "Priority Neighbourhoods" maps show this as well.

Of course it's not clear line, and downtown gentrification is breaking up the bottom of the U, and obviously there are low-income clusters outside. But the pattern is there.

My guess is parts of the U are in areas that used to have manufacturing, i.e. jobs you could get right out of high school, and now they are gone, and the neighbourhoods never recovered.
 
I think these divides often had to do with wind patterns that blew pollution from industries East and South. The situation is a bit different in Toronto though, because South of the factories you just had the lake, and a lot of industry also popped up along the rail corridor outside downtown up to the Junction. The traditionally working class areas West of downtown were probably somewhat polluted as a result, while the ones East of the Don not so much. Transit heading to the North probably also helped contribute to wealthy transit suburbs, and the attraction of the lake helped make places like Long Branch and The Beach fairly desirable.

The QEW helped boost development between Hamilton and Toronto along the lake, back when land was still cheap, so you ended up with large lots near the lake that have now become very desirable from Port Credit to Burlington. Central Etobicoke was also upwind from the industry around The Junction, Liberty Village, etc, and also Mimico, so I'm guessing that's why it was wealthier than Brockton Village, Trinity Niagara, etc and also South Etobicoke. Transit has continued to keep the North desirable when subways replaced the Yonge radial.
 
Toronto's socio-economic divide roughly takes a U shape, with the lower-income areas running from the northwest Jane-Finch area down to Parkdale, Regent Park, up to Malvern etc. Affluent areas tend to run up Yonge Street or lie outside the U.

You can see the pattern in some of the maps here:

http://www.newgeography.com/content/001956-toronto-three-cities-more-one-way




The City's "Priority Neighbourhoods" maps show this as well.

Of course it's not clear line, and downtown gentrification is breaking up the bottom of the U, and obviously there are low-income clusters outside. But the pattern is there.

My guess is parts of the U are in areas that used to have manufacturing, i.e. jobs you could get right out of high school, and now they are gone, and the neighbourhoods never recovered.


Wow that report is great ! I may have seen it before but don't recall.

It really points out that amalgamation is what hurt the rest of Toronto. By far and large because it en forces city wide policies on areas with very different characteristics and needs ... essentially pegging the outer 416 as very uncompetitive when compared to the 905. Unfortunately to this date I haven't seen the city attempt to address this in any way. We can clearly see the effects in the lack of job growth outside the core ... I think many don't understand the stark contrast between the 905 and the outer core, how essentially there has been 0 job growth over the last decade (and in some areas job losses), where as the 905 flourishes.

I think this trend will continue as clearly there aren't any plans to address this, so residents in the outer 416 will continue to fall into the lower income classes where as more and more of the core (and areas in the 905) with gentrify and move into the higher income classes.

The report also hit this aspect on the head: This is all relative ! I'm sure most by now at least can acknowledge Toronto's commercial to residential property tax ratio is among the highest in Ontario (some may argue if that is a problem or not ...) but it clearly pointed out its not the highest in Canada, nor the states by any means ! Vancouver takes the cake for the ratio that puts most of the onus on commercial properties ... but, so do the rest of the cities in that region ! Only in the GTA is there this great disparity.
 
The QEW helped boost development between Hamilton and Toronto along the lake, back when land was still cheap, so you ended up with large lots near the lake that have now become very desirable from Port Credit to Burlington. Central Etobicoke was also upwind from the industry around The Junction, Liberty Village, etc, and also Mimico, so I'm guessing that's why it was wealthier than Brockton Village, Trinity Niagara, etc and also South Etobicoke. Transit has continued to keep the North desirable when subways replaced the Yonge radial.

Also interesting that Oakville, Burlington, Bronte, Clarkson and Port Credit were settled on the lake and some became our equivalent of the exclusive Long Island Rail Road commuter settlements and upper middle class Chicago commuter suburb towns. (Lorne Park, that early private community, for example). East of Toronto, the incorporated settlements such as Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa and Bowmanville were all inland and less desirable for commuting amongst the gentry and the up-and-coming crowd. Oshawa became an important, but mostly working class city.
 
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Wow that report is great ! I may have seen it before but don't recall.

It really points out that amalgamation is what hurt the rest of Toronto. By far and large because it en forces city wide policies on areas with very different characteristics and needs ... essentially pegging the outer 416 as very uncompetitive when compared to the 905. Unfortunately to this date I haven't seen the city attempt to address this in any way. We can clearly see the effects in the lack of job growth outside the core ... I think many don't understand the stark contrast between the 905 and the outer core, how essentially there has been 0 job growth over the last decade (and in some areas job losses), where as the 905 flourishes.

I think this trend will continue as clearly there aren't any plans to address this, so residents in the outer 416 will continue to fall into the lower income classes where as more and more of the core (and areas in the 905) with gentrify and move into the higher income classes.

The report also hit this aspect on the head: This is all relative ! I'm sure most by now at least can acknowledge Toronto's commercial to residential property tax ratio is among the highest in Ontario (some may argue if that is a problem or not ...) but it clearly pointed out its not the highest in Canada, nor the states by any means ! Vancouver takes the cake for the ratio that puts most of the onus on commercial properties ... but, so do the rest of the cities in that region ! Only in the GTA is there this great disparity.

I'm not so sure the old pre-amalgamation municipalities would have been able to retain or attract jobs any better though, given the larger economic forces in play. E.g. the shift away from manufacturing and towards finance and IT, new housing construction - all that's been happening across Canada and the USA.

Transport issues could account for a lot of this U stuff, in that the outer-416 is underserved by transit, so you pretty much need a car to get to work, making it more expensive to work and therefore harder for a low-income person to get a better job or get ahead. Whereas inner-416 people have good transit access, especially to the good jobs downtown, and 905ers have lower housing costs to offset the cost of commuting. Something along those lines - I'm just thinking out loud.

Actually, I don't agree with the content of that blog post. It just had a lot of maps that illustrated my point.

It's probably more that a city's poor people have to live somewhere*, and it's usually the least-desirable and therefore cheapest place, which in the case of Toronto happens to be the U. But as we have seen with gentrification, that could all change within a decade.

*At least as long as we have low-paying or insufficient jobs.
 
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One interesting thing to note is that well-to-do areas developed before say, 1900 or maybe World War I, ended up going into decline (sometimes permanently, sometimes more temporarily) while those developed after that point remained more or less in tact. Jarvis Street and Parkdale never recovered, but even the Annex went through a dip between the 1930s to the 1960s (but came back swinging after that). Rosedale in contrast didn't really go through this (I realize Rosedale is technically "older" than the Annex but the 'typical' housing stock seems about a generation behind.)

[Question: When did Jarvis cease to be an elite address? By World War I, maybe? It was the prestigious district in the city from the 1850s to maybe the 1880s, but with the development of the Annex, Rosedale and the hill district meant that the money had moved north of Bloor.]
 
One interesting thing to note is that well-to-do areas developed before say, 1900 or maybe World War I, ended up going into decline (sometimes permanently, sometimes more temporarily) while those developed after that point remained more or less in tact.

Interesting. My guess is that people flocked to the electricity, indoor plumbing, central heating, etc that started to become available in new houses in the early 20th century. That had a lot more prestige value and was a lot less hassle than trying to retrofit a 19th-century house. The old houses were left to the poor to make-do with, until gentrifiers got into restoring and renovating them in the 1960s or so.
 
Question: When did Jarvis cease to be an elite address? By World War I, maybe? It was the prestigious district in the city from the 1850s to maybe the 1880s, but with the development of the Annex, Rosedale and the hill district meant that the money had moved north of Bloor.]

I don't know the definitive answer to that, but the age of the oldest apartment buildings usually gives you a clue, because turn-of-the-century affluent residents were usually dead set against the incursion of apartment buildings into their neighbourhoods and they would have had the power to resist this even before zoning (see Euclid vs. Amber Realty, 1916 for a famous American case).

Since there are apartment buildings that date back to about 1912, my guess would be that it was probably on the decline 10 years earlier.

Another area that declined from graceful mansions was Beverly street, with the Italian consulate being one of the last reminders of what the area was like in the 1870s.

It's amazing how many of Toronto's North-South avenues fell from grace: Jarvis, Beverly, Bay, Spadina, University...if we would have retained all of these areas we would be a northern Savannah but, like Savannah, I guess we wouldn't have grown into a proper metropolis.
 
Yeah, the Grange/Baldwin Village area was quite well-to-do in the nineteenth century (George Brown lived there); it then became an immigrant Jewish area in the early 1900s (and remember it was the more prosperous Eastern European Jews who crossed University Ave. first, the mass movement westward along Queen, Dundas and College was really around 1914 or so).

David Dunkelman in his guide to Toronto neighborhoods says Jarvis/Sherbourne was developed (and was the city's most fashionable area) in the 1850s and its heyday was until the early 1900s. But then Dunkelman also says the Grange was Toronto's first elite neighbourhood, even though I'd have thought the Beverley St. area developed a little later and was seen as more "nouveau-riche" compared to Jarvis/Sherbourne.
 
What's interesting to think about is that, in today's economy where so much personal wealth is tied up in home equity, it's very unlikely that we'll see an elite neighbourhood fall from grace like they did in the 19th century. The residents and the politicians they vote in will resort to every measure to ensure that doesn't happen. I can't see the wealthy north-south Bathurst to Leslie corridor ever becoming poor, for example.
 
One interesting thing to note is that well-to-do areas developed before say, 1900 or maybe World War I, ended up going into decline (sometimes permanently, sometimes more temporarily) while those developed after that point remained more or less in tact. Jarvis Street and Parkdale never recovered, but even the Annex went through a dip between the 1930s to the 1960s (but came back swinging after that). Rosedale in contrast didn't really go through this (I realize Rosedale is technically "older" than the Annex but the 'typical' housing stock seems about a generation behind.)

I disagree with this. North Etobicoke and Scarborough were once middle-class (whereas now they contain the poorest communities in the city). What happened with many of the old neighbourhoods is that they went through abandonment as people flocked to suburbs with modern appliances and space for vehicles. This abandonment of inner city neighbourhoods wasn't just some spontaneous phenomenon, but rather a process driven and encouraged by the city - which wanted to widen streets and raze neighbourhoods out of existence to keep up with post-war 'progress'. If the city had built a highway through Rosedale and (like they cut Parkdale from the lake), you bet Rosedale would have suffered too.

You should check what the Annex looked like before street-widening. The area would have bounced back immediately instead of entering a period of decline if it had been left alone by the planners of the day.

All in all, the reason why the old areas of Toronto are now undergoing gentrification is because they exist in good locations and have good bones. The post-war areas that are now going under are much more difficult to bring back on track.

I also disagree with the assessment of the New Geography blog with regards to the reason our inner suburbs aren't doing well enough. It points to Mississauga and Brampton as examples of successful suburbs, but these cities still rely on developing farmland to keep taxes low. The reason why amalgamation happened in the first place was because the inner suburbs were unsustainable without huge subsidies. Mississauga, Vaughan, and the likes will follow suit.
 
I disagree with this. North Etobicoke and Scarborough were once middle-class (whereas now they contain the poorest communities in the city). What happened with many of the old neighbourhoods is that they went through abandonment as people flocked to suburbs with modern appliances and space for vehicles. This abandonment of inner city neighbourhoods wasn't just some spontaneous phenomenon, but rather a process driven and encouraged by the city - which wanted to widen streets and raze neighbourhoods out of existence to keep up with post-war 'progress'. If the city had built a highway through Rosedale and (like they cut Parkdale from the lake), you bet Rosedale would have suffered too.

You should check what the Annex looked like before street-widening. The area would have bounced back immediately instead of entering a period of decline if it had been left alone by the planners of the day.

All in all, the reason why the old areas of Toronto are now undergoing gentrification is because they exist in good locations and have good bones. The post-war areas that are now going under are much more difficult to bring back on track.

I also disagree with the assessment of the New Geography blog with regards to the reason our inner suburbs aren't doing well enough. It points to Mississauga and Brampton as examples of successful suburbs, but these cities still rely on developing farmland to keep taxes low. The reason why amalgamation happened in the first place was because the inner suburbs were unsustainable without huge subsidies. Mississauga, Vaughan, and the likes will follow suit.

But the comments regarding Mississauga's success pertain to the office development that has taken place their ... none of this is in the core (i.e. downtown Mississauga) rather the suburbs ... I don't think anyone can deny the success when its measured in this regard.
 

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