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Toronto-based urban think tank The Neptis Foundation has released a report outlining the evolving economic landscape throughout the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Planning for Prosperity: Globalization, Competitiveness, and the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe by Pamela Blais of Metropole Consultants maps the employment zones in the region and the long-term structural changes brought about by technology and globalization.
The Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) is represented by 110 diverse municipal jurisdictions accommodating a range of employment types. The loss of over 200,000 manufacturing jobs in the province has been no secret, with many industries either relocating offshore or favouring automation, and many Ontario towns have suffered the consequences. This restructuring taking place is often described as a general shift from manufacturing to service industries. The report argues however that this is an oversimplification of reality.
Using figures obtained through the Labour Force Survey, 2011 National Household Survey, and a variety of other sources, the study notes a transition from low-value-added, low-knowledge-content activities to high-value-added, knowledge-intensive activities. "Skilled and high-skilled jobs are growing. That means we’re making a successful transition to a knowledge-based economy," said Blais. "The low-skilled routine jobs only grew by 4% compared to 20% for the GTA average. Those are the kinds of jobs that are easily moved to the southern United States, Mexico, offshore elsewhere, or are automated. The low-skilled jobs don’t really structure the region. Those are population-serving jobs: things like retail, hairdressers and cleaners. Those jobs will always be there and those are actually quite resistant to automation and offshoring."
Blais expects the shift to continue. "It is a kind of polarizing transition in terms of high and low-skilled jobs, those are the jobs that are growing. We expect that would continue to evolve that way. That reflects itself spatially on the ground. The knowledge-intensive jobs tend to concentrate in a very few number of locations. The routine jobs, like manufacturing and back office jobs, are lost. It’s a different kind of economic landscape than we’ve seen before."
The report maps the job gains and losses throughout the region from 2001 to 2011. "Core" employment—"tradeable" sectors that produce exportable goods and attract income—are the focus. Analyzing the data, the study finds three large employment "megazones" which contain about 543,000 jobs. These megazones, when combined with five smaller Suburban Knowledge-Intensive Districts (SKIDs) and Downtown Toronto, have attracted the most growth. These areas witnessed a 10% increase in core employment from 2001 to 2011 while other areas within the region saw a 6% decrease. Downtown Toronto, the three megazones, and the SKIDs prospered despite an overall 0.1% net loss of core employment in those 10 years.
Despite the success and growth of the megazones and SKIDs, transit access continues to be a significant barrier to prosperity. The million daily automobile trips within the megazones contribute to the region's ongoing congestion issues, and Ontario's transportation plan for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, The Big Move, fails to mention these employment hubs. "There is $16 billion of funding that’s been earmarked for transit projects in the current wave unfolding," said Blais. "I think the question is about where that money is going to be spent."
Moreover, the report notes that the megazones and SKIDs are also absent from the 2006 Growth Plan for the GGH. Rather, the Growth Plan focuses on encouraging the revitalization of 25 Urban Growth Centres (UGC) through the implementation of density targets and transit developments. Yet the report argues that many of the UGCs outside Toronto and Mississauga are not significant employment zones, and some are actually seeing a decline in jobs since the plan was instituted. "There’s not a lot of growth going on in those areas, nor would there be any reason to expect so given the trends and the drivers of change we identified."
The Growth Plan fails to address employment in a meaningful way, argues Blais. "The plan as it stands in its first iteration didn’t really address the employment side of things. It really focused on residential growth and how to manage residential growth. A lot of the other objectives like efficient use of infrastructure, compact urban form, complete communities, and greenfield density targets rely on employment as well as residential. That’s why we’ve identified that this is a gap."
The Growth Plan and Greenbelt legislation are now going through their first mandatory review. Though the economic landscape of the GGH has dramatically changed over the past 10 years, Blais does not think a shorter review period is necessary. "We still haven’t implemented fully the first round of the Growth Plan at the local Official Plan level, so it’s already kind of a slow process. We need to pay a lot more attention to the economic landscape and how that’s changing, how the mix of industries is changing, what kind of economic activities are taking place where and what’s driving that change so we can really understand the patterns of growth a lot better. Our planning can therefore be better and more accurate."
Blais noted that planning needs to be more flexible and responsive. "The question is how do we go from the Growth Plan right down to local secondary plans that are actually able to adapt to change while still achieving our planning objectives? When you get down to official plans and secondary plans and zoning, everything gets kind of rigid so it’s hard to actually respond to change. It's about being more accurate and really getting a handle on the nature of change and experimenting with new ways to be more flexible in terms of the planning."
The return of the mandatory long-form census will help tell the story taking place on the ground, but Blais states that what is really needed is an ongoing analysis of data. "It’s one thing to have the data but another to actually do something with it, which is to analyze how the economy of the region is changing and what that means for the Growth Plan. We also need a tracking and monitoring function. We don’t really do that on a regional level. Sort of like what UrbanToronto does on an individual level; where is the growth taking place, where are the distribution centres, where are the new offices? It would be great to have a picture of that from a development perspective."
The lack of a regional economic development strategy, like the one created by the Greater London Authority in the United Kingdom, makes aligning the various planning, transit and economic policies difficult. Blais believes the key is to focus on the reurbanization of existing employment areas, with an integrated transit plan guiding development, rather than adding new businesses along urban peripheries. "The major takeaway is that the Growth Plan needs to pay attention to employment, especially the existing structure, which it doesn’t, and also, how that structure is evolving; not only how the economy itself is evolving, but how that’s playing out on the ground in terms of employment growth patterns. This is the first report that really addresses this issue. We had to cover a lot of territory and there’s still work to do."
The Neptis Foundation is an independent charitable organization based in Toronto. Neptis conducts research and prepares reports on various issues affecting Canada's urban regions. The complete report is available for viewing and download here.
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