News   May 17, 2024
Masterplanned Community Proposed Near Northfield ION in Waterloo
 2.6K     3 
News   May 17, 2024
Sevoy's 1515 Pickering Parkway to Join Pickering's Growing Downtown
 1.8K     3 
News   May 17, 2024
Canada’s Most Important Transit Oriented Development
 10K     10 

Chinatown

The area is quite mixed-income, though definitely skews toward the lower end. However most of the gentrified Victorian houses have white folks living in them.
 
King of Kensington said:
The area is quite mixed-income, though definitely skews toward the lower end. However most of the gentrified Victorian houses have white folks living in them.
Click to expand...

Having white folks doesn't mean it is mixed income. White folks can be poor. Most of the street beggars near Dundas Square and drug addicts near Moss Park I have seen in Toronto are white.

Judging by the condition of houses in Chinatown including the side streets, I doubt it is that mix-income. Those properties owners seem not to care about their properties at all.

I do notice some improvement though. When an old store closes, it is usually replaced by one with much better decor and ambiance. I have seen at least 4 or 5 cases like this in the past year alone.
 
ksun said:
Having white folks doesn't mean it is mixed income. White folks can be poor. Most of the street beggars near Dundas Square and drug addicts near Moss Park I have seen in Toronto are white.
Click to expand...

Err, how does that contradict what I said? I specifically referred to gentrified houses owned by mostly white people you see. I didn't say the presence of white people showed that Chinatown is mixed income. But socioeconomically Chinatown hasn't changed much in 30 years, I agree. There are lots of slumlords in the area and many of the houses are such wrecks that most potential gentrifiers it isn't worth it, despite its very good location.

It also depends what one is calling Chinatown I suppose. Sullivan is pretty gentrified but I guess that's a bit outside of Chinatown. As is anything east of Beverley I guess.

Judging by the condition of houses in Chinatown including the side streets, I doubt it is that mix-income. Those properties owners seem not to care about their properties at all.
Click to expand...

It also depends what one is calling "Chinatown" I suppose. Sullivan is pretty gentrified but I guess that's a bit outside of Chinatown. As is anything east of Beverley I guess.
 
The Wikipedia article on Chinatown has been recently edited and now distinguishes between "first Chinatown" (near City Hall) and "old Chinatown" (Dundas and Spadina). I get the need to distinguish it from the east end Chinatown, Agincourt etc. but I don't hear Dundas-Spadina referred to as "old Chinatown" very often. It's usually just called Chinatown.
 
Average income by census tract as a percentage of Toronto CMA:

Tract 36:

1970 65%
1990 84%
2012 92%

Tract 37:

1970 62%
1990 74%
2012 70%

Tract 38:

1970 62%
1990 57%
2012 66%

Tract 39:

1970 56%
1990 55%
2012 53%

Only in Tract 36 can it be said that significant gentrification has occurred. That tract includes the Grange. A bit of gentrification in Kensington (tract 38), but nothing dramatic. Tract 39 includes the Alexandra Park housing project and remained very low income through this period.
 
King of Kensington said:
Average income by census tract as a percentage of Toronto CMA:

Tract 36:

1970 65%
1990 84%
2012 92%

Tract 37:

1970 62%
1990 74%
2012 70%

Tract 38:

1970 62%
1990 57%
2012 66%

Tract 39:

1970 56%
1990 55%
2012 53%

Only in Tract 36 can it be said that significant gentrification has occurred. That tract includes the Grange. A bit of gentrification in Kensington (tract 38), but nothing dramatic. Tract 39 includes the Alexandra Park housing project and remained very low income through this period.
Click to expand...

You do need a little more data to reliably make that conclusion. If the standard deviation of income rose significantly, land value reconciliation could have occurred in Tract 39 with many higher income residents arriving, and those with middle incomes leaving, replaced by low income households.

Another issue is if this data is based on "average income" or "average household income", and if the average household size has changed. Is it an issue of a family of four making 53% of "average income" vs. a single person making 53% of "average household income"?
 
Last edited:
King of Kensington said:
The Wikipedia article on Chinatown has been recently edited and now distinguishes between "first Chinatown" (near City Hall) and "old Chinatown" (Dundas and Spadina). I get the need to distinguish it from the east end Chinatown, Agincourt etc. but I don't hear Dundas-Spadina referred to as "old Chinatown" very often. It's usually just called Chinatown.
Click to expand...

the one at Gerrard and Broadview is hardly a "Chinatown", more Vietnamese than Chinese.
Agincourt is a suburban community with a lot of Chinese. Hardly the kind of walkable and vibrant Chinatowns people usually associate with.
 
ksun said:
the one at Gerrard and Broadview is hardly a "Chinatown", more Vietnamese than Chinese.
Agincourt is a suburban community with a lot of Chinese. Hardly the kind of walkable and vibrant Chinatowns people usually associate with.
Click to expand...

Anecdotal observations aside, the area at Gerrard and Broadview is widely called East Chinatown. Demographic and business shifts haven't changed that (although I note that the number of people in Ward 30 with Cantonese/Mandarin/Chinese as their mother tongue or home language dwarfs that of Vietnamese). People call it East Chinatown, and all KofK was saying was that he understands the need to distinguish between one area and another. Why you felt a need to dispute that is beyond me.
 
Indeed. I don't know where the "Chinatown is mostly Vietnamese" myth (I've heard it for both Chinatown proper and East Chinatown incidentally) came from.

East Chinatown is pretty small - basically along Gerrard from Broadview to Logan - so I just looked at one tract (tract 29). Chinese languages includes unspecified Chinese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Fukien, Hakka, Shanghainese.

Kensington-Chinatown

ethnic origin: Chinese 7,280 (40%), Vietnamese 545 (3%)

mother tongue: Chinese 6,070 (34%), Vietnamese 355 (2%)

East Chinatown

ethnic origin: Chinese 2,430 (38%), Vietnamese 270 (4%)

mother tongue: Chinese 1,990 (31%), Vietnamese 190 (3%)
 
Jonny5 said:
You do need a little more data to reliably make that conclusion. If the standard deviation of income rose significantly, land value reconciliation could have occurred in Tract 39 with many higher income residents arriving, and those with middle incomes leaving, replaced by low income households.

Another issue is if this data is based on "average income" or "average household income", and if the average household size has changed. Is it an issue of a family of four making 53% of "average income" vs. a single person making 53% of "average household income"?
Click to expand...

Maybe. That has likely happened in many central city census tracts. Either way, there was definitely an upward trend in tract 36, but if many poor people moved into a tract, it's a stretch to call it "gentrification" even if some wealthier moved into it as well.

These figures are average individual income BTW, not household income.

I should add that average household size in the more gentrified Tract 36 (1.7) was quite a bit smaller than in 37, 38 and 39 (which were 2.1, 2.2 and 2.5, respectively).

Tract 36 is also the least Chinese (34%, 26% by mother tongue) and whites outnumbered Chinese. In the other 3 tracts, more than 40% were Chinese and Chinese outnumbered whites.
 
King of Kensington said:
Indeed. I don't know where the "Chinatown is mostly Vietnamese" myth (I've heard it for both Chinatown proper and East Chinatown incidentally) came from.
Click to expand...

Agreed. But it's even more basic than that. All you were saying is that you understand the need to distinguish between Chinatown and places like Chinatown East. The restaurants at Gerrard and Broadview could all start specializing in Albanian stew, and the demographics of the area could be up-ended by an influx of Himalayan whistle-folk, but if people still generally refer to the area as Chinatown East, even if mainly in a historic sense, then your point still stands. Whether ksun sees more Vietnamese people there than (s)he used to is irrelevant, and his point was somewhat of a non-sequitur.
 
Well East Chinatown sounds better than "little Chinatown."

But to return to my point: I very rarely hear Chinatown referred to as "old Chinatown" and I'm curious if others hear this term regularly used for this area. When someone says "let's meet in Chinatown," do people reply "which one?" Not in my experience.
 
King of Kensington said:
Well East Chinatown sounds better than "little Chinatown."

But to return to my point: I very rarely hear Chinatown referred to as "old Chinatown" and I'm curious if others hear this term regularly used for this area. When someone says "let's meet in Chinatown," do people reply "which one?" Not in my experience.
Click to expand...

thanks for your clarification. I have always been under the impression that the Chinese population has been replaced by the Vietnamese in Chinatown East. Looks like it is not the case after all.
And agree with you that when people say China, they always refer to Dundas/Spadina, with no ambiguity.

There was a report on Chinatown east last summer http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/0...new-wave-of-diverse-businesses-revives-strip/

It is fair to say Chinatown east has been going downhill. The few times I went there, the restaurants are bad, and grocery stores dirty and messy, more so than Dundas/Spadina, which has the advantage of having good transit access and being close to UfT.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top