Income Polarization in Toronto - The Three Cities study

[Memph]

Btw neighbourhoodchange.ca has maps at the CMA level.

http://3cities.neighbourhoodchange....fs/Toronto-CMA-2005-Avg-Individual-Income.pdf

Go here and click on additional maps for more. The immigrant map is also interesting.
http://3cities.neighbourhoodchange.ca

It seems the biggest reduction in middle income neighbourhoods was in the 90s, and to a lesser extent 80s and 00s. In the 70s, the expansion of low income areas was in line with the expansion of the city as a whole.

I think incomes declined from 2005 to 2010 in much of Richmond Hill, Markham, Brampton and Mississauga, although some suburbs seem to have rebounded a little in the last few years.

 

[King of Kensington]

The map shows that there's a lot of "416 spillover" in Markham but not in Vaughan. For example Milliken itself is split between Scarborough and Markham, and the Markham side of Thornhill looks a lot like the Bayview/Leslie corridor of North York. It's evident in the urban form and demographics too (the Chinese and Tamil areas of Scarborough continue into Markham for example). This is likely because there wasn't a lot of time lag in terms of development. In contrast Vaughan developed quite a bit later than Downsview and Rexdale.

The movement out of Downsview/Rexdale also seems to follow a northwesterly pattern. Hence, Woodbridge is the more affluent continuation of Italian Downsview, while Rexdale has moved into Malton/Brampton. Only the Jewish community along Bathurst St. followed a direct northerly route into Thornhill. Concord is of course more of an employment center than a residential area.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Sure it does - that service work is only low paying because there is a huge oversupply of unskilled workers. Reduce growth in the unskilled labour force and you will find that wages will naturally creep up as employers have to pay more to stop employees from jumping to other jobs.

Not true. As soon as semi and unskilled labour becomes scarce the wages do not increase, but instead the employers find an alternative labour supply. I used to work for one of Canada's largest food producers, and when there was a scarcity of low cost workers for the slaughter house and processing plants in Manitoba we simply imported cheap temporary workers from the third world. Tim Hortons and other food joints in Alberta and BC have done the same. When a scarcity of labour threatens to drive up wages the employers try to eliminate the scarcity issue, not pay more.

 

[spider]

Not true. As soon as semi and unskilled labour becomes scarce the wages do not increase, but instead the employers find an alternative labour supply. I used to work for one of Canada's largest food producers, and when there was a scarcity of low cost workers for the slaughter house and processing plants in Manitoba we simply imported cheap temporary workers from the third world. Tim Hortons and other food joints in Alberta and BC have done the same. When a scarcity of labour threatens to drive up wages the employers try to eliminate the scarcity issue, not pay more.

True, but only because the Feds provide an alternative that allows slackers to collect welfare instead of showing up for work that may not be satisfying or well paid but work that they have pretty well sentenced themselves to doing by not preparing themselves for life in the real world. Blame is plentiful, enough to share with their parents, the education industry and the hand wringers who don't understand that motivation and striving to better one self is what elevated mankind from the cave.

 

[Admiral Beez]

True, but only because the Feds provide an alternative that allows slackers to collect welfare instead of showing up for work that may not be satisfying or well paid but work that they have pretty well sentenced themselves to doing by not preparing themselves for life in the real world. Blame is plentiful, enough to share with their parents, the education industry and the hand wringers who don't understand that motivation and striving to better one self is what elevated mankind from the cave.

I could have written this about fifteen years ago. I think I did exactly here on UT back in the ezboard days. I thought exactly like this, all black and white, right and left, always in absolutes. Man, I was an ignorant ass

Take it from a UT veteran and former hard rightwinger; consider all sides, question all your beliefs and the motivations of those that influence those beliefs, look at the world through different perspectives (walk in another's shoes). Surely you can't really believe the "only" reason for income polarization is what you wrote here?

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

Not true. As soon as semi and unskilled labour becomes scarce the wages do not increase, but instead the employers find an alternative labour supply. I used to work for one of Canada's largest food producers, and when there was a scarcity of low cost workers for the slaughter house and processing plants in Manitoba we simply imported cheap temporary workers from the third world. Tim Hortons and other food joints in Alberta and BC have done the same. When a scarcity of labour threatens to drive up wages the employers try to eliminate the scarcity issue, not pay more.

That's why the Temporary Foreign Worker program should be cancelled!

 

[Admiral Beez]

That's why the Temporary Foreign Worker program should be cancelled!

And, by the same logic why unskilled or semi-skilled immigration should be rolled back to a middle ground between scarcity and surplus of workers, where wages can grow while not crippling businesses.

 

[DarnDirtyApe]

And, by the same logic why unskilled or semi-skilled immigration should be rolled back to a middle ground between scarcity and surplus of workers, where wages can grow while not crippling businesses.

All right, it's agreed then. Now we just have to convince the rest of the country to go along.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Btw neighbourhoodchange.ca has maps at the CMA level.

http://3cities.neighbourhoodchange....fs/Toronto-CMA-2005-Avg-Individual-Income.pdf

Go here and click on additional maps for more. The immigrant map is also interesting.
http://3cities.neighbourhoodchange.ca

It seems the biggest reduction in middle income neighbourhoods was in the 90s, and to a lesser extent 80s and 00s. In the 70s, the expansion of low income areas was in line with the expansion of the city as a whole.

I think incomes declined from 2005 to 2010 in much of Richmond Hill, Markham, Brampton and Mississauga, although some suburbs seem to have rebounded a little in the last few years.

I find this map terrifying. There are few middle class areas remaining in the city, and this problem is only going to get worse.

I'd like to see a per block breakdown on average income. If 90% of the low group are between 75% and 80% the average income, and 90% of the high group are within 120% and 125% of the average income, the situation may be more palatable.

Either way, there is a disturbing trend of greater income polarization in the city. Before long, if this continues, we'll have poor areas, rich areas and nothing in between.

Unfortunately I think there's little that our city can do to fix the poverty crisis. We can improve access to transit, community centres, child care, education (etc...), but that is likely to simply push the poor outside the city, rather than actually lifting them out of poverty. If we're going to tackle this most complicated of issues, we're going to need the support of the province.

 

[Memph]

I find this map terrifying. There are few middle class areas remaining in the city, and this problem is only going to get worse.

I'd like to see a per block breakdown on average income. If 90% of the low group are between 75% and 80% the average income, and 90% of the high group are within 120% and 125% of the average income, the situation may be more palatable.

Either way, there is a disturbing trend of greater income polarization in the city. Before long, if this continues, we'll have poor areas, rich areas and nothing in between.

Unfortunately I think there's little that our city can do to fix the poverty crisis. We can improve access to transit, community centres, child care, education (etc...), but that is likely to simply push the poor outside the city, rather than actually lifting them out of poverty. If we're going to tackle this most complicated of issues, we're going to need the support of the province.

I'm not convinced those things would push people out of the city. Note how Bloordale and Crescent Town have had subway access for decades and pretty good bus service, but are still fairly ungentrified. And Bloordale is even somewhat historic with small scale urban fabric that seems to attract gentrification. It's not quite like Cabbagetown, but it still has a lot more "gentrification appeal" than Jane Finch or Rexdale which are much further from downtown, suburban built form and non-historic. I don't think improving transit to these outer areas would lead to such a huge increase in rents.

As for the income patterns, I suspect that most residents of the low income (but not very low) group are spread something like this.

120%+: 5%
100-120%: 15%
80-100%: 25%
60-80%: 40%
40-60%: 10%
<40%: 5%

I'm worried about how parts of the 905 are getting low income too though. These municipalities aren't really prepared to deal with low-income populations like Toronto is. They don't have a big downtown to bring in taxes and wealthy residents, they're not as dense so less efficient in terms of infrastructure, and have much less frequent transit service than the outer 416.

 

[King of Kensington]

Brampton is certainly the most vulnerable of the 905 suburbs, which has a very large number of red tracts all over the municipality. The two other municipalities with significant red are Mississauga and Markham. In Mississauga, it appears to look similar to outer-416 poverty (60s/70s high rises). In Markham, it's Scarborough spillover.

 

[King of Kensington]

Unfortunately I think there's little that our city can do to fix the poverty crisis. We can improve access to transit, community centres, child care, education (etc...), but that is likely to simply push the poor outside the city, rather than actually lifting them out of poverty. If we're going to tackle this most complicated of issues, we're going to need the support of the province.

I think we need a living wage campaign like those they've had in many American cities. There's nothing actually "unfeasible" about cities having minimum wages or at least the city could implement policies that encourage higher wages (arounnd licensing, contracts and the like). But doing it provincially would be better. Minimum wages are a good example of where real world evidence flies in the face of economic theory. There's no empirical evidence that minimum wages are job-killers. And this is evidence from US states which are usually smaller than our provinces and hence it's even harder here to leapfrog to a different jurisdiction.

On the macro-level (provincial or federal), we need to do industrial strategy again, rather than the neoliberal approach of the last 20 years, and encourage high wage, high value added production. Encourage unionization - higher density raises the floor and reduces inequality in the workforce. Investing in infrastructure could also be a job creator and have other positive impacts on the economy.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I'm not convinced those things would push people out of the city. Note how Bloordale and Crescent Town have had subway access for decades and pretty good bus service, but are still fairly ungentrified. And Bloordale is even somewhat historic with small scale urban fabric that seems to attract gentrification. It's not quite like Cabbagetown, but it still has a lot more "gentrification appeal" than Jane Finch or Rexdale which are much further from downtown, suburban built form and non-historic. I don't think improving transit to these outer areas would lead to such a huge increase in rents.

Fair enough. Likewise, Parkdale has fantastic transit access, and is relatively low income. Nevertheless, we do know that there is a correlation to poverty and access to rapid transit, so that does suggest that, at least occasionally, there's some pressure for gentrification. But I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as I previously asserted.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I think we need a living wage campaign like those they've had in many American cities. There's nothing actually "unfeasible" about cities having minimum wages or at least the city could implement policies that encourage higher wages (arounnd licensing, contracts and the like). But doing it provincially would be better. Minimum wages are a good example of where real world evidence flies in the face of economic theory. There's no empirical evidence that minimum wages are job-killers. And this is evidence from US states which are usually smaller than our provinces and hence it's even harder here to leapfrog to a different jurisdiction.

Predictably, my concerns with this is that it may send jobs to the 905, which is not what we want to do.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Predictably, my concerns with this is that it may send jobs to the 905, which is not what we want to do.

There's a good chance that many or most already work in the 905. My employer's factory is in Markham but almost all of the hourly staff live in Toronto.

The dramatic increase in wealthy areas of Toronto also is a positive thing. It means that there's a lot of high value jobs in the city, and that people with wealth wish to live in the city as opposed to ths burbs. It's not all a bad thing. As for the vanishing middle class, if you're referring to the semi-skilled, lower educated folks who at one time could afford a house, then yes those jobs are gone. However where I live my neighbours include nurses, teachers, police, lawyers (regular sort, not ultra rich Bay streeters), and small business owners. These are the new middle class, with a skill or profession that makes them scarce but not milionaires.