CBC Radio
The report found that the proportion of neighbourhoods — what Statistics Canada refers to as census tracts — considered to be middle income was 29 per cent in 2005, down from 66 per cent in 1970.
The proportion of low income neighbourhoods, meanwhile, rose from 19 per cent in 1970 to 53 per cent in 2005. Low income neighbourhoods are defined as those with average individual incomes at 20 per cent of the city average or lower.
Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/15/three-cities-report542.html#ixzz18TlziQ3N
I might have misunderstood a report I heard on the radio last week. But the divide between the rich and poor at the expense of the middle, has increased considerable.
Uh, hardly anyone lived in the 905 back then, so comparing the 416 of 1970 (almost the entire GTA) with the 416 of today (less than half the GTA) is kind of pointless. Do you really expect a city that's adding millions of people to maintain the same socio-economic residential patterns over time or in every new neighbourhood that's built, like copy and paste on a metro scale? Impossible.
We're very lucky to have poor people a) not all crammed in the inner city, b) not all cast off into the fringes, and c) not all lumped together one sketchy sector of town. Really, very lucky.
Also, census tracts aren't necessarily a good way to refer to numbers of people since they all vary in size. The largest tracts are generally better off, too, since they tend to house people who recently bought new homes.
Anyway, family/household income figures are a minefield of problems. How can you meaningfully compare a traditional family of four with a widow living in a bungalow worth $800,000, or university student renting an apartment downtown, or a house full of adult relatives living together (each a 'family'), or even someone making money off the grid? Just because some researchers are searching for points to make doesn't mean their 'expert findings' reflect the reality of "poor" or "poverty" in any way that actually helps governments tackle the issues. The Three Cities stuff is fearmongering as per Hulchanski's agenda, using a map designed to appeal to people who will accept what it is saying without thinking about it.
If 100,000 middle class people move from Toronto to Pickering, yeah, that could theoretically have a negative impact on some 416 statistics, but how is that so bad for the whole city if you're looking at it from a GTA scale? It's almost as if you think Conservative governments disappeared these 100,000 people, which is a worse fate than moving to Pickering...probably