The ‘Manhattan-ization’ of Toronto
‘Ethnoburbs’ created as more working poor move into GTA’s outer regions
Maybe the city should consider changing its name to New Manhattan. The annual report, Vital Signs, identifies what it calls the “Manhattanization” of Toronto — the increasing lack of affordable housing in the city centre — as one of its biggest challenges.
The combination of skyrocketing real estate, rising rents and long waiting lists for subsidized housing has created a “tipping point” changing the face of Toronto and the GTA, says Rahul Bhardwaj, president and CEO of the Toronto Foundation, which published the analysis.
The working poor are increasingly moving from the downtown core, often into the outer suburbs. The affordability of those areas has long been a draw for new immigrants — a decades-long pattern that has created so-called ethnoburbs in certain communities: largely single-ethnic, self-sufficient, suburban neighbourhoods, Bhardwaj explains.
Toronto’s old city neighbourhood model encourages overlap and interaction, but geographical isolation and poor public transit have made that harder in some suburbs.
“Any time we have groups isolating themselves, it doesn’t enhance social capital or enhance the sense of belonging,” Bhardwaj says. “If (this trend) creates isolated communities, it’s not an ideal outcome.”
That said, Bhardwaj notes many ethnoburbs also have advantages, such as community support, business opportunities and ready-made connections to foreign markets. A significant percentage of local residents own businesses and have a personal stake in cultural institutions. Scarborough, for example, became home to the first South Asian shopping centre in 2008.
Mississauga meanwhile has attracted a more recent wave of immigrants with education, finances and job prospects, says Arshad Mahmood, a local business man. The result has been a flurry of thriving shops and businesses that cater not only to South Asians, but serve the entire population.
Born in Pakistan, Mahmood is a 16-year resident of Mississauga, and founder of the city’s Mosaic South Asian heritage festival and Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival. He says the area’s South Asian population is inclusive, a source of pride and a catalyst for cross-cultural events that bring together all of the city’s communities. In that spirit, he also spearheads the Rock the Coliseum independent music festival, which he cross-promotes with Mosaic.
“An ethnic ghetto is something you don’t want happening in a multicultural community,” he points out. “People here like to have support from their own (ethnic) community, but at the same time they easily mix with other communities as well . . . and people are also brought together through arts and culture.”
Of Mississauga’s first and secondgeneration South Asians, Mahmood says, “They live here because they want to live here.
“There aren’t any ethnic ghettoes here . . . we use our differences to bring us together.”
Essential to connecting suburban communities to Toronto, of course, is public transit. But while suburban population growth dropped from 18.6 to 13.7 per cent between 2006 and 2011, downtown growth shot up dramatically, from 4.6 to 16.2 per cent, over the same period, according to TD Economics data cited in Vital Signs.
Younger generations are choosing to live downtown for easy access to jobs, transit and entertainment. As many downtown neighbourhoods redevelop to meet that growing demand, subsidized housing has been pushed out and longtime residents are facing crippling rent hikes, says Bhardwaj. In fact, Toronto’s housing values have tripled since the 1970s — part of the reason it is the 13th least affordable major housing market in the world.
“Without adequate, affordable and secure housing, the rest of your life is on tenterhooks,” says York University professor Douglas Young, co-ordinator of the school’s urban studies program.
The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association’s annual survey reported in 2014 more than 78,000 households were on an active wait list for affordable housing in Toronto, with an average wait time of seven years.
That’s a far cry from the ’80s and early ’90s, in which affordable units made up approximately 25 per cent of any new housing project in Toronto, Young explains. If that rate existed amid today’s condo boom, he believes the city’s waiting list could be wiped out in a matter of years. It would also encourage mixed-income neighbourhoods of owners, renters and subsidized renters.
“The market unabated does not seem to rectify itself,” Bhardwaj says. “The further we find ourselves behind the eight-ball here, the greater the scale required for the end solution.”
The downtown renting situation is equally bleak, thanks to low vacancies, vacancy decontrol and a lack of price regulation on new rental units, Young says. The trickle-down effect hurts neighbourhood businesses, including restaurants and shopkeepers, because it curbs locals’ disposable income.
The Vital Signs Report links the rise in ethnoburbs and lack of affordable housing downtown. Together, they’re changing the face of the city and region, while “challenging families and challenging expectations,” Bhardwaj says. Suburban ethnic enclaves run the risk of isolation, while the lack of affordable housing options in the core means that even those who live in the city can’t necessarily afford to enjoy it.
Akey part of Toronto’s identity, says Bhardwaj, is “the ability to share in its experience.”