Neighbourhood Diversity

Location of the ten least/most diverse neighbourhoods in Toronto. Copyright 2012 The Grid and Wellbeing Toronto.

The Grid and Wellbring Toronto recently posted an interesting map of the "most" and "least" diverse neighbourhoods in Toronto. Thanks to the loss of the long-form census (thanks Steve), we'll probably be seeing some more creative ways of "mapping" our country; here we see "diversity" as determined via "mother-tongue" response rates on the Census. As they explain it, the "diversity" of a neighbourhood in Toronto was determined by the chance that two random people in the neighbourhood would share a mother tongue. It's certainly not the strongest indicator one could use, but - in the absence of stronger ones - it does give some insight into the composition of each neighbourhood.

Perhaps it's not worth making too big a hay over given the strange metric, but aside from the geographic "clustering" seen, one notable observation is that the "least" diverse neighbourhoods are, well, wealthy, while many of the "most" diverse neighbourhoods aren't.

If you live in any of Forest Hill, Lawrence Park, or Rosedale, chances are you make twice as much money than if you lived in Flemingdon Park, Agincourt-Malvern, or L'Amoreaux. It's hard to tell the implications without more research, but what is likely happening is that we're seeing a social divide between the rich "English-speaking" population and the non-English one. Whereas in the "most" diverse neighbourhoods, about 30% of the population counts English as a mother-tongue, in the "least" diverse neighbourhoods you're looking at 75%+. Put bluntly, this is yet another indication of the gap between immigrant families and the rest.

It's unreasonable to assume that every new immigrant who arrives on our shores be loaded with cash, but it does raises questions about why people are living where they are. To be clear, this isn't necessarily about starting Occupy Leaside in an attempt to fit some social housing into the neighbourhood; that an established Canadian family might have more money than a family that is relatively new to Canada should not be surprising. That a person who speaks Tagalog might choose to live near people who might also speak Tagalog is hardly scandalous either. And truthfully, that immigrants make less money  than non-immigrants is hardly revelatory.

Many of the reasons for this disparity are beyond the realm of urban planning, getting into both economics and politics. But there are ways that urban planning can help. The most immediate is of course, ensuring that there is access to social services, ensuring affordable housing is available across the city, and providing good (and accessible) public transit. But in particular, we need to ensure that the communities we build are complete ones.That cuts both ways. Many unservered communities are often lacking access to more than just income; they're lacking essential access to things that more affluent communities have access to, such as grocery stores. At the same time, affluent communities need to shoulder their share too, whether the land-use be "undesirable" or not.

Not every neighbourhood must be Rosedale, but it's not a competition. It's about building a city we can all share.