Gentrification and change in canadian metropolitan areas

August 21, 2004

Assistant Professor

School of Urban and Regional Planning

Queen’s University

Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6

CANADA

613.533.6000 ext. 77145

Professor

School of Urban and Regional Planning

Queen’s University

Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6

CANADA
GENTRIFICATION AND CHANGE IN CANADIAN METROPOLITAN AREAS:

This study looks at the changes in 10 Canadian CMAs between 1981 and 2001 and builds on the work of other Canadian researchers to show how the extent, location and nature of gentrification processes have continued since the 1970s. The analysis of census data from 1981 and 2001 identifies gentrifying tracts and compares them with the neighbourhoods that are recognized by local housing market analysts as gentrifying and to the neighbourhoods that are clearly not gentrifying. Gentrification between 1981 and 2001 involve about 5 percent of the all tracts in the CMAs and about 12 percent of their inner-city tracts. The spatial pattern of tracts gentrifying between 1981 and 2001 is more extensive than areas known to have gentrified during the 1970s. The extent of gentrification does not to vary by city size. Gentrifying tracts experienced large increases in their proportion of young adult households, dramatic reductions in household size, rapid increases in university educated population, and had more mobile populations between 1981 and 2001. The gentrification of the inner city reduces population density while increasing dwelling unit density. Gentrification in Canada is changing the composition of the inner city but is not re-populating the inner city and it is contributing to the overall decentralization process in Canadian cities.