Places left behind? Declining inner suburbs in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, 1980

Places left behind? Declining inner suburbs in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area, 1980–2015

Pham, Steven

Abstract This paper empirically tests for causal relationships between occupational polarization, shifting housing market preferences, and inner-suburban decline in the City of Toronto prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The analysis used variables from the 1981 and 2016 Censuses to conduct a cluster analysis that illustrates the potential relationships between occupational shifts, shifting housing market preferences, and inner-suburban decline. I then conducted an OLS regression analysis to determine causal relationships among the three processes. The results indicated that occupational polarization is the stronger determinant of inner-suburban decline in comparison to shifting housing market preferences. Furthermore, I determined that neighbourhoods with higher proportions of professionals are declining relative to neighbourhoods with higher proportions of workers in the finance, insurance, and real estate occupations. Socio-spatial restructuring and decline in the inner suburbs are increasingly characterized by an emergent form of occupational polarization that entails the bifurcation of occupations between those neighbourhoods that are more connected to the circulation and (re)production of glocal financial networks vs. those that are not.

Highlights • Inner-suburban decline results in a diverse, polarized neighbourhood typology. • Occupational shifts are a strong determinant of neighbourhood decline. • Shifting housing market preferences also drive decline, but to a lesser extent. • Professional neighbourhoods are declining in relative terms to FIRE-predominant neighbourhoods. • The professionalization of neighborhood decline is influencing the growth of spatial inequalities.