Immigration » Ren Thomas

The quiet (data) revolution

The Canadian Census is a major source of data for any researcher in urban planning, sociology, economics, geography, linguistics, and many other fields. While many scholars argue that the Census is prone to error and non-representation (for example, people without a regular address or students living away at college may be underrepresented), it is simply, to quote The Globe and Mail, “Canada’s only complete national database on education, income, employment, ethnicity and language”. It’s also a very costly endeavour undertaken every five years, with the next one scheduled for 2011. Which is probably why Tony Clement, Minister of Industry and Minister Responsible for Statistics Canada, very quietly arranged to scrap the long form next year, although he’s hiding behind alleged privacy concerns. The decision has prompted a quick response from the Canadian Institute of Planners, Metropolis, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, market research companies, and many other organizations who rely upon the data for research and policy work. Provincial governments, non-profit groups and many other bodies dealing with target populations, such as immigrant settlement services or at-risk youth, depend upon the data to develop and deliver their programs effectively.

The Census is a statistically viable data source because it is a mandatory survey administered by government officials, with every fifth household receiving a more in-depth questionnaire, known as the Census long form. Eight basic questions, such as age, sex, marital status, and the relationship of people in a household, are recorded on the short form, and many of these questions date back to 1871. Fifty other questions (that’s right, 50) , such as mode of transportation used to commute to work, commute distance, detailed questions about income and occupation, and detailed questions about ethnicity and immigration are on the long form. Although many of these questions have been on the long form for 35 years, some are relatively new: the two transportation questions, dealing with transportation mode and commute distance, date back to 1996. In the absence of a national transportation survey, this data can tell us which groups travel by transit the most or which cities have the highest cycling rates, just to give a couple of examples. I published a paper in Plan Canada just six months ago that compared youth and young adults’ transportation modes in the ten largest cities in Canada. I’m currently using Census data from 1986 to 2006 to investigate how immigrants’ housing and transportation choices have changed over time.

I fail to see how any of these questions could be considered an invasion of privacy, especially considering the fact that names or any identifying characteristics are never linked to the data. This on top of the fact that Census data in Canada, unlike in the US where data is free and public, is incredibly restricted. Only researchers in government or academia have access to the Census microdata, that 20% sample that contains the long form data. Plenty of other government agencies collect private information: you need to report your height, weight, hair colour and eye colour to get a driver’s license.

The federal government is planning to replace the long form with a voluntary “national household survey” that will be mailed out to approximately 30% of Canadian households, which the Tories argue will reach more households than the long form did. Anyone done a mail-out survey lately? The response rate is usually around 20-40%…what is 30% of 30%? And critics have already noted that the most vulnerable groups, such as immigrants, Aboriginal communities and low-income populations, will be the least likely to respond.

While the opposition parties are marshalling their efforts to reverse the decision, petitions are circled and we all write madly to our MPs, the media has given the issue a fair shake: the issue was covered in all the major papers and online venues, and not just by journalists (see “Canadians must be able to count on Statistics Canada” by academic Richard Shearmur in The Montréal Gazette). In the past week, the Canadian Medical Association, faith groups like the Canadian Jewish Congress, and economists like former TD Bank chief economist Don Drummond have all voiced their objections to the decision to jettison the long form.

Beyond the appalling lack of respect for the vast amount of data generated by the long form and its necessity to researchers, policy makers and community groups, the troubling issue here is that Harper’s “new world order” even extends to the collection of statistics about the people he is supposed to serve.

An update on this story: the head of Statistics Canada, Munir Sheikh, tendered his resignation July 21st over this issue, saying the voluntary “new Census” cannot be considered comparable to the long form.

The Philippines: the new China/India?

It seems that I may no longer have to answer the question, “Why are you doing a case study of Filipinos?” Ever since the 2006 Census showed that Filipinos were the largest immigrant group entering the country, there has been increased interest in the status of the Filipino population in Canada, with a major focus on those who have entered the country under the Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP). It’s gotten to the point that to say you’re working with the Filipino population is to invite harassment at parties by people wanting to know why nannies aren’t allowed to bring their family members to Canada with them (an excellent question, but one outside of my field of study).

In June, the Vancouver Sun featured a special five-part series on Filipinos in BC, trying to paint a broader picture of the Filipino population than their reputation as “nannies and maids”. However, the articles succeeded only in painting a somewhat grim picture of the challenges new immigrants face, even well-educated Filipinos who are usually fluent in English. Many of the more recent Filipino arrivals came to Canada on temporary worker visas. This program started in 2001 and was intended to fill labour shortages in technology, such as jobs in the burgeoning oil sands in Alberta. It was then extended to all kinds of other areas such as nursing, trucking, construction, fast food industry, and retail. There have been complaints about the program as it is vulnerable to human rights abuses, although some temporary workers may now apply for permanent residency after two years. Still, as I found out during my fieldwork in Toronto, Canada offers a better deal than other countries: it takes ten years to qualify for residency in Germany and in Saudi Arabia, it is impossible to get permanent residency. There are many other challenges for newcomers, which is why many choose to move to the major cities, where substantial Filipino populations, cultural associations, and community groups can provide support.

As many of you know, my dissertation focuses on the housing and transportation choices of Filipino immigrants in Toronto. I am particularly interested in how these choices have changed over time as the city grew and changed. What kinds of jobs did new immigrants find when they entered the country? Where did they live? How did they travel? Structural changes in immigration policy have played a key role in these choices, such as the introduction of family class sponsorship in the 1970s, the creation of the LCP in the 1980s, and the temporary worker category in the 2000s. I will be writing more on my dissertation topic as I finish up my data analysis in the next few months.

Save Transit City

I’m getting pretty tired of writing about great policies and projects that we’ve proposed in Canada, only to have to write later that the government has decided not to fund them. Toronto’s Transit City project, an ambitious attempt to link the suburban parts of the region to reliable rapid transit through the construction of eight LRT lines, is under threat. Despite being approved by the federal and provincial governments, the province is threatening to cut Transit City funding by half, decreasing the viability of the project considerably.

A map showing the proposed LRTs

I’ve written before about how complex governance is when it comes to public transit in our municipalities. Vancouver’s struggles to build the UBC rapid transit line and many Canadian municipalities’ policies to better link transit and housing are detailed in several other posts. Even when projects are approved, it’s no guarantee they will be built because we have no stable source of funding for public transit and no consistent governance structure that enables the transfer of federal or provincial funds to municipalities. Transit City originally proposed eight lines: Sheppard (14 km), Finch West (17 km), Eglington Crosstown (33km), Scarborough, Don Mills, Jane, Scarborough Malvern, and Waterfront West. The province agreed to fund the first four back in 2007: of these, three are new lines (Sheppard, Finch West, and Eglinton) and the fourth is a retrofit of the existing Scarborough RT with four new stations. The province’s proposal to cut funding in half will put the Eglinton LRT, Scarborough RT, and Finch LRT at risk: the Sheppard line is already under construction while Eglington and Finch were to break ground this year and Scarborough in 2012.

As U of T Social Work professor David Hulchanski illustrated a couple of years ago, increased incomes in the areas around the existing two subway lines make it all but impossible for lower- and middle-income people to live close to rapid transit.

Hulchanski's map showing the need for rapid transit

Hulchanski’s most recent map shows the areas which have decreased in income in the past forty years against the proposed lines: the new LRT lines would be making transit much more accessible to the rapidly-growing areas of the region (read his plea for action on ttcriders.ca). My own work with immigrants in Toronto shows that they are willing to travel long distances on infrequent public transit buses only for a short time; eventually they succumb to buying one, two, and three cars. They live further and further out because that’s where affordable housing is…little realizing their transportation costs will eat away considerably at their savings.

Last week mayor David Miller recorded a public service announcement on the subway PA system telling people to call the Premier’s office and their MPPs to oppose the Transit City cuts. Many of the local mayors are also urging their citizens to do the same. All sorts of organizations, from Toronto Environmental Alliance to the Public Transit Coalition have links to the appropriate politicians, and there is a Save Transit City site. I urge you all to call, email, write the MPPs and Premier McGuinty and if you’re in the Toronto area, pack the Council chambers this Wednesday April 21st.

Metropolis 2010

Je viens de retourner de Montréal, où j’avais l’opportunité de practiquer mon français. A brief two and a half days of bilingual workshops and roundtables on immigration issues, mostly in the Canadian context, was enlightening and quite enjoyable. The best part: it was a relatively small conference, with 1200 participants and only four concurrent sessions. This meant it was well organized, there were very few changes to the programme itself, and it was very easy to find your way around the two floors dedicated to our conference: qualities usually missing at the American Association of Geographers annual congress, where I’ve presented a couple of times.

The small size of the conference meant that I was asked to be in a roundtable with some of the top researchers in the field: Bob Murdie who is retired from York University, Carlos Teixeira at UBC Okanagan, Sutama Ghosh at Ryerson, and Damaris Rose of INRS. I have cited all of these authors in my own work, and they proved to be just as thorough, but unassuming, as their writing would suggest. Also included were some housing agency representatives like my old friend Jim Zamprelli from Canada Mortgage and Housing Coporation, and two of us PhD students. The roundtable audience was a good size and included David Ley from UBC Geography and Sandeep Agrawal from Ryerson: David of course is legendary in geography (last year he was named a Distinguished Scholar by the American Association of Geographers); Sandeep is the Director of Ryerson’s Master of Planning program.

David Firang, who is currently doing his PhD in Social Work at U of T, presented his research on the housing choices of Ghanaian immigrants in the next session, where I also presented my preliminary findings. Carlos presented his latest research on immigrants in the Central Okanagan Valley, cementing the idea that immigrants have very few choices due to housing policy that does not support market rental or affordable housing construction. Tom Carter from the University of Winnipeg discussed some of the issues immigrants have in the smaller Manitoba centers, where there is still fairly significant housing market discrimination. Tom also noted, after my presentation, that immigrants to the smaller centers often complain about the lack of public transit, even if they live in towns of 500 residents. Damaris, who was the discussant in our session, gave us all some important insights and comments, and very kindly welcomed David and I into the research arena.

Now, usually I find the plenary sessions less than exciting. But in this case the speakers included Krishna Pendakur, the hilarious and brilliant economics professor from Simon Fraser University, Valerie Preston from York University, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, and UBC’s own Dan Hiebert. Krishna had the audience laughing right from his introduction, even though his research was depressing: Canadian-born visible minorities are just not doing as well as Canadian-born whites, at least in terms of income. His comments about entrenched racism in the workplace (“The good thing is that these people that make the decisions, they’re old, they’re racist, and they’re going to die eventually.”) and the differences in outcomes across cities (“Do you see these lines? Do you get what I’m sayin’? I’m sayin’ I’m glad I live in Vancouver!”) really brought home the importance of how the information is delivered. The participants at our table looked at Krishna with the rapt eyes of devotees: one said, “I love this guy!” and another, “He actually makes stats interesting!” Valerie, who spoke right after Krishna, started by saying, “How do I follow that?” Jason Kenney’s speech wasn’t interesting in the least, but the fact that his presence was delayed by two separate protesters, who disagree with “Canada’s white supremacist immigration policies” definitely livened up the audience. I suppose it is a testament to political will that he still appeared and did his prepared speech, which showed the mark of the current adminstration’s insensitivity towards Canada’s temporary foreign workers, and seemed to reinforce the idea that while the country needs immigrants, it does very little to help newcomers find work, find housing, and settle into their lives in Canada.

Outside of the sessions, there were so many interesting people to talk to: I met Masters and PhD students, housing providers, non-profit agency professionals, and government officials at the federal, regional, and municipal levels. One night I was pleased to sit with Alan Simmons, a professor of sociology at York University, and his wife Jean, who teaches in family counselling at Guelph University; the rest of our table included people in social work, social justice and anthropology. This was a real interdisciplinary mix, and many of the people I spoke to said this was their first time at Metropolis.

Je suis heureuse de vous dire que le prochaine congrès sera à Vancouver! (Je vais améliorer mon français avant que ça, je vous le promets.) À la prochaine tout le monde!

Whitopias

Many researchers are concerned about ethnic concentrations in our cities, particularly in the US. Researcher Rich Benjamin’s latest book Searching for Whitopia: an Improbable Journey into the Heart of White America, examines why the fastest-growing areas in the US are also the whitest. He defines “whitopias” as areas that are over 75% white, and for the book he focused on places with a higher than 6% growth rate since 2000. The idea was also raised by Bill Bishop, who wrote The Big Sort (2008) which documents the trend for Americans to live in increasingly homogenous communities where everyone has the same religious and political values. Both authors agree that this is bad for Americans; Bishop’s book is subtitled “Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart.” It seems like Richard Sennett was right after all.

Decades ago in The Uses of Disorder (1970) Sennett argued that suburbs were a fascist social control that created a more intolerant society, one that was more individual-based rather than community-based. He wrote that suburbs tended to exacerbate the natural inclination of people to associate with others with similar values, even banding together to exclude people of different cultures and religions.

In the US, Bishop and Booth write that the roots for this type of voluntary segregation can be seen in the 1960s, when the courts demanded integration of African Americans and “white flight” first began. Recently, minorities are increasing in the inner suburbs fairly close to city centers, spurring whites to flee to exurban areas, which can be over an hour from the city. Benjamin says that many of these are older white Americans who fear an increasing role of government and a loss of power in the face of demographic shifts. Older whites traditionally have more political power because they are more likely to vote, but as of 2042 whites will no longer be the majority in the US.

Echoing Sennett, both Bishop and Benjamin argue that segregation into class-based, race-based neighbourhood leads to more clashes between groups, as each becomes entrenched in its own position and values. Bishop writes that this type of stalemate leads to some innovative policy at the metropolitan and state levels, but a lack of transformative change in the US.

The argument is very interesting from a Canadian viewpoint, where many of our suburban areas are very mixed because of our consistently high immigration rates. Unfortunately, no author has taken on a book-length discussion on growth rates and ethnicity in Canadian cities, but there is plenty of statistical evidence that shows Canada moving in a very different direction than the US. In Metro Vancouver, suburban municipality Port Moody had the highest growth rate in the region, followed by Surrey. Richmond and Vancouver had much lower rates but are still around 6%.

Immigration landings confirm that the vast majority of these immigrants have come from Asia, particularly mainland China and Hong Kong. Statistics Canada Community Profiles show that the proportion of immigrants is significant even in traditionally “whiter” mid-sized cities: 20% of Victoria’s population is foreign-born, as is 21% of London’s and 15% of Kelowna’s. However, visible minorities make up only 12% of Victoria’s population, 14% of the population in London and 6% in Kelowna.

Despite the mixture of ethnic groups in Canadian suburbs, the tendency towards locating among people with similar values can clearly be seen in Canadian elections. Cities emerge as islands of Liberal and NDP support in a country that has had a Conservative minority government since 2006. Have a look at southern Ontario or Vancouver in the 2008 federal election. Even Vancouver’s municipal election results show sharp dividing lines between those supporting Gregor Robertson for mayor versus Peter Ladner. Some even argue that the periodic redrawing of census tracts is linked to political agendas, but given the housing affordability crisis in most Canadian cities, it seems that the political and ethnocultural trends is less tied to cultural preferences than the geography of affordable housing.

At any rate, there are some obvious differences between Canadian and American cities, notably in the spatial concentration of ethnic populations and the absence of sharp ethnic divides. While Bishop and Benjamin trace this to civil rights era, the issue clearly goes further back to a history of slavery in the US. Canada, while having its own history of racist legislation, does not have as long of a history of non-white settlement. The Immigration Act of 1952 was the first to allow people from non-European countries to enter the country, and by that time there were fewer legal restrictions to owning land and buying property. By 1967, with another major shift in the Immigration Act, a new wave of non-white immigrants entered the country. However, they were never faced with legal barriers to homeownership or the labour market, two considerable barriers for African Americans in the US that remain entrenched today. Earlier non-white populations in Canada, notably Sikhs and Chinese in British Columbia, faced much harsher restrictions and still have the highest rates of segregation in the country today. These differences in immigration and labour market policy mean that our segregation rates are much lower than those seen in the US, yet another reason to think twice before applying American theory and reality to our own cities.

Benjamin’s and Bishop’s books do make us think about the fractured populace living just south of the border, and urge us to do more to help new immigrants integrate into their lives in Canada. Every time I travel to the US for a conference and listen to researchers documenting entrenched segregation, labour market barriers, and the “racial” biases unearthed during the mortgage crisis, I am reminded how different our countries are. This is particularly significant in my own research with immigrants in Toronto, which has introduced me to the work of many brilliant Canadian researchers and opened my eyes to our lower spatial segregation rates and more mixed neighbourhoods. However, I am also reminded of how much work still lies ahead for Canadians in recognizing immigrants’ foreign credentials, ensuring greater income equity, and promoting more tolerance in the workplace. We also need to recognize that sharp divides in tenure, such as the growth of luxury condominiums in neighbourhoods next to predominantly rental and low-income housing, can foster critical differences in political affiliation. As Sennett argued almost 40 years ago, the more isolated we are the more intolerant we become.

Modern racism in “the most multicultural city in the world”

Most Canadians would deny that theirs is a racist country. Scholars refer to the White Paper (1976) on multiculturalism and the Multiculturalism Act (1988) as proof that Canadians “celebrate diversity.” But there are many sides to this story. While the idea of race has officially been dispelled since geneticists working on The Human Genome Project found as much genetic variation between members of the same ethnic group as between different groups, the idea of difference persists. The Multiculturalism Act encouraged people of every ethnic group to retain their own languages and cultures while integrating into their lives in Canada. Yet there are constant barriers to this in practice.

Structural and institutional racism

Canadian banks may no longer practice mortgage redlining, but there are plenty of other examples of structural and institutional racism in our society. Carlos Teixeira, an Associate Professor at UBC (Okanagan), did a study in 2006 comparing housing trajectories of Portuguese immigrants from Angola, Mozambique and the Azores. He found that black Portuguese immigrants faced significant racism in the housing market compared to white Portuguese immigrants. Robert Murdie, who has now retired from York University, found similar results in his comparison of Portuguese and Somali housing trajectories (2002). There are many studies documenting the difficulties immigrants to Canada face in the labour market: employers will not hire anyone without “Canadian experience.”

While most Canadians with anglo-sounding names would probably urge incoming immigrants to keep their names, in everyday life it is often just easier for Chinese immigrants to go by their English variants, like Josephine for Ji Ling. Indian immigrants often shorten their names to anglo-sounding equivalents: I recently met a Kal who had shortened the considerably lengthier Kalvinder, and a Dee whose full name was Deepali. Indeed, my adolescence and young adulthood was peppered with anglo-ethnic hybrid names. While we were often criticized for “wanting to become white” (by our co-ethnics) or “losing our roots” (by our white friends), in practice it is just annoying to have your name mispronounced and misspelled on a daily basis.

Philip Oreopolous’ study at the University of British Columbia suggests prejudice against ethnic names may be more than just an annoyance. A Professor of Economics at UBC, Oreopolous created 6,000 mock resumés to represent recent immigrants and Canadians with and without non-English names. They were tailored to job requirements and sent to 2,000 online job postings from employers across 20 occupational categories in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada’s largest and most multicultural city. Applicants with English-sounding names got almost 40% more callbacks from employers than those with Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani sounding names. All applicants had at least a Bachelor’s degree, plus any additional qualifications specified in the job ad, and each applicant listed three previous jobs. Changing only the location of the applicant’s job experience, from Canadian to foreign, lowered callbacks by 5-10%. Employers valued Canadian work experience far more than a Canadian education. Oreopolous concluded that there is considerable employer discrimination against ethnic Canadians and immigrants; even when the person evaluating resumes spoke with an accent or had an ethnic-sounding name, they still preferred English-sounding names by a factor of 1.42. Oreopolous points out that this type of discrimination is illegal under the Ontario Human Rights Act. In this case, both the employer and the potential employee lose; the employer has purposely overlooked a potential employee with the appropriate skills and education. Oreopolous’ results cannot help but highlight institutional racism, which is more than a little surprising in the GTA, which is 46% foreign-born; China, India, and Pakistan are the three top source countries for immigrants. In a city and region so multicultural, that has been an immigrant reception center for over a hundred years, there is no way for employers to tell whether a person is a first-, second-, or third-generation immigrant, solely by looking at their name.

Modern racism

While Oreopolous points out the obvious legal implications of this discrimination, many scholars would call this modern racism rather than institutional or structural racism. Modern racism is a slippery concept: the Ontario Human Rights Commission issued a policy in 2005 stressing the subtler forms of discrimination. Examples of modern racism in the workplace are:

Exclusion from formal or informal networks
Denial of mentoring or developmental opportunities such as secondments and training that was made available to others
Differential management practices such as excessive monitoring and documentation or deviation from written policies or standard practices
Disproportionate blame for an incident
Assignment to less desirable positions or job duties
Treating normal differences of opinion as confrontational or insubordinate
Characterizing normal communication as rude or aggressive
Penalizing a person for failing to get along with someone else, e.g. a co-worker or manager, when one of the reasons for the tension is racially discriminatory attitudes or behaviour of the co-worker or manager

Differences in name, accent or manner of speech, clothing and grooming, diet, beliefs and practices, and leisure preferences can bring out subtle acts of racism. Because of language differences, member of various ethnic groups communicate in different ways. For example, in some cultures it is normal to wait several seconds after a person is finished speaking before responding; in anglo-North American culture the pause time is under one second. Those with the longer pause time would think they were being constantly interrupted by those with the shorter pause time. Underlining, or repeating the last few words of a person’s sentence at the same time as they are speaking, is common in some cultures but considered rude by North Americans.

Another common form of subtle racism is co-opting part of an ethnic culture: it is considered fashionable for a white person to wear a sari or practice yoga, but not an Indian person. I would add that in Canada we have the practice of “celebrating diversity” by having silly cultural festivals, yet we do not tolerate difference on a daily basis. A few years ago, a friend of mine told me his daughter was asked to return one day from school because she had henna tattoos on her hands. My friend, a Canadian of Indian ethnicity who is married to a white Canadian, said the school official told him the school did not allow tattoos at school. A few months later, the same official asked if his daughter could bring some sort of Indian food to a school multicultural festival.

Assuming that members of the same ethnicity are all the same is another example of subtle racism. Most of my Indian friends fend off questions about where the good Indian restaurants are, if we like Bollywood movies, and whether we have been to India; yet in most cases, we would have been teased mercilessly for liking Indian food, movies, or culture during our childhood and adolescence. In Outliers (2008), Malcolm Gladwell addresses the assumption that Asians are better at math. We even find examples of racism in terminology: what groups fall under the heading of “Asian”, and can they be grouped together as if they are all similar?

Joe Darden, a Professor of Geography at Michigan State, argues that denial of subtle and institutional racism allows Canadians to avoid changing legislation or monitor practices that discriminate against non-whites. Along with most other scholars, Darden points out that Canada has a long history of racism in immigration policy (The Significance of White Supremacy in the Canadian Metropolis of Toronto, 2004). He suggests that changes in the economy, and not changes in attitudes among white policy makers, were responsible for the removal of discrimination in immigration policy. In the post-war era, the need for skilled workers opened up immigration to non-European countries, while racist attitudes have remained. Like many African American scholars, Darden believes that there has been a transition from overt and institutional racism to subtle racism. Although significant Aboriginal populations have lived in Canada for thousands of years and British Columbia had small Chinese and Sikh populations around the turn of the century, Canada’s racist immigration policies only began to change in 1952. Most non-Europeans in Canada entered the country after 1967 changes to the Immigration Act. Fifty years is not a lot of time to eliminate racist ideologies.

The idea of racism in Canadian society may seem impossible, but various studies have proven there are subtle forms of racism in the housing market, labour market, and in social interactions. Oreopolous’ study shows that racism is present in the most multicultural city in Canada, therefore it must exist in cities with less cultural diversity. Many believe that cross-cultural education is the key to breaking down preconceptions about other cultures, understanding how different communication styles and values. In a multicultural society, cross-cultural training should be offered for all ages, from kindergarten to university, in schools and in the workplace. But Oreopolous’ study, as well as the earlier studies by Murdie and Teixeira, indicate there is also some legislative work to be done, as well as monitoring of employers, housing agencies, real estate agents, and landlords to ensure discrimination is not a factor in hiring, promotion, renting or buying a home in Canadian cities.

Immigrant settlement patterns in Toronto

For the past few years there has been a remarkable amount of research looking at immigrant settlement patterns in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. While these articles rely upon the latest data from the 2006 Census, they are informed by models of urban growth and change that are decades old. This, and their American origins, may influence their application to Canadian cities.

A recent example of the media coverage of immigrant settlement patterns is Doug Sanders article in The Globe and Mail (Are poor ‘ethnic’ areas cages?, February 28, 2009). Sanders asks whether areas with high immigrant concentrations are ethnic ghettos, “where people are trapped in a culturally isolated island of poverty and permanent segregation” or ethnic enclaves, “where people choose to live among fellow immigrants in order to forge ties to the new country, launch small businesses and help one another become members of Canadian society so that their kids can live elsewhere.” Sanders criticizes other writers who have implied that Canadian cities are becoming increasingly polarized and segregated. He also points out that many groups who have more segregated residential patterns are wealthy, such as the Jewish and Italian populations in Toronto.

Although Sanders never mentions them, long-standing theories about how cities grow and change underlie his article. The four most important are the concentric growth model (Charles Booth, 1902), the spatial assimilation model (E.W. Burgess, 1925), the housing career model, and the spatial mismatch model (John F. Kain, 1969).

The concentric growth model is by far the oldest; in fact, Booth was merely the first modern scholar to write about concentric patterns in cities. Burgess further developed the concentric model, arguing that socio-economic status increased towards the edges of the city. Concentric zones were the financial and office district, central retail district, wholesale and light manufacturing zone, heavy manufacturing zone, zone of workingmens’ homes, residential zone, and commuter zone. In 1920s Chicago, when Burgess was writing, the poorest areas of the city were next to manufacturing districts, while the wealthiest were located in rail and streetcar suburbs on the edge of the city. Chicago’s ethnic groups (main Italian, Chinese, and African American) lived in the workingmens’ zone. It was Burgess’ assumption that since the periphery of the city was the most desirable area to live, immigrants would eventually move outward as their socioeconomic status increased (the spatial assimilation model). Although the two models were criticized and found inaccurate only a decade later in Homer Hoyt’s 1939 study of 142 American cities, they have remained remarkably influential.

The housing career model is one of the most commonly used in research dealing with immigrants’ settlement patterns. It likely originated with the Federal Housing Administration (US) and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation early in the postwar era. Home ownership was then considered more stable and socially acceptable than renting; housing also quickly became a valuable consumer product in the late 1940s. The housing career model is based upon the idealized human life cycle, which includes pre-child, childearing, childrearing and launching, post-child, and later life stages. The model is linear and progressive; families are assumed to move towards single family home ownership and then to downsize as they get older. The model is used extensively in economic and housing forecasts, and in municipal planning documents.

The spatial mismatch model was developed by John F. Kain. In his view, a major reason behind spatial mismatch was the segregation of African Americans due to housing market discrimination. As cities grew and employers increasingly located in the suburbs, African Americans were unable to move to suburban housing, and in many cases unable to travel to suburban settings due to low car ownership. This resulted in longer commute distances and decreased labour market participation for African Americans.

Interestingly, these models were all (perhaps with the exception of housing career) created in the American context. While Canadian culture is similar, there are a number of marked differences between Canadian and American cities. First and foremost, Canada’s population is concentrated in very few large cites, and a good number of mid-sized ones. Toronto (5.1 million), Montreal (3.6 million), and Vancouver (2.1 million) are the Big Three. Following them are Ottawa-Gatineau (1.1 million), Calgary (1.1 million), Edmonton (715,500), Winnipeg (694,600), and Hamilton (692,900). Sixty percent of immigrants settle in the Big Three; the vast majority end up in Toronto (over 40%). Almost half (2.2 million) of Toronto’s population are immigrants.

Secondly, even back in the 1970s, researchers remarked that Toronto did not have a “race problem”. This is not to deny the racism faced by Chinese and South Asian Canadians a century ago, nor that faced by the Jewish and Italian communities until the 1960s (in fact, these four groups are still among the most segregated in Canadian cities). However, Canadian cities are devoid of the large swathes of inner city segregation common to many American cities. University of Toronto researchers Alan Walks and Larry Bourne studied residential segregation in all 27 Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas. While largest cities had the highest proportion of segregated neighbourhoods, there were no ghettos (which were classified as census tracts having at least 70% minority residents, 66% from one single ethnic group and at least 30% of ethnic group members living in such neighbourhoods). Although some groups were segregated, none approached the level of segregation experienced by African Americans in the US. Further, Walks and Bourne found that residential segregation decreased from 1991-2001, but many visible minority groups were moving into areas with high proportions of other visible minorities. The researchers linked this to the availability of low-rent apartment housing and increasing affordability problems among new immigrants. Other researchers have found that rising rates of segregation are in fact due to the fact that a commonly-used method, the Index of Segregation, measures the extent to which minority group members are exposed only to one another in their neighbourhood. As Canadian cities become more diverse, this likelihood increases, resulting in higher rates of segregation.

These differences between Canadian and American cities are crucial. In addition to this are trends common in postindustrial cities. Toronto and Vancouver in particular have tight housing markets and competitive rents. Combined with structural changes like immigration policy and economic restructuring, immigrants cannot possibly settle in Canadian cities following the concentric pattern established in the interwar period in the US. Numerous articles have explored the causes behind immigrants’ settlement directly in suburban areas in these two cities (see ‘Immigrants prefer suburbs to living in core areas’, Globe and Mail, March 31, 2008). Some, like Anthony Reinhart, imply that while the housing career model is incorrect here (immigrants are settling directly in single-family housing rather than transitioning into it gradually) the core principles of spatial assimilation are intact (immigrants are choosing the most desirable housing location). But in a city with high housing prices and high rents, are immigrants choosing the most desirable housing, or simply the most affordable? Are they, in fact, ‘choosing’ at all, when inner city neighbourhoods are increasingly dominated by luxury condos beyond their means? This remains to be seen.

Finally, should these models continue to drive our planning practices? For example, is it acceptable that the most desirable areas to live in are at the edge of the city? Is this true in today’s postmodern city with a strong demand for urban loft living? Should we focus housing policy on homeownership, at the expense of rental housing, co-operatives and other tenure types? When the average family cannot afford a home in Toronto or Vancouver, perhaps it is time for policy shift. In our multicultural country, is it acceptable that we expect immigrants to integrate into suburban neighbourhoods with the Canadian-born? Or have we finally accepted the idea that ethnic neighbourhoods and mixed neighbourhoods can co-exist? The media storm on this issue indicates that we have not.

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. Candidate (Planning, UBC)

The quiet (data) revolution

Metropolis 2010

Modern racism in “the most multicultural city in the world”

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