Gentrification Process

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The political agency of local governments not only alters the economic landscapes through increased property tax revenue and personal wealth, but also revisions the social and demographic landscapes of gentrified neighbourhoods. The influx of affluent citizens upgrading existing residential structures often displaces low-income residents (Slater, 2004). As an area experiences increased gentrification, low-income residents have fewer housing choices available in the inner cities, and who must often settle for accommodations that are less accessible by public transit, farther from work, and where fewer public services are available (Walks & Maaranen, 2008, p. 3). A common feature of the gentrification process is policy initiatives undertaken …show more content…
South Parkdale experienced disinvestment following the construction of the Gardiner Expressway in the 1960’s, also while experiencing problems from the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients from adjacent hospitals during the 1970’s and 1980’s (Slater, 2004, p. 4). These discharged patients suffered from a shortage of affordable housing options, and many ended up in substandard rooming houses (Slater, 2004, p. 2). In December 1996, The City of Toronto passed an interim control by-law, which prohibited any rooming house/bachelorette development of conversion in the administrative ward that contains South Parkdale, pending an outcome of an area study (Slater, 2004, p. 12). The results of the area study were released in July 1997, reporting that the neighbourhood had an “unhealthy” balance of incomes, household types, where a strategy to encourage families to return to the ward was emphasized (Slater, 2004, p. 2012). Influenced by the overarching assumptions that single occupancy dwellings were the cause of instability in Parkdale, the results of the 1997 report and by-law sets out to accomplish two primary goals (Slater, 2004, p. …show more content…
276). With this policy, Ontario’s affordable housing crisis intensifies, as larger housing service providers with valuable land resources are privatized in an attempt to display a sign of entrepreneurial success, when in reality this threatens the future accessibility of a housing unit to low-income residents (Bridge, 2012). The average monthly costs of housing people while they are homeless are $1,932 a month for a shelter, versus $199.00 a month for an affordable/social housing in Toronto (Gaetz, 2012, p. 5). The homelessness generated through gentrification poses an additional cost for local governments, either in the form of funding homeless shelters or implementing affordable housing for those displaced. This isolated example of policy failure in Ontario demonstrates the accruing cost of gentrification, as well as the cohesion between provincially led policy and urban governance strategies, which work in tandem with gentrification to change the demographic landscape of newly gentrified
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