Neighbourhood Poverty in Canadian Cities

Abstract: The recent surge of poverty in the industrial nations seems to be accompanied by increasing concentration of the poor in urban space. As a problem distinct from poverty, the spatial concentration of poverty, reflected in the rising number of poor neighbourhoods, has some serious social consequences of its own ranging from concentrating problems such as crime, school drop-out, and teen-pregnancy in few neighbourhoods, and the development of a sub-culture distinct from mainstream culture. Despite its seriousness, however, neighbourhood poverty has not received much attention in Canada. Addressing this gap in the literature, the present article examines the magnitude of the problem in Canada and its changes between 1986 and 1996. The findings of the study clearly indicate that the urban areas in Quebec and the Prairie, Montreal and Winnipeg in particular, are most severely hit by the rise of neighbourhood poverty. Other cities in these areas, along with Toronto, Kingston, Halifax, and St. John's have begun to experience an alarming rise only between 1991 and 1996. Smaller cities in Ontario, along with Victoria in B.C., are the only ones that have witnessed a decline in their neighbourhood poverty rates. The regional variations in the magnitude of the neighbourhood poverty in Canada may indicate, among others, that the economic recessions of the mid-80s and early-90s have affected certain areas more severely than others. Resume: La recente vague de pauvrete qui a deferle dans les pays industrialises semble s'accompagner d'une plus grande concentration de pauvres dans l'espace urbain. Quoique distinct de la pauvrete, la concentration spatiale de cette derniere, qui se traduit en un nombre de plus en plus grand de quartiers pauvres, presente des consequences sociales graves en soi, allant de la criminalite, au decrochage scolaire, a la grossesse chez les adolescentes dans quelques quartiers et au developpement de sous-cultures distinctes des courants dominants. Malgre sa gravite, la pauvrete pauvrete de voisinage n'a pas attire beaucoup d'attention au Canada. Dans l'espoir de combler cette lacune, cet article examine l'ampleur du probleme au Canada ainsi que les changements qui se sont produits entre 1986 et 1996. L'etude demontre clairement que les regions urbaines du Quebec et des Prairies sont les plus touchees par la hausse de la pauvrete de voisinage, tout particulierement Montreal et Winnipeg. D'autres villes dans les memes regions, ainsi que Toronto, Kingston, Halifax et St. John's n'ont remarque une hausse alarmante qu'entre 1991 et 1996. Les villes plus petites en Ontario, tout comme d'ailleurs Victoria, en Colombie-Britannique, sont les seules a avoir vu le taux de pauvrete de voisinage diminuer. Les ecarts regionaux de l'ampleur de la pauvrete de voisinage au Canada peuvent indiquer, entre autres, que les recessions du milieu des annees quatre-vingts et du debut des annees quatre-vingt-dix se sont davantage fait sentir dans certaines regions que d'autres. Introduction In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a new dimension of poverty attracted the attention of researchers in the United States. This new dimension involved neighbourhood poverty, also referred to in the literature as urban concentrated poverty and spatial concentration of poverty. The first attempt to study this dimension of poverty analytically was made by Wilson (1987), furthered by Massey and Eggers (1990), Massey and Denton (1993), and Jargowsky and Jo Bane (1991), among others. The main thrust of these studies was that, during the 1980s and 1990s, poor individuals and families tended increasingly to be concentrated in a few neighbourhoods in each city. This phenomenon, the studies argued, had profound social and cultural consequences for those living in such neighbourhoods as well as for the larger society. One serious consequence of the poor being concentrated in a few areas of a city -- that is, high levels of neighbourhood poverty -- is the massive breakdown of social institutions in such areas (Massey and Eggers, 1990). …

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