Territorial stigmatization had a big a role to play in our community at large. Regent park in Toronto is being demolished to pave way for mixed use by coming up with anew urban design introducing 5400 new markets which will influence increase in density and rent geared towards income subsidized from 100% to 26%. This clearly shows the many advantages of residing in areas with concentrated poverty. Despite the many challenges they face social developments remains a questionable issue out of the many promises they get. Tenants also have a close relationship to the Regent park citizens who have a limited network in support and friendship.
Poverty is clearly seen as the source of social and physical problems faced by the residents of Regent park. The place is seen as den of all problems especially to outsiders which is contrary different to the people living in that place. In Toronto Regent
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Scholars who study these houses always points out house maintenance and quality, drug dealing and safety as the major problem in these public housing. They are the productive grounds for drug trafficking and petty criminal cases. Media displays the real pictures of these places as places of danger and loneliness ghettos.
Despite many challenges in the reagent parks the people living there are very social and cooperative. People from all over the world meet here and interact and culture diversity increase. Mutual understanding and shared experiences is also a benefit to the residents of regent parks.The media always talk negative about this place but the tenants claim that it is a safe place unlike everyone else opinion. The main problem faces the kids who are growing up .They face a lot of discrimination especially in school where everyone refers to them as children from the ghetto lowering their
According to statistics canada Toronto in 2001, around 70% of the buildings in the area are high rise rental apartments but during the industrial era (1940’s ) most were private homes. Immigrants from countries such as the Philippines , Vietnam , Tamil, Chinese , Tibetan , Caribbeans and Hungarian have occupied parkdale since the 1980’s to present leading to the construction of these apartments with high storeys as seen in the census done in 2001. With high number of immigrants in the area increasing,Parkdale area soon developed a bad reputation as a neighbourhood of poverty, crime , drugs and homelessness These reputations led to segregation of neighbourhoods where the rich separated themselves, this happened on the basis of both of income and ethnicity.These is currently mainly occupied by minorities.Looking at the statistics in 2001 the top ten ethnicity living in this area were all immigrants with 20% arriving in Canada between 1980-1991 and other 25% arriving by 1991-2000 according to Ontario immigration data. 51% of these immigrants were born outside canada. Since it cost more to live in nicer neighbourhoods most immigrants end up in areas like parkdale where rent is cheap and other
Gentrification is defined as the process by which the wealthy or upper middle class uproot poorer individuals through the renovation and rebuilding of poor neighborhoods. Many long-term residents find themselves no longer able to afford to live in an area, where the rent and property values are increasing. Gentrification is a very controversial topic, revealing both the positive and negative aspects of the process. Some of the more desirable outcomes include reduced crime rate, increased economic activity, and the building of new infrastructures. However, it is debated whether the negatives overwhelm the positive. An increase in the number of evictions of low-income families, often racial minorities can lead to a decline of diversity
Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing project is notorious in the United States for being the most impoverished and crime-ridden public housing development ever established. Originally established as inexpensive housing in the 1940’s, it soon became a vast complex of unsightly concrete low and high-rise apartment structures. Originally touted as a giant step forward in the development of public housing, it quickly changed from a racially and economically diverse housing complex to a predominantly black, extremely poor ghetto. As it was left to rot, so to speak, Cabrini-Green harbored drug dealers, gangs and prostitution. It continued its downward spiral of despair until the mid 1990’s when the Federal Government assumed control the Chicago Housing Authority, the organization responsible for this abomination. Cabrini-Green has slowly been recovering from its dismal state of affairs recently, with developers building mixed-income and subsidized housing. The Chicago Housing Authority has also been demolishing the monolithic concrete high-rise slums, replacing them with public housing aimed at not repeating the mistakes of the past. Fortunately, a new era of public housing has dawned from the mistakes that were made, and the lessons that were learned from the things that went on for half a century in Cabrini-Green.
Lance Freeman tackles the issue of gentrification from the perspectives of residents in the gentrified neighborhood. He criticizes the literature for overlooking the experiences of the victims of gentrification. The author argues that people’s conceptions on the issue are somewhat misinformed in that most people consider it as completely deplorable, whereas in reality, it benefits the community by promoting businesses, different types of stores, and cleaner streets. These benefits are even acknowledged by many residents in the gentrified neighborhood. However, the author admits that gentrification indeed does harm. Although gentrification does not equate to displacement per se, it serves to benefit primarily homeowners and harm the poor. Additionally,
This article study will define the important aspects of space and racial identity that are defined through Canadian Constitutional law in “When Place Becomes Race” by Sherene H. Razack. Razack (2002) the historical premise of a “white settler society” as the foundation for spatial hierarchies in the Canadian society, which reflect a racial divide in the community. The white settler society was based on the Anti-Terrorism Act, within Canadian law, which reflects the post-9/11 culture of the Canadian government that has become racialized in the early portion of the 21st century. Razack utilizes the important method of “unmapping” to reconstruct the racial histories that
Another noteworthy urban sociologist that’s invested significant research and time into gentrification is Saskia Sassen, among other topical analysis including globalization. “Gentrification was initially understood as the rehabilitation of decaying and low-income housing by middle-class outsiders in central cities. In the late 1970s a broader conceptualization of the process began to emerge, and by the early 1980s new scholarship had developed a far broader meaning of gentrification, linking it with processes of spatial, economic and social restructuring.” (Sassen 1991: 255). This account is an extract from an influential book that extended beyond the field of gentrification and summarizes its basis proficiently. In more recent and localized media, the release the documentary-film ‘In Jackson Heights’ portrayed the devastation that gentrification is causing as it plagues through Jackson Heights, Queens. One of the local businessmen interviewed is shop owner Don Tobon, stating "We live in a
With increasing housing prices, it is not bearable to indigenous residents. The author reiterates that many residents of gentrifying neighborhoods fear the possibility of being displaced and are unsettled by the feeling of being pushed out. The issue of displacement in gentrifying areas is one of the biggest issues implied in this chapter. This relates a lot to my research because of the fact one of the main concerns mentioned in my research is figuring out what occurs to residents who are displaced from their homes because they are not able to afford their rent? There must be a certain mechanism that tap the wealth created by gentrification for the benefit of indigenous and poorer residents who may wish to one day live in a neighborhood.
look into its planning policies in order to prevent spatial segregation in Toronto. However does not explain what planning instruments are needed to help diversify the socio-economic composition of Toronto’s inner city. The article also suggests that for a more socially progressive city, anti-gentrification policies should be incorporated and adopted into Toronto’s official plan policies but does not explains what can be included as anti-gentrification policy.
Edward Keenan discusses in his article, “What do Torontonians really want their city to be?”, that the people and the politicians of Toronto want to have a great city, but they do not have the funding or the budgeting in place to make the plans transpire. Mr. Keenan quoted Toronto’s city manager, Peter Wallace as saying, “areas of really big failure”, in spite of the successes that have been seen in the city. In Mr. Keenan’s words, this is in relation to the “congestion and transit, housing, and child poverty” issues. In the article Mr. Keenan describes how Peter Wallace showed slides of the steady decline of revenue and told how the politicians kept voting to decrease it. Mr. Wallace went on to say that the government has really great
Housing segregation is as the taken for granted to any feature of urban life in the United States (Squires, Friedman, & Siadat, 2001). It is the application of denying minority groups, especially African Americans, equal access to housing through misinterpretation, which denies people of color finance services and opportunities to afford decent housing. Caucasians usually live in areas that are mostly white communities. However, African Americans are most likely lives in areas that are racially combines with African Americans and Hispanics. A miscommunication of property owners not giving African American groups gives an accurate description of available housing for a decent area. This book focuses on various concepts that relates to housing segregation and minority groups living apart for the majority group.
the cost of living in Toronto has come to a record high, we need to start doing something about it now before no one can afford to live at all. There are more than 30,000 women, men and children in the city's homeless shelters annually. Many of thousands more sleep on the streets or considered the “hidden homeless”. About 70,000 households are on Toronto’s social housing waiting list and on the brink of becoming homeless because of the skyrocketing prices of owning a home in Toronto. The Federal Government and the province have begun a slow reinvestment in housing in past years, the number of affordable housing being built now doesn’t even compare near the levels of the early 1980’s. Habitat for Humanity has been building houses for low income
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
In discussions of Gentrification, one controversial issue has been with displacement. Gentrification is the process of renovating and repairing a house or district so that it complies to wealthier residents (Biro, 2007, p. 42). Displacement is a result of gentrification, and is a major issue for lower income families. Gentrification is causing lower-income residents to move out of their apartments because they’re being displaced by upper class residents who can afford high rent prices and more successful businesses. Throughout out the essay, I will discuss how gentrification affects lower income residents and how it results in displacement. Then I will follow on by discussing some positive and negative effects that take place because of Gentrification.
The solutions to residential segregation could be classified according to the basis which include place, people and indirect approaches (Bouston, 2013). The main aim of policies based on place is to improve the amenities and housing stocks in black dominated neighborhoods as a means of encouraging the white to settle in these areas or alternatively creation of affordable options for housing in the whites’ neighborhood to encourage the white settling in such places. However the challenges to this approach is that research conducted showed that the white households still had a negative mentality towards the black neighborhoods and no matter the improvement to these neighborhoods, they still won’t move. Another challenge with the policy is that improvements to neighborhoods will consequently lead to rise in house prices making it unaffordable even to those currently living
Architecture, street layout, and the integration of spaces help to build an overall feeling in neighborhoods that directly reflect the people who live there. In Children of Heaven we are presented with a poor Iranian neighborhood, filled with narrow alleyways, open shops and vendors, and closed off private spaces. The effects of these features, or rather their cause, is a rich Iranian culture that shines through even in the slums we spend most of our time in. Coupled with the unique story of a poverty stricken family an insight into Iranian culture, society, and inequalities is gained in the form of a neighborhood and its inhabitants.