In The Ghetto: Canadian Style

[Capsicum]

There are lots of cases where it's claimed that a white part of a city/neighbourhood/suburb losing population to a non-white demographic in Canada is "white flight", whether it's Winnipeg's North End native population, or the GTA's Brampton or Scarborough's visible minorities.

Without the legalistic barriers and policies that the US had, it's not quite the same or analogous but even if you define "white flight" as people moving away because of a different demographic coming in (even without legal/institutional support), it's also hard to prove that a group moved in response to fleeing another group rather than just moved away once they could afford more desirable housing elsewhere, with the poorer, non-white, group just following, not driving the flight.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Vixx

Have there been any efforts in the slightest to try and turn the area around? It seems like its been an impoverished area for so long now.

What efforts are you suggesting?

[Docere]

I suspect there's more "attrition" in the white population declines in Brampton and Scarborough than families in their prime earning years packing up and leaving (though that likely occurs as well). If someone grew up in Brampton when it was predominantly white, but when they move to say Bolton or Georgetown when they buy their first home does that constitute "white flight"?

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Docere

I suspect there's more "attrition" in the white population declines in Brampton and Scarborough than young and middle-aged families packing up and leaving (though that likely occurs as well). If someone grew up in Brampton when it was predominantly white, but when they move to say Bolton or Georgetown in adulthood does that constitute "white flight"?

Is there even enough data to distinguish between either possibility? If there was data on age of people leaving and the relative shares of each age group that is white and visible minority moving in/out, that might be a clue.

Also, isn't "white flight" in response to changing demographics much more rapid than "attrition" -- if it were white flight, you might expect a white outmigration really rapidly occurring right as minority in-migration takes place (how fast was the white decline in Brampton and Scarborough relative to say the Midwestern US cities?), not just white proportion staying put for a while as minority population goes up, which you'd expect for "attrition, where there's a "lag" in moving out time.

[Docere]

Have a look at the Chicago neighborhood of Austin for "American-style" white flight.

It went from 99.8% white in 1960 to 86.8% black by 1990. But keep in mind the sheer numbers too: 125,000 whites in 1960, 12,000 in 1990.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohisto.../pages/93.html

Has any neighborhood in Canada lost 90% of its white population in 30 years?

[Capsicum]

Which part of a major Canadian city/suburb had the fastest loss of white population?

Markham, Ontario seems to be the (or among the ones with) fastest rise in visible minority population but that's not the same as white population loss. It was rapid growth of the Chinese population, more than decline of the white population as Markham's population, that drove this.

[Docere]

Brampton had a population of 150,000 in 1981, today it has 600,000. Is the white population smaller today than it was then? Doubtful.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Docere

Have a look at the Chicago neighborhood of Austin for "American-style" white flight.

It went from 99.8% white in 1960 to 86.8% black by 1990. But keep in mind the sheer numbers too: 125,000 whites in 1960, 12,000 in 1990.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohisto.../pages/93.html

Has any neighborhood in Canada lost 90% of its white population in 30 years?

Pretty unbelievable change within one generation. Lots of people decry that the pace of demographic change in Canadian cities like Toronto is fast, but there's never been a response like that.

[Capsicum]

Okay, so far every example I see for Canadian shifts from a white to non-white dominated population is much more about the rise in non-white population more than the loss of the white population.

[Capsicum]

Another observation seems to be that in places like Scarborough and other GTA places with high % minority, you see a much older white population and a much younger non-white population. It's not uncommon to see for example, students and young men and women who are visible minority riding the bus together with seniors who aren't.

Whereas, in the midwestern cities in the US I've been in, which people describe as being "white flighted", it's more like black, young and old, live in one place, and white, young and old living in another place. More so than say, black youth and white seniors living in one place as a neighbourhood transitions demographically, which is what you'd expect from attrition.

This might lend credence to the notion that in the Canadian case it's the next generation moving out and choosing not to stay rather than entire white families moving out wholesale in response to changing demographics, like the US case.

[Docere]

Some stats for the North End included in the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_End,_Winnipeg

I'd be curious to know what the Old North End numbers specifically are.

I know the North End's population has declined significantly in the past 40 years or so, so the white population has obviously dropped at an even faster rate.

[Brizzy82]

Originally Posted by Brizzy82

some Winnipeg shots

Manitoba Ave


Boyle St


Magnus Ave


Dufferin Ave


Charles Walk

damn these make Winnipeg look pretty bad to be fair, the North End doesn't always look this bad.. but on average, its close, and its a HUGE area. I used to work around there & I miss it. Always interesting people.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Yep. 135A street in beautiful Whalley (Surrey), which is a few blocks away from where ai worked for years (on East Whalley Ring Rd). It is the armpit of Canada, and it is shocking to see so many drug addled people living on the street.

The closest thing I've seen in Canada to the homeless you see lining certain streets of DTLA.

[giallo]

^I always maintained the DTES was the worst drug/homeless ghetto in North America outside of the Tenderloin in SF....until I went to DTLA around South Los Angeles St. and San Pedro St. Honestly, the DTES comes off as a nice place to live compared to that area of LA. I've never seen anything like it. It's pure chaos down there.

[MolsonExport]

The Tenderloin is awful. I walked through it a few times at night. Wholly shit, you don't want to be there.

[Docere]

Winnipeg's North End definitely has the most "empty" and abandoned feel with boarded-up homes etc., akin to what you might find in say in the worst parts of Kansas City or Buffalo.

[Capsicum]

There seems to be two contrasting sides but both negative views of what "looks like a ghetto" discussed in this thread -- on the one hand, the low-density neglected, boarded-up, abandoned, empty feel like those Detroit houses with bushes and trees growing out of them. On the other hand, the "looks like a ghetto" view of hyper-dense, Co-op City, Bronx (or St. James Town, Toronto, for the Canadian counterpart)-style tenements, tower blocks in the concrete jungle.

[Docere]

...or the "skid row" type areas of East Van, the Tenderloin etc.

[balletomane]

Originally Posted by Docere

Some stats for the North End included in the Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_End,_Winnipeg

I'd be curious to know what the Old North End numbers specifically are.

I know the North End's population has declined significantly in the past 40 years or so, so the white population has obviously dropped at an even faster rate.

I don't know the numbers specifically for the white population, but the North End had a peak population of 70,912 in 1961, dropped to its low of 43,427 in 2001 and has since increased to 48,320 as of 2016.
If the former city of Winnipeg still existed, it might be the only one in Canada with comparable population loss to US rust belt cities, 265,429 in 1961 to 189,801 in 2001 (200,188 in 2016).

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by balletomane

I don't know the numbers specifically for the white population, but the North End had a peak population of 70,912 in 1961, dropped to its low of 43,427 in 2001 and has since increased to 48,320 as of 2016.
If the former city of Winnipeg still existed, it might be the only one in Canada with comparable population loss to US rust belt cities, 265,429 in 1961 to 189,801 in 2001 (200,188 in 2016).

The old city of Toronto also saw a drop in the last couple to few decades of the late 20th century.