Comment 17731

By Cityjoe (anonymous)
Posted January 28, 2008 at 04:11:06

Neighbourhoods change all the time. Sometimes it's gentrification, sometimes it's the opposite.(drugs & crime) There is only so much you can do to mega-manage what we think we want. Property values rise & fall. Neighbourhoods deteriorate, or escalate in value. With gentrification comes expulsion of the poor. With expulsion of the poor often what brought wealthier people to this 'interesting, creative, diverse area' is lost. Beautiful places with real homes & buildings get 'developed' into condos, & apt. blocks when an area becomes fashionable. Then it becomes unfashionable.

A new wave of immigration starts & those people want to be with people of the same culture, language, values, so they move to one or two specific areas.

(Is it a 'ghetto' if it's the people's choice to move there? In a few decades or a generation these people will disperse into the City, the Province, the Country. But will something be lost then? Are places like Little India, or Greek Town bad? Do they lack diversity? Would it be politically incorrect to say so?)

One of my friends lives in a 'diverse area' of Toronto. The rich condos to the West, the poor people, & crime ridden areas to the East crime, & the subsidized towers in the middle. She lives in the middle & says it's like living on the Berlin Wall. Do we look at areas street by street, or as an electoral riding, or just by economics? I'd say that the area she lives in actually 3 different areas, not one diverse area. However I'm sure political spinners would like to see it as 'one successful diverse area'. It's just politics & semantics. One man's diversity is another man's ghetto. The usual deciding factor is how much $$$$$$$$ can the developers make & how much political hay can the politicians make?

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