Curious about Canadian ghettos (apartment, condo, crime rates)
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Hello Canadians --- I have loved my vacations in your beautiful and friendly country, but have only been in the really nice areas. I have never seen anything close to slums or ghettos in Canada, and wondered if you have ghetto areas in your bigger cities, and if so, are they also mostly populated by blacks and Hispanics ? I ask this because if you don't have the amount of ghettos that we do in the U.S. and if they are not mostly minorities, then there is something different we are doing here that has caused such an imbalance, and I would like to know how your country has avoided or solved it.
Thanks!
Hello Canadians --- I have loved my vacations in your beautiful and friendly country, but have only been in the really nice areas. I have never seen anything close to slums or ghettos in Canada, and wondered if you have ghetto areas in your bigger cities, and if so, are they also mostly populated by blacks and Hispanics ? I ask this because if you don't have the amount of ghettos that we do in the U.S. and if they are not mostly minorities, then there is something different we are doing here that has caused such an imbalance, and I would like to know how your country has avoided or solved it.
Thanks!
I'll speak for Vancouver. Our " ghetto " is referred to as Skid Row or the downtown east side and is right between two tourist areas, Chinatown and Gastown. The worse part is about six blocks long and two blocks wide. It is the poorest postal code in Canada. You don't see anything like the "projects" just old fleabag hotels. The main police station is also in this area, as is a safe injection site, as well as a community centre and charities, including a church.
Many live in this area who not homeless, in fact most aren't. What is shocking, to many, is to see unhidden the drug addicts and mentally ill who call this area home. This high profile has given the area some notoriety. It is not unsafe though, just uncomfortable if you are not used to seeing the harsher reality of a port city.
The area used to be a nicer shopping area, but really started to go downhill when a major department store, Woodward's, closed. Since then, the Woodward's building has be gutted, revamped with stores, a university campus, and a condo tower. This has spurred on the gentrification of the area, which is causing some issues for the poor who live there.
This from wiki is pretty accurate I think.
"The Downtown Eastside, as defined by the City of Vancouver, was home to 16,590 people in 2001. According to the city, 10% of the residents self-identified as Aboriginal in 2001, which comprised approximately 10% of the total Aboriginal population in the city. The Globe and Mail indicated a higher number, having reported that 14% of the residents are of Aboriginal descent, and 9% are status Indians.[4] In the same year, 43% of the population were immigrants, with 23% of those being from China, 5% from Vietnam, 2% from Hong Kong and 14% from all other countries. One percent of residents were on visas or had refugee status. The average household size is 1.3 residents; 82% of the population lived alone. Children and teenagers make up 7% of the population, compared to 25% for Canada overall. The average income for adults living alone is $6,282 per year, and $14,024 after government subsidies. In comparison, the average for Canada is less than $21,000 for adults living alone. 62% of the residents over the age of 15 are not considered participants in the labour force, compared to 33% in Vancouver as a whole.[4]
A large number of service personnel work and/or live in the area. These include cooks and kitchen staff, paramedics, police and firemen, social service and employment agency representatives. Mental health workers, doctors and alternative therapy practitioners, educators, priests, nuns and other members of the clergy also make up a significant portion of the population. The area is home to many artists and social activists."
In Toronto, our low-income areas are different from American ghettos in a few ways. For one, they are not the depopulated inner-city war zones that come to mind when you think of Chicago or Detroit, St. Louis or Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc. We have a Skid Row immediately east of the downtown, where there are many flophouses, group homes, drug treatment facilities, homeless shelters, as well as large low-income housing projects and run-down apartment blocks for the poorest downtown residents. There are also a lot of homeless and drug users in the East Downtown, but that is starting to change as Regent Park, the largest and most notorious housing project in the city, is torn down and turned into a mixed-income community. Other developments in the East Downtown are also contributing to positive change, and I hope the neighbourhood is able to improve without all the low-income residents being displaced.
Other than the East Downtown, for the most part Toronto's low-income neighbourhoods are in our "boroughs" - large urban areas that used to be suburbs of Toronto, but were amalgamated into the larger city in the 90's. These areas are considerably more urban than a typical suburb (though less urban than Old Toronto), with higher population densities and decent access to Toronto's mass transit system. Still, there are parts of these "boroughs" (I call them boroughs because that's what they most resemble) that are crowded with old, deteriorating high rises, public housing complexes, and other forms of low-income housing concentrated in certain areas, where youth gangs, drug dealing, delinquency, broken homes, violence, and poverty are endemic. These areas usually go through cycles where things will be pretty decent for a while, but then begin to deteriorate as gangs become more powerful. After the gangs become too high-profile and violence in the community begins to spiral out of control, the police usually move in and arrest the gang members en masse, and then things go back to being pretty calm for another couple of years. Lately, things have been very calm in most of Toronto's high-crime hoods.
I imagine that without constant management and investment, these communities will begin to resemble more and more the American ghettos of the Northeast and Midwest. For now, they are mostly just crowded, run-down, poor neighbourhoods where gang violence and drug dealing are much too common, quality of life is low, and poverty is hidden away but quite severe. However, unlike their American counterparts, these neighbourhoods are mixed-race, though residents are primarily recent immigrants. Still, there are black people, white people, Asian people, and some Latin American people living in these neighbourhoods, so they are nothing like the South Side of Chicago or Phillie's North Side, or even the South Bronx. Toronto's "ghettos" are much more racially integrated, so it's not at all strange to see white people living in them.
The average tourist to Toronto would never see these neighbourhoods unless they strayed far off the beaten path or were brought there by a local
We just DON,T have American style ghettos at all. We also don't have the urban decay that is so tied in with ghettos.
Our ghettos are not like American ghettos, but they have their similarities. Visit parts of Rexdale, Downsview, Scarborough, and the East Downtown, and you will see low-income neighbourhoods with many of the problems of America's ghettos. However, we don't have the same history of race riots, white flight, rapid deindustrialization, and the accompanying arson and urban decay that led to neighbourhoods like Camden, much of Detroit, the South Bronx, etc.
After visiting and walking several of America's worst inner-city neighbourhoods I can say that Toronto's worst neighbourhoods have many of the same problems, but not to the same degree as in the US.
There are neighborhoods that might have a one or two spots that are...Kind of bad. There are housing projects that might have slightly high crime rates here and there. But there are no large areas or whole neighborhoods that are really bad or extremely poor with one group making up the majority.
There are very few Hispanics in Canada. And most Blacks are immigrants so the situation here is different to the states. There is absolutely nothing in Canada that compares to the ghettos of most major cities in the states. PERIOD! Anyone who tells you there is has never been to the states, is misinformed or is simply lying.
Our ghettos are not like American ghettos, but they have their similarities. Visit parts of Rexdale, Downsview, Scarborough, and the East Downtown, and you will see low-income neighbourhoods with many of the problems of America's ghettos. However, we don't have the same history of race riots, white flight, rapid deindustrialization, and the accompanying arson and urban decay that led to neighbourhoods like Camden, much of Detroit, the South Bronx, etc.
After visiting and walking several of America's worst inner-city neighbourhoods I can say that Toronto's worst neighbourhoods have many of the same problems, but not to the same degree as in the US.
I just don't believe that you have been where you say you have. I have been in many American urban wastelands that resemble actual war zones. There is absolutely nothing in Canada to compare with them at all!!!!!!!!!!!
I was in a neighbourhood in South Chicago that was almost beyond description it was soooooo bad. I have been in a place in Camden NJ where they just let the houses lay in a heap after they fall down. IF THEY HAVE BURNED THEY JUST PUT A FENCE AROUND THE PROPERTY AND LEAVE IT FOR YEARS.
There are huge areas of Detroit that are so bad the only solution is to raze they entire area.
Those areas in Toronto you are referring to are like a freakin wonderland when compared to these American hell holes.
I just don't believe that you have been where you say you have. I have been in many American urban wastelands that resemble actual war zones. There is absolutely nothing in Canada to compare with them at all!!!!!!!!!!!
I was in a neighbourhood in South Chicago that was almost beyond description it was soooooo bad. I have been in a place in Camden NJ where they just let the houses lay in a heap after they fall down. IF THEY HAVE BURNED THEY JUST PUT A FENCE AROUND THE PROPERTY AND LEAVE IT FOR YEARS.
There are huge areas of Detroit that are so bad the only solution is to raze they entire area.
Those areas in Toronto you are referring to are like a freakin wonderland when compared to these American hell holes.
Our ghettos are not like American ghettos, but they have their similarities. Visit parts of Rexdale, Downsview, Scarborough, and the East Downtown, and you will see low-income neighbourhoods with many of the problems of America's ghettos. However, we don't have the same history of race riots, white flight, rapid deindustrialization, and the accompanying arson and urban decay that led to neighbourhoods like Camden, much of Detroit, the South Bronx, etc.
After visiting and walking several of America's worst inner-city neighbourhoods I can say that Toronto's worst neighbourhoods have many of the same problems, but not to the same degree as in the US.
Well, here it is!!!!! I disagree that the problems in Canada's poor urban areas are 1% of the same problems in the USA. There is just no comparison in degree, type or numbers.
One thing about Canadian cities is that you generally do not have neighbourhoods (and even less entire "sides" of cities) where a particular ethnic group is 90-95-97% of the population. (The one exception being the Prestons which are fairly small communities in a rural-suburban area outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia which are very predominantly black - descendants of freed American slaves in fact).
But other than that, a "black" neighbourhood in Toronto or Montreal (the two cities with the highest number of blacks in Canada) would generally be no more than a quarter to a third black. The rest of the population would be mixed - certainly with many other visible minority groups (just not blacks), but whites as well. Also, the "North End" of Winnipeg is considered to be the "aboriginal" or "native" part of town - but aboriginals are only about a quarter of the population there.
In cities like Toronto and Vancouver (which doesn't have that many blacks BTW), the highest percentages of ethnic concentrations in certain parts of the cities would be Chinese. In most of these cases the percentage of Chinese residents in a given area would be in the 60% range. Maybe slightly higher. Once again, these areas would still have several other groups represented in their population, including whites.
Hispanics are represented in all of Canada's larger cities but their percentages are even lower than those of blacks.
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