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INTRODUCTION

Toronto’s socio-spatial polarisation is proceeding at a rate much greater than elsewhere in Canada. Spatially, formerly middle-income neighbourhoods are transforming into either high or low income (Walks 2014). Toronto is becoming a strikingly segregated city, with visible minorities concentrated in low-income neighbourhoods and white residents dominating affluent areas in numbers far higher than their share of the population (Hulchanski 2009). In this context Toronto is experiencing both sustained gentrification and advanced suburban restructuring (Walks and August 2008). As Lehrer has pointed out, Toronto’s urban changes are strongly impacted by the global economy exceeding the capacity of local policies to govern them (Lehrer 2006). Thus we are witnessing a policy context in Toronto where local government is retreating from public investments, giving more room to the motives of private corporations. This situation has produced problems for the social production of space in the city, as it is now heavily influenced by private property interests. 

While Parkdale, a neighbourhood in the western downtown area of Toronto, was considered one of the last affordable downtown neighbourhoods for culturally diverse newcomers to Canada, the situation is rapidly changing. An analysis of 2016 census data shows a mutable situation, particularly in South Parkdale where the recent immigrant population (people arriving in the previous 10 years) is shrinking and the non-immigrant population is growing. Similarly, the population of low-income persons and recent immigrants has decreased while the population of older, Canadian-born working adults has increased. The occupations of residents are also shifting away from middle-income blue-collar jobs towards business people/professionals. A  change in residential accommodation is noticeable as well. There has been an increase in apartments removed from the regular rental housing stock and made available for short-term rental through services like Airbnb1 ; advertised rents in the neighbourhood demonstrate a drastic increase over the 2015–18 period. Overall, simple unweighted average advertised rents increased by over $426 per month, or 36 per cent. The quickly changing environment of Parkdale is creating a more marked process of gentrification, where only households with higher incomes are able to afford to live in the neighbourhood. 

In Parkdale, low-income people together with populations with mental health and addiction experiences, refugees and recent immigrants, and people facing homelessness are all strongly affected by these rent increases and the resulting changes in the nature and use of public spaces in the neighbourhood.2 While the inclusivity of Parkdale is at risk, community-based activism to resist and mitigate the negative effects of neighbourhood change is getting stronger. In the last few years, a social infrastructure that is able to promote the empowerment of diverse community members in a condition where land use decision-making is particularly market-driven, compartmentalised and privatised (PCED 2016) has been built with the collaboration of diverse organisations and community allies. Through a case study of Parkdale, this chapter argues that community-based responses produce positive outcomes in response to the negative effects of neighbourhood change and disadvantage if a grounded and networked social infrastructure that can influence decision-making processes regarding neighbourhood development and planning is designed and implemented. The effectiveness of community-based action is related to the capacity of building on-the-ground and bottom-up governance mechanisms (Garcia 2010), directed at bringing equity not only to the social realm but also to governance and planning systems and practices. Viewed within this framework, Parkdale is a relevant case study due to the presence of effective neighbourhood organisations (Carrière 2016) that are connected through a multifaceted social infrastructure that supports a fundamental rethinking of local planning policy and practice (Hanna and Webber 2010). 

In this chapter, I first provide a brief overview of the literature discussing the complex relationship between community-based activism and local governments. I  then focus on Parkdale’s path-dependent history of community-based activism, by exploring its scope and actors as well as the changing forms of organisation over the years. The chapter also examines the ability and capacity of municipal policies and planning tools and mechanisms to control the negative effects of neighbourhood change. This is based on field research that was conducted in Parkdale between November 2017 and May 2019. The research employed a mixed-method qualitative approach through a literature review of neighbourhood change and community development scholarship, analysis of background data at the City of Toronto and neighbourhood level, interviews with key stakeholders, participant observation at public meetings and in key neighbourhood spaces, and the review of City of Toronto and Parkdale neighbourhood planning documents.