Archive for ‘Neighbourhoods’

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August 8, 2009

Mapping tools add new dimensions to social demographics

Less than a decade ago, easy access to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) caused a paradigm shift  in how we understand demographic data. GIS and spatial analyses have, literally, added new dimensions to our understanding of social landscapes.

Tools to map social data have shifted rapidly through the following stages (note: these are my labels, not some broadly recognized system).

Static maps

Static maps are the ones we remember from our classrooms, hung on the blackboard or tucked into the beginning of our Scholastic Atlases of Canada; inscribed with dozens of symbols which needed to be deciphered with the legends, they covered a range of topics including topographic, climatic zones, agricultural, industry. They were draw by experts.

GIS–enhanced maps

When GIS software appeared, it furnished a way for social scientists to re-examine their stores of demographic data. Instead of comparing along a dimension of time or between similar populations, GIS introduced a way to look at the complex way in which multiple factors overlap and interact within a physical space, the lived world of their “subjects.” GIS capabilities allow social scientists across a wide range of disciplines to add spatial analysis to their analytic toolboxes.

An excellent early example of this stage was The Canadian Council of Social Development and United Way of (Greater) Toronto’s Poverty by Postal Code report in 2004. It looked at the concentration of poverty by neighbourhood, or specifically census tracts, over three decades in Toronto. Professor David Hulchanski’s work through the CURA with St. Christopher’s House on the subject of neighbourhood change and gentrification, has produced similar maps over an even longer time period.

The Toronto Police crime data maps and Toronto Public Health maps do this as well. The maps are static, but the information is conveyed in new and easier to understand ways.

What became apparent from these new analyses is the complex way social problems interact. For instance, Poverty by Postal Code sparked further debate about the importance of neighbourhoods and place-based strategies. United Way and the City established the Strong Neighbourhoods Taskforce, which by mapping proximity to service against social need, sparked new planning priorities.

Web 1.0 maps

Web 1.0 maps moved mapping off computer desktops and onto the internet, allowing broader interactivity. With Web 1.0 technology, viewers are able to move through pre-mapped⁄pre-coded data to find answers (sometimes) to their own questions. Good local examples of these are:

  • Settlement.org’s Close to Home maps of 211 Ontario data, allowing newcomers to search for services closest to their residence/place of work.
  • City of Toronto developed MapIt, an interactive map which allows viewers to select what city services should be shown on the map and then to zoom to an area of interest.

Statistics Canada data has been incorporated into several Web 1.0 vehicles to make accessing it more interesting than looking at a set of dry tables. Several Canadian examples exist, and many of these are incorporating other data sources as well:

  • The Canadian Council on Social Development has established a national platform through its data liberation initiative for municipalities and non-profit agencies. The Canadian Social Data Strategy has a public front door and an area for local agencies to have access to further data.
  • Although requiring registration and log-in, the Canadian Mothercraft Society has also built a very usable platform for community agencies to select and map out data in their areas of interest.
  • The Government of Newfoundland & Labrador led Canadian provinces in establishing Community Accounts, a web-based map system which produces local profiles upon a range of factors which may be selected by the site visitor. Nova Scotia has followed suit.
  • The Toronto Star has a blog and staff dedicated to mapping newsworthy social issues.
  • Using a democratizing Google mash-up, the creative Baby Name Map was established in Calgary.

Web 2.0 maps

Web 2.0 mapping is taking GIS interactive. (Web 2.0 engages internet surfers in two-way information exchanges, so that they can add information as well as get it.)

I have been able to identify several ways this is done in mapping:

Open Source GIS: The power of mapping technologies has, in this initial period, remained concentrated in the hands of experts who have access to software which can cost thousands of dollars. Several open source software are emerging and refining to the point that GIS software will become more available to everyone. Grass is one of the most preeminent ones. My Maps on Google Maps also give easy access to people to map their own worlds.

Crowd-sourcing: This method farms out work, realizing on the small contributions of many to make sense of complex problems. For instance, Industry Canadainvited Canadians to submit information about their broadband access which could then be mapped out across Canada to identify areas with significant service gaps.

Community mapping: Google maps are some of the frequent examples of interactive mapping. Family Service Toronto is working with Waterloo’s Comap to launch a community mapping initiative in the Teasdale-O’Connor neighbourhood, which will invite local agencies and residents to contribute and shape the maps of the neighbourhood.

 

Real-time: Real-time mapping is still emergent. For example, an iPhone app uses GPS to update your location to selected friends and family.  Twittervision and celebrity-stalking websites like Gawker’s Stalker are powerful because they add a geographic scale to the information shared.

Other good examples and methods are continuing to emerge. Please feel free to share other good examples!

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July 18, 2009

Mapping jail and university admissions

The results are in from the stellar Toronto Star team again. This week-end, they released two sets of maps, in many ways the obverse of each other:

The latter map is the result of a court order, as described in a previous post and a strong contribution to  the argument for place-based interventions. Our thanks to them.

The maps looking at university admissions also support the work being done by the Toronto District School Board’s researchers who have mapped university applications and other academic indicators by neighbourhood.

These unsettling maps lay how applicants to one of the most prestigious universities in Canada live in different worlds than the the places where people are being jailed. Opportunities are literally mapped out.

The co-incidental (?) and simultaneous release of maps is evocative of the statistic that, in many American inner cities, there are more young men in jail than in college or university.

I’ll look at more of the details in these maps in another post.

Posted in Blog menu, Demographics, Inequality, Mapping, Neighbourhoods | 1 Comment »

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July 16, 2009

One neighbourhood, many politics

It could have been an awkward conversation — me: a manager; my neighbour: a striking city worker; and another neighbour, who makes her living in the service industry, depending on tips.

The topic of the city workers’ strike, now ending its third week, had just popped into our front porch chitchat.

I froze, tried to shoo the topic away.

But instead, what started as a snipe about “greedy unions” turned into a wide-ranging discussion about the integrity in collective bargaining and the hard and very human realities of living through a strike. The exchange became a chance to soften hard lines which missed the complexity of our situations.

By the end, we were laughing, teasing, empathizing.

We were able to have this conversation because we had all know each other for over a dozen years. We trusted each other to have this hard conversation.

The Toronto Star profiled a similar encounter between neighbours. It is, though, a conversation that may be less and less likely in Toronto neighbourhoods, which are increasingly divided along income lines. (Why do we build homogenized houses of similar value in separated neighbourhoods?)

What happens in neighbourhoods which have less diversity, whether those differences are along political, class, or racial lines? Political science presents a useful concept to answer this: supermajorities (more than a majority, often 2/3).

In supermajorities, diverse opinions are not heard, and political positions harden. What was a conservative or a progressive belief becomes, in an unchallenged field, an ultra-conservative or a radical one.

Conversations like the one on my front porch tonight reminded me of one more reason why mixed neighbourhoods are important.

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July 7, 2009

A distinction between houses and homes

WoodGreen is hosting a South African delegation from a sister community agency this month, and the discussions are rich. There is much we share in common, but much also to learn from each other.

For instance, today, we watched a documentary on the Tent City residents. Over lunch, a guest confessed that he kept thinking how, in South Africa, 4 million people face this same tenuous housing situation. He complimented the sturdiness of the erected structures, but agreed that Canadian winters were a motivation for additional reinforcement. We also talked about the good work of people like Josie Adler, who recently visited Toronto and spoke to the Toronto Neighbourhood Research Network, and who works to make Hillbrow a Neighbourhood reclaiming community, building by hijacked building.

The most valuable story around community–building was how entire neighbourhoods, for 40—50,000 people had sprung up in the 1990’s building spree, with a only single school or community centre to serve new residents. As a Minister of Housing described it afterwards, government had concentrated mistakenly on building houses, rather than homes. To fix this, the Ministry of Housing was given a broader mandate and renamed the Ministry of Human Settlement.

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July 1, 2009

Toronto swimming pools: Class in session

One of the strongest arguments put forward to save the school pools in the TDSB has been the issue of equitable access to a public resource. Or as the headline on the Globe and Mail article by Margaret Atwood put it, without pools, “Rich kids swim. Poor kids sink.”

Critics have groused because swimming pools seem a unjustified demand on the public purse for a perk which many school boards outside Toronto do not enjoy.

However, the argument goes, school pools allow students who don’t have access to summer cottages and camp to learn a basic survival skills.

It’s a debating point that has held some sway. Last week, the TDSB voted to save twenty pools, and to put 13 more on hold while the schools look for further support. Seven pools will be closed. [Declaration of potential conflict of interest: A pool will be closing at a high school which my son will be attending next year.]

Given the relentless cuts over the years, the news came as somewhat of a relief.

A closer look, though, at the pools which have been saved gives some credence to the “pools as perks for the already privileged” argument.

The list of saved pools (Forest Hill, Lawrence Park and Humberside, among others) are in some of the toniest parts of Toronto. Similarly, the list of closing pools (Bickford Centre, Central Commerce and Parkdale among others) are in poorer neighbourhoods. Such anecdotal evidence requires a closer examination.

Using these schools’ ranks on the TDSB’s Learning Opportunity Index lets us see who has won this fight. The Learning Opportunity Index uses student-level data to rank schools according to their socioeconomic bracket. The Stats Can taxfiler data measures include the percentage of students below the Low Income Measure and the percentage of families on social assistance. The higher on the Index a school is, the more rich student population is.

A rough analysis, breaking the schools into upper, middle and lower tiers shows that schools in richer neighbourhoods are the ones being saved.

Of the 20 pools which have been saved:

  • 12 [60%] of the school pools (8 high schools and 4 elementary pools) are in the top third of the LOI (i.e. the schools with the richest students)
  • 6 [30%] of the saved pools are in “middle-class” high schools, and
  • 2 [10%] of the pools which will remain open, in high schools, are in the bottom third (the neediest schools).

Comparatively, looking at the 20 pools that are still threatened or being closed, poorer schools fared worse:

  • 2 elementary school in the upper tier have a pool being put on hold.
  • 8 pools in middle tier schoolsface a threat
    • 4 closed;
    • 4 threatened (3 high schools + 1 elementary)
  • 10 pools in the poorest tier are under threat
    • 3 closed (2 high schools + Bickford Centre);
    • 7 threatened (5 high schools + 2 elementary)

Troubling, indeed.

The sample skews in favour of schools in more well-heeled neighbourhoods, but this may be a result of a “sampling error.” Perhaps more of the  pools are simply located in richer schools and so, by saving them, more “rich pools” will be saved.

So, there’s another way to examine this.

Let’s look at the number of pools saved against the number of pools threatened in each of these three income tiers. If these numbers are disproportionate then we may have evidence of a systemic problem of classism.

Sadly, these numbers tell the same biased story.

  • In the top tier, 14 pools were threatened. 12 are being saved, or six-sevenths of them (86%).
  • In the middle tier of schools, 14 pools were threatened. 7 of them are being saved (or half).
  • In the bottom tier, the poorest schools, 2 pools have been saved of the threatened 11  + the unranked Bickford Centre for Adult Students & Continuing Education. (So one in six or 17% of these pools which serve poorer students has been saved.)

Also worth noting is that the only 4 pools in elementary schools which are being saved are all in the top bracket.  However, two “top tier” elementary school have been put on hold, as have six other elementary schools, all in the middle or bottom tier.

It’s a pretty damning picture. “Higher class” pools are five times as likely to be saved as pools in the poorest schools and twice as likely to be saved as pools in the middle tier.

How can this be so?

Part of the way this has fallen out may well be because one of the key criteria used to determine whether a pool would be saved, that is whether it could “generate sufficient revenue to offset operating costs.” Pools which serve richer populations are probably more likely to be able to do so. It was a sound decision — without the further vetting needed to assure it was an equitable one.

There’s no maliciousness here, but no one asked the question, so we have created further inequalities along class lines.

If our public education system is to meet its stated ideal of leveling the playing field for all students, another look at this decision must be taken. Rich kids are swimming, and the poor ones aren’t.

For list of school pools and their status, see more.

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Posted in Income, Inequality, Neighbourhoods, Public Education | 3 Comments »

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June 28, 2009

A neighbourhood by any other name

No one in my neighbourhood agrees where we live. We laugh about our multiple names, but if attachment to a place begins with what we call it, we don’t know where we live.

The situation is aggravated by the bisection of the community into two different political ridings a few elections back. Confusingly, parents call a school trustee for whom they cannot vote, yet from whom they require help.

Even, a recent incarnation of a residents’ association debated the topic of a neighbourhood name at a few of its meetings, considering an on-line poll after no consensus was found. The website is still entitled ?? Residents’ Association.

When the Toronto Star tried to map out Toronto neighbhourhoods, they ended up leaving our 16 square blocks blank – nameless – hanging there between Riverdale and the Beach. Debate renewed on the Star’s website over it, many suggesting their version.

So, as a neighbour and I called this year’s Jane’s Walk, we are Greenwood-Coxwell: A neighbourhood of many names.

The naming of neighbourhoods is important, if you look at the energy that goes into it.

Spacing Montreal recently profiled a few Montreal quartiers struggling with their boundaries and their names.

Residents in a few of the Toronto Priority Neighbourhood Areas have also demanded changes to the original, City-imposed names. Crescent Town is looking at a version of Taylor-Massey Creek, and Jane-Finch is variously called Black Creek, University Heights or Elia. Residents in Eglinton East-Kennedy Park, Westminster-Branson have also reportedly rejected the City-imposed appellations.

As part of its newly introduced Historic Neighbourhood Strategy, the city of Barrie, Ontario is trying to involve local residents in just such an exercise. When residents identify with and are attached to their neighbourhood, engagement grows.

Identification with the geographic area in which you live is one of the key markers of belonging. Community developers often work with local residents to help them define, and if necessary, name their neighbourhood.

So how did we become a neighbourhood of many names? Through the complex evolution and structures that make up any neighbourhood.

Historically, we are:

  • Ashbridge Estates, as sometimes suggested by residents who live close to the original Ashbridge home.  Harkening to this semi-regal historical connection, but similar to an attempt to carve out a separate identity, as documented in some New York city neighbourhoods.
  • Ashdale Village, a now-defunct effort by some local residents who, through the efforts of a few residents, tried to re-create a cohesive identity. Yet, strangely, they focused on only a small section of the neighbourhood and faded away when one key member moved away. Such grassroots efforts are not always doomed to failure. AshdaleVillage.com has re-emerged with a new suffix.  The Pocket, just to the west of here has successfully established their heretofore unnamed identity, through the creation of a residents’ newsletter and regular events.
  • Leslieville, as sometimes used by those closer to Queen Street, or by real estate agents intent on capturing us with the re-branded neighbourhood to the southwest. (Jane Farrow, at the Centre for City Ecology, taught me that locals also call it colloquially Lesbieville because of the settlement of gays and lesbians into the neighbourhood. See the Star’s map of the week.)

Economically, we are:

  • the Gerrard India Bazaar as the local BIA’s version of our neighbourhood. Gerrard Street is the commercial centre of the community, but tensions arose with this name because it excludes others South Asian communities who live in and visit the neighbourhood. The (re-)branding of a neighbourhood is almost common, now. One neighbourhood in Seattle was tarted up by local businesses with a new name, banners hung, without most its residents even knowing about it.

Socially, we are:

  • Little India. This is probably the most popular among local residents. It is the name I was taught when I moved here, the commercial strip well-established, and what I often say, by habit, although it’s also a name which carries unfortunate colonial overtones.

Geographically:

The neighbourhood is proximate to a few others, so we are sometimes attached to:

  • Riverdale (for those who orient west)

and Administratively, we are:

  • the Greenwood-Coxwell Corridor (Greenwell? Although some in the neighbourhood prefer the perverted spoonerism Coxwood). During the development of the City of Toronto’s new 140 neighbourhoods, planners grouped demographically similar census tracts into larger “neighbourhoods.” Our name was chosen for two of the main streets which as boundaries to the community, and we were lumped with folks on the other side of the tracks – a long walk.

Now, mainly, when people ask where I live, I’ve learned to just give the nearest major intersection.

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June 21, 2009

Community hubs recommended for young and old

The same week the Pascal Report on the implementation of full-day kindergarten in Ontario was released, the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI) released a Call to Action on building age-friendly communities. Bracketing opposite ends of the life cycle, the reports shared some very similar recommendations.

Both reports emphasized the role and importance of community hubs and the integrated delivery of services. Pascal recommended that schools serve families and the broader spectrum of their needs, while the OPPI called in a series of recommendations for government services to be delivered locally and for seniors and children’s services to be co-located. Both also addressed expanded learning opportunities for each age group.

The reports underscore the point that a focus on place-based strategies aids those who are most needy and least mobile: the elderly, parents with strollers, newcomers with more limited social networks and low–income people who rely on transit.

The benefits of this strategy are also shared. As the former mayor of Bogotà, Columbia, eloquently explained about some of his innovative strategies:

“Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children we will have a successful city for all people.”

—Enrique Peñalosa to Yes Magazine

___

A few other praiseworthy notes on the report by Dr. Charles Pascal, the Premier’s Special Adviser to the Ontario Premier on Early Learning:

  • By addressing the entire 0—12 age range, Pascal affirmed that the introduction of full day kindergarten was not a panacea to the challenges that many children face (he cites Willms’ research estimates of up to 60% of all children are vulnerable). As, as economist James Hechman shows, early investment must be followed up to be effective [emphasis added].
  • Pascal also recognized and named the summer learning loss which occurs for most low–income kids. The opening of schools as community hubs should bridge some of that gap.

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June 11, 2009

Canadian Index of Wellbeing launched

Roy Romanow entered the room to waves of applause. The early morning crowd had grabbed a muffin or some fruit and were now visiting between tables as they waited for the early morning launch of the new Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW).

Annie Kidder from People for Education chatted with John Ralston Saul (who reminded Canadians recently of Peace, Order and Well-being). Wellesley’s Institute’s Michael Shapcott twittered about the event from the back. Three funders (United Way Toronto, Maytree Foundation and Toronto Community Foundation) sat together chatting with a reporter.

Researcher geeks from across the country clapped each other on the back and hugged. Activists were almost jovial. They were here to see the launch of a new tool which, as one speaker said, would set aside the measurement of wealth and economic growth for the measurement of happiness.

Romanow’s opening comment caught the sentiment of the moment, reminded all that the historic St. Lawrence Hall, where the launch was being held, was where some of the very fathers of Confederation had gathered in the 18o0s.

The CIW will cover 8  domains; yesterday, three of those categories were launched: Living Standards, Healthy Populations, and Community Vitality.

Reports on the other domains will emerge as they are prepared. They include:

When the Atkinson Foundation set out to introduce this measure, the task seemed unwieldy and ambitious. Yet workgroups were formed, academics were pulled in, and consultations had.

Today, the CIW is everything it needed to be.

Questioners after the presentation quickly saw its strengths, looking to see how the Index could be used for different geographies, different populations and to develop policy solutions.

Indeed, one of the wisest parts of the the new CIW’s inauguration, because it assures further sustainability, is the simultaneous launch of an Institute of Wellbeing, in association with the University of Waterloo and Social Innovation Generation.

The CIW has a real chance of making a meaningful impact on the way we see our communities. Bravo!

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June 11, 2009

A reminder: CIW requires rigor in its statistics

My favourite statistical test emerged out of one of consultations for the Canadian Index for Wellbeing (CIW):

The Chief Statistician of Newfoundland and Labrador, Alton Hollet, explained some of the rigorous testing used in the development of the province’s Community Accounts, which allows people to search for data about their local community. The user-friendly website is the best demographic profile tool in Canada.

After telling the story of how a few audience members had fallen asleep during the initial and very dry presentations of the Accounts, Hollett sternly warned the gathered experts that people must see their lives reflected in the statistics to be presented to them because “if you can’t see yourself in the mirror, how are you going to comb your hair?”

It’s a statistical test — and a laugh — that has stayed with me.

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June 5, 2009

Crime and social cohesion in Toronto neighbourhoods

Neighbourhood social cohesion has gotten some recent media attention in Toronto.

Presenting recently at 2009 Canadian Association of Geographers, Ryerson professor Sarah Thompson caught the attention of the National Post.

Co-author with Professor Rosemary Gartner, they have been able to map out “The spatial distribution of homicide in Toronto’s neighborhoods, 1988 – 2003” and to do some preliminary analysis on the difference between high homicide and low homicide neighbourhoods.

“Measures of neighborhood-level socio-economic disadvantage and the proportion of residents who were young males were the most consistent correlates of neighbourhood-level homicide counts,” according to their research.

At this point, more analysis is needed, however speculation on other reasons for the differences includes the level of community services available locally and the social cohesion in the neighbourhood.  It’s an exciting start.

United Ways Toronto and Peel are also bringing some attention to the issue of social cohesion. They’ve invited Garland Yates, a Senior Associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, to speak at their Annual General Meetings. He has been working with the United Way Toronto’s resident engagement project, Action for Neighbourhood Change, for the past three years.

CBC Metro Morning’s Andy Barrie interviewed him this week while he was in town. (The man does not mind getting up early when he travels, three mornings in a row.)

When pushed by Barry to move past the platitudes of “facilitating” and “enabling” and to explain what could be done to strengthen social networks, Yates rose to the challenge, explaining the messy and unorganized ways that social networks function and social cohesion builds:

“First of all…social networks are pretty organic…I remember when growing up my mother and others would do things for each other, like each other’s hair.

“I don’t think it is necessarily about creating [social networks], and we have to be careful, as well, not to overprofessionalize them.

“Where there are natural tendencies of people to relate and interact with each other…that relate to welfare and improvement of the neighbourhood, we ought to just encourage them.

“A kind of simplistic way of putting it is, is that if we have resources we should invest those resources in activities that get people to interact and not necessarily in a program structure.”

–CBC Metro Morning, June 3, 2009

Upon reflection, the implications of both these presentations call for further exploration of the role of community agencies in the strengthening of neighbourhoods. Community service agencies formalize the supports that used to have to be provided by social networks, yet, in our complex, densely-populated communities, neither can replace the other.

And speaking of the The National Post, it’s doing some great Toronto-focused profiles of the city:

  • A series since the beginning of May, Peter Kuitenbrouwer’s Walk Across Toronto has focused on the wide range of neighbourhoods outside the downtown (and predictable, as he terms it) city core.
  • A weekly series called Toronto, A to Z, profiling interesting corners of the city. They are up to the letter M now.
  • 95 (and counting) separate profiles entitled My Toronto by “famous” sons and daughters of the city.

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