Saturday, August 14, 2010

Why Rob Ford's target demographic will go extinct, and why this is sad

I've been wondering for some time why people choose to live in Toronto when they clearly don't want to live in a major city (e.g. they prioritize driving over public transit, they want big yards and driveways and oppose density and intensification, etc.) I've also been wondering why Toronto mayoral candidate Rob Ford wants to be mayor of Toronto when he clearly doesn't want Toronto to be Toronto.

This article explains it. The people who live in 416 and but don't want to live in Toronto moved to 416 when their part of the city wasn't part of Toronto. They didn't choose to live in Toronto, they didn't want to live in Toronto. They wanted to live in a non-Toronto location that was nevertheless near Toronto. (We'll call this "para-Toronto"). So they looked at a map and chose Etobicoke, or North York, or East York, or Scarborough. One of the places that was outside, but near to, the area marked as "Toronto". Then amalgamation happened in 1998, and they found themselves part of Toronto. They didn't want this. In fact, they took specific measures to avoid it by moving somewhere that was outside of Toronto. They don't want to be part of Toronto, so they support the candidate who doesn't want Toronto to be Toronto.

The thing is, people who moved here after amalgamation (i.e. in the last 12 years) and want to live in para-Toronto aren't going to chose the inner suburbs. They're going to look at the map, see all of 416 labeled as "Toronto", think "Well, I want to live slightly outside of Toronto," and choose Mississauga or Brampton or Richmond Hill. So while before amalgamation the inner suburbs were populated with people who aspire to para-Toronto, since 1998 the vast vast majority of new residents have been people who aspire to a major city, simply because if they didn't aspire to a major city, they would have moved somewhere that isn't marked "Toronto" on the map.

The other issue is that newcomers who end up in the inner suburbs are less likely to have the inner suburbs be their first choice. After all, they've chosen the area marked on the map as "Toronto", so they most likely aspire to the lifestyle of a major city. They want easy access to public transit and all the conveniences of density, so they're more likely to want to live in higher-density areas of the city, closer to major transit routes. The inner suburbs are most likely an economic compromise. Therefore, new residents of the inner suburbs are more likely to embrace changes that make the inner suburbs more urban, while the old guard is likely to remain opposed to such things.

These unwilling Torontonians also complain that downtown gets a lot more resources and attention. If this is true (I don't have enough knowledge of the situation to know if it's truth or perception - there's a lot of data in the article but it's incomplete), it's possible that new residents wouldn't mind this, because they're more oriented towards downtown. I know when something awesome happens downtown, I myself think "YAY, something awesome in my city!" So the inner suburb old guard's voices are going to keep getting diluted until they all move away and die out. They're going extinct, all because their territory was relabeled on the map.

And what sucks for the inner suburban old guard is they, and all the other citizens involved, have all made perfectly reasonable life decisions. It was perfectly reasonable for people seeking a para-Toronto lifestyle before 1998 to choose Etobicoke. It's perfectly reasonable for people seeking a para-Toronto lifestyle now to not think of Etobicoke and choose Mississauga. It's perfectly reasonable for people who want to live in a major city to choose Toronto. It's perfectly reasonable for people who have chosen their place of residence for its urbanism to support further urbanization, and it's perfectly reasonable for people who have chosen their place of resident specifically for its non-urbanism to oppose further urbanization.

I'm everything the inner suburban old guard loathes. I'm a staunch urbanite who loves the high-density carfree lifestyle so much she's willing to pay for the privilege. However, even though they don't like the quality of life to which I aspire, they must agree that I am carrying it out sensibly. I like urban life, so I move smack dab in the middle of Canada's largest city. Perfectly sensible. I like urban life, so I vote for things that will make my corner of the world even more urban. Perfectly sensible.

It's just unfortunate that a stroke of a pen over a decade ago by politicos that none of us even voted for are dragging them along for the ride against their will.

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