Toronto Real Estate and Neighbourhoods Blog | Move Smartly

Toronto Neighbourhoods Increasingly Defined by Schools

Urmi in Urban Issues, Lifestyle

Yesterday, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) approved a controversial proposal to open an alternative "Africentric" curriculum-focussed school in an attempt to combat an alarming 40% dropout rate amongst students of English-speaking Caribbean descent.  The win could be seen as a citizen victory, as a mother, Angela Wilson, and a community worker, Donna Harrow, originally brought the proposal forward.  Opening day will be September 2009; details as to curriculum, results-based targets and location are forthcoming.

Opinions were mixed amongst the trustees who ultimately approved the proposal.  Some unimaginatively took exception to the money - who will cover the estimated $850,000 required for the new facility?  Others were more forthcoming about policy concerns - is self-selected segregation really less harmful?  The debate picks up where a particularly volatile provincial election, largely defined by one candidate's positive stance towards publicly-funded alternative religious schooling, left off.

The school, when formally opened, will join 30 alternative schools already in existence in Toronto.  These schools have come to define their respective neighbourhoods, and there can be no doubt that this latest addition will do the same.  But it's not just religious and community schools that have become ultra-focussed. 

Recently, my chat with the mother of a soon-to-be teenager underscored the fact that a home buyer's search is often tethered to school quality and specialization - goals which are not restricted to the private domain.  Toronto's public high schools have increasingly taken the business of career prep seriously.  And serious means more specialized.  In a 2008-09 TDSB course selection guide for parents and students, aptly titled "Choices," familiar names - Georges Vanier SS and Albert Campbell CI - sit under the rather reticent banner of "Transportation Technologies."  With more pinpoint precision, Social Studies period has morphed into "Genocide: Historical and Contemporary Implications" and "World Geography: Urban Patterns and Interactions."

Whether public, private or alternative, Toronto's schools are increasingly distinct.  They offer diversity but along sharply drawn lines.  As schools define their own boundaries, the pressure to be in the "right" neighbourhood can only increase - can Toronto handle the momentum? 

For more on schools in the GTA area, visit Realosophy for local school and housing stats by neighbourhood.

Urmi Desai is an economic analyst and a freelance writer specializing in urban issues.  She is editor of the Move Smartly blog. Email Urmi

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Photo: Jarvis Collegiate Institute, Toronto

Unstoppable Drive: More Canadians Relying on Cars Today

Urmi in Urban Issues, Lifestyle

Stats Can's recent release, Dependence on Cars in Urban Neighbourhoods, reveals that car culture is alive and well in Canada - understandable to those that live the morning rush hour, daunting for those who wish to see this trend reversed.  The report, part of the Agency's Canadian Social Trends series, notes that overall levels of car dependency grew from 1992 to 2005 across Canada.

In this snapshot, 'dependency' generally means using the car for all trips in a single day.  Looking at the urban/suburban divide, the report confirms that there is a strong correlation between car dependency and living in low-density neighbourhoods (defined as areas in which 66.6% of dwellings are traditionally suburban - e.g., single, semi-detached or mobile homes).  Ditto for living further out from city centres.

Given that current growth plans put a high premium on high-density growth that promotes the use of public transit, you would think that we are only correcting mistakes of old.  Instead, rapidly sprawling cities of today such as Edmonton and Calgary are most car dependent - with 77% and 75% residents making all trips in a single day by car. In older, once bounded-by-water Montreal (see left), only 65% of residents indicate such usage.

 And it appears that it is hard to escape the destiny of that initial housing footprint.

Measuring Cities: Calgary Most 'Magnetic', Toronto Second

Urmi in Urban Issues, Lifestyle

In case you missed it last month, the Conference Board of Canada issued yet another headline-tailored missive, this one heralding a new report on which Canadian cities are most "attractive" to people.  From the executive summary (the full report is available for $2,400):

City Magnets: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of Canada’s CMAs gives an overview of how cities rank on the features that make Canadian cities attractive to skilled workers and mobile populations. A looming demographic crunch threatens to generate labour shortages in Canadian cities, so cities without the ability to act as magnets and attract new people will struggle to stay prosperous in the decades ahead. The full study uses report-card rankings of outcomes, or proxies for outcomes, to show how attractive our cities are to people. The performance of 27 census metropolitan areas is compared across seven different domains: Economy, Health, Society, Housing, Environment, Innovation, and Education. A second, less detailed analysis, also ranks Canada’s 27 CMAs against 27 U.S. cities.

The Board crowned Calgary the winning bachelor, with Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton, Victoria and Ottawa-Gatineau following behind (in that order).  But the contest's banner is a bit of a misnomer.  While purporting to be an overall assessment of a city's "attractiveness", the principle factor being measured is economic growth, i.e., 'where high-skilled people choose to go'.  As Blog TO puts it: "Calgary got top honours because oil is good for health, housing, the environment, education, innovation and society."

I have previously written about the questionable utility of ranking exercises conducted in or by the media, but I agree that they are fun to look at as a starting point for job hunting or HomeBuying research.  While I suspect that the Board's work may feature some confused variables at play, the findings are nonetheless interesting.  For one, they highlight the discrepancy between how an economist and a citizen might view the decisions we make - particularly when it comes to where we choose to live. 

A Winter's Lament for the City

Urmi in Urban Issues

I am grateful for the holidays, however bittersweet, and that all too brief opportunity to catch-up with a bright, wandering tribe I call my friends and family.  By year's end, we usually huddle over Dufflet's carrot cake, which my sister insists on buying for herself as a birthday insurance policy.  Because we found ourselves more settled in life than was expected by this year's cake, talk quickly turned to dizzier days.  Days when it seemed natural to live in Kinko's, cobbling together portfolios and applications – glorified scrapbooks of the schools, cities, careers, grown-up lives we haphazardly pursued, determinedly.

Of the programs completed around the table, the requirements for architecture stood out as particularly wide-ranging and rigorous – applied design and engineering or high art?  In spite of the emphasis given to artistry by many academic programs, our friend, a soon-to-be architect, explained that a lot of dreambooks are eventually swept away in a profession characterized by high stakes.  Perhaps this explains why I, like so many Torontonians, am often bewildered when I roam the city - a feeling that has only intensified during this unusually emphatic winter.  Is it money, or rather the expediency used to capture it, that has made so much of Toronto into something other than a winter wonderland? 

First, there is the issue of the snowy missile-in-waiting.  Recently, I tried to snap the miraculous escape of some of our fellow citizens – unsuspecting commuters who narrowly avoided being hit by a falling shelf of snow while exiting the PATH near Union Station.

It all happened too quickly (hint: look at the slippery curves up top and then at the white piles down below).  Perhaps the design culprit is dated whimsy or economical chicanery, but clearly, snow and domes should not be mixed outside the curio store.

Whither the Canadian Dream? Immigration, Homes and Toronto Neighbourhoods

Urmi in Toronto Real Estate News, Urban Issues, Lifestyle 

Some good news on the housing front for recent immigrants to Canada has me thinking about integration issues this week.  Not necessarily a good thing for the poor old mentality, because thinking on this front generally hurts the deeply-conditioned mind.  Pity Pavlov’s dogs. 

First, the housing news.  A new study released by Genworth Financial Canada, a mortgage default insurance provider, reveals that immigrants are prioritizing - and realizing -their dream of owning a home.  91% of recent immigrants polled in Canada's major cities (Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa) listed owning a home a top priority, with 54% successfully climbing onto the property ladder, in spite of challenges, within three years (on average) of coming to this country.  University of Alberta Professor Michael Haan, a leading expert on the immigrant homeownership experience in Canada, suggests that immigrants are able to persevere because they have more to prove psychologically: "Some international academic studies have strongly suggested that immigrants place a higher importance (than native-born residents) on homeownership, and that they have additional incentives for ownership, such as demonstrating success and permanency to themselves and others."  These stats are good news for those interested in Toronto's booming housing market and worried about potential real estate bubbles.  Tangible consumer demand fueled in part by immigration is made of stronger stuff than demand fueled by the frenzied speculation of investors. 

For those who hold that immigration is key to Canada's continued economic growth on other fronts, the recent Stats Canada release is also manna from heaven.  Almost 50% of the GTA's population is now foreign-born, moving Toronto ahead of New York and Los Angeles in the diversity sweepstakes.  The success that recent immigrants have enjoyed when it comes to buying a home no doubt contributes to the magnetism of Toronto.  During a debate held earlier this year, Toronto City Councilor Olivia Chow momentarily stymied her counterparts from New York, London and Sydney with her feisty pitch to young and talented would-be immigrants: move here and chances are you won't have to buy in the boondocks.  (The DVP, presumably, is purgatory of another kind.)  But Chow needn't underestimate the even farther flung.  Stats Can's latest 2006 Census data reveals that newer arrivals are flooding into the suburbs around Toronto, bypassing the once common stopover in the city's core.  Markham leads the way with 56.5% of residents foreign-born, with Richmond Hill and Mississauga close behind at 51%.

Toronto Moving Tips: Regifting, Reusing and Recycling Clutter

Urmi in Lifestyle

This week, I find myself having to confront old demons to prepare for a big move.  The New Year will find me simultaneously downsizing and upgrading to share a home with a wonderful partner.  While I'll be moving to a more spacious place, a purge is in order because showing up with boxes full of junk (including a mortifying CD collection that has taken to following me around) doesn't exactly say, "hello beloved one!"  (Neither does showing up with a Deepak Chopra book collection of the same name.)

This move around, I've decided to combine my yen for streamlining with the giving spirit of the festive season.  By planning months ahead of my actual move, I can avoid a last-minute dash for the dumpster (and EcoGuilt™) by choosing to regift, recycle and reuse wherever possible.  Whether you are planning to move now or soonish, you may want to take a similar approach to de-cluttering.  Here are some helpful services and ideas I've come across in the GTA:

The Distillery District: Historical Toronto or EuroArt Disneyland?

Urmi in Toronto Neighbourhoods, Urban Issues

I particularly enjoyed reading Jesse's take on the history and future promise of the Distillery District this week, since I've been wondering about this neighbourhood as well.  I, like Jesse, am excited to see a piece of Toronto's history preserved rather than merely lamented.  But, at the risk of sounding impatient, I have some misgivings about the Distillery's developmental trajectory as it currently stands. 

Now, it's not the 'condos going up on artifacts' thing that bothers me.  I am not one to oppose building on history in some misguided attempt to keep things 'sacred', which in the sociocultural realm of North America, all too often means keeping things dead and preserved in underutilized museums.  No, I believe that finding new reasons to visit old things makes a whole lot of sense.  So revitalizing this beautifully historic area is a no-brainer.

However, I do wonder if the District will be home to the right mix of residential, commercial and social establishments to make it sufficiently lively.  Developers have gone to great (and commendable) lengths to make the arts and art studios a principle draw of the area.  But too much drawing makes Jack a dull boy.  As dedicated Jacobins (not to be confused with their equally militant French counterparts) know all too well - a neighbourhood that is not frequented at most hours of the day and night, day in and day out, is a neighbourhood in danger of becoming unsafe and unpopular.  But given that I have visited the District on many a weekend now, either to take in a play, eat or drink, I'll allow that as more office spaces are taken up and condos are completed, the 'mix' may evolve into something with more persistent magnetism (after all, Chekhov can pull you into the old neighbourhood only so many times).

But even if the District evolves, will it ever drop that rather dismaying veneer of 'themed amusement park' it has so unfortunately taken on?  Take for example the ubiquitous signs that dot the place (see left).  While a bit of useful sign posting, perhaps for the benefit of frazzled theatre-goers making a last minute dash before the curtains open is in order, these signs are clearly out-of-control.  One of the primary reasons we live in bustling urban spaces is for the sense of adventure it affords us, which is somehow undermined by the notion of clearly planned and regulated pit stops.

Toronto Revisits Development Fees to Pay for City's Needs

Urmi in Toronto Real Estate News

Nice to know that my spidey-sense is more than a caffeine-induced health emergency.  At the start of this week, I was curious as to why developers supported the introduction of the new Toronto land transfer tax - an act of concerned citizenship or something more?

Unlike our fellow urban enthusiasts at spacing toronto (the franchise also known as spacing wire), who excitedly welcomed the developers' turnaround, we demurred.  While we have the same crush on Jane Jacobs, we recognize that policy analysis is an exacting art.  Or an annoying tic.  In either case, persistence is the key. We wanted to take a closer look at the numbers behind the words. 

I had a hunch that developers deemed the tax to be a better option than those discussed behind closed doors - did this have anything to do with the charges that developers pay when they build shiny new things, I wondered?  It was high time we built a conspiracy.  Trouble was, it was hard to get firm figures on what developers pay around the GTA (we're still on the case).  In the meantime, it turns out that the City isn't comfortable with the numbers they do have - on Monday, Council Executive Committee asked staff to "expedite" a study to update development charges.  And yesterday, the Toronto Star got into some numbers. 

Editor's Inbox: More on Toronto's New Land Transfer Tax, HomeOwner's Energy Audits

Urmi in Toronto Real Estate News 

Ever since I learned that developers threw in their lot with Mayor Miller, who led Toronto City Council in voting for new taxes on Monday (read Rachel's first-hand account), I have been obsessed with a single thought: "what's in it for them?"  While news coverage has detailed the hows, it hasn't elucidated on all the whys.

Now, I don't believe that developers are heinous beings - just rational economic creatures.  (That being said, I am tempted to revisit the 'heinous' angle whether I spot those tepid turquoise condos that seem to languish in sprawlburbia, sustained only by the dream of retirement in Florida.) My confusion stems from the fact that Monday's tax 'comprise' extended the first-time home buyers exemption, originally proposed for new construction purchases, to include resale purchases.  This is how the tax is being reported on the City's website, with more details to be provided at the Executive Committee meeting on October 29th. This compromise seems to reduce the advantage that the house building industry might have enjoyed.  Plus, a new tax on land transfer means more tax on the industry's primary input, no? 

Derek Raymaker, writing in yesterday's Globe, suggests one reason for the builders' acquiescence - satiation.  He reminds us that the $2,000 rebate offered to first-time buyers purchasing new construction (under the provincial land transfer tax scheme) was the result of strong industry lobbying.

Even with a break for first-time HomeBuyers, the City's new tax move could undermine the planning vision that so many of us were just getting into - high-density, compact, green core living (read my previous post on this subject). Answering his own question - "Will Toronto's new tax fuel 905 sprawl?" - Raymaker suggests that we might see the GTA revert to type thanks to a shift in industry and consumer incentives. Here is his take on consumer effects:

One [effect of the new tax] is that young families on their second or third purchase looking to repatriate back to Toronto from the affordable suburbs aren't going to bother at this point.

If they've been single-detached homeowners in Mississauga, Richmond Hill or Pickering for the last five years, they will have probably racked up a 20-to-30-per-cent appreciation in the value of their home.

That's a lot of equity, but considering the elevated cost of a similar house in most pockets of Toronto, these buyers would have to have put a big dent in their current mortgage to make the move worth it

...

Tract housing subdivisions in the outer suburbs, such as Aurora, Newmarket and Milton, are likely to see an increase in buyer interest thanks to the tax — namely from those who want to avoid it.

After assessing a similar industry shift, Raymaker ends with these words:

Could it be that Toronto council's tax-gouging ways — spurred by the do-goodery of the left-wing majority — will inadvertently give one last gasp of oxygen to the tract-housing developments that have scarred a wide swatch of the 905 region since the 1960s?

This forecast is dismaying, but it is early days yet.  We'll need to measure the impact of this tax over time.

_________

Hot on the heels of Jesse's second post on making your home eco-friendly, the Globe discusses energy audits in "This drafty old house."  Happy footprint reducing.

Urmi Desai is an economic analyst and a freelance writer specializing in urban issues.  She is editor of the Move Smartly blog.

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Bejeweled Phantoms: Will Foreign Investors Accelerate Gentrification in Toronto?

Urmi in Urban Issues, Toronto Real Estate News

A Bay St. heavyweight's startling prediction for Toronto's real estate market will worry HomeBuyers looking to become a part of the city's core, unless you are a visiting oil czar.  Under a rather ominous title, "Silent Money Pours into Toronto," Dr. Sherry Cooper, Executive Vice-President at BMO Nesbitt Burns, reports on Toronto's increasing propensity for attracting foreign capital to its downtown luxury condos and hotels.  Wealthy investors from Russia to Hong Kong are looking to diversify their assets away from the U.S., and Toronto - with its pricey Bloor St. baubles and tendency to bore terrorists - makes for a perfect acquisition.

Photo credit: FORT Architect Inc.

Cooper is frank in assessing implications.  The City of Toronto would benefit as its tax base grows to include rich buyers - enter the new land transfer tax here.  At least one astute urban issues observer, Wendy Walters, doubts whether this expanded tax base would be enough.  Existing HomeOwners in the core would see properties appreciate even more.  Cooper argues that gentrification - the nightmare of city dwellers in New York, London and Vancouver - may follow.  Torontonians have long preserved their dignity by dismissing upwardly-mobile acquaintances in glamorous locales as life-long renters or even worse - forced suburbanites.  We now have the opportunity to live the same dream.

Cooper consigns her micro-trend spotting to the anecdotal file, since Statistics Canada does not track these more nuanced investment flows.  Walters wonders if the forecast is exaggerated.  Look for numbers soon - only this week, a Globe and Mail researcher contacted our team at Realosophy to talk gentrification.  Taking Cooper's observations as valid for now, I add three of my own.