Introduction Toronto holds the title for being Canada’s most populated cities, as of 2022, the total population for the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) is just over 6 million (City of Toronto, 2023). In the GTA alone, roughly 320,460 individuals are between the ages of 15 – 24. When you think, “Toronto”, most think, “diversity” and this holds true as 51% of Toronto’s population are born outside of Canada and are a part of a visible minority group. Toronto is highly diverse, highly populated, and holds unique clusters of neighbourhoods with specific characteristics and needs. We want to examine what policies and supports are in place to meet the needs of such a fast-growing and dynamic city. To examine this, we focus on recreation and community centers in the City of Toronto. Community centers are important for fostering a sense of belonging, community, civic engagement and enhancing the quality of life for residents. These spaces are multi-purposeful, they provide a range of activities and services from recreational activities, community gathering and other programs and services to meet the needs of its local community. We aim to find whether there is a connection between where recreation/community centres in Toronto reside, why they exist in certain areas, or the absence of a community and recreation centers in other parts of Toronto. Toronto holds 158 social planning neighbourhoods, each with its own history and complex blend of social, physical and psychological characteristics that have prominent effects on its residents overall well-being. That being said, are community and recreation centers strategically placed throughout the city for all neighbourhoods? Or do some areas have more than others? If so, why? We hypothesize that more recreation and community centers reside in areas with greater proportion of underrepresented groups, (e.g., immigrants, visible minority, or youth), and greater level of income inequality within neighbourhoods or boroughs. For this analysis we are only focusing on income distribution and the concentration of youth across Toronto. MethodologyFor our map, we first chose to define Toronto on a smaller scale. Our map does not include the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), instead focusing only on the City of Toronto. This includes Scarborough, Downtown Toronto, East York, North York, York, and Etobicoke. This was done to gain a good spread of the city from the east to west end, and to capture more urban areas rather than suburban neighbourhoods, say pickering, for example. The data points for our map were sourced from Google Maps, through a search for “community and recreation centres in Toronto”. This was applied for all the boroughs listed above. We also search the City of Toronto’s website for a list of community and recreation centres. We chose to examine both community centers and recreation centres as the only difference between the two is that the latter has a slightly more recreational purpose, versus a more social one that a community centre offers. The map is colour-coded based on the title of the organization. If an establishment had only the word “community” it was red; both “community” and “recreation” in the title, it was categorized as purple, only “recreation” in the title was categorized as blue, and if it had neither term, it was considered “other” and mapped as green. This was done simply to enhance the optics of the map. Our map did not include any senior focused centres and did not include the YMCA, we also excluded any community or recreation centre listed on the City of Toronto’s website that is now closed. Going forward, for the spatial analysis we will refer to all community and recreation centre’s as “Centres” Spatial Analysis This map reveals a total of 115 Centres spanning across the West to East end of Toronto. We predicted that majority of community and recreation centres would reside in Downtown Toronto and the east end of the city, specifically Scarborough. Our results below, hold our predictions true. The further out you move from the core of Toronto, the sparser the Centres become. Our immediate observations find that there is minor clustering present in the downtown region and Scarborough region of Toronto. Centres that describe themselves as “recreation” only in title, are evenly distributed across the city. There is a large gap in the centre of the map near the north and east York region. We further explore what may explain this gap. An immediate notice on our map is that the distribution of centres takes on a wide “U” shape across the city. With a large absence in the top centre above the downtown area, close to North York. Clusters form near East York and Scarborough Village, and in the downtown region. To examine further we first looked at income distribution across the city to see whether there is any connection between where Centres reside and income distribution. As displayed on the map above, we compared our map with a map that examines the Average Household Income distribution across Toronto (Figure 1) and the Average Individual Income (Figure 2). In Figure 1, the red shading highlights Average Individual Incomes less than $75,000 and the shades of blue represent an income of $100,000 and above. The three main areas that have a large coverage of blue are at the centre of Toronto, near North York, the very east of Toronto, Pickering, and the very west of Toronto, Etobicoke. In Figure 2, the red shading represents an average individual income of about $50,000 and less, with the beige representing $50,000 to $65,000. The three yellow boxes on the map above (Figure 3) represent the three minor clusters we identified from our map. The sparser areas located outside of the map coincide with the blue shading from the map above. Although this pattern is present, we do not know for certain if the two are correlated, rather it is a surface-level observation. Additionally, the three clusters identified below align with the general concentration of where individuals with lower incomes reside. We now wonder if these Centres were strategically placed in areas where individuals may require further support or resources. When comparing all three maps, a pattern does exist that supports our predictions on Centre placements. The clustering of Centres tends to be in areas with lower income levels, for example Scarborough Village, and interestingly, at the corner west of North York and above Etobicoke, an area we did not predict. Figure 5 presents Centres that provide Enhanced Youth Spaces (EYS), as defined by the City of Toronto’s website, these spaces are open to youth five to six days a week, the spaces include Wi-Fi, gaming, TV, pool tables, foosball tables, study spaces, activity labs such as photography, barbering, hairstyling, DJing, yoga, nails, and the like. These programs are offered in several Centres and are mapped in the yellow dots. While they are evenly spread out, they do cluster more in the west and southwest end of the city. In the east end they are within the Scarborough village cluster where majority of the Centres reside. To further examine why these Centres and EYS are in specific areas we looked at the concentration of youth aged 15 – 24 years old across Toronto neighbourhoods. The figure below identifies Bay-Cloverhill, Yonge-Bay Corridor and York University Heights as the three areas with the highest percentage of youth. The map above describes the Bay-Cloverhill and Yonge-Bay Corridor, this area alone has a good variance of Centres, evenly spaced out, and includes two Centres that run EYS. The map below represents the following neighbourhoods: York-University Heights, West-Humber Claireville, and Mount Olive-Silverstone Jamestown and while, again, sparsely distributed, the neighbourhood includes four Centres offering EYS and on the west of it multiple Centres within a close proximity from one another. It’s important to note, however, that some of these neighbourhoods are also in close proximity to a university, this may explain the higher percentage of youth residing in these neighbourhoods. Conclusion Our spatial analysis examined community and recreation centres across Toronto, and its relationship with income distribution, and concentration of youth across the city. The areas of Toronto with a higher number of community and recreation centre were Scarborough, Downtown Toronto, and some pockets in North York. with respect to income distribution, we found that areas where average individual income and average household incomes were lower ($50,000 and under) there were more community and recreation centres present. There are spaces across our map with little to no Centres present, these areas tend to be neighbourhoods with higher income distribution, for example the Bridle Path community. There are almost no community centres in or around that neighbourhood. One final map we would like to explore in our conclusion is another map that represents the location of average incomes throughout Toronto. Earlier we analyzed a map representing average incomes in 2020, the map below represents neighbourhoods that have an average income a certain percentage above the census metropolitan average (CMA). Very high and high incomes represent having an average income 40% and 20 – 40 %above the CMA, represented in blue stripes. Very low and low income is represented by the opposite, these neighbourhoods have an average income that is more than 40% below the CMA, or 20 – 40% lower than the CMA. The trends for the map shown in Figure 9, and the one representing the 2020 averages (Figures 1 and 2) are similar. There is a slight decrease in wealthier neighbourhood/individuals in the map representing 2020. What would be interesting to further investigate is the distribution of Centres across Toronto in 2000. Would we see similar trends? Would they be spaced out the same way our map indicates? Food for thought Another possible explanation for the trends is the role of government. While a neoliberalist form of governing took wave in the early 1980s, political power does greatly affect the existence of the Centres and its location. Ontario was governed by the Progressive Conservative (PC) between 1995 and 2002 and shifted away from a neoliberal approach of governing. Dramatic cuts were for welfare benefits, there was a reduction in social service workers, and an altogether rearrangement in municipal and provincial power and fewer social services. We can assume that we would therefore see fewer Centres across the city at the time, with more introduced when Ontario was under a Liberal government Funding for Centres are not easy to attain and must be worth the investment. What makes Lawrence Heights more in need of multiple community centres than bridle path? Is it wealth, like what we investigated? Proportion of youth? Immigration levels? crime rates? All of these are possible explanations for why more Centres are present in certain areas in comparison to others and require further research. Citations Allen J. (2002). Wealth inequalities and poverty concentration in Toronto. School of Cities. City of Toronto (2023). Association of Community Centres. City of Toronto (2023). Youth & Recreation. David Hulchanski, J. (2007). The Three Cities within Toronto: income polarization among Toronto neighbourhoods, 1970-2000. Centre for Urban & Community Studies. Siciliano, A. M. (2010). Policing poverty race, space and the fear of crime after the Year of the Gun (2005) in suburban Toronto (Vol. 72, Issue 7). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. City of Toronto (2022). 2021 Census: Age, sex at birth and gender, and type of dwelling. https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/92e3-City-Planning-2021-Census-Backgrounder-Population-Dwellings-Backgrounder.pdf By: Zohal Qadir, Hoasheng Shang, Aditya Shiv Talwar, Sinim Kokhar, Michael Goday, Mengting Fan
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Introduction In Canada, Toronto is most known for its diversity. The city hosts many different ethnic backgrounds worldwide, resulting in various types of foods and expansive cuisine. Our interest in the topic of restaurants came from our collective love of diverse food and cultural markets. Based on the wide diversity of restaurants in the city of Toronto, we hoped to find the multitude of similarities and differences of the cuisines offered in the Greater Toronto Area that would explain the rationale for the most expensive and cheapest food. Our goal is to examine why restaurants exist in specific locations with certain thresholds of what constitutes expensive and cheap in the city. As well our spatial analysis is key to determining why or why not restaurants cluster together in spatial locations. Our hypothesis was that based on spatial location, more expensive restaurants would be located in the downtown area and that cheaper restaurants would be spread out more sporadically across the GTA. Methodology The collection of our research data was conducted using the web applications of Yelp and blogTo. We used the filter of dollar signs of the lowest on Yelp being one dollar sign for the cheapest and the highest being four dollars signs for the most expensive for selecting restaurants, as well as using the reviews on the site to indicate that the restaurants were either cheap or expensive, these were our two metrics used. We continued to cross reference our research through the website of blogTO that confirmed the top ten cheapest and expensive restaurants in the city that indicated similarities between both sites being used that restaurants being expensive or cheap were listed as the same based on the price and ratings. Thus this verified that our metric for distinguishing expensive versus cheap restaurants were comparable on both the web applications of Yelp and blogTO. Additionally, we used the top rated reviews on each yelp review to confirm if the ratings were objectively expensive or cheap.We then decided to compile the top 100 restaurants using the metrics of price and ratings to make our list of both types of restaurants in the city of what we constituted an establishment to be generally cheap or expensive on our scale. With Toronto being the most populous and diverse city in Canada it made sense to set our boundaries with our research within the GTA strictly. In terms of defining what the Greater Toronto Area is, we focused on the Peel Region, York Region, Durham Region, and City of Toronto. To be more specific about these regions when looking at our maps, we found that there were a lot of expensive and cheap restaurants in Downtown Toronto, Scarborough, Markham, and Mississauga. This is how we narrowed down our selection process for the restaurants in our research. With our 100 restaurants now picked, 50 are labeled as expensive and the other 50 are labeled as cheap. They are distinguishable based on colored markers on the map. The top 50 expensive restaurants are marked by the color green, and the top cheap restaurants are marked by the color red. Most Popular Expensive vs Cheapest Food in Toronto Analysis The data results reveal that the most popular restaurants are located in downtown Toronto. We initially made the assumption that spatial location would differ based on cuisine and price range, but our hypothesis was incorrect according to our set of cases which consist of 100 restaurants. Of the 100 restaurants, 50 were the popular expensive restaurants and the other 50 were the popular cheap restaurants. Cheap & Expensive ( Green = Expensive, Red = Cheap ) Our maps showcase the sporadic but mostly limited markers of restaurants that cluster in downtown Toronto. We were able to narrow down in our spreadsheet the top types of restaurants in the expensive category being Steakhouses, Italian, and Canadian cuisine; with the top types of restaurants in the cheap category being Chinese, Mexican, and Korean cuisine. There could be many factors that contribute to the reasoning for a cluster of restaurants in Downtown. Downtown Toronto is known to be the home of many tourist attractions, social spots, and festivals, which draws large crowds. Restaurants benefit from the marketing and media attention that all of these attractions produce.The larger crowds increase the chance of more customers leaving positive reviews for restaurants. The attractions and diversity of downtown creates creative locations and themes for restaurants which also bring business, ranking them as the most popular restaurants in Toronto. Map of Cheapest Restaurants The picture above shows the 50 cheapest restaurants located in the GTA. Although we included boundaries in the GTA, some restaurants are spread out while most are located downtown Toronto. As pictured, the layout of this map showcases that cheaper restaurants seem to be slightly more spread out in the GTA, with some restaurants being closer to Markham, Vaughan, and Mississauga. But the majority of the restaurants cluster in downtown Toronto with a wide range clustering in the Scarborough East York region. Map of Expensive Restaurants The picture above shows the 50 most expensive restaurants located in the GTA. Although we included boundaries in the GTA, most restaurants are spread out in downtown Toronto, with some outliers in other regions. As pictured, the layout of this map showcases that expensive restaurants seem to be slightly more spread out in the city of Toronto, with some restaurants being closer to North York, Etobicoke, Scarborough and Mississauga. But the majority of the restaurants cluster in downtown Toronto highlighting our original hypothesis that spatially more expensive restaurants would cluster in this area. Looking back at these three maps, we can see the influence of the culture theory. Culture theory is a rhetoric that explains the way in which markets work because they are backed by social beings, and it promotes development in group relationships over individualism. A key part of this theory is that there is a focus on contexts and value systems and how economies are strengthened by larger cultures in which they are located. Essentially taking away ethnocentric bias from an individual's cultural conditioning. The relation to our research area is that the way in which Toronto’s demographic is broken up in socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity has direct correlation to the cluster of where restaurants are located and which types of restaurants make up the majority in certain regions. Culture theory explains the importance of individuals in a society who have their individual ideas, beliefs and values. Social beings have a large influence when it comes to markets and they function. This theory evaluates how certain situations are related to ethnicity, social class, gender, etc. It also helps us understand and minimize ethnocentric bias from one's conditioning. In relation to our research, it helps us look at our own perceptions of cultural conditioning when we look at where these restaurants are located. We’re paying attention to different group environments and their cuisines that are spatially located in specific areas, whereas expensive food could be located in just one area. Culture clusters is another theory that this research sheds light on. Culture clusters occur when an environment or small area is populated with restaurants, shops, or infrastructures that incorporate a common theme or culture. When analyzing the location of the cheapest restaurants we found that many restaurants of similar and diverse cuisines were located near one another, outside of the Downtown core. Culture cluster theory suggests that these clusters assist business to gain attention by creating a familiar environment for communities that identify with that culture;this would explain the spatial analysis and give reason to why certain types of restaurants of different prices and ethnic cuisines are spatially located more so in specific areas. The restaurants that are clustered together may have gained popularity through culture clustering as they do not have the luxury of lively crowds constantly flowing through downtown. This information would be useful to understand the importance of creating familiar environments for people of different ethnicities or passions. Other examples of culture clustered are little Italy, Chinatown, the distillery district which represents culture of the arts.We predict that the culture cluster of restaurants located outside the downtown core may be in the beginning phases of becoming well known culture clusters such as these. Concluding Thoughts Through our spatial analysis and the observation of our research we were able to find that our hypothesis was true that we were able to find more expensive restaurants clustered mostly in downtown Toronto, with cheaper restaurants having a more sporadic spatial analysis in the GTA. In relation to our theories of culture and cluster we were able to discern relations of cultural significance in the spatial locations of the restaurants in our research. We believe that these different types of restaurants across the GTA have an impact on the cultural markets and its competition. As shown in the Cheap & Expensive map, a lot of different types of restaurants reside in the City of Toronto downtown area. Since downtown Toronto is a high tourist attraction, restaurants adhere to the competitive market and do what's best to meet the culture diversity. References: Avilés Ochoa, E., & Canizalez Ramírez, P. M. (2018). Cultural Industries and spatial economic growth a model for the emergence of the creative cluster in the architecture of Toronto. City, Culture and Society, 14, 47–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2018.03.001 Best+Cheap+eats Toronto, on - last updated September 2022. Yelp. (n.d.). Retrieved September 2022, fromhttps://www.yelp.ca/search?find_desc=best%2Bcheap%2Beats&find_loc=Toronto%2C%2BON&attrs=RestaurantsPriceRange2.1 Fine+Dining+restaurants Toronto, on - last updated September 2022. Yelp. (n.d.). Retrieved September 2022, from https://www.yelp.ca/search?find_desc=fine%2Bdining%2Brestaurants&find_loc=Toronto%2C%2BON&attrs=RestaurantsPriceRange2.4&start=10 Searching within restaurants for best+cheap+eats Toronto, on. Yelp. (n.d.). Retrieved September 2022, from https://www.yelp.ca/search?find_desc=best%2Bcheap%2Beats&find_loc=Toronto%2C%2BON&attrs=RestaurantsPriceRange2.1&cflt=restaurants Serrat, O. (2008). Culture theory. Knowledge Solutions, 22–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0983-9_7 Staff. (2018, August 5). The 10 most expensive restaurants in Toronto. blogTO. Retrieved September 2022, https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2014/01/the_10_most_expensive_restaurants_in_toronto/ Submitted By:
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