Wellesley Institute

Wellesley Institute works in research and policy to improve health and health equity in the GTA through action on the social determinants of health.

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Wellesley Institute

Toronto – City of Disparities

Toronto is no longer a “city of neighbourhoods” but has become a “city of disparities”. That is a key finding of powerful new research from the University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban and Community Studies. The “City of Disparities” research bulletin, The Three Cities Within Toronto: Income Polarization among Toronto’s Neighbourhoods, 1970 – 2000, and media realease set out the dramatic growth in income gaps over the past three decades – as the rich get richer, the poor grow more numerous and the middle-income shrink. Set together on one page, four maps chart the grim progress towards a grossly inequitable city. This research confirms and builds on earlier research from TD Economics, which marks growing poverty in Toronto, and the United Way of Greater Toronto which confirms this critical trend.

Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We wish to acknowledge this land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

Revised by the Ceremonial Committee at the University of Toronto Office of Indigenous Initiatives in April 2021.