John Barber's column in today's Globe and Mail is about a study that confirms the obvious: Toronto has evolved into three cities: The wealthy, the poor -- and with middle incomers simply disappearing.

From the Globe: (paywalled; must be a Globe subscriber for the link to work)

The economic polarization of Toronto into distinct regions of great wealth and great poverty is even sharper than anecdotal reports suggest, according to University of Toronto researchers.

Using detailed census data to chart 30 years of change at the neighbourhood level, they have created a striking and disturbing new image of the city, one in which traditional mixed-income neighbourhoods are reduced to a mere buffer between an increasingly wealthy core and increasingly impoverished suburbs.

The observation is not new, but it has never been presented with such authority or drama as it is in the new analysis, titled The Three Cities within Toronto: Income Polarization among Toronto neighbourhoods, 1970-2000.

"All this frankly surprised us," said lead author David Hulchanski, director of the university's Centre for Urban and Community Studies. "We knew there was a shift. That's not new. We didn't know how dramatic it was."

Here's the U of T news release.

Here's the U of T's Centre for Urban and Community Studies.

Here's the study links:

Research bulletin (.pdf)

Maps and tables (.pdf)

Here's a snapshot of the Globe's front page from today:

If you look at the map, the darker red (City 3) shows areas where where residents' incomes have dropped by 20 per cent since 1970. The average household income there is 2000 was $54,800.

 The middle shade (City 1) is where incomes have increased by 20 per cent since 1970. The average household income there in 2000 was $126,000.

The lightest shade (City 2) is where income as increased or decreased by 20 per cent (there's no data for areas in grey). The average household income there is $64,500.

The graph on the lower right shows population by income group. The middle incomers formed 66 per cent of the population in 1970; by 2000, that had declined to 32 per cent.

The wealthiest comprised to 15 per cent of the population in 1970; that group only rose to 17 per cent in 2000.

Meanwhile, only one in five Torontonians were poor in 1970. By 2000, that rose to 50 per cent.

From the article:

The changing face of the city shows poverty surging northward while an increasingly affluent, overwhelmingly white elite holds the core. Postwar suburbia is in rapid decline.

Back in 1970, "inner city" nabes like Little Italy and whatnot used to be poor. About two years ago or so (about the time Starbucks* opened there), I started seeing people around Dovercourt and College that one would have more normally associated with the Beaches.

* This post has an interesting tidbit about Starbucks as a gentrification marker.

The owners of the Little Italy house where I used to live are representative of the new face of the nabe: In their 30s, well educated and affluent (the house sold for $325,000 in 2002, was reno'd and would probably go for more than $1 million today).

The old Italians who gave the nabe its name when they settled there in the 1950s and 1960s would never be able to afford to live there now.

"Money buys choice, so people with money ... are buying up certain neighbourhoods," Hulchanski told CBC Radio's Here and Now this afternoon. "The opposite is happening in the post-war suburbs."

As to why this is happening, he said this is happening as a result of economic trends but also social policy decisions by governments.

His study "maps the growing gap in income," he said, adding that results from the 2006 Census will likely show the trend continuing in the 2000-2006 period.