Canada’s New Urban Crisis | Martin Prosperity Institute

Canada’s #NewUrbanCrisis by @Richard_Florida, @MartinProsperiT. #gentrification, rising inequality and increasingly unaffordable urban housing

Richard Florida: “In recent years, the young, educated, and affluent have surged back into cities, reversing decades of suburban flight and urban decline. And yet all is not well. The very the same forces that power the growth of our great cities have generated a New Urban Crisis of #gentrification, rising inequality, and increasingly unaffordable urban housing.

The New Urban Crisis is different from the older urban crisis of the 1960s and 1970s. That previous crisis was defined by the economic abandonment of cities and their loss of economic function. This New Urban Crisis is more all encompassing than its predecessor, hitting at both growing and declining cities as well as urban and suburban centres.

The New Urban Crisis is shaped by the fundamental contradiction brought on by urban clustering. On the one hand, the grouping of industry, economic activity, and talented and ambitious people in cities is the basic engine of innovation and economic growth. But, even as urban clustering drives growth, it carves deep divides into our cities and our society. As the affluent and advantaged return to cities, they colonize the best locations. Everyone else is then crammed into the remaining disadvantaged areas of the urban core or pushed farther out into the suburbs. … .”

http://martinprosperity.org/content/canadas-new-urban-crisis/