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Article Excerpt
Bien que l'afflux d'immigrants appartenant a des minorites visibles ait cree un climat de diversite et de multiculturalisme dans trois des principales portes d'entree au Canada, a savoir Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, il n'en reste pas moins que cet afflux a aussi produit des paysages metropolitains de fragmentation et separation ethniques. L'objectif de cette etude est de comparer les modeles residentiels des populations minoritaires visibles de Montreal, Toronto et Vancouver; pour ce, nous avons utilise une methodologie rigoureuse qui examine la nature de cette segregation, du point de vue temporel et spatial ainsi que ses liens avec les caracteristiques des habitats locaux. L'article fait une recension des ecrits portant sur les modeles de separation urbaine, ainsi que sur la segregation des minorites ethniques et visibles. II developpe quatre propositions concernant les modules residentiels et les concentrations de minorites visibles anticipes. L'article verifie ces propositions a partir de l'analyse des donnees du recensement des annees 1986, 1991 et 1996, dans lesquelles les modeles residentiels etaient etudies et mis en rapport avec la distribution des differents types d'habitat. Nos conclusions confirment les resultats de recherches anterieures sur la fragmentation et la dispersion, mais devoilent en meme temps des differences cruciales entre les villes.
Mots-cles: minorites visible, segregation ethniques, portes d'entree, habitats
Introduction
Canadian residents of non-European origin, or `visible minorities', may soon constitute a majority in Toronto and Vancouver (Samuel 1988; Chard and Renaud 1999; Hiebert 1999; Ley 1999). The influx of visible minority immigrants has created an atmosphere of diversity and multiculturalism in Canada's three major gateway cities, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver; but immigration has also produced metropolitan landscapes of fragmentation and ethnic separation (Bourne et al. 1986; Bourne 1989; Doucet 1999; Hiebert 1999). The objective of this study is to compare the residential patterns of visible minority populations in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Thus this paper complements recent studies on the spatial separation and distribution of visible minority immigrants in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver (Ray 1998, 1999; Archambault et al. 1999; Chard and Renaud 1999; Doucet 1999; Driedger 1999; Hiebert 1999). What needs to be added to these previous studies, however, is a comparison between all three cities using a rigorous and consistent method that examines the temporal and spatial nature of segregation and its links to local housing characteristics.
In the first part of the paper we review the literature on models of urban separation, and ethnic and visible minority segregation in Canadian cities. Based on this literature we develop four propositions regarding expected residential patterns and concentrations of visible minorities in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. In the second part, we test these propositions using an analysis of 1986, 1991 and 1996 Census data, in which we examine residential patterns in the three cities, and relate these patterns to the distribution of different types of housing. Our findings confirm previous research results of fragmentation and dispersal (Balakrishnan 1982; Sharpe 1985; Bourne et al. 1986; Mercer 1988; Bourne 1989; Doucet 1999), but we uncover decisive differences between cities.
Visible Minorities and Ethnic Residential Separation
Visible Minorities and Gateway Cities
The Canadian Employment Equity Act of 1986 defines "members of visible minorities" as "persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour" (Department of Justice Canada 2000). In 1987, Balakrishnan and Kralt (1987, 138-139) reported that the "... Secretary of State for Multiculturalism has tentatively defined ten groups as visible minorities, including Blacks, Indo-Pakistanis, Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Ethnic Filipinos, Pacific Islanders, Lebanese, and Arabic." A decade later, the 1996 Census designates Chinese, South Asian, Black, Arab/West Asian, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Latin American, Japanese, Korean and Pacific Islander as visible minority categories. We acknowledge that the visible minority category is socially constructed, and we are aware of the risk of reproducing racialised ideology by positioning non-European residents opposite to an `invisible' European-origin population (Steinberg 1981; Smith 1989; Kobayashi and Peake 1994; Sibley 1995; Ang and Stratton 1996; Hage 1998). Yet, precisely because visible minorities are racialised in everyday life and in political discourse, it is important to understand what residential circumstances and what kind of segregation processes these groups confront, and how these circumstances and processes vary between different metropolitan contexts.
The growth of the visible minority population in recent decades is related to changes in Canadian immigration legislation in the 1960s that enabled more non-Europeans to settle in Canada (Samuel 1988; Kelly and Trebilock 1998). Ley (1999) summarises several trends of recent immigration. First, increasing numbers of immigrants enter Canada. Throughout the 1990s, with the exception of 1998, annual immigration was above 200,000, higher than in any previous decade (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 1999). Second, higher proportions of immigrants come from non-European, mostly Asian, origin countries. Third, skilled-worker and business-class immigration constitutes a growing percentage of total immigration. In 1998, for instance, roughly two-thirds of all immigrants were economic (i.e. skilled worker and business class) immigrants (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 1999).
In 1998, 71.2 percent of these immigrants settled in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 1999). These three cities are Canada's gateway cities, not only in regard to trade and investment but also with respect to transnational labour and migration flows (Sassen 1988; Waldinger 1989; Lin 1998). Despite their common gateway role in the urban system, the three cities are destinations for quite different immigrant groups and entry classes (Ley 1999). In addition, different historical circumstances have produced varying ecological patterns in the three cities (Driedger 1999). Furthermore, minorities and immigrants probably confront varying degrees of racism and prejudice in Canadian cities (Ouston 1999). As a result of these differences among the three cities, we also expect differences in patterns of residential exclusion.
Due to the distinct ethnic composition of cities, different historical and political urban contexts, and locally particular attitudes and policies towards minorities, it is unlikely that ethnic identities are uniform across cities in Canada. That ethnic identities are not fixed but changing and spatially contingent has important implications for the empirical analysis below. Visible minority groups differ by language, place of origin, income, education, circumstances of immigration, destination city, and other factors. We therefore expect residential experiences to vary considerably between ethnic groups and urban contexts (Ray and Moore 1991; Fong 1996; Bourne 1998; Ray 1998). In sum, we expect ethnic residential patterns to differ between the gateway cities.
Urban Models of Ethnic Separation
Traditionally, the human ecological model of ethnic integration explains residential patterns of ethnic minorities (Burgess 1925; Park 1926). This model assumes that newly arriving immigrants are poor and therefore locate in inexpensive rental housing areas around the city centre. Furthermore, the model argues that segregation is a voluntary process which establishes local ethnic support networks and eases assimilation to the host society. In the ecological model, differences in class, language, origin, customs and visible markers translate into residential separation from the host population; but separation gradually declines with upward class mobility and cultural assimilation.
According to Peach (1996, 394) the parallel processes of assimilation and residential integration suggested by the ecological model are only one of many possible scenarios. He notes that: "... if positive interaction between groups is not taking place. Segregation can increase over time as well as decrease. Dispersal is not an inevitable social process." There are several alternative explanations of the segregation of ethnic groups (Fairbairn and Khatun 1989; Ray 1994, 1998; Dunn 1998; Lin 1998; Van Kempen and Ozuekren 1998; Gober 2000). One alternative explanation of separation suggests that persistent geographical clustering enables physical defence against racially motivated harassment, it provides psychological support within the group, it sanctions the preservation of ethnic heritage, and it enables the promotion of group interests (Boal 1981). In this case, separation is a protective measure that benefits a minority population. A second explanation proposes that visible minorities experience discrimination in the housing market (Henry 1989; Kalback 1990; Farley 1995; Teixeira 1995). In contrast to the first explanation, residential exclusion is undesirable, and does not benefit the minority group. A third explanation purports that residential separation merely reflects the socio-economic status of ethnic groups and has little to do with identity formation and ethnic exclusion (Clark 1986). Some ethnic minority groups tend to be poor and therefore live in low-status areas, while the ethnic majority population can afford to live in higher-status neighbourhoods. Finally, a fourth explanation suggests that transitory and transnational communities may have only limited interest in social and residential integration (Ong 2000). Ethnic groups may cluster in a particular residential area in which ethnic networks converge and enable residents to maintain transnational social and economic linkages. These four explanations probably apply to various degrees to different minority groups, in different cities and time-periods.
Peach (1996b, 1996c) argues that there is "good segregation" and "bad segregation." Good segregation is associated with the voluntary desire to retain group identity and cohesion; bad segregation relates to involuntary forces of racialisation (see also Boal 1981; Dunn 1998). Segregation may, however, not be an issue of either voluntary or enforced processes. Rather, in-group preference for concentration may concur simultaneously with the exclusion of visible minorities from some neighbourhoods. Sarre (1986) and Sarre et al. (1989) have further suggested that voluntary and involuntary segregation are not independent processes, but that both forms of segregation are embedded in a wider system of residential constraints and choices that interrelate with practices in the real estate industry, the organisation of local authorities, and immigrants' coping strategies. Ray (1994), for instance, demonstrates that Italian and Afro-Caribbean immigrants to Toronto weight their housing preferences against their available choices under racial discrimination. Anderson (1991) and Smith (1989) have linked segregation to a wider discourse of race and ethnicity, whereby voluntary and involuntary forces of segregation cannot be neatly separated from each other. Ley (1995) demonstrates that inter-ethnic residential conflict in a Vancouver neighbourhood is not a simple matter of spatial exclusion and/or inclusion, but rather involves a political process, in which established residents' perception of neighbourhood aesthetics clashes with Chinese migrants' demand for property rights. Overall, this recent literature suggests that the experiences of ethnic minorities do not conform to a single model of residential segregation.
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