When we picture gentrification, we often think of modern offices, fancy coffee houses, and chic apartment buildings; everything suggesting a city on the rise. However, in Canada, gentrification projects, often regarded as ‘urban revitalization,’ take on a different meaning for those pushed out of their communities. In particular, such gentrification projects disproportionately affect low-income families. Since the late 20th century, gentrification has gradually evolved from local redevelopments to one of the most pressing urban phenomena, across major cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montréal (Grisdale & Walks, 2022, p. 240). Policymakers and investors often praise gentrification for the economic growth it brings, but overlook its harms: rising housing costs, resident displacement, and the loss of familiar neighborhoods (Grisdale & Walks, 2022). While people may have excused it as a necessary cost of economic development, the underlying human costs have proved to be more profound: the dismantling of social networks, the loss of community, and the exclusion of certain groups from urban planning processes.
The urgency of this issue has escalated in recent years. For instance, an article published by CBC (2023) documents how transit-led development in Toronto’s Weston neighborhood has increased gentrification, leading to the displacement of low-income families. Yet, Weston’s experience is far from unique. Across Canada, gentrification has escalated from local redevelopments to a national crisis, as reported that “in 2016, this corresponded to between 2% (418,065 people) and 17% (4,266,434) of the Canadian population living in gentrified areas” (Firth et al., 2021, para. 14). Most notably, its effects are observed in the widening housing affordability gap (CBC Radio, 2023).
Furthermore, gentrification stretches beyond real estate sectors. As stimulus author Johan Norberg (2022) argues, redevelopment projects are often constructed on curated versions of the past, and the longing for the ‘good old days’. It can be identified in redevelopment projects that investors prioritize aesthetics and historical façades over the well-being of current residents. Similarly, Judith Binney’s (2004) detailed investigation of Maori Oral History suggests that the actions of long-term residents lay the foundation of a vibrant community. Thus, these two insights direct attention to two overlooked aspects of urban planning: cultural perceptions and the role of an active group of long-term residents.
This paper addresses a critical question: What can be done to mitigate the negative effects of gentrification on low-income families in urban areas in Canada? Though it is impossible to provide a single solution to a multi-faceted issue, an effective solution could be made by rethinking the necessary values of urban development. Drawing from academic research and credible reports, this paper proposes a human-centered approach to ‘urban revitalization’, which prioritizes three key steps. First, expanding affordable housing initiatives is essential to slow displacement and ensure stable residency. Second, preserving social and cultural infrastructure to protect community identity. Third, to restore social justice to the system, urban planning must operate upon an inclusive mechanism, which could be achieved by empowering marginalized residents. These strategies provide a practical approach to gentrification, ultimately seeking to reshape Canadian urban life around values of equity and social justice.
Gentrification of Low-Income Neighbourhoods
AP Seminar Individual Written Argument
Introduction
Expanding Affordable Housing Initiatives
The first step to mitigate the harms of gentrification is to expand affordable housing initiatives. The most visible and harmful effect of gentrification is the physical displacement of long-term residents, especially in low-income and racialized communities (Nichols et al., 2019, para. 5). Displacement in Canada’s urban centers is closely linked to ineffective policies around market-driven housing systems that prioritize profits over stability for its residents. Urban planning scholars Sean Grisdale and Alan Walks (2022), both affiliated with the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, argue that Toronto’s increasing dependence on condominium development has restructured its rental landscape, replacing purpose-built rentals with investor-owned units that drive up rents and displacement (p. 240). This situation is referred to as ‘condoization’ and has turned ownership projects into unstable rental markets that cater to wealthier tenants (Grisdale & Walks, 2022, p. 240). The outcome leads to a decrease in affordable housing for low-income families. Geographers Robert Murdie and Carlos Teixeira, renowned for their decades of research on housing in Canadian cities, observes that “especially renters…low-income families, including recent immigrants, are most severely affected by the escalating house prices and face increased barriers finding affordable housing in the area” (Murdie & Teixeira, 2011, p. 73). These are the groups that lack the necessary economic resources and political representation to resist displacement.
Although there are policies to help prevent this problem and break this cycle of unaffordability, they are greatly underutilized. Grisdale and Walks (2022) recommend a suite of reforms: inclusionary zoning, public housing expansion, and incentives for purpose-built rental construction. These policies would not only slow displacement but also shift urban development away from profit-maximizing models (Grisdale & Walks, 2022, p. 241). Inclusionary zoning requires private developers to dedicate a portion of their units as permanently affordable, embedding equity into redevelopment (Grisdale & Walks, 2022, p. 241). Thus, public subsidies for rental housing can balance the private market failures with affordable housing units. However, without legal enforcement and financial support, these policies remain inactive. Expanding affordable housing not only includes more physical dwellings but also rejects policies of allowing certain groups to be more entitled to live in urban spaces. A study (Nichols et al., 2019) done by The Homeless Hub, a nationally renowned research network that specifically focuses on the issue of homelessness in Canada, on Montreal’s Parc-Extension neighbourhood states that racialized and low-income communities often are priced out, despite having contributed to the cultural construction and maintained the economic vitality of this area for ages (para. 11). This points to the idea that if housing affordability remains a commodity, rather than a right, displacement will continue to be a structural issue.
This shift from market-driven to human-centered will meet limitations. Critics might argue that gentrification has already achieved economic benefits and question whether a different approach would yield similar results. This is certainly a valid concern, especially since gentrification targets areas that are generally underinvested. It is necessary to analyse and come up with a balanced model. Moreover, as revealed by geographers Ley and Dobson’s remark, “those policies were enacted with much more conviction in earlier decades when the welfare state had greater capacity and a stronger will to intervene in market processes”(Ley & Dobson, 2008, p. 2475), the root of the ineffective policies stems from the government, which complicates the issue.
Gentrification doesn’t just displace people; it displaces culture and social belonging. In particular, gentrification erodes cultural institutions that have been protecting vulnerable communities. Driven by the business-oriented model, redevelopments are constantly under investment pressures, leading to the replacement of places like ethnic groceries, places of worship, senior centers, and immigrant service hubs (Turner, 2025). This is especially evident in Vancouver’s Chinatown, where redevelopment projects have turned the neighborhood into a consumer destination. According to the report done by researchers at Simon Fraser University (n.d.), “the culture of the community is being erased to make room for a new, sanitized version of the neighborhood” (para. 7). This erasure would affect low-income residents since it removes specific infrastructure that residents rely on for childcare, social gatherings and more. The collapse of these support systems will ultimately lead to the collapse of these communities themselves.
When long-term residents are displaced, intergenerational knowledge fades. As a result, communities never recover their vitality, and the room for potential growth becomes limited. Demonstrated through Whyte’s report (2020) on Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood, redevelopment turned “Toronto’s much-vaunted international brand – the poster-child for extreme diversity, a global social experiment done right” into “a faded myth” with soaring housing prices and loss of identity (para. 3). Communities have uprooted its social infrastructure, losing its possibility to recover and grow further.
To mitigate these effects, policymakers must treat cultural infrastructure. This means integrating cultural preservation into laws, offering rent stabilization for community-serving businesses, and funding culturally-specific community hubs through public grants. A study on Montréal’s Park Extension, for instance, scholars claim that “Park Extension has also been instrumental in facilitating the integration of newcomers to Canada through the efforts of community organizations, faith-based communities, informal residents’ networks and public spaces with recognized cultural markers”; yet after gentrification, it is now “vulnerable to the detrimental effects and inequities often associated with gentrifying projects”, leaving community life hollowed (Nichols et al., 2019, para. 9).
Moreover, Johan Norberg (2022) argues that nostalgic redevelopments often romanticize the past, while sidelining those who built it; these projects, disguised as ‘restorative,’ reduce cultural identity, rather than acknowledging it as lived experiences for many (para. 19). From a cultural perspective, the current trajectory of urban planning further risks promoting aesthetics over identity, profit over realistic experiences, which in the long run will lead to an irreversible erosion of cultural identity. Addressing these risks, municipal governments should mandate cultural impact assessments, alongside environmental ones, before approving developments in historically marginalized communities.
Protecting Cultural Infrastructure
Alongside cultural protections, structural reforms for the people involved in urban change decisions are vital. While gentrification projects often claim to involve ‘public consultation,' the reality is that residents are invited to give feedback only after key decisions are already made. In practice, redevelopment is led by planners and politicians, not communities. In Toronto’s Regent Park, Brail and Kumar (2017) found that community engagement was emphasized rhetorically, but in practice, participation was often limited to consultation (p. 3779). Long-standing residents, particularly low-income families, are forced to observe in their own neighborhoods’ transformation passively. Similarly, historian Judith Binney’s (2004) analysis of Māori oral-history traditions emphasizes the deep connection between people and place, which reminds us that those who carry the stories are the ones central to decision making. By comparing written and oral traditions, Binney emphasizes that memory is preserved through the engagement of active community members.
One example is the establishment of Community Land Trusts (CLTs), which are nonprofit, resident-led entities that acquire and manage land to ensure permanent affordability and protect local control (Su, 2024). Unlike traditional development models, CLTs remove land from speculative markets, allowing low-income communities to build equity without the risk of being priced out (Su, 2024). As Mendly-Zambo et al. (2021) argue, equitable policy must “center community voices and target structural inequalities,” not just address individual behaviors (p. 115). CLTs provide the opportunity to embed community power into the property system itself.
Critics argue that these participatory models are unnecessary, burdensome, and even ill-suited due to the fast pace of these markets. Moreover, Gibbons, Barton, and Brault (2017) argue, “Our results indicate that gentrification was positively associated with perceived collective efficacy. This implies that gentrification could have beneficial health effects for individuals living in gentrifying neighborhoods” (p. 1). From this point of view, gentrification may bring more benefits than harms in the long run. However, while immediate results show benefit, displacement and loss of culture outweigh the benefits. As sociologist Twigge-Molecey states, “residents expressed a growing sense that the neighborhood was no longer ‘for them,’ despite still living there” (Twigge-Molecey, 2014, p. 10). In other words, though previous urban planning models were successful to a certain degree, the long-term social costs of gentrification were neglected. Furthermore, participatory governance is not an obstacle but a sustainable model that safeguards development while rejecting profit-driven projects. If low-income families are to remain in Canada’s urban areas, they must be empowered as owners and planners of their own futures. Without the redistribution of power, no affordable housing or cultural protections could be implemented.
Community Power in the Planning Process
Conclusion
To mitigate the negative effects of gentrification on low-income families, this paper argues for a human-centered, multifaceted approach of empowering those directly affected with the ability to participate, preserving cultural infrastructure, and expanding affordable housing. These solutions offer long-term stability for low-income families and make urban life sustainable. While gentrification is often seen under the guise of ‘economic development’, the long-term harms of displacement, cultural erasure, and social fragmentation outweigh the benefits greatly. Furthermore, this paper addresses limitations as well as potential counterarguments regarding the economic benefits gentrification may bring. Yet, demonstrated through credible scholarly research, a human-centered approach is necessary for a welcoming future for low-income families. Without structural reforms to redistribute power to those directly affected, solutions remain ineffective and inactive. Johan Norberg (2022) critiques that urban redevelopment highlights aesthetic motifs over lived experiences, while Judith Binney (2004) reminds us that belonging is preserved by the people of that community, not the policies. Thus, meaningful urban developments will not happen if people who make up these communities are not involved in the urban planning process. Gentrification is not merely a collection of renewed buildings, but rather a reflection of whose histories are preserved in the ever-changing urban landscape. In shaping cities, we are simultaneously shaping the identity of people who live within them.
