Neighbourhood ethnic transition and its socio-economic connections

Abstract: The present study designs a new classification scheme of neighbourhood ethnic transition and uses this scheme to examine the residential patterns of visible minorities in Canada's three largest metropolitan areas. Based on 1986 and 1996 census tract profile data, this study finds that the conventional invasion-succession process of neighbourhood ethnic transition is generally not applicable to major visible minority groups in large Canadian cities. However, divergent patterns of ethnic transition have emerged among visible minority groups. Blacks tend both to live in, and move into, neighbourhoods with low socio-economic status (SES). South Asians also tend to live in neighbourhoods with low SES, but they do not become further concentrated in such neighbourhoods. In contrast, the Chinese population increases more rapidly in neighbourhoods with higher SES. Resume: La presente etude propose un nouveau plan de classification des transitions ethniques dans les quartiers, qui sert a examiner les modeles de repartition residentielle des minorites visibles dans les trois regions metropolitaines les plus importantes du Canada. A. partir des donnees des profils de secteurs de recensement pour 1986 et 1996, l'etude a pennis de determiner que le processus conventionnel d'invasion/succession pour ce qui est des transitions ethniques dans les quartiers ne s'applique generalement pas aux principaux groupes de minorities visibles clans les grandes villes canadiennes. Toutefois, des modeles divergents de transitions ethniques so sont manifestes parmi des groupes de minorities visibles. Les personnes de race noire out tendance a vivre et a after s'installer dans des quartiers ou le statut socioeconomique (SSE) est faible. Los Sud-Asiatiques oat aussi tendance a vivre dans des quartiers ou le SSE est faible, mais n'ont pas tendance a s'y concentrer davantage. Par contre, la population chinoise augmente plus rapidement dans les quartiers dont le SSE est eleve. ********** Since the 1970s, the visible minority population has bean dramatically increasing in Canada's three largest metropolitan areas that have accommodated most of Canada's new immigrants. This increase in the visible minority population through immigration is profoundly affecting the racial make-up of urban neighbourhoods. Changes in neighbourhood ethnic composition often transform the physical and social characteristics of neighbourhoods, affect the 'way of life' established by long-term residents, and frequently generate tensions within local space (Ray et al., 1997). It is therefore of important social significance to examine neighbourhood ethnic transition and its relationship with neighbourhood socio-economic status under the condition of rapid increases in visible minority populations. The present study investigates the residential patterns of visible minority populations in Canada's three largest metropolitan areas. Specifically, has the substantial increase in the visible minority population led to increased co-residence of visible and white populations within neighbourhoods or has it created more racially concentrated neighbourhoods? In addition, is transition in neighbourhood racial composition closely related to neighbourhood socioeconomic status? Ethnic Transition Among Neighbourhoods: A Literature Review Many studies on neighbourhood ethnic transition in the US have been centred on the compositional stability of racially mixed neighbourhoods. In their pioneering analysis of neighbourhood racial transition in the city of Chicago in the 1940s, Duncan and Duncan (1957) propose an invasion-succession model of neighbourhood racial transition. This model suggests an inevitability of white-to-black change in racially mixed neighbourhoods. Once blacks penetrate an area inhabited exclusively by whites, the number and proportion of blacks in the neighbourhood would continuously increase, while the white population would continuously decrease until a complete turnover of population from white to black occupancy takes place (Duncan and Duncan, 1957). …