Ethnoburb - Examples of Ethnoburbs - Toronto, Ontario

Toronto, Ontario

To this day Toronto holds the largest Chinatown in North America, although many of the Chinese residents live outside the downtown area and in the Greater Toronto Area's suburbs. Spatial patterns of ethnic residential and business districts have mainly been shaped by development in the suburbs. Of the 338,265, only 18% of Chinese residents in Toronto live in the downtown area where as the rest live in suburbs. Areas with a lower population Chinese residents (closer to the downtown area) are in East York, Etobiocke, North York, Scarborough, York which account for 47% of the Chinese population. Areas that are on the outer suburb zone, Markham, Richmond Hill and Mississauga make up the remaining percentage of Chinese population. In recent years the Chinese economy in the GTA have changed from local restaurants and grocery stores to consumer services in large shopping centres. This has brought more shopping centres to the inner and outer suburbs growing Toronto's economy. Much like Los Angeles, the Chinese population in Toronto also stratifies along lines of origin and socioeconomic class, which show up in residential patterns. Immigrants from Hong Kong were the largest population from China to Toronto and rooted into Markham and Richmond Hill which influenced the style of the new upscale shopping centres. Immigrants from Taiwan settled in North York based on the public school system.