"Without Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Winnipeg … Canada would be so poor that it would qualify as a third world country. The … taxes that businesses and residents in these five cities pay are what make federal and provincial programs and activities financially possible."
What About Those Left Behind?
While Florida’s views were very popular, not everyone agreed with them. Critics argued that the emphasis on cool cities overlooked the plight of those who lacked the skills to participate in the new digital economy and ignored those beyond the cities who lived in small towns and rural areas. Those left behind in outlying areas have become increasingly disillusioned and have been fertile ground for populist messages – most evident in the election of Donald Trump and, to some extent, the election of Ontario Conservative Party under Doug Ford.
Even in rapidly growing cities, there have been growing problems and challenges. Where urban sprawl has occurred, cities have spilled outward – often on farmland or in/near environmentally sensitive areas – creating long commutes and leaving commuters with little time (or energy) to participate in community life. Where urban density has been the focus, the competition for scarce land has driven real estate prices to ridiculous levels, making home ownership an impossibility for many. A recent report from an admittedly less than neutral source (the CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, BILD), notes that the increased density within the GTA promoted by the Ontario Government’s Places to Grow policy has resulted in the construction of far fewer single family homes. Because the demand for such homes has remained strong, there has been a dramatic impact on prices and the benchmark price for a new single family home in April 2018 was $1,152,000.
Growing Gap Between Haves and Have-Nots
The growing division between urban and rural is also mirrored within the cities in the division between haves and have-nots. The changing nature of the economy and the challenges posed by globalization and even more so by automation are creating increased inequality in our cities. Indeed, even Richard Florida is no longer looking at cities through rose-coloured glasses. In his new book, The New Urban Crisis, Florida discusses the problems associated with what he terms “winner-take-all-urbanism.” By this he refers to the situation in which a handful of “super cities” attract disproportionate wealth, most of it accruing to a small minority of elite knowledge workers, with not much left over for the unskilled or semi-skilled (much less those toiling in small towns and rural areas).
Cities will obviously continue to be the dynamic engines for growth but unless policies are introduced that mitigate somewhat the uneven distribution of the resulting wealth – both within cities and beyond, they will continue to be part of the problem as well as the solution.