Today the Toronto Star published an article in the Toronto/GTA Section entitled: Urban dream deferred

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/201289 (article pasted at bottom of this email)
http://www.thestar.com/Article/201299

The article identifies 13 high-risk neighbourhoods in Toronto and illustrates these neighbourhoods on an aerial-view map of the city. 

I got to thinking...

Will this article further 'ghettoize' the high-risk neighbourhoods of Jane-Finch, Lawrence Heights, & Malvern? Will this article newly 'ghettoize'  Steeles-L'Amoureaux (which is, ironically, where I live and to be honest, my neighbourhood is not in nearly as much need as other Torontonian sprawls).  Although this article brings much needed attention towards neighbourhoods in dire need of public investment, does such media coverage also negatively label neighbourhoods as 'high risk' (aka ghetto)? 

Over the past two decades, segments of American society have both showcased and even glamourized American ghettos (eg. Bling Bling!), such as Harlem of NYC, Bronzeville of Chicago, and Detroit.  The term ghetto is both a noun (referring to a neighbourhood) and is now an adjective (referring to ghetto culture/identity; shaped largely by the media and, in particular, media representation of hip hop culture).

Let us assume that the Toronto Star article does, in fact, further 'ghettoize' Toronto's high-risk neighbourhoods...

Can this type of media coverage discourage
businesses/banks from setting up shop in media-hyped ghettos? 
Can this type
of media coverage further contribute to the social exclusion of high-risk
neighbourhoods from the larger city of Toronto?

I would love to hear what you all think...

Rahul Mediratta
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

They've
lived in Regent Park, Flemingdon Park and Rexdale, and the farther they
moved away from downtown, the less connected they were to their
neighbours.
Community centres are farther away in the inner
suburbs. And connections are too dependent on the car. But this, too,
is true. Fear fuels alienation. To survive, many try to shut out the
"bad influences" of the neighbourhood.
Now, this family lives in a high-risk neighbourhood with one goal in mind – get out as soon as possible.
Many do. And there are tens of thousands on waiting lists to take their places.
Tonight's
public forum – A View from the Inner Suburbs – looks at urban life in
the communities outside downtown Toronto but inside its boundary. 
The view is murky, blurry.
Do
these neighbourhoods in old Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke work
to improve or impair the lives of residents? Do traditional, downtown
concepts of "neighbourhoods" and "communities" have traction outside
the core? 
Are we even asking the right questions? For example,
does it matter if you have to travel to get to a bank or the grocery
store or doctor? Or does fear of crime trump all efforts to build
social cohesion and connections at street level?
And what drives
the crime? Lack of recreation facilities? Or poverty and
underemployment and the struggle for survival that breeds discontent,
anger, deviance and, finally, disaster.
Many minds and dollars
have been focused on the issue of violence in such neighbourhoods.
Still, as the weather warms this spring, the death toll rises.
Tonight's forum, free to all, is co-sponsored by the Star as part of its focus on poverty.
The
above family, having lived in two of the 13 "priority" neighbourhoods
identified by the United Way and others (and a third, Regent Park, that
has challenges but is not on the list because of its solid stable of
services and facilities), can't be blamed for wanting to leave.
No
sooner had they arrived in Flemingdon Park than one son discovered he
wasn't welcome because he had come from another Ontario Housing
project. It wasn't until he was stabbed that Mother grasped the gravity
of the issue and took flight.
By the time the family arrived at
another housing project, Mother wanted her kids away from everyone. She
did not want their name used in this story. 
"When I came here,
I wanted nothing to do with a community centre. For one, the centre was
way down the road. Secondly, it was right beside Jamestown. And my
thinking was, `If I can let them not know anyone in Jamestown, great.'
I know not everyone in Jamestown is bad ... but I preferred my kids to
go to a school out of the community and not talk to anyone. 
"Of course, it wasn't possible."
Local
school means local friends. There's been scrapes with the law.
Miraculously, considering the fate of too many of her son's friends and
classmates, her children are university-bound.
I, too, have spent
most of my Toronto life living in or on the fringe of three of the
city's 13 high-risk neighbourhoods. Flemingdon Park, 10 years.
Steeles-L'Amoureaux, five years. Bathurst-Finch, 10 years.
For
half those years we lived in social housing, and during that time, we
never set foot in a community centre or made use of a day camp or
summer program.
At first, we were immigrants so the expectations were minimal, demands non-existent. I had my own room.
Looking
back, as the St. Lawrence Centre prepares for tonight's community forum
on what makes a good neighbourhood, we've neither been engaged with nor
connected to our neighbours.
When we moved to Flemingdon Park,
from Dupont and Bathurst, I felt we were going to the ends of the
earth. Flemingdon might have been the most densely populated area of
the city, but the TTC hadn't discovered it as yet.
I kept going
to Harbord Collegiate downtown. And on weekends, I was at church at
Landsdowne and St. Clair. My friends were church friends. We played
football at Alexandra Park in the summer. Drugs in Flemingdon Park?
News to me.
These homes were rest stops, temporary abodes on a journey toward the urban dream of a nice, secure home.
So,
I went from a room in my parents' social housing apartment to a market
apartment for my own family, to a co-op, then a purchased townhouse, a
semi and finally, a detached bungalow on a quiet North York street. 
The
system worked, in terms of providing a housing hand-up. It did little
to supply social and recreational needs, but it didn't have to. Church
and the hundreds of friends from that fellowship filled the gap
admirably.
And a middle-class income provided a private school
education that took the kids away from the neighbourhood where the
gangs were forming. In essence, we slept there, not lived there. And so
much "community spirit" is lost from such a living arrangement.
But
that's not the norm. Most residents in these priority neighbourhoods
have no other housing options. Some want to stay because they like it.
We should be ensuring that their lives are fulfilling, as safe and
secure as possible.
Many times we commentators and columnists go
on about building healthy, vibrant communities where residents lean
over the fence and share ideas on how to build neighbourhood pride.
That's a good goal.
A more realistic one might be, how do we
remake the existing communities so they are healthy again – or for the
first time. Do we throw facilities and programs there? Or provide the
family training and help needed to make families whole again? The
latter is most difficult. But it's an approach that may have the most
lasting effects.







      

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