A Study of Income Inequality in the City over Time: A Canadian Perspective

The concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of individuals or countries is not a new phenomenon; however, the incidence of income inequality is increasing exponentially. At the global level the geographic distribution of have and have not countries has been well documented. Within cities, income inequality translates into a complex and polarized pattern of affluent and impoverished neighbourhoods. This paper proposes a review of the literature on income inequality in Canadian cities, and considers how income inequality has been reflected spatially in the Canadian city and what patterns of inequality can be observed in our urban centres today. The paper discusses how the topic has been approached by urban geographers over time, and through which theoretical lenses it has been studied and by whom. By undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature I compare early studies of the distribution of income inequality within the Canadian urban landscape with more recent research and analyses. I then evaluate which of these analyses and arguments may offer the insight necessary to address the impacts that income inequality and wealth concentration is having on our cities today