Well, howabout looking into some stuff...
http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/researchbulletins/CUCS_RB_43-Walks-Gentrification2008.pdf
Go to page 5 right there. It's significant, no? I mean dude, just look at the map.
Yes, a handful of districts in the core are being 'gentrified'. They are being guided by official city plans that often aim at protecting buildings and often aim at protecting the character of neighbourhoods as well. Have a gander at the plans:
http://www.toronto.ca/planning/south.htm
And keep in mind that a good chunk of what's being called 'gentrificiation' here is actually conversion of a lot of former industrial land (some quite contaminated) into cleaned up mixed use neighbourhoods. This ends up being labeled as gentrification because of the development impacts on the few residents who might live in that neighbourhood already. Personally, I'd rather in a neighbourhood with fewer warehouses and toxic sites and more residents and cafes and grocery stores. But that's just me. Maybe there are some who detest 'gentrification' and would rather live beside a lead contaminated strip of land.
In case you aren't aware, Toronto has fairly good protection for what are termed as stable neighbourhoods. This probably prevents far too much redevelopment for most of our tastes. For example, Queen east would probably never see the kind of density it should have to get its own subway because most of it is a stable neighbourhood. That's just one example. I would hardly label the redevelopment of Corktown as gentrification. If you've ever been there you'd understand. I don't understand how anyone can call the conversion of industrial wastelands (including some contaminated sites) into active mixed use communities while preserving many of the historic buildings as gentrification.
What's even more ridiculous is that your stance on 'gentrification' is basically anti-development rhetoric that would prevent the kind of transit friendly development this city desperately needs to meet the pressures of population growth. I'd much rather these new residents live in 'gentrified' mixed use neighbourhoods close to the core than out in the 'burbs and using tons of energy to commute.
The article looks at gentrification in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. From page 3... "As a proportion of the old pre-war inner city, gentrification is most prevalent in Toronto (39 percent of census tracts), followed by Montreal (38 percent) and Vancouver (24 percent). Now how can one say that it is not happening in Toronto? Oh I think I know... it already happened! Of course!
If it's happened, then great! It's not a relevant topic for discussion any more. Other than that, there's a lot more to Toronto than the handful of neighbourhoods in the core. Judging Toronto by the "the old pre-war inner city" is a ridiculously narrow standard. Forget gentrification. A lot of that has been paved over to build the central business district..and that happened 50 years ago. There's also been waves of gentrification that suprise, surprise coincide perfectly with the waves of immigration that this country had. There was no Corso Italia in the pre-war era. That's a much more recent phenomenon...a result of gentrification. That report also termed the development along the Yonge line as gentrification. What's the city supposed to do? Put in a subway and not build any dense neighbourhoods around it? Then what the heck is the point of building subways? Since you oppose this kind of development, I would love for you to tell us how the city should handle the influx of future residents without any gentrification and yet prevent sprawl, traffic congestion, pollution, and the myriad other problems that come with population growth. Better yet, we can fire all the planners Toronto has right now and you can tell us how we should solve the problems of traffic congestion, sprawl, etc that exist for the residents who live here today. Anybody who suggests that increasing the density of neighbourhoods along multi-billion dollar subway lines is a bad thing, is an absolute moron in my books.
Go to page 13 here, and you will see another map of the widespread gentrification in Toronto.
http://www.urbancentre.utoronto.ca/pdfs/curp/Murdie_UAA-2006_Conf_full-p.pdf
If you read the whole slide package, you'd see that there were benefits to some residents as well and that the Canadian context for gentrification is not as clear cut on 'class displacement' as it is south of the border....see slide 5.
Do you even bother to read the stuff you post or are you just some bored, undergrad who has nothing better to do on Saturday afternoon than troll a blog about a city you've never been to (much less lived in) and lecture its residents about the evils of gentrification without having any understanding of the local context at all?