Socio‐Economic change within the older housing stock of Canadian cities

Traditional neo‐Classical economic theories of change in the older, inner city housing stock are primarily based on assumptions of a filtering down’ of housing quality and occupant households. As an alternative, this paper develops an approach that relies on societal and metropolitan transformations to explain the changing role of older, inner city neighbourhoods. It uses Statistics Canada's Household Income, Facilities and Equipment files for the years 1976 and 1986 in order to identify proportionate change in the characteristics of households occupying housing built before 1940 against those found throughout Census Metropolitan Areas. Most changes invalidate filtering down assumptions. Increases in incomes, the proportion of younger households, education levels, high status employment, all contribute to bring socio‐economic characteristics within older housing closer to the CMA norm. The paper considers the role protective zoning has played in inducing this form of upgrading. Attention is also given to the equivocal impacts of housing and neighbourhood improvement programmes aimed at lower income residents.