Summary of Article
An affordable Scarborough housing complex in Toronto is poised to become the City’s most significant development in more than two decades in total homes currently constructed at 2444 Eglinton Ave. E. That building will include 918 units and have space for a future elementary school. Most new homes, if not all, will be allowed to carry market rents, which have risen in Toronto. The so-called Homes now project has numerous players, including the City, CreateTO, development partners, and co-op housing groups. Toronto will build affordable rental housing near transit on the city-owned land. The overall combination of around four transport routes intersects at Kennedy Station. The City reported considerable demand for cheap homes. The construction should take off in 2023.
Lee’s Push-Pull Theory
Lee’s push-pull theory mathematically models the prominent positive factors of an area drawing people in and details negative factors that push people out to a new location in his push-pull theory. This geographic theory thereby explains human patterns in terms of migration and settlement.
Urbanization
Urbanization refers to the increasing concentration of populations in towns and cities. It is characterized by the movement of people from rural to urban areas and the resulting growth of cities. Urbanization is driven by economic development, industrialization and the centralization of resources and opportunities in urban centres.
Analysis
The article’s cheap housing reveals how strongly people are lured to Toronto as part of Canada’s urbanization. Lee’s push-pull theory claims that major cities like Toronto attract foreigners with economic opportunities, attractions, and resources. Toronto has few affordable homes, growing rents, and property prices, pushing low- and middle-income people. Low-income families leave the City due to economic inaccessibility. The dynamics demonstrate how quick urbanization caused by strong pull effects may promote economic stratification and inequality, pushing certain groups.
The Kennedy station housing project reduces displacement by providing several affordable income-based units. Locates near many key transit lines know that public transportation draws low-income people more than jobs. Transit proximity reduces residential transportation costs and boosts citywide employment and services.
The project’s 612 inexpensive units provide some relief, but Toronto has 80,000 people waiting for affordable housing. More affordable housing is required to balance urban potential with unaffordability. Non-profit housing cooperatives propose community-based affordable alternatives. Co-ops provide stability and democracy, attracting low-income families. Non-profits may make urban development more equitable and social.
Reflection
Using Lee’s push-pull theory, this article’s affordable housing example depicts Toronto’s urbanization’s clashing forces. The City’s vital economic and quality of life pull factors drive population expansion and housing demand, but housing’s severe unaffordability excludes many residents.
Low-income Torontonians may struggle to pay ‘cheap’ rents owing to the market-driven housing market. Income-based subsidies and additional low-income apartments may reduce displacement pressures. Geographically concentrating inexpensive units in particular projects and areas while allowing market-rate growth elsewhere creates socio-spatial inequalities. Community integration may improve with inclusionary zoning that mandates affordable housing in new buildings.
Using private sector development with low inclusionary requirements or non-profit participation approaches housing as a commodity. Other solutions include but are not limited to community land ownership arrangements, social housing, rent controls, and eliminating investment in homes as a profit-making venture from such considerations that take market dynamics and speculative-type investing out of housing availability to favour shelter.
On the other hand, power asymmetries and economic inequities that the market-driven urbanization created offer opportunities and exclusions and set the conditions for moving within the City. To not mention that building low-cost housing in the totality of the project gives the right to housing and the right to the City for all, starting at the heart of the push-pull factors of capitalism maintaining urban development and housing supply.
References
Azunre, G. A., Azerigyik, R., & Puwurayire, P. (2021). I was deciphering the drivers of informal urbanization by Ghana’s urban poor through the lens of the push-pull theory. In InPlaning Forum (Vol. 18, pp. 10-44).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-largest-affordable-housing-project-eglinton-1.7079401#:~:text=A%20new%20housing%20development%20that,affordable%20homes%2C%20the%20city%20says
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