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This post is part of a series covering ULI Toronto’s Electric Cities Spring 2017 Symposium which took place on April 24 and 25 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. ULI Toronto’s second city building symposium saw over 1,000 industry professionals gather to learn and engage on topics revolving around placemaking, mobility and technology.

The second day of ULI Toronto’s Electric Cities Symposium opened with urbanist Richard Florida’s keynote that explored themes present in his new book, The New Urban Crisis, published in April 2017.

Florida, as a professor, entrepreneur and thought leader, has made a significant contribution to the conversation around trends that are reshaping how people interact with and experience the city. However, in his new book, Florida details some of the urban challenges that are developing as economic growth within cities ramps up. In highlighting current trends that are shaping our cities, a recurring theme during the Electric Cities Symposium that seemed to surface among leaders in related fields was that cities are engines for economic growth and innovation. More specifically, they are nodes where mobility, placemaking and technology converge. In understanding the city as a platform for investment, leaders in city building can develop strategies that ensure resiliency for future generations.

Although these aspects are important in attracting and retaining technology and talent, there is a deepening divide between those in society who benefit from increased prosperity and access to resources and those who are becoming further suppressed. Tolerance is increasingly important to ensure inclusivity within the urban agendas of city officials and organizations. As cities expand their metropolitan regions and development extends beyond political boundaries, new forms of regional governance structures are needed to adjust for the needs of everyone in a highly globalizing and re-urbanizing society.

Florida recognizes how cities are reshaping the socio-economic and class compositions of what previously defined industrial cities, which is reflected within a shifting spatial division of labour giving rise to the knowledge-based economy and the creative class. Areas that have previously been recognized as predominantly middle-class neighbourhoods are losing their precedence, as gentrification tends to push certain disadvantaged members of society to the urban fringe. Gentrification is a byproduct of the re-urbanization that cities are currently experiencing by affluent and advantaged groups who benefit from urban clustering. The homogenization of inner cities is in part a result of the creative class being drawn to knowledge hubs and institutions, as well as access to employment, transit and amenities clustered in the inner city.

Toronto is experiencing what Florida calls the ‘New Urban Crisis,’ which he describes as the result of the city enhancing its global presence leading to the affluent and advantaged class disproportionately benefiting from the clustering of resources, amenities and institutions that the city offers. The same mechanisms that attract the creative class and enhance economic growth are also acting as an exclusionary force to people who can’t afford the increasing cost of living within the urban core. The city then becomes segregated into what Florida calls a ‘Patchwork Metropolis,’ which corresponds to racial and class divisions.

The urban revival that Florida witnessed in cities shaped his beliefs around the rise of the creative class, however, he says no one could have understood the depth of that revival in reshaping the inner city. The original urban crisis of the 1960s and 1970s was characterized by massive suburban sprawl as the city experienced deindustrialization and white flight, which caused a hollowing out of the city center. In contrast, the New Urban Crisis is a consequence of the urban revival that is being experienced with rise of an urban elite as the affluent and advantaged in society have privileged access to securing limited urban space and thus outcompete others of lesser means.

Florida sees the New Urban Crisis as a call to action and a cause for hopeful optimism where city officials are at the forefront in providing solutions for the ‘winner-take-all-urbanism’ that exists today. A need to give municipalities, cities and mayors more precedence and determining power in planning is important to achieving a more inclusive and progressive urbanism. Although Toronto offers a vibrant quality of life that excels in tolerance within a diverse population, it has a role in perpetuating systemic inequality.

Florida says in order to invoke positive change there is a need for deregulation, a reformed land use system, changes in the tax system, increased investment in transit, for upgrading service jobs and a shift to rental housing. These are ambitious goals but with proper focus and incremental change in these elements of urban planning and government, Toronto can continue to be a thriving and vibrant city for all.