{"id":19044,"date":"2018-10-30T11:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceo-na.com\/?p=19044"},"modified":"2018-11-05T17:39:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T17:39:28","slug":"toronto-mayoral-election-reflects-a-growing-wealth-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/business\/management-leadership\/toronto-mayoral-election-reflects-a-growing-wealth-divide\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Mayoral election reflects a growing wealth divide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former executive John Tory won a second term, yet the debate surrounding the mayoral race became a symbol of the city\u2019s haves-and-have-nots. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In many ways, it was a classic battle between left and right–the wealthy former telecom executive, incumbent John Tory, against independent former chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat–yet Monday\u2019s mayoral election in Toronto also comes at a critical juncture for Canada\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n

For many, housing is becoming so unaffordable and transit so gridlocked it\u2019s at risk of turning into just another global playground for the rich.<\/p>\n

Indeed, while Tory ran to the right of Keesmaat, both candidates pitched platforms that had the city playing a far bigger role in the development of affordable housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot let the city turn into a city that is home only to people who are comfortable and people who are really struggling,\u201d Tory, 64, told Bloomberg News<\/a> ahead of the vote, which he won by 63 percent.<\/p>\n

Economic growth isn\u2019t a problem for Toronto, which is home to 2.8 million people. The city\u2019s GDP has been running at around 3.4% for the past three years, well above its not inconsiderable population growth of 1.6%. Already boasting the largest financial sector on the continent after New York, it\u2019s currently undergoing a boom of high-tech hiring, adding about 87,800 jobs from 2013 to 2017, the largest five-year gain in at least three decades. The unemployment rate is riding an 18-year low of 6.3%.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg Politics<\/a>, \u201cThe city\u2019s swagger can be seen in its vibrant restaurant sector, Drake-fueled music scene, boisterous, multi-ethnic suburbs and the forest of cranes on its skyline. The city currently has 196 high-rise buildings under construction, the most in North America, according to Skyscraperpage.com.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Toronto also faces some major problems, at the forefront of which is housing. Until recently, there had been little purpose-built rental constructed in the city, leaving renters at the mercy of a condo market that saw average rents soar 7.6% to a record $2,385-per-month in the third quarter from a year ago.<\/p>\n

The cost of buying a house–which averaged $864,275 in September–eats up a record 76% of a typical pre-tax household income when including mortgage payments and running costs, according to a recent report from Royal Bank of Canada.<\/p>\n

Tory\u2019s platform could best be summarized as \u201cmore of the same\u201d politically, avoiding any big, bold new promises and instead focusing on incremental progress on initiatives he\u2019s already introduced. Yet opponents insist that the wealth divide means Toronto is reaching a breaking point that requires more progressive solutions.<\/p>\n

New research from the University of Toronto highlighted by The Star<\/a> last month used census data to illustrate growing income equality, which is largely drawn along racial lines.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s starker than we would expect,\u201d Prof. David Hulchanski, the author of the report, told the newspaper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former executive John Tory won a second term, yet the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":19045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[529,1385,1462,528,1461],"class_list":["post-19044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","tag-canada","tag-ceo-northam","tag-john-tory","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-mayoral-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19044"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19054,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19044\/revisions\/19054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}