Figure 1 summarizes the conceptual framework of the proposed research.

It depicts the major factors affecting neighbourhood change, indicates how they are related, and links these factors to our research questions and to contextual forces that help explain neighbourhood change.

Global, national, and regional economic, social, political and cultural forces (Box 1, macro level forces) and individual household preferences and constraints (Box 2, micro-level forces) affect the social geography of metropolitan areas (Box 3). It is the socio-spatial change over time in metropolitan areas (all of Box 3) that we seek to better understand. Urban residential environments (neighbourhoods) are continually changing socially and physically due to neighbourhood restructuring processes (Box 4), household decisions, including decisions about where to live (Box 5), and the existing pattern of socio-spatial inequality within each metropolitan area (Box 6). The change in a metropolitan area is shaped not only by macro and micro forces (Boxes 1 and 2), but also by government and non-governmental policies and programs (Box 7). Urban spatial inequality and ethno-cultural spatial segregation are always in flux (there are strong and weak feedback loops), further influencing households’ mobility decisions. Such decisions produce the trends in socio-spatial change that can be analyzed and better understood if studied over several decades in a comparative framework.

Each household’s socioeconomic and ethno-cultural characteristics confer advantage or disadvantage. Some households can choose when and where to move; others are severely constrained. These differences in the degree of freedom to choose relate to individual and household characteristics: income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, immigration status, Aboriginal identity, and disability, and to the nature of local housing markets. Policies and programs (Box 7) affect neighbourhood restructuring (Box 4), household mobility decisions (Box 5), and the urban spatial outcomes of increasing or decreasing inequality and polarization (Box 6). Some policies are causal; others are reactive (but may in turn become causal).

There are three major questions that will guide the research. Proceeding from our analysis of socio-spatial changes over four decades in selected metropolitan areas, we will examine the nature of the social and physical neighbourhood restructuring trends and processes at play (Question 1), the consequences of socio-spatial inequality and polarization (Question 2), and the policy and program responses (or lack thereof), including the development of alternative policies and programs (Question 3).

Hypothesis: Drawing on the conceptual framework in Figure 1, research hypotheses might include: Neighbourhood socio-spatial inequality and polarization (Box 6) is a function of (a) macro-level factors (Box 1) + (b) micro-level forces (Box 2) + (c) neighbourhood effects (Box 4) + (d) local housing/labour/market/ policy effects (Box 7) + (e) place-specific (CMA) effects. The latter are hard to incorporate visually into Figure 1, although we might expect to find differences by size of city, local area growth rates, provincial policy context, political culture, demographic characteristics, and the economic structure and geography of the metropolitan areas. Our comparative analysis is designed to evaluate these CMA effects.