Assessing Neighbourhood Change

The trajectory of change in these neighbourhoods reflects the influence of scale, economic and cultural conditions, public policy decisions, and the legacy of urban history and geography. [...] Housing built between the World Wars surrounds the Hydrostone and comprises the majority of housing stock in the census tract. [...] A third area—Mulgrave Park, a public housing complex of row houses and apartment buildings erected in the late 1950s and accommodating 900 residents—occupies the eastern portion of the census tract closest to the shipyard. [...] The population of the area grew by 50% between 1981 and 2006, largely as a by-product of the construction of Highfield Park, a cluster of mid-rise apartment buildings (McDiarmid, 2007); the massive scale of construction glutted the rental market and created a concentration of low-rent units. [...] The four tracts changed significantly over time and showed signs of internal polarization at the finer dissemination area (DA) scale.3 For instance, in the 2006 census, the Gottingen tract near the city centre scored more poorly than the metropolitan area on several indicators, including the proportion of residents with no high school diploma, with low income, or living in lone-parent families.