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This paper investigates changes in the distribution of earnings across 87 metropolitan areas in Canada. It does so using micro data taken from the 20 per cent long-form sample of the census for the years 1996, 2001 and 2006. Results point to overall increases in urban inequality and to greater heterogeneity in inequality across the urban hierarchy, with larger cities growing particularly unequal over time. Cross-sectional and panel regression models suggest that city size, unemployment, deindustrialisation and the percentage of a city’s population composed of visible minorities contribute to increased inequality. In contrast, a city’s level of economic development has a mitigating effect on inequality, although this effect appears to fade away over time. The effects of changes in a city’s age, education and gender profiles on inequality are mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Higher-income neighbourhoods in Canada’s eight largest cities flourished economically during the past quarter-century, while lower-income communities stagnated. This paper identifies some of the underlying processes that led to this outcome. Increasing family income inequality drove much of the rise in neighbourhood inequality. Increased spatial economic segregation, the increasing tendency of ‘like to live nearby like’, also played a role. It is shown that these changes originated in the labour market. Changes in investment, pension income and government transfers played a very minor role. Yet it was not unemployment that differentiated the richer from poorer neighbourhoods. Rather, it was the type of job found, particularly the annual earnings generated. The end result has been little improvement in economic resources in poor neighbourhoods during a period of substantial economic growth, and a rise in neighbourhood income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]