Edmonton Over Time

Graphs

All of the graphs seem to indicate that there is indeed a growing disparity in income in the City of Edmonton. The most pronounced indicator of this was the trend of declining average income among those who were among the Middle Income group (within 20% of the average income of all CTs). Other less pronounced trends that were seen included a rise in those in the Low Income category (40% below to 20% below average) as well as a rise in those in the Very High Income category (40% above average) (Figure 1).

The other issue that was addressed was whether or not there was a large income disparity between men and women and how or if there were any changes that occurred. From the graph comparing male and female average income from 1971 to 2006 there was most certainly a clear income disparity between men and women. However, the gap between average income of males and females saw a positive trend with the average income of females rising from just under 40% to that of male income in 1971 to over 58% to that of male income in 2006 (Figure 4).

Maps

The maps indicate that there was a increasingly significant amount of spatial income disparity in Edmonton between 1971 and 2006. In 1971, the central area of Edmonton was a mixed-bag of income; however, it also contained all of the lowest income level census tracts (Figure 5a). In 2006, even more of central Edmonton was composed of the two lowest income level census tracts, while the rural areas were composed of the second highest and the highest income level (Figure 5b).

Central Edmonton was also home to the highest unemployment rates in both 1971 and 2006, with lower rates in the outskirts and the rural areas (Figures 6a and 6b).

In 1971, the only hot spots (technically cold spots as they were areas of concentrated low income) were in central Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan (a small urban center) (Figure 8a). In 2006, central Edmonton had almost no hot spots and the rural areas around Edmonton had the most significant hot spots of both high and low income (Figure 8b).

The high/low clustering and the spatial autocorrelation results also suggest that, in both time periods, there was a clustering of low income census tracts (Table 1 and Table 2).

There was also a shift in how these variables relate to the average number of children per family and the unemployment rate of the census tracts. In 1971, the results from the ordinary least squares regression suggest that the northern rural areas responded negatively to higher numbers of children and that, 'on average' the central areas did not show a very strong correlation in either direction (Figure 9a). In 2006, the decentralization of Edmonton caused the central areas to begin to respond negatively to increases in higher unemployment and number of children while the rural areas, particularly east of Edmonton, responded very positively (Figure 9b). The geographically weighted regression showed an almost identical response: a shift from a negative correlation associated with rural areas to a positive one, and the opposite shift in the central Edmonton areas (Figure 10a and Figure 10b).

From these results, it can be suggested that there was a decrease in the percentage of citizens living in the middle class and an increase in the very poor and the very rich; as the old adage goes, "The rich and get richer and the poor get poorer." There was also an increasing disparity between the income of the central and urban areas within Edmonton relative to the suburban and rural areas surrounding the city.