Toronto has more full-time artists than any other Canadian city - 22,300 - and these artists tend to live largely in neighbourhoods in or near the city's downtown, according to an analysis of the 2006 census released this week.
The study shows that artists, as with artists everywhere, like to congregate where the rent is (relatively) cheap, public transit is available, coffee houses, bars and job-related resources are plentiful and nearby, and the atmosphere can be described as bohemian (or at least faintly so).
The study, based on an examination of 89 postal regions in Toronto by Hamilton-based Hill Strategies Research, found that the Parkdale district, on the western outskirts of downtown, had, at six per cent, the highest concentration of artists as a percentage of a neighbourhood's total labour force. However, the median income of the 720 artists (out of a work force of 12,000) in Parkdale was, at $16,400, one of the lowest among Toronto artists and well below the roughly $28,700 median earnings for Toronto's overall labour force. (Parkdale's overall median earnings in 2005 was around $32,200.)
The neighbourhood with the second-highest concentration, at 5.5 per cent of the labour force, was what is generally known as West Queen West/Kensington Market, bordered roughly by Dufferin St. to the west, Bathurst to the east, King to the south and College to the north.
Number three, at 5.3 per cent, was the greater Annex area, bordered roughly by St. Clair Ave. to the north, College to the south, Ossington to the west and Bathurst on the east.
Fourth, at 5.2 per cent, was the northern Annex/Yorkville district, with Bathurst as a western boundary, Yonge to the east, Bloor St. as the southern perimeter and St. Clair to the north.
Fifth, at 4.5 per cent, was Riverdale, across the Don Valley in the city's east end.
Artists for the purposes of the study were those who spent most of their working day in one of nine Statistics Canada categories, including actors, dancers, artisans, visual artists and authors. The concentration of artists in Toronto, 1.6 per cent of the labour force, was double the provincial and national averages (both 0.8 per cent).
The study also reports that the Ontario capital was home to a large number of "cultural workers" in calendar year 2005 - 82,600, in fact, with cultural workers defined as those with "creative, production, technical and management" jobs in such occupational categories as publishing, libraries, sound recording, architecture and design and broadcasting. The pattern of cultural concentration was similar to that found for artists. Parkdale again ranked number one, claiming 16.3 per cent of the neighbourhood's 12,000-person labour force as cultural workers.
However, cultural workers in Parkdale tended to be better paid than artists. In 2005, their median earnings were $28,000, while the median earnings for cultural workers overall in Toronto was $30,200.
Hill Strategies did a similar neighbourhood analysis for Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa and Montreal.