Ethnic Enclaves and Social Cohesion

Abstract

Ethnic enclaves have a vibrant local commercial and services infrastructure. They are not altogether places of poverty and despair, at least not in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Their social benefits outweigh the disadvantages of the predominance of one ethnic group. Social cohesion is largely promoted through the equality of economic opportunities, open society and public education. These are supra–neighbourhood processes, and institutionalizing them through the metropolitan, provincial and societal policies are ways to promote social cohesion. Neighbourhoods play an insignificant role in these processes.