The knowledge economy city: Gentrification,studentification and youthification,and their connections to universities

Abstract

Chinese

We investigate the spatial relationships among three prominent facets of contemporary urbanism – gentrification, studentification, and youthification – in the context of Canadian post-secondary educational institutions (universities and colleges). We conduct the analysis in three major Canadian cities with substantial knowledge economy sectors using confidential Statistics Canada census files, which include information on individuals and their geographies, and the location of universities and colleges, by enrolment size. We document ‘spillover’ effects of expansions in student enrolment and the building of campuses by analysing the geographic correlations among universities and gentrification and youthification. Studentification and youthification are to some extent coincident but not entirely, whereas the connection to gentrification is more complex. Our work provides novel insight into the ways the three different facets of contemporary urbanism overlap and contribute to our understanding of how universities and colleges, as hallmarks of the knowledge economy, influence the social geography of cities.

Keywords

gentrification knowledge economy studentification universities youthification

Introduction

While there is widespread recognition that different facets of urban change do not occur in isolation, as researchers we often focus on individual phenomena. Gentrification research in particular focuses almost exclusively on the drivers of this now ubiquitous characteristic of urbanism, overlooking concurrent factors of change, for instance immigration (for a notable exception see Ley et al., 2002). More could be done to study empirically the ways different facets of contemporary urbanism occur concurrently. Therefore, our aim in this paper is to offer a novel analysis that considers the overlaps among gentrification, studentification and youthification in the context of expanding post-secondary institutions in the knowledge economy.

Since the onset of post-Fordist urban restructuring, the downtowns of major cities have become increasingly gentrified, whereby lower income neighbourhoods transition to higher income ones, often displacing vulnerable populations (Ley, 1996; Smith, 1979). Researchers have already considered the various explanations of gentrification, and also the multitude of drivers and variants of the trend (Skaburskis and Moos, 2008). More recently, researchers have studied in particular the neighbourhood-level changes associated with the influx of post-secondary students near large university and college campuses through ‘studentification’ (Smith, 2005), and the influx of young adults into high-density, amenity-rich neighbourhoods that remain young over time through ‘youthification’ (Moos, 2016). In our paper, we unpack these trends further, and make a contribution by critically examining the ways gentrification, studentification and youthification are intertwined and are fuelled in part by an expanding knowledge economy and its training institutions. Importantly, our findings also reveal a link between immigration and youthification.

We use the Canadian context but, given similarities in the expansion of the knowledge economy elsewhere, there are broader lessons from this work about how different facets of the urban overlap, and are influenced by expanding post-secondary institutions. The focus has traditionally been on universities in regards to effects on cities (Addie, 2017). We also include colleges in our analysis, which reveals both valuable differences and similarities in their spatial coincidence with gentrification, youthification and studentification relative to universities.

The study of post-secondary institutions is increasingly important in the knowledge economy as they often act as quasi-state bodies and play a role in the transition of local neighbourhoods. Post-secondary institutions in North America and elsewhere increasingly rely on public–private partnerships and industry funding. This is to achieve their broadening mandates that now go beyond teaching and research to include the mobilisation and commercialisation of knowledge, and ‘outreach’ both physically and intellectually beyond neatly defined university campuses (Kirby, 2007; Perry and Harloe, 2007; Perry and Wiewel, 2005). Notwithstanding declining levels of state support for higher education in most Canadian jurisdictions, the Canadian post-secondary sector continues to receive the majority of its funding from public sources (Statistics Canada, 2011b). Some of these funds may be directed to expansion of programmes and/or branch campuses, with local development implications. At the same time, the individual decisions of young adults about where to study and reside also affect the evolution and character of urban-regional environments. The question then is how all these pieces fit together, and what the implications are for different social groups and economic development policy often aiming to ‘attract’ young adults to their cities.

Empirically, our contribution is (1) to document the ways in which three facets of contemporary urbanism previously largely studied in isolation overlap; and (2) to illustrate how universities and colleges, as markers of the knowledge economy, shape the social geography of cities. Conceptually, our contribution is threefold: (1) We aim to unpack uneven consequences of university expansion for different social groups; (2) we trace how universities act as agents of urban change, not just passively by being located in cities, but also by altering neighbourhoods through their constituencies (such as students) (Addie, 2017); and (3) we conceptualise one way in which the knowledge economy materialises in specific urban forms. The third contribution links the work to a long history of urban research that connects specific social geographies of cities to larger forces of restructuring. In our case, we propose that through the expansion of enrolment, the knowledge economy ‘produces’ gentrified, youthified and studentified landscapes, which both intersect and diverge in different places.

The paper is based on unique micro-level statistical data that allow insight into the characteristics of individuals in Canada’s three largest metropolitan areas, i.e. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (in order of size). We thus are able to examine directly who the young adults are who are living in different areas of the metropolitan landscape. We also examine the geographies of post-secondary institutions, by enrolment size, and their correlation with aspects of social geography at the neighbourhood scale (using census tract data). We track the ‘spillover’ effects of post-secondary institutions by analysing the geographic correlations among post-secondary institutions, gentrification and youthification. While many case studies examine the role of post-secondary institutions in urban development and change, this analysis allows us to take a metropolitan-level view of the impacts of 45 campuses affiliated with 31 universities and colleges across three major urban regions.

Universities in the knowledge economy

Addie (2017) advocates for a conceptual refocus to ‘universities in urban society’ from ‘the urban university’, the former being cognisant of the active roles universities play in shaping the urban. Indeed, post-secondary institutions are increasingly important political economic actors within urban areas in the context of the expansion of the knowledge economy (Addie, 2017: 1091, citing Bender, 1988). In Canada, colleges generally offer technical diplomas, whereas universities grant degrees, although the line between the two is becoming more blurred with colleges now granting degrees in some cases. Our focus on universities and colleges recognises their at-times-distinctive but increasingly overlapping roles in the Canadian context.

Post-secondary institutions own significant urban real estate and thereby have a considerable interest in the local, e.g. in the image of surrounding neighbourhoods, both to maintain the value of their assets, but also to improve student safety and to attract and retain top students, staff and faculty (Perry and Wiewel, 2005). Meanwhile, contemporary discourse suggests that universities promote themselves as global, internationally visible and competitive institutions, which oftentimes requires local expansion through branch campuses (Scott and Harding, 2007; see also Addie et al., 2015).

The result is that urban (and suburban) universities (and colleges), both in North America and elsewhere, often find themselves in the role of developer (Perry and Wiewel, 2005; Wiewel and Perry, 2008). Unlike a typical for-profit developer, post-secondary institutions may be better positioned to leverage public and philanthropic support, yet they are constrained by the need to meet the requirements of their expanding academic missions. They may also be constrained by jurisdiction-specific legal limitations on what academic institutions may do with their property, or how they may allocate funds (Austrian and Norton, 2005). Some have characterised institutional expansion as acting in their ‘enlightened self-interest’ (Bromley and Kent, 2006; Dixon and Roche, 2005), while others point to concerns over gentrification or displacement as inequitable outcomes for surrounding communities (Bose, 2015; Ehlenz, 2016; Silverman et al., 2014). By and large, however, this literature has been primarily concerned with success from the perspective of the university, through individual case studies.

In the Canadian context, some universities and colleges have opened new branch campuses or expanded into historically disinvested urban areas; however, links to gentrification or other urban changes have not been well studied and, unlike in the USA, Canadian universities have tended to be less aggressive in promoting the redevelopment and policing of surrounding areas (e.g. Bose, 2015). In part, the publicly funded nature of universities in Canada tempers the drive to engage in entrepreneurial urban development, and real or perceived issues of inner-city crime tend to be less pronounced. Nevertheless, some examples where gentrification concerns have been raised include the establishment and later expansion of the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1969 on the poorer, francophone east side of downtown; Simon Fraser University’s downtown Vancouver branch campus adjacent to the infamous Downtown Eastside neighbourhood in 1989; and the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy’s relocation to then declining downtown Kitchener in 2008.

In addition to gentrification, other outcomes of university expansion and branch campus development may include studentification and youthification. Studentification refers to the influx of post-secondary students to a neighbourhood, often related to increased enrolment at a nearby institution, and all its attendant effects, including social, cultural, physical and economic changes to the area (Smith, 2005). These impacts range from demographic changes that threaten the viability of local elementary schools; to changes to the commercial and service makeup; to more stereotypical disturbances such as noise from parties, unkempt properties and excessive parking pressure, among others (Breznitz and Feldman, 2012; Bromley, 2006; Chatterton, 1999; Collins, 2010; Hubbard, 2008; Munro and Livingston, 2012; Smith, 2005; Smith and Holt, 2007). Youthification, meanwhile, refers to the increasing concentration of young adults in the densest parts of urban areas, independent of income, due to a combination of housing and labour market constraints, and the presence of urban amenities and smaller dwelling units (Moos, 2016).

There is no question that universities are often powerful players in their locales. ‘[T]hey can be self-serving members of growth regimes as much as altruistic agents pursuing urban improvements and facilitating public participation in the urban process’ (Addie, 2017: 1093, citing Bose, 2015; Ross, 2012). And each university responds to its own circumstances. Regardless, universities have ‘centralising’ tendencies that can alter the population composition, and thus housing markets and neighbourhood dynamics, in their proximity and beyond (Addie, 2017: 1096). The expansion of post-secondary educational institutions and the growth of the knowledge economy go hand-in-hand. The knowledge economy is often described as one where information as opposed materials becomes the key ingredient of economic success (Ley, 1996). The knowledge economy thus relies on a highly educated population, and in this context education becomes more important in determining earnings (Moos, 2014). And it is linked to urban growth strategies that aim to attract well-educated, young adults (Moos, 2016), who in some cases come from abroad. While international students are not captured in our analysis of census data, those seeking permanent residency during their studies would be captured as immigrants. International students are, however, captured in enrolment data. Canada’s immigration laws facilitate the process of obtaining permanent residency for current students and graduates. It is important to note that immigrants, in the Canadian context, are those people born outside the country who did not arrive as refugees. The immigrant designation is retained for census purposes even if someone becomes a citizen.

The myriad impacts of university expansion include consequences for those without a degree, for instance in terms of their ability to compete in housing markets. In essence, universities act as profit-maximising property developers who actively displace lower income earners (Addie, 2017; Benneworth et al., 2010). In our empirical analysis, we are able to measure the aggregate impacts across a larger number of universities and colleges, in three major cities.

Geographic overlap and fuzzy boundaries

The roles of both students and young adults in the gentrification process have been previously established (Ley, 1996). However, little is known about how studentification and youthification intersect with each other and with gentrification. As we explore below, there is considerable potential for geographic overlap among the three phenomena. That is, our analysis documents where ‘pure’ forms for each of gentrification, studentification or youthification exist, but also establishes the inherently interconnected nature of these facets of contemporary urbanism. Ann Markusen’s (1999) critique of ‘fuzzy concepts’ is informative here as we aim to operationalise different concepts, as Markusen recommends, in order to render them less fuzzy. Simultaneously, however, we acknowledge the possibility of blurred boundaries, and we consider both the geographic overlap as well as the temporal change below to form a conceptual basis for this and subsequent work. However, our empirical analysis speaks only to the geographic overlap, leaving the temporal question to further research.

Geographic overlap

Gentrification has a global literature (e.g. Lees et al., 2016), but the more recently theorised concepts of studentification and youthification are less well-explored outside of the Anglo-American context. While we should exercise caution in applying terms developed in the (English-speaking) Global North to other regions, there is evidence to suggest that similar processes of urban restructuring are taking place beyond North America and the UK. Researchers have, for example, pointed to variants of studentification in Spain (Garmendia et al., 2012), Malaysia (Sabri and Ludin, 2009) and China (He, 2015). In contrast, Malet Calvo (2017) argues that, while students have contributed to urban change in Lisbon, Portugal, they have not exhibited residential concentration typically associated with studentification. Meanwhile, Cocheci and Mitrea (2018) have identified youthification in the Romanian city of Cluj, while others have observed increasing concentrations of young adults in inner cities across Europe (Kabisch and Haase, 2011), and the increasing prevalence of young single-person households in Tokyo and Seoul in particular are certainly consistent with youthification, although not studied in those terms (Ronald, 2017).

Where gentrification and studentification overlap we would expect to observe characteristics of ‘conventional’ studentification as identified by Darren Smith (2005): students who share characteristics with non-student gentrifiers, including background, culture and earning potential. More recent attention to purpose-built student accommodation also draws parallels with new-build gentrification (Davidson and Lees, 2010; Smith and Hubbard, 2014), for instance when luxury student housing takes the place of working class neighbourhoods (Pickren, 2012; Sage et al., 2012). However, in many ways, studentification remains distinct from gentrification, as the former typically contributes to a long-term decline in the physical environment and tenurial transformation toward renting (Smith, 2005).

Meanwhile, gentrification and youthification may also overlap. Studies have long associated gentrification with young professionals (‘yuppies’), a phenomenon that the term ‘youthification’ is meant to problematise, since young adults across the income spectrum are being found in gentrifying areas, as renters and owners (Moos, 2016). As the prior work on youthification suggests, not all young adults are gentrifiers, and some live in the central city with roommates or in basement apartments to live closer to low-paying service-sector jobs – an image far from the glamorous, amenity-driven location decisions often attributed to all young adults in popular accounts of central city change.

Yet, youthification still overlaps with gentrification. For example, the influx of young adults to central Brussels has comprised mostly those of advantaged backgrounds (van Criekingen, 2010). Young adults who are working sometimes co-inhabit an area with students, leading to both youthification and studentification, typically resulting in little change in social status. Students may, for example, remain in the neighbourhood after they graduate to be near friends and because of familiarity (He, 2015). This might serve as a precursor to a situation where all three processes occur simultaneously, as income-limited students and young adults alike seek affordable housing options. Where gentrification, studentification and youthification all overlap, we might expect to see the formation of neighbourhoods with exceptionally high proportions of students and young adults, and in which urban amenities cater primarily to these subpopulations. In some parts of the USA in particular this is becoming a dominant trend where universities actively engage as economic developers in the neighbourhoods surrounding them, for instance the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Here we might also find a marked class divide where students from less wealthy backgrounds are excluded or burdened by high rents, while the more wealthy gentrifiers invest in ownership or continual improvements that fuel further increases in market rent. Related to this is the possibility for youthification and studentification to diverge in some cases. Not all young adults are current or past university students, and the focus on highly educated young adults, sometimes labelled the ‘creative class’ in economic development policy, generally does little to benefit young adults of lower socio-economic standing (Peck, 2005). Particularly important are the implications for housing affordability since higher earning young adults, and those with higher earning potential such as students, can outcompete other young adults, such as those in the service sector, in the housing market.

Temporal changes

One plausible trajectory is for a neighbourhood to first gentrify, making it an attractive place for a subsequent influx of students. While this may occur somewhat passively as a by-product of city-centre revitalisation (Bromley et al., 2007), in some cases, at least in the American context, universities engage in strategies that gentrify adjacent neighbourhoods in ways that create appealing streetscapes that will in turn attract and retain students. Prominent examples include the Ohio State University campus in Columbus (Bose, 2015), Columbia University’s role in Harlem (Pilkington, 2007) and the University City area of West Philadelphia (Ehlenz, 2016; Moskowitz, 2014). A Canadian example includes Ryerson University’s role in the revitalisation of Toronto’s Dundas Square (Amborski, 2005). In the other direction, from studentification to gentrification, an influx of students primes the territory for a more conventional process of gentrification. Here, we might point to the example of the Carlton neighbourhood of Melbourne, Australia (Davison, 2009).

There is also the possibility of youthification following gentrification. For instance, some areas of central cities that are most youthified are those that previously gentrified, now including young adults across the income spectrum (Moos, 2016). Conversely, a transition from a youthified neighbourhood to gentrification is also possible. Given the increasing prevalence of precarious labour and the widening of a generational income gap (Moos, 2014) in the context of expensive housing markets in some major metropolitan centres, young adults of the Millennial generation may very well represent the archetypal ‘marginal gentrifier’ (Rose, 1984). In this scenario, young adults are attracted to certain neighbourhoods for their relatively low rents; as the neighbourhood gains a trendy reputation and investment in urban amenities, it undergoes an upscaling that is not limited to youth.

Two additional plausible trajectories, from studentification to youthification, and from youthification to studentification, have received less attention to date, primarily because of the relatively recent coinage of these terms (Revington, 2018). The argument has been made that studentification shapes students’ future (post-graduation) housing decisions (Sage et al., 2013; Smith, 2005; Smith and Holt, 2007), but the degree to which this occurs, and therefore shapes processes of youthification, remains unknown. He’s (2015) study in Guangzhou, China does suggest that studentification creates an environment in which some recent graduates choose to remain. The transition from youthification to studentification is perhaps least likely as it would imply a replacement of young adults who are mostly in the workforce by students or a return of a large share of young adults in a neighbourhood to post-graduate studies.

Methods

The empirical analysis for this paper is based on the Canadian context. We focus on three major metropolitan areas where the phenomena of gentrification, youthification and studentification have been previously documented, although not jointly as we aim to do here. The first part of this research considers the characteristics of young adults stratified by density of the built form. What constitutes young adulthood is subjective, but we use the 25–34 age range in keeping with prior research on young adults and urban restructuring, which argues that this is generally a particularly important time for their entrance into housing markets (Moos, 2014, 2016). Density is used as an indicator of urbanity, as the evolving metropolitan landscape of North American cities renders political or centrality-based definitions of urbanity increasingly less relevant (Skaburskis and Moos, 2008). Youthification, by definition, involves the increasing concentration of young adults in higher-density urban areas (Moos, 2016).

The analysis draws on special cross-tabulations of individual-level data from Canada’s 2006 Census of Population, which are not publicly available, accessed through the Canadian Research Data Centre Network. This allows us to identify the actual characteristics of young adults living in different tracts within Canadian cities, rather than infer them from census tract averages, as must be done with publicly available census data. We can therefore uncover differences between young adults living in dense, youthified areas as compared with those living in lower density neighbourhoods.

Four samples were constructed from the data. The first included respondents from all Canadian census metropolitan areas (CMAs), while the other three corresponded with each of the largest CMAs: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, respectively. In each, respondents were selected to include those aged 25–34 (inclusive), with a commute distance greater than 0 and less than 201 km (as those reporting commuting distance of over 201 km are coded to this value), having a household income greater than 0, and who do not live in band housing or housing collectives (a dwelling used for institutional, commercial or communal purpose) (Statistics Canada, 2011a). The weighted number of responses is 2,110,585; 436,500; 369,200; and 187,715 for all Canadian CMAs, Toronto CMA, Montreal CMA and Vancouver CMA, respectively. We measured urban density at the census tract level, as the number of dwellings divided by the tract area. On this basis, we divided the tracts into quartiles, for each of the four geographies. The characteristics of young adults are compared according to these density quartiles.

The second part of the research examines how census tract characteristics are influenced by proximity to post-secondary institutions. There are a host of factors that shape residential locations, not only post-secondary institutions. However, in this paper we focus on this particular aspect. To do so, we adopt a proximity measure similar to those commonly used to measure accessibility in transportation studies (e.g. Alam et al., 2010). This measure accounts for an institution’s size; in other words, the larger the university or college, the larger the impact it is expected to have in its immediate vicinity, and the more broadly the impacts will be felt spatially. Campuses with an enrolment of at least 5000 students were geocoded, resulting in a list of 45 campuses from 31 universities and colleges in total across the three cities, and the distance from each census tract centroid to each institution was computed. Each census tract’s proximity is calculated as the sum of the enrolment of each institution divided by its distance from the census tract, shown in Figure 1.¹ Large post-secondary institutions are more centralised in Montreal, whereas sizeable inner-suburban universities can be found in Toronto (York University) and Vancouver (Simon Fraser University) along with suburban college campuses.

Figure 1.

Post-secondary education proximity scores by census tract.

Given the shape of the distribution produced by this quotient, a natural logarithm transformation was applied to the proximity measure to ensure linearity. Subsequently, Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated between the proximity measure (for all institutions, and for universities and colleges separately), and the location quotient (LQ) of the young adult (aged 25–34) population as well as two indicators of gentrification, and also between the LQ and gentrification indicators, for each CMA. The first gentrification indicator is a socio-cultural index based on the work of David Ley (1996). It measures the sum of the share of a tract’s labour force with occupations in the social sciences, education, government, arts and recreation; and the share of a tract’s residents with a university degree; divided by two.² The second indicator aligns more closely with political-economic dimensions of gentrification, and is simply the average dwelling value in a census tract divided by the average number of bedrooms.³ Descriptive statistics of these variables are presented in Table 1. While we use occupational data in our research, future work could also consider sectoral data and university expansion of specific kinds of departments. For instance, the expansion of medical schools in particular may have larger implications for gentrification than a school of social work would in a low-income neighbourhood.

Table 1.

Summary statistics by census metropolitan area.

		Montreal	Toronto	Vancouver
Tracts		864	998	409
Location quotients (LQ) of young adults	Max	2.87	3.46	2.88
	Mean	1.07	0.98	0.99
	Min	0.21	0.30	0.31
	St. dev.	0.44	0.37	0.41
Ley’s gentrification index	Max	59.09	58.03	62.84
	Mean	24.24	26.05	24.59
	Min	5.75	0.00	8.56
	St. dev.	11.57	10.45	9.28
Average dwelling value/average number of bedrooms	Max	453,721	670,818	843,438
	Mean	116,958	151,401	198,069
	Min	0	0	0
	St. dev.	56,669	72,085	92,899
Proximity (all institutions)	Max	268.21	233.48	89.90
	Mean	37.26	23.28	18.07
	Min	4.38	3.51	4.60
	St. dev.	36.30	20.13	9.78
Proximity (universities)	Max	251.31	213.91	32.41
	Mean	29.67	16.51	9.01
	Min	3.27	2.38	2.88
	St. ev.	31.69	17.41	3.88
Proximity (colleges)	Max	85.33	94.80	60.49
	Mean	7.59	6.77	9.06
	Min	1.10	1.13	1.71
	St. dev.	6.28	4.68	7.35

Universities and the geographies of young adults

Across all Canadian CMAs as well as in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver, individually, the general trend was one of higher percentages of young adults aged 25–34 living in the higher density quartiles (Table 2). This trend was most pronounced in Vancouver, where nearly 40% of young adults lived in the highest density quartile, while only 16% lived in the lowest density quartile.

Table 2.

Percent 25–34 year olds in each dwelling density quartile.

	All Canadian CMAs	Montreal CMA	Toronto CMA	Vancouver CMA
Quartile 4 (most dense)	32%	29%	36%	40%
Quartile 3	23%	24%	22%	24%
Quartile 2	23%	22%	22%	20%
Quartile 1 (least dense)	22%	25%	20%	16%

Importantly, the characteristics of young adults differ among quartiles (see Figure 2). As density increases, young adults living there are less likely to have children, and more likely to be immigrants. They are also more likely to be university-educated or to be post-secondary students. Despite high levels of educational attainment, density was associated with a lower likelihood of being employed as well as with lower average household and individual incomes. For the most part, the occupational profiles of young adults were fairly consistent across density quartiles, but the densest quartile showed a marked increase in the percentage of those working in the social sciences, education, government, arts and recreation (commonly associated with gentrification) alongside a decrease in the share of those working in the trades, transportation and equipment operation.

Figure 2.

Characteristics of young adults by density quartile.

Correlations between census tract proximity to post-secondary education and the LQ of young adults are shown in Table 3. The correlations are moderately strong, especially striking given the number of intervening variables that might also influence young adults’ residential locations, such as urban amenities, access to transit, and relative rent cost; and also that, by 25 years old, most young adults choosing to pursue post-secondary education will have completed their first degree or diploma (Moos, 2016). Thus, many of the students are likely graduate students, something we are not able to discern further here because of data limitations.

Table 3.

Correlations to test spatial overlap at the census tract level.

Proximity to post-secondary institutions and LQs of young adults.
	All institutions	Universities only	Colleges only
Montreal	0.606	0.604	0.574
Toronto	0.489	0.486	0.412
Vancouver	0.534	0.509	0.489

Proximity to post-secondary institutions and gentrification indicators.
	Ley’s gentrification index			Average dwelling value/average number of bedrooms
	All institutions	Universities only	Colleges only	All institutions	Universities only	Colleges only
Montreal	0.631	0.637	0.550	0.719	0.720	0.655
Toronto	0.477	0.489	0.403	0.510	0.535	0.401
Vancouver	0.436	0.464	0.340	0.437	0.469	0.391
LQs of young adults and gentrification indicators.
	Ley’s gentrification index		Average dwelling value/average number of bedrooms
Montreal	0.351			0.383
Toronto	0.209			0.252
Vancouver	0.196			0.286

Note: All correlations significant at p < 0.001.

The correlations are strongest in Montreal and weakest in Toronto. Table 3 also shows the correlations between proximity to post-secondary institutions and the gentrification indicators. For both indicators, the correlations are of a similar magnitude to those pertaining to the young adult LQs and, again, are strongest in Montreal. They are weakest in Vancouver, perhaps in part because of two post-secondary institutions being located at the fringes of the inner city where much of the housing traditionally catered to older populations. Also noteworthy is that, in the case of both the LQs and gentrification indicators, the correlations with proximity to post-secondary education are weaker when only colleges are included, but this is not the case when only universities are retained.

Higher correlation between the gentrification indicators and universities, as opposed to colleges, is not unexpected as universities more typically provide the type of cultural capital associated with gentrifiers. Colleges, on the contrary, are often more oriented toward providing specific technical and vocational training, which has traditionally been more strongly associated with trade and service-sector jobs, rather than the inner-city gentrifiers working in professional occupations. However, given the shifting role of colleges we may see that change.

Correlations between the young adult LQ and the gentrification indicators, meanwhile, are comparatively low (Table 3). For both measures of gentrification, the correlations and strongest in Montreal. For the socio-cultural index, the correlation is lowest in Vancouver, while for the political-economic measure, it is lowest in Toronto. Given the moderately strong correlations between each of these variables and proximity to post-secondary institutions (and especially universities), it appears that gentrification and youthification are far more likely to overlap in proximity to post-secondary education than elsewhere in an urban area.

Structural constraints, in particular housing market conditions, may explain differences in the strength of correlations among metropolitan areas. Higher overall housing costs in Toronto and Vancouver might mean that young adults are more constrained in their residential location choices and accordingly the influence of post-secondary institutions is weakened. It may also be the case that, as gentrification has proceeded in these more expensive cities, the social sciences, education, government, arts and recreation workers associated with earlier stages of gentrification have been seceded by higher income earners in different occupational fields, for example in business and finance. In particular, this might explain the relatively higher correlations between LQs of young adults and gentrification in Montreal as compared with the other CMAs. However, it may be that locations of post-secondary institutions simply ‘happen’ to be more closely aligned with other features shaping young adults’ or gentrifiers’ housing choices in some metropolitan areas than others. More nuanced investigation accounting for the effects of intervening variables is necessary.

Although students remain a minority among young adults over 25, they nonetheless represent a partial driver of youthification, a finding that echoes that of Cocheci and Mitrea (2018). Given the age range used in our study, it is likely that many of these are graduate students, while many other young adults nearby are recent graduates. Proximity to post-secondary institutions is also associated with gentrification suggesting a degree of overlap with processes of youthification and studentification in Canadian cities. Indeed, proximity to universities has already been identified as an important factor shaping studentification (Charbonneau et al., 2006).

However, the connection between gentrification and youthification is somewhat ambiguous. Indeed, while the correlations between proximity to post-secondary institutions and the gentrification indicators are of moderate strength, correlations between the LQ of young adults and the gentrification indicators are comparatively low. Dense, youthified neighbourhoods – despite holding the educational and occupational hallmarks of gentrification – also feature lower rates of employment and lower individual and household incomes among young adults than less dense neighbourhoods.

To be sure, gentrification as a class-based process is not based solely on present income, but on future earning potential and certain types of cultural capital, as captured at least partially by education rates and occupation types (Ley, 1996). However, these results do attest to the fact that youthification has tended to engender a mix of income levels among young adults and can be seen as a process distinct from gentrification (Moos, 2016).

At the same time, we would want to problematise the notion that young adults’ residential locations are entirely the product of consumer sovereignty. Structural constraints related to lower incomes and employment rates, and higher debts (Walks, 2013), play a role in shaping young adults’ location. For example, such areas are more supportive of quality public transit service, and are often (but not always) centrally located, enabling young adults to forego the costs associated with car ownership in a way that might not be feasible in less dense environments. Rental housing is also more readily available in higher density locations. In this way, youthification may represent, to some extent, the spatial manifestation of individual strategies to adapt to precarious labour markets, generational income gaps, and/or expensive metropolitan housing markets (Moos, 2014), parallelling Rose’s (1984) ‘marginal gentrifier’ as young professionals negotiate a disadvantaged position within a privileged group. Furthermore, many universities were already in urban centres long before gentrification became a concern; so rather than pointing at a purely linear relationship between university locations and gentrification, we would suggest that the two have become mutually reinforcing.

We also find that young adults living in the highest density quartiles are more likely to be immigrants than those living in lower-density quartiles. This difference was quite stark for the aggregate of all Canadian CMAs (by a factor of about three) as well as in Montreal (by a factor of more than four), while in Toronto and Vancouver – the country’s main immigrant-receiving regions – the share of immigrants among young adults was more evenly distributed across density quartiles, and the highest share was in the second-densest quartile. Previous research has demonstrated an association between urban density and the location of immigrants in Canadian CMAs, as well as with youthification (Moos, 2016). Whether these regional differences are tied to the volume of immigrants or to local housing market characteristics, or a combination of these, is an important topic for further research, as is consideration of qualitative differences in experiences of the youthification process between and among immigrants and native-born residents.

Conclusions

This study helps to shed light on the linkages among gentrification, youthification and studentification in the context of expanding post-secondary institutions as a component of the knowledge economy. The analysis finds a link among these three but also plausible connections between immigration and youthification as shares of young immigrants are higher in the densest areas. More generally, gentrification, studentification and youthification occur both as independent as well as overlapping phenomena in the case of three Canadian metropolitan areas. An important theoretical (and methodological) finding is that urban studies needs to continue to include consideration of how various facets of urban change coincide because boundaries are indeed fuzzy.

It seems as though the presence of post-secondary institutions, and in particular universities, play an important role in instances of overlap between gentrification and youthification. Optimistically interpreted, youthified neighbourhoods at the very least hold out the promise of mixed-income communities. Or, more pessimistically, expensive locations are also those where some sublet parts of their dwellings to afford inner city living, creating insecurity of tenure among lower income renters.

Importantly, the paper provides new insight into the ways different facets of urban change overlap and where they diverge. It also contributes to our understanding of how post-secondary institutions, as hallmarks of the knowledge economy, influence the social geography of cities. In emphasising divergent patterns, the paper raises questions about who has the ‘right to the city’ (Harvey, 2008; Lipman, 2011; Purcell, 2002). While the ‘right to the city’ is generally about political movements working toward more egalitarian access to space and resources in cities, we interpret it here in a broader sense to refer to the need to ensure equal access to all parts of the urban by diverse social groups. In a societal context an increasing share of jobs requires post-secondary education, universities and colleges are likely to continue to expand, although universal access is not assured.

If there is opportunity for policy intervention it would be to ensure even access to post-secondary education regardless of socioeconomic status; and collaborations between universities and local governments to address uneven impacts of post-secondary institutions on local housing markets. Furthermore, current local economic development policies focused on attracting workers commonly treat gentrification, youthification and studentification as synonymous and universally beneficial. However, the paper clearly demonstrates that these three processes are not spatially coincident, and that therefore a focus on attracting well-educated, young adults leaves out those young adults who are also most likely to be susceptible to the housing market impacts of gentrification. Not all students or young adults are gentrifiers, nor are all gentrifiers young: A recognition of this divergence is an important first step in working toward a more inclusive urbanism where the ‘right to the city’ can be assured for diverse constituencies that do not fit neatly into the stereotypes targeted by ‘creative class’ inspired economic development policies.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor and reviewers for their helpful comments and detailed review, and Amel Badri for research assistance. The research for this article was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. All errors or omissions remain the responsibility of the authors.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research for this article was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes

ORCID iD

Markus Moos

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