City Size and Income Distributions: The Canadian Experience

Abstract

Recent US studies generally conclude that city size contributes to greater intra-urban income inequality, while higher average income levels contribute to equality. We argue that Canadian cities and the Canadian urban system are in some ways different from those in the US, and that American results may not therefore be transferable to Canada. This is confirmed by our testing with 1971 Census data; we find that city size does not affect urban income distributions in Canada, although higher levels of income do add to equality, as in the US. We conclude that American findings may be due to the particularities of US cities, and that long term growth of Canadian cities, while perhaps of some concern for other reasons, does not appear to threaten existing levels of income equality.