Sergio Barrios Jr.

Poverty is increasing within some neighbourhoods in the City of Toronto. In the past, suburban expansion was documented as having a strong inverse relationship with poverty in the inner city; as the city expanded outward, poverty increased. Recently, the priorities of the municipal government have shifted from developing former suburbs to a focus on improving public services in neighbourhoods now considered as �in distress�. Recent literature suggests that it may be possible to utilize remotely sensed imagery as a data proxy in social science investigations. The benefit is that satellite and aerial images can be acquired much more frequently than traditional data sources such as census information. This research determined the extent of urban growth from 1994 to 2005 in the heavily urbanized southern portion of the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). In addition, it attempted to recognize a relationship between ortho-photos and census variables in a GIS environment. The hypothesis is that extracted image texture can be used as a surrogate indicator of neighbourhood vitality in the City of Toronto. The advantage for public officials and planners would be the ability to apply this relation to examine poverty/inequality issues more often. This would allow for action to be undertaken sooner. The results showed that it was not possible to relate image texture measures to variables from distresse d neighbourhoods. This may be related to Toronto's underlying social complexities and changing urban structure.