Toronto's Little Portugal: gentrification and social relations among local entrepreneurs

摘要

This article clarifies neighborhood politics in Toronto's Little Portugal Business Improvement Area (BIA), an ethnic neighborhood facing gentrification, by focusing on local entrepreneurs and the social relations among them. In the BIA, non-Portuguese businesses have replaced Portuguese businesses in the past decade; Portuguese and nonPortuguese entrepreneurs are now found in almost the same numbers. I visualized their social relations by using a diagram called a sociogram. Portuguese and non-Portuguese entrepreneurs are spatially inseparable but socially divided in the neighborhood. The BIA board, an organization for community development spearheaded by local entrepreneurs and property owners, has become predominantly non-Portuguese. The social relations among non-Portuguese entrepreneurs affect and are affected by the activities of this organization. While the Portuguese community could potentially mount resistance by mobilizing the collective power of the provincial ethnic alliance, the BIA is a form of quasi-government in Little Portugal; hence, the Portuguese community may have limited options for such resistance.