The “Paris Problem” in Toronto: RACIALIZATION AND GEOGRAPHICAL IMAGINARIES OF DANGER

The publication by the United Way Toronto of Poverty by Postal Code in 2004 and the reference to 2005 as the “year of the gun” are most often understood as the major events that led to the formation of place-based urban policy targeting non-White poverty in Toronto’s postwar suburbs. Both moments were influential in the normalization of a racialized geographical imaginary of poverty and gun violence in public consciousness in Toronto and of a subsequent need for immediate state intervention. Voices affiliated with United Way often credit the philanthropic organization and its 2004 report with the discovery of geographically concentrated