Ford Nation is alive and well in most of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, a ward-by-ward analysis of Monday’s mayoral vote shows.

From Rexdale and Jane-Finch in the city’s northwest to Malvern and Scarborough-Rouge River in the east, support for Ford topped 50 per cent.

Although voter turnout was up across the city, with initial reports of almost 61 per cent casting ballots, it was highest in the wealthy inner core that supported mayor-elect John Tory and lowest in the struggling suburban wards that favoured Doug Ford. In Wards 7 and 8, home to the Jane-Finch neighbourhood, support for Ford was 65 per cent and 60 per cent respectively.

Median annual household income in Ward 8 is the lowest in the city, at $42,800. Voter turnout there was just 51 per cent.

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The lowest voter turnout was in Ward 41, Scarborough-Rouge River, at just over 49 per cent, where almost 53 per cent of ballots cast were for Ford.

Only in Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park, where median household incomes hover at $44,200 — more than $14,000 below the city median of $58,400 — did voters favour Olivia Chow and her promise of more child care, school nutrition programs and affordable housing.

“Looking at this map, it’s clear where we need to focus our work over the next four years,” noted an exasperated Deena Ladd of the Workers’ Action Centre, a collective that has been advocating for a $14 minimum wage and better working conditions.

Ladd credited Chow’s strength in Wards 14 and 18 to strong NDP representation at the provincial and federal levels. Ward 19, the only other ward where Chow came out on top, is part of her old federal riding of Trinity-Spadina.

“Ford’s talk about taxes and the gravy train really resonated for low-income people outside the city core. For them, every penny counts,” she said.

Wanda McNevin, of the Jane-Finch Community and Family Centre, said Ford’s promise of a subway on Finch Ave. was also popular with voters in her area, who often spend hours on transit to get to work.

“These are disenfranchised communities,” she said. “So when someone promises them something like a subway, they listen.”

Unfortunately, these residents are so busy just surviving, most didn’t hear the experts who said ridership in the area wouldn’t support a subway for 30 years, if ever, she sighed.

Ford’s folksy, rumpled demeanor also played better than Tory’s polished speeches, she added.

Just as Ford was strongest in the low-income suburbs, Tory dominated in the core. He saw his highest support — almost 75 per cent — in the city’s richest ward, Ward 16, Eglinton-Lawrence, where the median household income is $94,300. The mayor-elect had the least support in Ward 8, York West, the city’s poorest.

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Monday’s results mirror the United Way’s 2004 Poverty by Postal Code study and University of Toronto urban studies professor David Hulchanski’s “Three Cities” study of how Toronto’s middle-class neighbourhoods are shrinking, said U of T human geography professor Zack Taylor.

“They show a city that has a wealthy heart and a U-shape of relative deprivation that swings downtown and back up to the edges. The downtown part of that U voted for Olivia Chow, and the outer parts of that U voted for Rob Ford,” said Taylor, who has been tracking how the city’s economic divisions play out politically over several elections.

“I think our politics are somewhat driven by these socio-economic divides,” he said. “The question is, how do we create a new narrative that isn’t a city-suburb narrative?”

It will be up to Tory to provide a “bridging narrative, to pull it all together.”

Ironically, former mayor David Miller’s Priority Neighbourhoods, Transit City and Tower Renewal policies had the potential to address the lack of municipal resources, rapid transit and crumbling housing that plague these communities, Taylor noted. But Miller stepped down before he was able to implement them.

“The new mayor should definitely revisit (these policies) and perhaps repackage them to meet the current need,” Taylor added.

Hulchanski has compared Monday’s results to his ongoing Three Cities research, and come up with similar observations.

“A divided city will likely produce a divided voting pattern,” he said. “We can reverse the trends year-by-year in specific, small but meaningful ways that can add up. City councils, and the bully pulpit a mayor has, can do a great deal in advocating for, as well as taking actual steps that create a city with fairer opportunities for all.”

Areas of highest Ford support also have higher proportions of immigrants and visible minorities, noted Ryerson University urban politics professor Myer Siemiatycki.

“I think we are dealing with the politics of low income, inferior transportation and transit in particular, and a population that senses they are the outsiders of political life in Toronto,” he said.

“In the absence of any other candidate conveying a convincing narrative of how they can tangibly improve the wellbeing of lower-income Torontonians, there will be an audience for a candidate who says: ‘I’ve got your back covered when it comes to taxes and the cost of local government,’” Siemiatycki added.

And that’s not something we should be sneering at, he warned.

“It is a very interesting geo-demographic-political profile playing out in Toronto,” he said. “John Tory’s challenge will be to try and overcome those divisions and try to create a more inclusive city.”

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