Diversity has increasingly emerged as the core focus of many studies concerning factors impacting on social cohesion. Various scholars have concluded that diversity is detrimental to cohesion. Most of this research, however, draws generalisations based upon quantitative data and fails to account for the impact of inequality, segregation and discrimination, and their interconnectedness to diversity. This research provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of the perceptions of inhabitants of a diverse Toronto neighbourhood regarding formal and informal interactions, common values and attachment. The findings suggest that the internalisation of gendered and class-based racism by inhabitants plays a crucial role in shaping perceptions and interactions.

A prominent characteristic of the city of Toronto is its increasing diversity, with half of the city's population being foreign-born. While the concept of diversity appeals to Toronto's reputation as a multi-cultural haven, the city's approach to managing diversity is becoming increasingly instrumentalist, i.e. diversity is considered an asset as long as its benefits are economically valuable. This is illustrated socio-spatially by the fact that inner-city neighbourhoods in Toronto are thriving due to development projects and services, while the most diverse neighbourhoods in the inner-suburbs are left in a dire state.This article presents an analysis of how the concept of diversity used within policy euphemises systemic discrimination and inequality based on race, class and gender. It serves to reveal the mismatch between policy rhetoric on diversity and its materialisation in the daily lives of the inhabitants of a low-income Toronto inner-suburb, by juxtaposing policy discourses with inhabitants' everyday experiences. By illustrating how inhabitants reproduce negative essentialised stereotypes based on diversity markers, the article argues that talking diversity as an alternative to or an escape from problematising the intertwined systems of race, class and gender oppression, could potentially serve to perpetuate them.

The recent decades have witnessed a shift from the traditional top-down model of service delivery led by the state to the provision and delivery of services by community organisations. This article explores the extent to which community initiatives in Jane-Finch, a highly diverse, lower income, inner-suburban neighborhoods of Toronto, were successful in achieving their goals, and the relevance of the experience for current neighbourhood initiatives targeting diversity. It discusses the factors which contributed to the effectiveness of 10 analysed initiatives in terms of reaching their primary objectives. The analysis shows that despite the efforts within community initiatives to improve conditions for inhabitants, their impacts remain limited due to underlying structural challenges such as poverty and institutionalised racism, increasing fragmentation within the over-all network of initiatives and precarious funding, which pit programs against one another and hamper effective collaboration and solidarity needed in order to achieve transformative change.