[caption id="attachment_4765" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Source: Statistics Canada"][/caption] Despite dramatic differences in population, density, infrastructure, and growth, there is remarkable consistency between commuting patterns in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Halifax, particularly when it comes to travelling by car. And incidentally, when it comes to getting us out of them, we seem to find buses and bike lanes unconvincing. A closer look at our most recent census data raises some surprising – and some predictable – findings about the way we get to work and how preferences change as our cities grow.

By Marcus Bowman, cross-posted from Spacing Toronto An unprecedented collaborative report mapping the concentration of artists in Canadian cities was released last month. The study was a result of the collective effort of the cultural departments of the cities of Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver. Published by Hill Strategies, and based on data from the 2006 census, the report paints a fascinating picture into the make-up of Canada's artistic and creative communities. Each city  has its own trends in the way its artistic and creative communities have located. Vancouver had the highest overall percent of artists at 2.3% but has its artistic community spread widely throughout the city. Toronto has by far the largest artistic community; it is home to one in six Canadian artists. Toronto has also seen its artistic neighbourhoods shift slightly since to 2001 to different areas of concentration. Montreal has perhaps the most densely located artistic community and is home to three of the country's top five artistic employment postal codes. The Montreal neighbourhood of the H2T postal code (northward from avenue du Mont-Royal to avenue Van Horne between St-Denis and Jeanne-Mance) is the most artistic in Canada with artists accounting for 7.8% of its workers, ten times the national average. Ottawa and Calgary have artist concentrations closer to the national average, interestingly they also both have the largest income gaps between artists and the rest of the workforce and the largest percent of female artists. Maps of these trends are shown below.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Some Spacing Atlantic readers may not be aware of this, but Spacing hosts a bi-weekly podcast called Spacing Radio (you can subscribe to the show via iTunes or follow the links on the right sidebar). It has primarily been focused on Toronto, but the last few episodes have seen us cover other cities, which we will continue to do. This episode has a feature on Halifax's recent 4 Days conference. This episode of Spacing Radio challenges listeners to think about public ...