In the past year, the City of Toronto has welcomed about 2,500 new retail and service establishments of all sizes, more than twice the amount in 2013. According to Jim Helik, senior planner for the City of Toronto, this data reveals that retailers still find the city “a healthy place to establish a business” and are aware of programs that support small establishments.

Yet, with a surge of residential developments in a city where the population is more than million and growing, helping retailers to preserve space in ethnic neighbourhoods is becoming increasingly valuable.

A recent panel discussion at Toronto’s Ted Rogers School of Management, called “Ethnic Retail Neighbourhoods: Place-Making and Branding,” included varying perspectives from planners, leaders in Business Improvement Areas (BIA) and urban researchers, in regards to branding as a means of preservation and growth, while also considering the gentrification and commodification that can ensue.

“Ethnic neighborhoods are major social spaces where ethnic businesses are operating and generating long-lasting physical imprints and impacts on urban landscapes,” says Harald Bauder, panel moderator and academic director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement (RCIS).

According to Antonie Schmiz, visiting fellow at RCIS, this etho-cultural diversity is increasingly perceived as an asset for city branding. “Ethnic neighbourhoods have a wide economic range and potential for branding,” she says. “The branding of ethnic neighbourhoods affects tourists, a new creative and cosmopolitan urban elite and international investors.”

Yet, Schmiz points out that municipal branding can also threaten local culture due to its strategic and rational logic that commodifies culture through events like festivals.

Helik says the city is aware of policies to support these specialty retail districts, which also include peripheral industrial areas experiencing residential construction.

“We always want to enhance the commercial main street, so there is concerted effort to ensure they’re protected,” Helik adds, pointing to a retail section within the city’s official plan for Healthy Neighbourhoods, Neighbourhoods, Apartment Neighbourhoods and Environment policies.

This section highlights promoting a strong and diverse retail sector through a broad range of shopping opportunities, while encouraging traditional retail shopping streets as centres of community.

“And we do that by improving local amenities and encouraging BIAs and compatible development,” he says, emphasizing the economic development and culture program, which offers grants for commercial owners, façade development and initiatives like the cultural hotspots project that celebrates culture in local communities.

Along with this is the city’s use of Section 37 of Ontario’s Planning Act, which states if a property owner wants to build outside of zoning regulations, the owner, seeking approval, may offer community benefits. But as the money goes to the specific neighborhood constructing the building, some areas might be ignored.

Despite this debate, Helik says BIAs are the real drivers behind maintaining ethnic neighbourhoods and making them competitively advantageous.

At the time of amalgamation, 17 years ago, there were 41 BIAs.  Now, Toronto has 81 BIA’s, spread into industrial areas and suburbs outside the core. According to Ron Nash, economic development division for the City of Toronto, these BIAs represent about 23 per cent of the city’s tax base and 36 per cent of the city’s business, and showcase more than 160 events annually.

Although a BIAs main intent is to beautify its respective neighbourhood beyond the city’s standard treatment—parkettes and streetscapes, for example—many BIAs are often involved in the process of marketing and branding.

“From a board perspective, there are priorities to have a consistent brand, something people can identity the area with,” says Nash, using the example of deliberately branding Little Portugal.

Neighbourhoods like Little Portugal are easier to brand. Other areas must work harder to position and communicate themselves so people and businesses—cultural affiliation or not—have something to identify with. Keeping this in mind, Nash suggests a few significant ways to successfully market the culture of a neighbourhood.

“Once the neighbourhood is branded by the BIA, what is key is that the board agree upon the brand identity and direction and how it will be moulded and operationalized,” he says. “A clear identity involves understanding history of the neighbourhood, what they are now and what they wish to become in a few years.”

Consistency is also crucial. The branding of Trinity Bellwoods, for example, posed a challenge due to being named after a geographical location, which wasn’t seen as a strong brand at the time.

“It’s a challenge, but I think Trinity Bellwoods has been successful because they’ve been working on a small budget at $45,000 per year, but their priority has been marketing and branding the location as a design area,” says Nash.

For example, the area hosts Do Design, a street-wide event held during Design Week, that has drawn like-minded retailers to the neighbourhood.

In other areas, with many businesses trying to represent the area with one specific image, some will be successful, while other businesses will struggle.

Zhixi Cecilia Zhuang, assistant professor, Urban & Regional Planning at Ryerson University, says some ethnic neighbourhoods will not be able to achieve success and will become overwhelmed due to gentrification. Others thrive.

“Some neighbourhoods are surviving over the years, like Corso Italia, which has been transformed,” she says. “We don’t find a chain coffee store there because they couldn’t compete with the local coffee shops, and the local businesses are trying to promote this authentic experience.”

But as big box stores continue to push in, preservation proves more difficult. “Local merchants have to demonstrate how a big box store will hurt them,” says Helik. “At the Ontario Municipal Board, retailers have been reticent to open up their books and give the kind of data proving how their business will be hurt, which doesn’t help their case.”

Despite the various changes such neighbourhoods may face, Nash suggests change should be viewed through a lens of evolution and not only gentrification.

“Smart BIAs will try and manage that change, as I don’t think anyone wants to displace businesses that are there,” he says. “BIAs are essentially competing with other commercial areas, so if they do nothing, they will simply fall behind.”