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Suburbs versus downtown: who-voted-for-whom election maps confirm what everyone already knew

By John Michael McGrath
Suburbs versus downtown: who-voted-for-whom election maps confirm what everyone already knew
Toronto election map: the darker the blue, the higher the concentration of Ford voters. Click map for more images. (Image: Patrick Cain)

The City of Toronto released its official vote counts today, and this being 2010, the first thing smart folks did was put together maps of how the various wards voted. The good people at Torontoist beat everyone else to the punch; ex–Toronto Star mappulator Patrick Cain put together some others, as well.  The results confirm the basic stereotype of which wards were expected to vote for whom. The great suburban belt around the old city of Toronto voted, in many cases overwhelmingly, for Rob Ford. Meanwhile, the downtown, latte-sipping, bike-lane-and-streetcar-loving core voted, less enthusiastically, for George Smitherman.

The division is pretty astonishing; by our count, of Toronto’s 44 wards, only five were even remotely close (a gap of less than 10 per cent), and many had a vote spread of more than 20 per cent. That’s pretty severe, even by the standards of that famous old Jesusland map.

Predictably, there’s some chatter on Twitter about this all being a good argument for de-amalgamating Toronto. Just a few problems with that: first, it’s petulant; this is politics, and everyone loses sometimes.  Second, look at that map again: the inner suburbs have the core surrounded. Urbanite hipsters would never escape, not knowing how to make it through the wilds of Etobicoke (or “Fordland”) without help.

• How Toronto Voted For Mayor [Torontoist] • Ford vs. Smitherman by ward [PatrickCain.ca] • Ford v Smitherman, continued [PatrickCain.ca]

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