Kingston storefronts are abandoning the local population for out-of-town money.
The city has been evolving quickly over the last ten years, and with it, so have prices. While many consider the evolution of a small-town like Kingston a good thing, wages haven’t been evolving with it, leading to the displacement of Kingstonians from its downtown core. Whether it’s stores reducing prices, or wages increasing, something has to give.
Local businesses such as thrift stores and twenty-four-hour markets around downtown Kingston have been slowly pricing out local Kingstonians and trading their business for primarily student out-of-towners. These smaller shops are raising prices compared to legacy stores like Metro, which offers a continuous student discount of ten per cent, effectively cutting out locals, who on average, make $73,500 per household annually. Conversely, if stores catered to the Kingston community by keeping prices competitive, sales would rocket as items would be affordable for everyone in the Greater Kingston Area.
The trend of increasing prices in part stems from the students attending Queen’s University. Over 90 per cent of the student population is from bigger cities like Toronto, where the median household income is $84 thousand. 51 per cent of students at Queen’s University come from a household making over $125,000 annually.
Price hikes and their negative effects on local communities tend to be the case with many Canadian “university towns.” Students’ parents send them off to university while paying their tuition, rent, and food prices—all living costs that are far too expensive for Kingston’s hard-working people. While data shows that Kingston is still on the more affordable side, it’s clear that prices are on the rise all around, making life unaffordable.
Pricing out comes at a cost to the locals of Kingston. While food prices skyrocket, wages are stagnant, and work is hard to find, meaning that Kingstonians can no longer comfortably shop downtown, or at local markets and thrift stores, which are designed to be affordable for the middle to lower income bracket.
The pricing out of Kingstonians is detrimental because it prevents the greater Kingston community from engaging and contributing to the economy, robbing Kingstonians of the ability to enjoy the downtown area. A space, which was once theirs, but has been lost to extreme rent and general pricing hikes designed to take advantage of students.
After attending a townhall on Kingston’s housing crisis, it became clear that Kingston’s trading the security of those who built this city for those who they want to be the future of this city, but who inevitably end up moving elsewhere after graduation.
Pricing out Kingstonians economically segregates the population. According to census data, many living within the student district and downtown area make between $90,000-$110,000 annually, with the majority making over $110,000. The money that’s being spent downtown in Kingston doesn’t find its way back to the community, but into the pockets of developers, corporations, landlords, and store owners.
Students can fight gentrification by choosing where to spend their money more carefully. Attending town-halls to register their discontent with giant corporate developers erecting massive glass buildings in a space that was meant for residents and their community.
Kingston is in desperate need of change. If this pattern continues, it will only further segregate Kingstonians from what is rightfully their space to enjoy. Without Kingstonians, Kingston isn’t the “small-city” and tight-knit community it tries so hard to be.
Jashan Dua is a fourth-year History student and The Journal’s Senior Photo Editor
Tags
cost of living, downtown Kingston, Kingston, students
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