In 2024, the City of Toronto endorsed a three-pillar framework to advance city-wide inclusive economic development (IED) and neighbourhood / area focused community economic development (CED) in Toronto. The three pillars include:
(a) inclusive workforce development and sector pathways;
(b) inclusive entrepreneurship and asset ownership; and
(c) research, monitoring and equity impact.
This framework posits that inclusive economic development occurs when economic opportunities and outcomes improve across Toronto’s population and neighbourhoods and in parallel to overall growth of the city and regional economy. It responds to ongoing and growing disparity of economic outcomes and opportunities within Toronto’s labour force and between communities and aims to support the coordination and alignment of various City policies and programs across divisions.
Inclusive economic development is defined by the City as an approach that will deliver improved economic opportunities and outcomes, with an intentional focus on Indigenous, Black and equity-deserving communities. The IED framework expands the standard definition of economic development success (based solely on growth) by adding measures of economic opportunity, inclusion and intergenerational mobility. While growth and economic resilience remain as key economic development goals, this new approach applies City resources and policies to shape an economy that provides more residents with the opportunity to participate in and benefit from growth.
IIESL is a member of the City’s working table to develop and implement this framework, sharing expertise and background information on how inclusive economic development is implemented in other cities and contexts, and how it could best work in Toronto.
A Framework to Advance Inclusive Economic Development in Toronto: A public discussion
In March 2025, IIESL hosted an inspiring and important panel discussion about how growth and trickle-down economics aren’t working and what it means to think of the economy from an inclusive and place-based perspective. We talked about how to translate inclusion into policy, planning, and indicators, but also about the possibilities and limits of state-led inclusion.
Professor Manuel Pastor opened the event with powerful remarks on the need to build economic systems based on mutuality and solidarity, rather than extraction and exclusion. Then panelists Alejandro Bravo, Kumsa Baker, Jack Copple, Mariana Mota, and Jenn MIller engaged in conversation about inclusive economic development and Toronto’s framework, moderated by Marcelo Vieta.
