The middle class in Vancouver is shrinking.

A widening gulf between the rich and the poor makes for a marked shift in demographics over the last 40 years.

And there’s a fascinating difference between Toronto and Vancouver when it comes to distribution of these two classes:

In Toronto high income residents have centered around transit hubs, while in Vancouver the opposite has happened and poverty has spread along the skytrain line.

And numbers from 2010 income tax returns that Ley received this week show accelerated polarization between rich and poor, especially in the Downtown Eastside.

Vancouver’s experience is opposite of Toronto when it comes to transit, Ley said, as high income residents concentrate around transit in Hogtown.

It’s a phenomenon Martin Wyant, CEO of Tri-Cities social services organization the Share Society, can see simply by looking at the increase of residents that need Share’s food bank – a 59 per cent rise since 2007.

In the suburbs, new condo developments hide the poverty, he said, but most people are forced to commute for higher paying jobs.

I guess the question is this: will the recent push to build and sell condo towers at transit hubs shift this trend up or down?