Since the late 1980s there has been considerable interest in the intrametropolitan location of economic activity. A growing number of studies examine in detail the spatial structure of particular metropolitan areas, or present comparisons at a relatively aggregated spatial and sectoral level. From these studies, certain authors have deduced a general pattern of metropolitan spatial development—one involving the suburbanisation of economic activity and the weakening of the central business district. The scarcity of comparable data covering different cities renders these generalisations somewhat tentative, however. In this paper we use a unique database to compare the spatial structures, and their evolution over time, for the four largest Canadian metropolitan areas: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Ottawa – Hull. These data allow highly disaggregated spatial (census-tract level) and sectoral (thirty economic sectors) analyses. The results, which illustrate the existence of three distinct patterns of development amongst these four metropolitan areas, call into question the existence of a single model. In doing so they also raise a series of questions regarding possible explanations for these differences.
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