> I'm not sure about in the United States, but here in Canada, we barely even have "good" and "bad" neighbourhoods. My city is quite well-mixed together economically.
This is a joke, right? Like, either you live in a small town not large enough to have distinct neighbourhoods, or you are so isolated as to not see the abject poverty that many live here. Take Toronto, for example. Right on Mt. Pleasant Rd. and St. Clair you have Rosedale, one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in all of Canada. If you walk down a street there, you won't find a person making less than $100K. You'll have perfectly maintained roads, bike lanes, and very good private schools (like Upper Canada College), where every kid there pays $50K a year. Go down Mt. Pleasant until it becomes Jarvis St., and continue going down until you hit Dundas St., where the average person makes minimum wage and can barely afford their apartment. And that's just a 2km difference!
Ask anyone whether they would rather live in Forest Hill (again, Toronto) or on Jane and Finch, and you'll get the same answer any time. For Montreal, ask anyone whether they would live in Westmount, or in Sainte-Marie, and again, you'll get the same answer. There absolutely are "good" and "bad" neighbourhoods in Canada, and in some cases, they're just as bad as in the United States (speaking from experience here).