Quote:
Originally Posted by Docere
How about this area? Moving west along Eglinton and up Weston Rd., Mount Dennis and Weston are a bit further removed. These are struggling communities sometimes referred to as Toronto's "rust belt. One of the largest Black communities in Canada, with a lot of Caribbean and African businesses. To me, it's obviously very Toronto but with a bit of a rust belt meets the outer boroughs feel.
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Weston has been around since the mid-19th century - it's very much urban, just with some unfortunate suburban-style infill built in the last 50 years.
Forest Hill meanwhile isn't so much what I'd call a hybrid as it is a pre-war suburb. That's just what an upper class suburb looked like in the early 1900s.
What I
would describe as urban-suburban hybrids are the sort of neighbourhoods that were being built in Toronto in the 40s and 50s. Canada in general was a bit later to the suburban game than the US was, so even well into the 50s we were still building neighbourhoods that were a confused sort of mix between the pre and post-war typologies.
Neighbourhoods like the one I grew up in in North York are a good example of those which include both urban and suburban design elements:
Commercial high streets are largley urban format, but also feature some primitive strip malls with small parking lots and apartments above:
https://goo.gl/maps/fqWRisvq2gnyyMz88
https://goo.gl/maps/duchA1UXw5VcS7Ta6
https://goo.gl/maps/MHWNjPreovGXZhZt6
Residential streets are on a grid, but were built up with low-ish density bungalows and typically only have a sidewalk on one side of the street. In recent years these formerly working-class neighbourhoods have become desirable though and have seen a lot of the modest old brick bungalows replaced with McMansions:
https://goo.gl/maps/3EcuKdqc2PNufF7h6
https://goo.gl/maps/g3BWHeSBJL2yEtT56
https://goo.gl/maps/uXnnf875S9XRgREZ6
There are also denser blocks of low-rise apartments mixed in:
https://goo.gl/maps/mHUoSWN9wz5V3Qqe6
https://goo.gl/maps/ythqeMWuc8nFpzvv6
Later 60s-80s high-rise additions that help to add density and contribute to a diversity of housing options:
https://goo.gl/maps/YSntsHBXmpvev9bb7
https://goo.gl/maps/yhtP864yY28BFav17
Densities tend to be in the 4,000-6,000/sqkm range, enough to support local walkable retail and a mix of uses while still being quiet. Meanwhile it's accessible with bus & subway service but also very accommodating to the car with driveways & parkings lots aplenty - it's the kind of place where one can live either an urban or a suburban lifestyle, or a mix of the two.
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