Why does Toronto have more "street-based" neighbourhoods than other Canadian cities?

[logan5]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's impressive how far out you can find consistent strips of storefront shops in Vancouver along streets like Kingsway or Granville; I'd call all of those "street-based neighbourhoods". It wasn't a large city back when that type of development went out of style in most of North America.

Yes, these streets provide the foundation for the next "hip" neighbourhoods.

Kingsway Collingwood is quickly densifying, so I can see that stretch of Kingsway evolving into a hip neighbourhood. Same with Fraser Street, and Victoria Drive.

The Vancouver ODP has a "Neighbourhood Centre" sub section that covers these streets. This will allow 12 story residential towers off the main retail strip (but not on the strip itself, which is important for retention), so the rate at which these streets evolve will increase.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Docere

Mount Pleasant also straddles the east and west sides does it not?

I think this is more or less true. The civic address dividing line is Ontario Street.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by logan5

The Vancouver ODP has a "Neighbourhood Centre" sub section that covers these streets. This will allow 12 story residential towers off the main retail strip (but not on the strip itself, which is important for retention), so the rate at which these streets evolve will increase.

I think this will have a big impact eventually and it's changing the zoning that underpinned that old style of commercial strip plus low density housing. By contrast in a lot of European and Asian cities you have medium-sized buildings covering wider areas and more diffuse mixed use.

A neighbourhood is only going to get so exciting when it's 20x20 blocks of houses with one strip of shops, even if it's relatively popular or wealthy. I've lived around Broadway and Kitsilano and it's okay but there's so much more variety within easy walking distance in more downtown-like areas. On top of this if you're not somehow independently wealthy or very lucky you're probably not going to own a house even in the far reaches of Vancouver's village-like neighbourhoods.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

To add one more thought: the City of Toronto's "official" neighbourhoods are mostly quite small, and tend to treat the commercial thoroughfares as borders rather than as the "heart" of each community. They exist on a map, but otherwise feel contrived and unnatural to how these neighbourhoods are actually experienced on the ground. As such, most of these names just never really took off amongst the people who live there.

That's exactly it. Runnymede-Bloor West Village, Junction-Wallace Emerson, Palmerston-Little Italy, Greenwood-Coxwell, East End-Danforth etc. don't exactly invoke community or "place."

[Architype]

Originally Posted by someone123

Mount Pleasant is interesting in that it was a little less linear and more blob-like to begin with since it's where 3 streets converge, and now on top of that there's a lot of infill happening and a subway station going in. It will have a much more urban feel soon than an area like Commercial Drive and 1st, which is a strip of shops with single use residential around it.

It's impressive how far out you can find consistent strips of storefront shops in Vancouver along streets like Kingsway or Granville; I'd call all of those "street-based neighbourhoods". It wasn't a large city back when that type of development went out of style in most of North America.

One of the things that makes Vancouver livable is the prevalence of pedestrian oriented commercial streets, which as you say, do extend out far from downtown, even in the suburbs.

Vancouver neighborhoods are usually not named for actual streets, the streets tend to be very long in length, so simply "Hastings" would not make much sense, Hastings Street stretches for 8 miles through Vancouver and Burnaby, but there is an area called "Hastings-Sunrise" to be more specific.

Some Vancouver neighborhoods began as land developments, and the names were chosen by them, and others were named for transit purposes, the name of tram stops or other facilities.

Mount Pleasant began as a land development, and is called after the birthplace of the land developer's wife in Ireland, but the trendy area of Main Street is sometimes called "South Main".

Kerrisdale is similar, and was the name of a tram stop to begin with, the birthplace of an early resident in Scotland.

Shaughnessy was named for the president of the CPR when it was developed as a high end residential land development, but some of the area adjacent is named for a commercial street, South Granville.

Kitsilano (Kits) is named for the Indian band that was originally there.

Strathcona was named for the school that already existed there, but it was originally just called "East End".

The Oakridge neighbourhood is named after the Oakridge Transit Centre, a facility established by B.C. Electric.

[jonny24]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Hamilton actually has a lot of historic "main streets" as well - they just aren't as healthy as in Toronto, and some are just plain gone at this point and almost entirely vacant.

The healthy ones like Locke, Dundas, Westdale, Ottawa St, James North, and Concession St that are more well known.. But there are rougher ones like Kenilworth, Barton East, and Parkdale that have historic streetfronting storefronts that are basically just cooked at this point.

When I moved to Hamilton it surprised me at the sheer number of them for the size of city it is. It makes me feel like it's more of an early-20th Century Ontario thing, but Hamilton experienced depopulation leading to the degrading of a lot of the retail strips while Toronto grew massively keeping them generally healthy.

Good post overall but I have two nitpicks.

Given the theme of the thread, I do have to point out that Westdale is not like the others in that it's not named after a street. And very much a village/community type name (I don't know the history to know if ever was standalone at all).

And Dundas being a whole town before amalgamation makes it quite a bit different form the others.

[Changing City]

Realtors in Vancouver have added confusion to what 'neighbourhood' people live in.

The City of Vancouver adopted the names and boundaries for their Neighbourhoods in the 1970s, (sometimes also referred to as Local Areas). There's a custom geography dataset which the City obtains from Statistics Canada after each census, (and until 2021 published), to track the changes and needs of the areas. It's based on service provision, so you'll almost always find a community centre and a branch library in each area.


[researchgate.net]

The local realtors like to chop the city up into smaller pieces, so have their own version of local neighbourhoods


[realestatevancity.ca]

[Northern Light]

A few things:

On Riverside (Toronto); its a BIA coined term.

The area was 'South Riverdale' for the longest time.

Leslieville was always understood to be centered on Queen, and run from the railway viaduct to ~ Coxwell.

****

More broadly. Toronto does have several place names that aren't rigidly tied to streets.

Cabbagetown
Riverdale
East York
Beaches

'The Village' (Gay village, centred on but not limited to Church St)

Kensington Market (which does have such a street name but is really based off Baldwin and Augusta.

Parkdale

Little Italy

Koreatown

The Annex

Yorkville

Forest Hill

Rosedale

Moore Park

Leaside

etc.

****

That said, as others have noted, the majority of Toronto shopping or high streets are east-west, particularly outside the core.

A handful of exceptions come to mind, Roncy, and Ossington south of Dundas, but they are few and far between.

Its logical that Toronto areas would form around their 'high streets'.

****

If you're thinking old place names that have vanished, there are many, but most haven't had political constituency in over a century.

A useful measure would be to look at the the 13 names that initially formed Metro Toronto.

New Toronto, Mimico, Weston and Leaside; the villages of Long Branch, Swansea and Forest Hill and the townships of Etobicoke, York, North York, East York, and Scarborough.

All of these names are still in use.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

That said, as others have noted, the majority of Toronto shopping or high streets are east-west, particularly outside the core.

A handful of exceptions come to mind, Roncy, and Ossington south of Dundas, but they are few and far between.

Let's not forget the OG main street: Yonge!

[Mr Tall Forehead]

Winnipeg's older neighbourhoods are generally named after they've been called for the past century (River Heights, Wolseley, Crescentwood, etc.) or what municipality/city they originally were before 1972 amalgamation (St. Vital, Charleswood, Tuxedo, Transcona, etc). The newer neighbourhoods are just named whatever handle the developers gave them (Linden Woods, Sage Creek, Amber Trails, etc). There's no real street based neighbourhood names here, except maybe West Broadway.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Realtors in Vancouver have added confusion to what 'neighbourhood' people live in.

The City of Vancouver adopted the names and boundaries for their Neighbourhoods in the 1970s, (sometimes also referred to as Local Areas). There's a custom geography dataset which the City obtains from Statistics Canada after each census, (and until 2021 published), to track the changes and needs of the areas. It's based on service provision, so you'll almost always find a community centre and a branch library in each area.

...

The local realtors like to chop the city up into smaller pieces, so have their own version of local neighbourhoods.

They added a bunch of areas all based on streets: Dunbar, South Granville, Cambie, South Cambie, Main, Hastings, Fraser, Knight, South Marine, & Victoria.

In some cases that's misleading, since the streets themselves are much longer.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Northern Light

Koreatown

Koreatown doesn't belong on this list of "place-based" neighbourhoods. It's a BIA. People who live on the adjacent residential streets would say they live in Seaton Village or maybe the West Annex.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Hamilton actually has a lot of historic "main streets" as well - they just aren't as healthy as in Toronto, and some are just plain gone at this point and almost entirely vacant.

The healthy ones like Locke, Dundas, Westdale, Ottawa St, James North, and Concession St that are more well known.. But there are rougher ones like Kenilworth, Barton East, and Parkdale that have historic streetfronting storefronts that are basically just cooked at this point.

When I moved to Hamilton it surprised me at the sheer number of them for the size of city it is. It makes me feel like it's more of an early-20th Century Ontario thing, but Hamilton experienced depopulation leading to the degrading of a lot of the retail strips while Toronto grew massively keeping them generally healthy.

Seems like pre-amalgamation Hamilton has rather weak neighbourhood identity. Besides Westdale which is rather separated from the core and home to McMaster University it's hard to think of any Hamilton neighbourhoods offhand. Though there was historically a core/Mountain split.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by logan5

Yes, these streets provide the foundation for the next "hip" neighbourhoods.

Kingsway Collingwood is quickly densifying, so I can see that stretch of Kingsway evolving into a hip neighbourhood. Same with Fraser Street, and Victoria Drive.

South Fraser (the stretch between 41st and 51st) is one to watch for sure. It's already a great street, but flies under the radar. It reminds me a bit of Commercial Dr. without the tourists or the trendiness: it has a similar scale (ie. finer-grained than most), all of the day-to-day shops & markets, and unprentious restaurants. It's a vibrant, local-oriented strip, reasonably attractive, and diverse.

Considering its good bones and proximity to the more popular parts of Main and Fraser below 33rd, I think it's inevitable that the gentrification will creep south and it could very well be Vancouver's next "cool" area. Kingsway-Collingwood I don't see however.

Originally Posted by Docere

That's exactly it. Runnymede-Bloor West Village, Junction-Wallace Emerson, Palmerston-Little Italy, Greenwood-Coxwell, East End-Danforth etc. don't exactly invoke community or "place."

Case in point: I grew up near Bathurst & Wilson. It's the commercial heart of the neighbourhood, but according to the City of Toronto each of the 4 corners of the intersection fall into different neighbourhoods: Lawrence Manor, Clanton Park, Armour Heights, and Ledbury. Naturally, I've never heard anyone use any of those names. "Bathurst & Wilson" however has a pretty clear identity.

And also, it's probably safe to assume that if a name contains a hyphen that people aren't going to use that name (Hastings-Sunrise is the only exception I can think of, cause it sounds nice).

[Docere]

One way of seeing how "inconsistent" Toronto neighbourhood boundaries and names are is to look at Wikipedia articles on various neighbourhoods. On the whole it's a disorganized mess. While the articles on Montreal's boroughs* and Vancouver's official neighbourhoods are better organized, containing information on land area, demographics quite consistently.

* Montreal's boroughs aren't neighbourhoods per se, but often combine a few together, like CDN-NDG. Often they consist of two or three, but these area names have held up over time.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Case in point: I grew up near Bathurst & Wilson. It's the commercial heart of the neighbourhood, but according to the City of Toronto each of the 4 corners of the intersection fall into different neighbourhoods: Lawrence Manor, Clanton Park, Armour Heights, and Ledbury. Naturally, I've never heard anyone use any of those names. "Bathurst & Wilson" however has a pretty clear identity.

And also, it's probably safe to assume that if a name contains a hyphen that people aren't going to use that name (Hastings-Sunrise is the only exception I can think of, cause it sounds nice).

Realtors call it Ledbury Park, the city calls it Bedford Park-Nortown (a term nobody really uses).

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Seems like pre-amalgamation Hamilton has rather weak neighbourhood identity. Besides Westdale which is rather separated from the core and home to McMaster University it's hard to think of any Hamilton neighbourhoods offhand. Though there was historically a core/Mountain split.

I'm not sure I'd say this. North End, Kirkendall, Durand, Crown Point, Delta, Westdale, Dundas are all fairly distinctive communities. Dundas was technically it's own municipality, but no different than the former boroughs of Toronto in that way. Maybe outside of Durand, Westdale, and Dundas they are less known outside of Hamilton.. but Hamilton has a pretty low awareness in Canada in general unless you have ties to it.

It's famously frustrating that many national publications list major cities including Halifax and Moncton or Saskatoon, but skip the 9th-largest city in the country. Half of them don't even bother to lump it into the GTA either, and just ignore it entirely.. (for example, CBRE and Colliers publish real estate market reports on markets acros the country covering basically every city over 200,000 people, except for Hamilton). I feel like it's sort of Canada's forgotten city in some ways.

That's off-topic though. My original point was that Toronto has a lot of main streets, but it's not really unique to Toronto - the other major pre-war city in Ontario had it as well but hasn't fared as well economically and therefor tends to be more forgotten. Remember that while the Toronto CMA is about 8.5x the size of Hamilton today, historically they were closer.. in 1951, it was only around 4x the size, and was much healthier economically than it is today at that time as well. Hamilton's lower city was losing population at rates not that much less than many US Rustbelt cities until the mid 2010's as well - Toronto has grown at twice the rate Hamilton has and can better support those pre-war neighbourhoods as a result.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Docere

The name for that area has been in flux. Is it Riverdale or Riverside? Both Riverside and Leslieville are part of the larger Riverdale. Leslieville wasn't commonly used until the 2000s. Riverside was the name of the area when it was annexed by the city but the area soon became known as Riverdale.

She actually was arguing that Riverside didn't exist.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

It's famously frustrating that many national publications list major cities including Halifax and Moncton or Saskatoon, but skip the 9th-largest city in the country. Half of them don't even bother to lump it into the GTA either, and just ignore it entirely.. (for example, CBRE and Colliers publish real estate market reports on markets acros the country covering basically every city over 200,000 people, except for Hamilton). I feel like it's sort of Canada's forgotten city in some ways.

It's the Rodney Dangerfield of Canadian cities.

[WhipperSnapper]

Toronto is lackadaisical, undefined for just about anything. Should neighbourhoods be any different? Realtors for more than a half century have used ambiguous borders and nicknames to sell homes creating analogous subdivisions like out in the 905. Upper Beaches coined from the A-list of celebrity Toronto neighbourhoods, Beaches, which is a nickname they popularized for the original cottage community, The Beach.

As for the question, it's the largest city in the country. I can't see any Maritime town or city being any different if they had followed Toronto's growth trajectory.