Leslieville Story Map

Bretz, Cameron Bretz

Introduction

Leslieville is a fairly liveable neighbourhood situated in the larger neighbourhood of South Riverdale and Ward 14. It is bounded by Coxwell Ave. to the east, a Canadian National Rail line to the north, the Don River to the west, and Lakeshore Blvd. to the south. It contains many local restaurants along Gerrard St. and Queen St, with it also containing “Little India”, a small Indian based group of shops stretching along Gerrard St. between Greenwood Ave. and Coxwell Ave. It contains many bus and streetcar lines, making it easy to get around the neighbourhood itself and to destinations in the rest of Toronto. It also contains many community spaces like Greenwood Park, a large park with an indoor and outdoor skating rink/bike park, a swimming pool, a tobogganing hill, a dog park, two baseball diamonds, a soccer/football field, a playground and many other open fields. It lastly contains many tourist attractions, like some of Toronto’s best rated and known restaurants, large film studios, the Ashbridges Estate, and the Maple Leaf Forever Park.

The Borders of Leslieville

Greenwood Park in the Winter

Social Aspects

Note: For this part I’m going to be switching to Greenwood-Coxwell as the neighbourhood I’m talking about (which I’ve never heard of) since Leslieville isn’t an official neighbourhood and there is no data on it. 

Greenwood-Coxwell had a population of 14,417 in 2016. It is an increase of 2.4% from 2011 and it has a population density of 8,582.

Most of the immigration that Greenwood-Coxwell experienced was between around 1960-2000. Around 22% of its immigrants came from this period, and much of the rest of the immigrant population comes from their descendants. Earlier in its history, Greenwood-Coxwell experienced more immigration from the rest of the Americas and the UK, but now most of its immigration comes from China and India.

Greenwood-Coxwell is greatly different in the age of its citizens from the rest of Toronto. There are many more children and working age adults than the rest of Toronto, and much less youth and seniors than the rest of Toronto. This makes the dependency load very small compared to the rest of the city, with a dependency ratio of 48% compared to Toronto's 55.1%. The mean age of Greenwood-Coxwell is also slightly lower than the rest of Toronto, with a 38.7% compared to a 40.6% in the rest of the city.

The median household income in Greenwood-Coxwell is $70,574 compared to $65,829 in the rest of Toronto, justified by its low dependency rate. There’s also around the same amount of people in poverty in Greenwood-Coxwell and Toronto, and Greenwood-Coxwell has slightly less people without income, but slightly more people on government transfers.

Most of the citizens of Greenwood-Coxwell live in Apartments with less than 5 stories and semi-detached houses, two types of houses that aren’t seen as much in the rest of the city. There are also many more home owners than home renters in Greenwood Coxwell than in the rest of the city.

Land Use Map and Connections to Physical Geography

Leslieville is a mostly residential neighbourhood, with strips of commercial along the main roads going west to east, and many film studios and large stores on Eastern Ave. and Lakeshore Blvd. There are many institutional and recreational pieces of land scattered around the neighbourhood, and a large group of institutional buildings grouped together, which is just a coincidence. There is a lone industrial building, which is a warehouse.

There is very little influence of Leslieville's physical landscape on itself. The only thing I can think of is how there used to be clay mines, and where one of the clay mines once was, there is Greenwood Park, which I talked about in week one. Other than that, Leslieville was one flat plain slowly sloping down into Lake Ontario.

Leslieville's Land Usage

Urban Issues

Gentrification is a blessing and a curse for Leslieville. The example shown in the slideshow was from my neighbourhood, and it shows the current situation in Leslieville well. When my parents bought the house I live in, it cost around $350,000, and now it’s priced at around $900,000-$1,000,000. This is all because of gentrification. While new infrastructure is being built, the cultural enclave of Little India, which I have talked about in a previous week, is disappearing, and I won’t be able to afford or rent any property anywhere near where I grew up. This is why I believe the worst issue facing Leslieville is gentrification.

Typical Leslievillian Housing

Redevelopment Plan

A main issue that I talked about previously is the gentrification and the skyrocketing housing prices. To try and bring in more immigrants and sustain an already existing cultural enclave in Leslieville, it would be ideal to find a way to substantially lower housing prices in the area. There are also a few existing bike paths in Leslieville, but to make it safer to traverse the neighbourhood, almost all major roads (Coxwell, Greenwood, Jones, Logan, Gerrard, Dundas and Queen) should have bike paths installed. Lastly, I believe a great way to generate energy would be to install solar panels on the majority of the roofs in Leslieville. There is an abundance of flat space as most of the roofs are flat or slightly tilted, and almost nobody has roof access, making solar panels a great way to use unused space.

(Unrelated) A Leslievillian House Decorated with Many Dolls

Citations

Leslieville. (Last edited April 6, 2020). Retrieved May 26, 2020, from  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslieville 

Greenwood-Coxwell. (2016). Retrieved June 9, 2020, from  https://www.toronto.ca/ext/sdfa/Neighbourhood%20Profiles/pdf/2016/pdf1/cpa65.pdf