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AlvinofDiaspar
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From the Star:
The Dufferin exodus
As many areas around Toronto boom, hard-luck stretch is losing its residents
Mar 16, 2007 04:30 AM
Jen Gerson
Staff reporter
It gets worse the farther north you go.
Past St. Clair on Dufferin St., the signs take over, begging for tenants or seeking to sell, posted on telephone poles, on bent wrought-iron gates or hung in the windows of homes belonging to elderly couples, looking for students who are quiet and don't smoke.
People are leaving here. The exodus starts at the Gladstone Hotel at Queen St. It's like this north to Eglinton when, as if by virtue of the name of that street alone, the street becomes prosperous again.
Dufferin drags itself through several areas painted dark by the 2006 census, where population growth is not just stagnant, as it is across Toronto, but falling.
It is the only area in the GTA where population is declining so rapidly and so persistently.
The census draws arbitrary lines across the city, creating tracts of land filled with roughly 5,000 people apiece.
They show that more than half the tracts around Dufferin between Queen St. and Eglinton have lost about 20 per cent of their population – up to 1,000 people apiece – over the past five years.
Just one has gained, adding a meagre 60 people a year in comparison.
The first wave of an urban exodus typically begins in a ring around the downtown core, where the prices are high but amenities are few.
The census data shows that Toronto could have an early version of this doughnut phenomenon, in which people flee downtown for the suburban life.
But right now Toronto is less a doughnut than a slice of Swiss cheese. Bites of decline across the city can be explained by areas of high crime and low wages.
Dufferin St. starts in an auspicious corner of the city, surrounded by scaffolding, signs of new lofts, and the highrise homes of people willing to pay for a view. This is an area in transition.
Real estate agents say that people want to live around College and Queen St. W., even on the far west end. They'll come back here.
It's a gradual shift, as you cross north of Bloor St. W.
See the stretch of homes with Christmas decorations that never come down. It's where the air smells like cooking oil and car exhaust despite the spring. Here, decades worth of living spills onto the lawns and balconies, where it takes its form in overstuffed chairs, flags, figurines, old newspapers, crumpled pop cans and squished TV-dinner trays.
The homes become less colourful. The paint chips from the bricks. They sit next to promising condo markets, separated by a few feet, square blocks, ravines or roads.
Hafid Sahli is a cab driver who has been living in the area for about 14 years. He now rents a one-bedroom apartment he shares with his wife and toddler. He pays $900 a month.
"I can get a mortgage for that. For that, I can pay for a house," he says. But it's a good area, he says. There's a mall and a subway station nearby.
This stretch of Dufferin is a place people once would spend their lives. Here the homes have, what Torontonians affectionately refer to as "character" and the schools outdate the Canadian history books.
Gilliseppe Novielli went to school here. He's come into the Unistar Hair Studio to have his hair tidied and his moustache trimmed for the past 14 years. He lives next to the garage he works at, just a block south.
"Lots of people come and go in this neighbourhood," he says, while losing an inch of hair to the buzzer.
"But it's no different than High Park," he protests.
Of course, the faces have changed, he says. The neighbourhood started out as a community of Italians, then Portuguese. Now it's more diverse.
Now, many more Asian people live here.
"I'd like to see more green space. I remember as a kid, there were more trees than there are now," he says.
Dufferin St. has long been a bastion of large Catholic families and elderly couples who split their homes into rental apartments.
"This used to be a Portuguese neighbourhood," says Teresa Valerio, who has sold penny candies and cigarettes from her tiny grocery store for the past 35 years. "Slowly, they're moving out."
The people leaving are like her – older, established figures. Their children have grown up.
"Their houses were worth a lot of money, so they moved to Mississauga and Brampton," she says. "Afterward, they feel sorry. They want to come back but can't because it's too expensive."
However, the people moving in now are bringing new hope to the area.
They are doctors and lawyers, or other professionals. Despite the decline in population, the people who are moving in now are improving the neighbourhood, she says.
"Now, the only people who are able to afford housing here are rich people."
Councillor Adam Giambrone (Ward 18) says it's common for homeowners in this area to section off their homes into two or three separate apartments – a practice that could be slowing down further south on Dufferin because of the influx of young families.
The population drop in the area, which has traditionally been a basin for new Canadians and low-income tenants, could also be explained by the high vacancy rate city-wide, he says.
But Giambrone also attributes the numbers to underreporting – particularly in a neighbourhood where as much as 20 per cent of the population has problems speaking English.
"I'm going to suggest that the census is going to be more accurate in Rosedale than in Regent Park or in Ward 18," he says.
"Also, as household size continues to drop, that would be a factor here."
But even further north on the street, there's hope. About 500 new residences, homes and condos, have been approved in the Dufferin and Bloor area. The only question is who will actually live there.
AoD
The Dufferin exodus
As many areas around Toronto boom, hard-luck stretch is losing its residents
Mar 16, 2007 04:30 AM
Jen Gerson
Staff reporter
It gets worse the farther north you go.
Past St. Clair on Dufferin St., the signs take over, begging for tenants or seeking to sell, posted on telephone poles, on bent wrought-iron gates or hung in the windows of homes belonging to elderly couples, looking for students who are quiet and don't smoke.
People are leaving here. The exodus starts at the Gladstone Hotel at Queen St. It's like this north to Eglinton when, as if by virtue of the name of that street alone, the street becomes prosperous again.
Dufferin drags itself through several areas painted dark by the 2006 census, where population growth is not just stagnant, as it is across Toronto, but falling.
It is the only area in the GTA where population is declining so rapidly and so persistently.
The census draws arbitrary lines across the city, creating tracts of land filled with roughly 5,000 people apiece.
They show that more than half the tracts around Dufferin between Queen St. and Eglinton have lost about 20 per cent of their population – up to 1,000 people apiece – over the past five years.
Just one has gained, adding a meagre 60 people a year in comparison.
The first wave of an urban exodus typically begins in a ring around the downtown core, where the prices are high but amenities are few.
The census data shows that Toronto could have an early version of this doughnut phenomenon, in which people flee downtown for the suburban life.
But right now Toronto is less a doughnut than a slice of Swiss cheese. Bites of decline across the city can be explained by areas of high crime and low wages.
Dufferin St. starts in an auspicious corner of the city, surrounded by scaffolding, signs of new lofts, and the highrise homes of people willing to pay for a view. This is an area in transition.
Real estate agents say that people want to live around College and Queen St. W., even on the far west end. They'll come back here.
It's a gradual shift, as you cross north of Bloor St. W.
See the stretch of homes with Christmas decorations that never come down. It's where the air smells like cooking oil and car exhaust despite the spring. Here, decades worth of living spills onto the lawns and balconies, where it takes its form in overstuffed chairs, flags, figurines, old newspapers, crumpled pop cans and squished TV-dinner trays.
The homes become less colourful. The paint chips from the bricks. They sit next to promising condo markets, separated by a few feet, square blocks, ravines or roads.
Hafid Sahli is a cab driver who has been living in the area for about 14 years. He now rents a one-bedroom apartment he shares with his wife and toddler. He pays $900 a month.
"I can get a mortgage for that. For that, I can pay for a house," he says. But it's a good area, he says. There's a mall and a subway station nearby.
This stretch of Dufferin is a place people once would spend their lives. Here the homes have, what Torontonians affectionately refer to as "character" and the schools outdate the Canadian history books.
Gilliseppe Novielli went to school here. He's come into the Unistar Hair Studio to have his hair tidied and his moustache trimmed for the past 14 years. He lives next to the garage he works at, just a block south.
"Lots of people come and go in this neighbourhood," he says, while losing an inch of hair to the buzzer.
"But it's no different than High Park," he protests.
Of course, the faces have changed, he says. The neighbourhood started out as a community of Italians, then Portuguese. Now it's more diverse.
Now, many more Asian people live here.
"I'd like to see more green space. I remember as a kid, there were more trees than there are now," he says.
Dufferin St. has long been a bastion of large Catholic families and elderly couples who split their homes into rental apartments.
"This used to be a Portuguese neighbourhood," says Teresa Valerio, who has sold penny candies and cigarettes from her tiny grocery store for the past 35 years. "Slowly, they're moving out."
The people leaving are like her – older, established figures. Their children have grown up.
"Their houses were worth a lot of money, so they moved to Mississauga and Brampton," she says. "Afterward, they feel sorry. They want to come back but can't because it's too expensive."
However, the people moving in now are bringing new hope to the area.
They are doctors and lawyers, or other professionals. Despite the decline in population, the people who are moving in now are improving the neighbourhood, she says.
"Now, the only people who are able to afford housing here are rich people."
Councillor Adam Giambrone (Ward 18) says it's common for homeowners in this area to section off their homes into two or three separate apartments – a practice that could be slowing down further south on Dufferin because of the influx of young families.
The population drop in the area, which has traditionally been a basin for new Canadians and low-income tenants, could also be explained by the high vacancy rate city-wide, he says.
But Giambrone also attributes the numbers to underreporting – particularly in a neighbourhood where as much as 20 per cent of the population has problems speaking English.
"I'm going to suggest that the census is going to be more accurate in Rosedale than in Regent Park or in Ward 18," he says.
"Also, as household size continues to drop, that would be a factor here."
But even further north on the street, there's hope. About 500 new residences, homes and condos, have been approved in the Dufferin and Bloor area. The only question is who will actually live there.
AoD