Is the west side of Toronto more prominent than the east side?

[nfitz]

One thing that's immediately evident is that C1 district is dominated by condo sales.

Ah yes ... different pattern to that.

For houses (semi's, detatched) the average isn't as bad as I thought. But for Toronto as a whole, it's misleading, with the average price over $600K, but about 50% of sales are below $400K. But the concerns that lead me down this path don't seem to be valid, and those area-by-area averages are more representative than I thought.

 

[King of Kensington]

If you look at a neighborhood profile and click on home data, you can get ranges. However, SFHs and condos aren't separated out. In most central neighborhoods though, it's pretty safe to assume that dwellings under $500K are mostly condos.

Some east-west comparisons.

The Beach and High Park:

$500K+ 83%, 82%
$750K+ 52%, 57%
$1M+ 30%, 21%

Leslieville and Trinity Bellwoods:

$500K+ 63%, 86%
$750K+ 13%, 42%
$1M+ 2%, 6%

The Danforth and Little Italy:

$500K+ 92%, 89%
$750K+ 62%, 51%
$1M+ 10%, 17%

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Sorry to go off topic on this nuclear power plant thread, but development of the commercial buildings on Danforth from Broadview east was rather disjointed with many vacant lots that up until the early 1970s were occupied by new and used-car dealer lots. In Eric Arthur's "No Mean City" there is a section near the end of the book where the Toronto of the day (mid-1960s) is assessed, and I think it was Arthur who refers to the "cult of ugliness" on Danforth Avenue, with its preponderance of used-car lots and gaudy lights to illuminate the lots at night. Just from memory: Carrot Common was once home to a car dealership (Hogan?), there was a car lot and gas station at the bottom of Donlands (one of the Joy stations), Robertson Motors was west of Coxwell, there were more large ones between Woodbine and Main (City Pontiac-Buick and a Ford dealership), and several small used-car lots were scattered all the way along in between. Some remnants of these remain as the auto garage between Lamb and Gillard, the vacant lots on the south side west of Main St. and of course there are still a couple of dealerships in business in the area - Honda and Hyundai.

Where Bloor St. West had a more solid line of commercial buildings, Danforth had a far more porous commercial strip.

Also, the gap created by subway construction for the wye connection to the Greenwood Yard took out a number of buildings on the north side west of Greenwood, now occupied by the Greenwood Towers highrise. At Coxwell, there was the streetcar yard/bus garage on the south-east corner and at Main St. there was a large lumber/coal yard on the south-east corner before it all went up in flames in 1967 or 1968.

Bloor West has Christie Pits, the only park fronting on Danforth is West Lynn Park near Woodbine, much smaller than Christie Pits. Bloor West had an industrial zone between Lansdowne and Dundas near the rail lines (Canada Bread was a major occupant at Bloor & Dundas) but that was about it.

The only other thing I can think of is that the old city limits were only three blocks or so north of Danforth from Broadview to Woodbine, while in the west, the city limits were much further north (north of St. Clair) so development within the city limits would have been much more dense on the west side.

TLR version - Bloor was a more solid commercial street serving a denser area that was built up much earlier than Danforth, which had a lot of car lots and other non-retail uses resulting in a much less vibrant commercial strip.

Even now East Danforth is not a nice area!

 

[nfitz]

Even now East Danforth is not a nice area!

I wouldn't go that far. Broadview to Pape is quite nice. Get's a bit patchy beyond that, but it's not THAT bad.

 

[hper]

I should have been more specific when I said vibrant urbanism.

West-side neighbourhoods tend to flow into one-another. Little Italy kind-of just runs into UofT, which borders Chinatown, which borders Kensington Market. Going along Dundas, Little Portugal is around the corner from the Ossington Strip, which runs into West Queen West, which runs into Parkdale, which runs into Roncesvalles.

The east-side neighbourhoods are still fairly isolated, with large dead zones in between the lively clusters of activity. That's all

As for the last sentence, they seem to be filling in nicely at a reasonable pace.

Regarding the west-end, though, it's been a slow grind ever west to some nebulous end at (maybe) High Park in the South and BWV/Junction as the 'Gateway to Etobicoke' in the North.

I can recall, back at OCA (Yeah, way back when there was no 'D' or 'U'), 'Queen St. West' being a little strip between roughly McCaul and Spadina. The go-to's of that era being the Queen Mum, Peter Pan (when Susur Lee was cooking there), The Beverly and maybe the Rivoli. The Crash n' Burn had crashed and burned and the Horseshoe had gone back to country at that point. Down around Camden and Maude were still raw warehouse space where some lived. A bunch of us students lived at Bathurst and Wellington, and that was the Wild West. Slaughterhouse trucks reeling by at 3 a.m.

Then, the Cameron opened and people actually pushed past *gasp* Bathurst. Wellington east of Bathurst started to be colonized by Film types. Was out of town for the first part of the nineties, but WQW was already in its throes when I got back. And College was the Midtown, The Dip and then College St. Bar and Ted's. It wasn't a nightlife monoculture then. So we lived there. Liberty warehouse area was still mostly raw with a few good after-hours spots. The world bike-courier champeen-ship was held there in '94.

Fled College St. because people were puking and pissing in our tiny front yard, moved west to Roncesvalles in '99 where we bought a house. Have lived there ever since. And so have both witnessed and participated in the Great Western Migration (which will end in Hamilton). Ossington used to be a grubby dangerous strip (except for the Golden Turtle, of course), now it's got tequila bars and party douches. The girls-in-tottering heels are a sure sign to GTHO of any neighbourhood. Then the party ventured past the bridge. Watching Parkdale get $20,000 landscape architecture jobs now. Still rough, but the sanders are out in full force. The Junction is great but will soon go the way of any other neighbourhood initially colonized by the 'antennas up' types.

So, Flamborough is next? One doubts 'The Kip' is going to cut it.

TL/DR; The move west in this city has, in my own observation and experience, largely been driven by cultural forces that started in the late 70s/early '80s with people going further west out of economic necessity. Values have been created by them and real estate specs following that cultural movement.

 

[Lenser]

Indeed. Check out streets like Ravina off of Jones Ave, and further south, the Pocket. Cool streets, nice leafy canopies, off the beaten track but lots of curb appeal and pride of ownership.

 

[Cooper]

I wouldn't go that far. Broadview to Pape is quite nice. Get's a bit patchy beyond that, but it's not THAT bad.

I rather like the Danforth east of Pape. An area doesn't have to be a "destination" neighbourhood to be highly liveable/enjoyable.

 

[nfitz]

I rather like the Danforth east of Pape. An area doesn't have to be a "destination" neighbourhood to be highly liveable/enjoyable.

It also seems to be slowly picking up over the 10 years I've been living nearby.

 

[torontoniancat]

I've heard that - historically - neighbourhoods on the east sides of cities in North America and Europe tended to develop to be less well-off and attractive than those in the west as the odours from industry and garbage in the central city would generally carry eastward due to prevailing winds. No idea if this ever applied to Toronto.

I believe you are totally right, the prevailing wind chart is called "Wind rose" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_rose) and usual wind in TO is from West - this means that west TO air will usually be cleaner

 

[King of Kensington]

Toronto doesn't have an east/west divide like Vancouver or Montreal, where the street that splits the city marks the more affluent and poorer parts of town. In Vancouver and Montreal, the west side is clearly more affluent and the downtown itself is located west of that street. In Toronto, Yonge runs right through the middle of downtown and doesn't represent a fundamental social divide.

 

[King of Kensington]

For instance, Vancouver's west side waterfront is mostly beaches and parks, on the east side is mostly industrial lands. There are no census tracts east of Main St. in Vancouver that exceed the CMA average income. It contains the city's very poor Strathcona neighborhood as well as some "up and coming" neighborhoods, but still not high income areas like Commercial Drive and Mount Pleasant, and many low to moderate income heavily immigrant areas.

The Downtown Peninsula is in the city's northwest quadrant, and the west side contains everything from pretty gentrified neighborhoods like Kitsilano to old elite districts like Shaughnessy, West Point Grey and Kerrisdale.

In contrast, the east and west sides of Toronto contain both a lot of working class areas and gentrified areas.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

I wouldn't go that far. Broadview to Pape is quite nice. Get's a bit patchy beyond that, but it's not THAT bad.

I should clarify. I mean Coxwell to Victoria Park. Danforth from the Don the Donlands is fine. Could be better.

 

[King of Kensington]

As for the last sentence, they seem to be filling in nicely at a reasonable pace.

Regarding the west-end, though, it's been a slow grind ever west to some nebulous end at (maybe) High Park in the South and BWV/Junction as the 'Gateway to Etobicoke' in the North.

I can recall, back at OCA (Yeah, way back when there was no 'D' or 'U'), 'Queen St. West' being a little strip between roughly McCaul and Spadina. The go-to's of that era being the Queen Mum, Peter Pan (when Susur Lee was cooking there), The Beverly and maybe the Rivoli. The Crash n' Burn had crashed and burned and the Horseshoe had gone back to country at that point. Down around Camden and Maude were still raw warehouse space where some lived. A bunch of us students lived at Bathurst and Wellington, and that was the Wild West. Slaughterhouse trucks reeling by at 3 a.m.

Then, the Cameron opened and people actually pushed past *gasp* Bathurst. Wellington east of Bathurst started to be colonized by Film types. Was out of town for the first part of the nineties, but WQW was already in its throes when I got back. And College was the Midtown, The Dip and then College St. Bar and Ted's. It wasn't a nightlife monoculture then. So we lived there. Liberty warehouse area was still mostly raw with a few good after-hours spots. The world bike-courier champeen-ship was held there in '94.

Fled College St. because people were puking and pissing in our tiny front yard, moved west to Roncesvalles in '99 where we bought a house. Have lived there ever since. And so have both witnessed and participated in the Great Western Migration (which will end in Hamilton). Ossington used to be a grubby dangerous strip (except for the Golden Turtle, of course), now it's got tequila bars and party douches. The girls-in-tottering heels are a sure sign to GTHO of any neighbourhood. Then the party ventured past the bridge. Watching Parkdale get $20,000 landscape architecture jobs now. Still rough, but the sanders are out in full force. The Junction is great but will soon go the way of any other neighbourhood initially colonized by the 'antennas up' types.

So, Flamborough is next? One doubts 'The Kip' is going to cut it.

TL/DR; The move west in this city has, in my own observation and experience, largely been driven by cultural forces that started in the late 70s/early '80s with people going further west out of economic necessity. Values have been created by them and real estate specs following that cultural movement.

Yeah the west end certainly has taken off since the 90s. Still I wonder if there's a difference in urban form between the west and east impacting "vibrancy."

 

[nfitz]

I should clarify. I mean Coxwell to Victoria Park.

Still, I think that overstates it. Glebehome to Cedarvale seems fine; don't you think there's been a lot of improvement in that stretch in particular, that's about 20% of the distance from Coxwell to Victoria Park. And even then, it's not that bad.

 

[hper]

Yeah the west end certainly has taken off since the 90s. Still I wonder if there's a difference in urban form between the west and east impacting "vibrancy."

As for streetscape, Queen is basically Queen from Roncesvalles to Neville Park, with the obvious exceptions. More 4-5 storey stuff in the west with much more 2-storey stuff in the East. There is a general density factor in the West on the main E-W streets, though, through St. Clair and even Eglinton. Which obviously accommodates more commercial, residential and pedestrian activity. Also, there's a rent-wall where the Beach(es) begin(s). As a result, the burgeoning of the West is likely a combination of opportunity, cultural momentum and extended stretches where those can be lived out.

As for further West, whenever I take Lakeshore or the Queensway through New Toronto, Mimico out to Long Branch, I see tons of opportunity, streetwise. Haven't thoroughly explored the residential interior, though.