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Toronto Life neighbourhood rankings

My neighbourhood of Cabbagetown was given a low score for diversity. Why is diversity a factor, or to be clear, why is too many white people (such as one neighbourhood being criticized for being too white bread) a downside to a neighbourhood?

We were also dinged for income disparity. I don't see it. Outside of the few remaining rooming houses and a few co-ops, I'd say Cabbagetown has a relatively level income level. You can't buy a house costing $800K without a good income.

I do agree that the overall weighting distribution is very subjective and will vary tremendously from person to person. Toronto Life allows you to customize the weighting factors so that you underweight factors that aren't as important to you and overweight the ones that are priorities. Although I still find the rankings questionable after revising per my personal criteria, it does make the revised results somewhat more palpable.
 
I live in a condo. Folks are pretty chatty on the elevators for the most part. There's a few who don't even return a hello, but the elevators is where I've met most people :) We also hold social events. You do have to work to create community in a condo.
I see this far too often in Toronto; generally in Canada people will say hello with a follow up about the weather is or typical small talk but in Toronto some neighbours will not even acknowledge your existence.


I lived at the West Mall in the 90s and although it's not exactly the most exciting neighbourhood (it's quite boring actually), it's definitely not the 2nd worst in the city when you take into account Rexdale, J&F and a huge chunk of Scarborough.
Glad to see High Park in the top 5; I would actually put High Park/Bloorwest Village as #1 but that's my subjective opinion :).
 
I see this far too often in Toronto; generally in Canada people will say hello with a follow up about the weather is or typical small talk but in Toronto some neighbours will not even acknowledge your existence.
When I lived in Fredericton, NB I concluded that Maritimers are superficiously friendly but not welcoming of newcomers, whereas Torontonians are reserved (aka, mind their own business) at first, but more welcoming overall.
 
My neighbourhood, Old East York, jumped from #75 to #16. The shopping didn't get any better than the poor it was 2 years ago, we didn't get closer to the subway and we didn't get a Starbucks, ha. To our benefit, the neighbourhood elementary schools such as William Burgess and Diefenbaker only go to grade 5 so aren't rated by Fraser's as they only include schools that have both grades 3 and 6. I've had real estate agents tell me the neighbourhood schools are terrible. I'm not sure about "terrible" but William Burgess is probably a bit transient due to the Cosburn apartment buildings. The Fraser's formula punishes small schools (William Burgess), schools with ESL students (William Burgess) and school with special education classes because the formula looks at the percent of students that don't meet standards. I'm really not sure how we jumped up so much!

ETA: I just realized that the Starbucks on Coxwell is north of Cosburn so is in OEY. I guess we've "arrived".
 
Does anyone know anything about belgravia and dufferin area? crime, likability, or food?
Hi HighParkWeller,

I used to live in Fairbank area (Belgravia and Dufferin area). It's nice area, specially the new subway station will be opened soon. It is mostly family oriented area with the dominants of Italian, Portuguese and European population. Now let's talk about disadvantages:
- small houses, really small compare to the price that you will be paying for
- most of the time there are no garage or only 1 parking spot
- for the past couple years the prices went up
 
Im a Corso Italia - Davenport local and I love the fact that its ranked number 20 in this assessment. It really is well deserved PR that the neighbourhood could use. Great value added area.
 
^ Alas, that is one of the reasons why I love Toronto so much. There are so many great neighborhoods, each with its own vibrancy. The city's neighborhoods are as diverse as its people...as it is, it's the people who truly make up the neighborhood.
 
this year's (2016) rankings are out now in case anyone is curious
http://torontolife.com/neighbourhood-rankings/#
  • 1.Yonge-Eglinton
  • 2.Casa Loma
  • 3.Playter Estates-Danforth
  • 4.Runnymede-Bloor West Village
  • 5.Lawrence Park North
  • 6.North Riverdale
  • 7.Yonge-St. Clair
  • 8.Mount Pleasant East
  • 9.Cabbagetown-South St. James Town
  • 10.Leaside-Bennington
  • 11.The Beaches
  • 12.University
  • 13.Kingsway South
  • 14.Danforth Village
  • 15.Mount Pleasant West
  • 16.Old East York
  • 17.Corsa Italia-Davenport
  • 18.Rosedale-Moore Park
  • 19.Thistletown-Beaumond Heights
  • 20.Forest Hill South
The last time we ranked the neighbourhoods, in 2013, we conducted an online poll of Toronto Life readers to determine what they look for in their neighbourhoods. This time, we used the same criteria and weightings, but improved our methodology, adding new information and more controls for land area and population. The city has drastically changed, and so have our rankings (to wit: Rosedale, the former champion, has dropped to number 18).

We scored each neighbourhood in 10 categories, broken down as follows:
1 Housing (15%) affordability (cost versus income), appreciation (year-over-year change) and quality (how many homes recently required major repairs).

2 Crime (13%) the number of incidents per neighbourhood by type

3 Transit (11%) the number of overcrowded routes and TTC stops per square kilometre

4 Shopping (11%) the number of groceries, hardware stores and pharmacies per square kilometre

5 Health (10%) the number of cancer screenings and health care providers per capita, and the amount of air pollution, tree coverage and green space

6 Entertainment (10%) the number of sports facilities, bars and restaurants per square kilometre

7 Community (8%) the number of street beautification efforts per square kilometre, plus voter turnout

8 Diversity (8%) the number and proportion of various ethnicities

9 Schools (7%) the number of schools in each ’hood, and their performance in the Fraser Institute’s report card

10 Employment (7%) the number of jobs and businesses per capita, plus unemployment rates

For more detailed look at our methodology, please visit the Martin Prosperity Institute’s website.

Of course, the perfect neighbourhood is a subjective ideal, so we’ve created an interactive (and addictive) feature that lets users create their own custom ranking by selecting and weighting their priorities. We’ve also included a smorgasbord of all the data we couldn’t let go to waste: tidbits about real estate, crime, money, schools, demographics and transit that help us better understand our city.

Some of our findings confirm what we already know—that wealthier neighbourhoods score higher for schools, that a huge number of jobs are downtown, that the suburbs are transit deserts. But there were also some surprises, especially in our top 10, which stretches across the whole city and features some rapidly emerging new players. So here it is: our mostly scientific, wildly controversial ranking, one that pits east versus west, downtown versus suburb, neighbour versus neighbour.
 
I'm not sure what year's list is one their site currently because I saw a new Best Neighbourhoods issue on the stands this week so I assumed it had new rankings...sorry if this is old!
 
I didn't know where else to post this and I didn't want to start a new thread, but is there no thread in this forum for the Bayview Village area or is it named something else?
 

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