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Contents

Introduction. 2

Description of South Parkdale. 2

Gentrification in progress. 3

References. 6

Introduction

Description of South Parkdale

South Parkdale is a unique, beautiful neighbourhood in Toronto. The neighbourhood has many poor and marginalized residents. This place is riddled with conflicts between incoming artists and gentrifiers, and a long-established population comprising of poor and highly marginalized citizens.

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            This area has many signs of poverty that do not show any clear signs of improving. South Parkdale borders Queen Street West to the north.  As one walks along this street towards South Parkdale, mushrooming studios of artists, trendy cafes, galleries, restaurants and clothing shops are easy to notice. There are also many restaurants, shows, live/workspaces, and former warehouses.

            There is a mix of residents in South Parkdale. The Queen West stretch appears to be the liveliest part of this neighbourhood. Gladstone Hotel is located along this stretch while some of the best domestic architecture is visible to the west of Annex. From here, the mid-rise apartments situated at Jameson are visible. From here, one gets the impression that the neighbourhood is in transition.

The tree-lined streets are alive, they are adorned by classic gables and bay, and large mansions made with a blend of Richardsonian Romanesque and Queen Anne styles. The street life appears quite lively and people of a different budget, age and lifestyle standards seem to know where to get what they need within these streets.

The residential streets are beautiful and they are of different varieties. Some of them stretch along smartly manicured lawns while others lead residents to dirty yards that bracket landscaped flower gardens. Some residential homes are undergoing renovation. To the east of Dufferin, there are many trendy restaurants and entertainment spots.

            Three storey brick homes of both detached and semi-detached variety are a common sight here. A significant number of them are made in Majestic Victorian styles. To the west of Dufferin, the residential houses reflect some historical elite ambience. A walk along Joe Shuster Way reveals many new condos and townhomes.

Gentrification in progress

The City of Toronto has played a big role in the gentrification process of South Parkdale. Teelucksingh indicates that there is a popular belief that South Parkdale was an affluent neighbourhood until the Gardiner Expressway cut it off from Lake Ontario during the 1960s (122). The housing conversions that took place prior to and after World War II significantly increased the number of working-class tenants in this neighbourhood.

Alexiouobserves that the resulting social mix resulted in moral panics, where some middle-class people feared that their ‘nuclear-family’ way of life would be interfered with (87). The local government and media named Parkdale a slum. This legitimized the slum clearance efforts that would be required as part of the construction of the Gardner Expressway. The social mix that used to create economically diverse communities was drastically reduced by this construction initiative.

Despite the social conflicts between people of different areas in South Parkdale, the general trend indicates that this neighbourhood is on-trend towards, smart and new urbanism. South Parkdale’s social geography appears to have also been influenced by proximity to Queen Street Center for Addictions and Mental Health. This facility has been the largest of its kind all over Canada.

            Low-income areas, according to Ley, are being entered by middle-class people, particularly those that hold a specific asset such as distinctive housing stock, affordability, proximity to downtown, lifestyle ambience and varied services (62). Middle-class people like Victorian-style homes, which are spacious and beautiful. Although crime and the roughness of the neighbourhood are concerns for the residents, middle-class people say that the benefits by far outweigh these burdens.

At South Parkdale, it is sometimes easy to confuse efforts of poverty deconcentration and gentrification. Since there are no clear social mix policy efforts that appear to be going on in South Parkdale, the ongoing transformation of this estate can best be categorized as gentrification. The low property values at the neighbourhood may be the ones that led to the attraction of the middle classes.

According to Smitha, The gentrification process of South Parkdale has also been influenced by the housing policy transformations that have been going on with the wider Toronto (Smitha). For instance, notes Slater, it is considered to be one of the direct consequences of neo-liberalization of the housing sector by the Harris government in 1995 (309). It is also associated with the phasing of many small and medium-sized housing service providers, as well as the conversion of large service providers into entrepreneurial entities, for instance, the Toronto Community Housing Corporation.

The growing community of artists has contributed to the gentrification of South Parkdale. The place is already gaining reputation because of the artists who reside here, mainly on sections of Queen Street. The Parkdale Village Arts Collective (PVAC) is an icon of the artistic presence that is increasingly becoming a dominant feature. The PVAC was formed under the auspices of the Parkdale Village Business Improvement Association (BIA), which was federally funded in 1994 with an aim of revitalizing the Village of Parkdale. One of the main strategies of BIA was re-designating South Parkdale as ‘1879 Village of Parkdale. Artists have tended to congregate in South Parkdale since gallery and studio rents are very affordable. Moreover, the ‘edginess’ of this neighbourhood amplifies the artistic message.

Meanwhile, it appears, these condo-dwellers will integrate into the existing community. The problem, according to Ley, is that the existing services and business that cater to lower-income residents’ needs may be displaced (530). According to Jacobs, mixed-uses of neighbourhoods are better than mono-use (25). Jacobs adds that older urban districts are always a necessary element for every vibrant city, and that high concentrations of activities and people bring life to cities (25).

The neighbourhood’s low-income tenants have been feeling threatened by the middle-class tenants and homeowners who have been following the tenants. They feel threatened by the displacement that results from either the de-conversion or closure of bachelorette and rooming buildings.

Ley, notes that The cheapest forms of rental accommodation available on a permanent basis in Toronto provide a vital resource for this city’s low-income population (68). The forces of both gentrification, dwindling profits for landlords, new zoning restrictions, and poor safety standards have made cheap forms of such rental accommodation difficult to find in Toronto since the 1980s. Researchers link this decline to the growing trend of homelessness. Currently, tension is rife between advocates of low-income tenants and the SPRA (South Parkdale Residents’ Association).

In summary, the gentrification process in the South Parkdale neighbourhood represents a trend that can be observed in many other neighbourhoods in Toronto and across the world. The conflicting demands of gentrification have pitted people of the working class against the middle-class residents who have been seeking rental accommodation in the neighbourhood for purposes of convenience. 

References

Alexiou, Alice. Jane Jacobs: urban visionary, Macmillan: New York, 2006.

Jacobs, Jane. The death and life of great American cities, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992.

Ley, David. The New Middle Class and the Remaking of the Central City, Oxford University Press, 1996.

Ley, David. “Gentrification and the politics of the new middle class” Environment and Planning Journal, D: Society and Space, 12.1 (1994): 53 – 74.

Ley, David. “Alternative Explanations for Inner-City Gentrification: A Canadian Assessment” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 76.4 (1986) 521–535.

Slater, Tom. “Municipally managed gentrification in South Parkdale, Toronto” Canadian Geographer, 48.3 (2004): 303–325.

Smitha, Neil. “Gentrification and the Rent Gap” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77.3 (1987): 462 – 465.

Teelucksingh, Cheryl. “Spatiality and Environmental Justice in Parkdale (Toronto)” Ethnology, 24.1 (2002): 119-141.