Tweaking the neighbourhood map

SIMON HAYTER/TORONTO STAR

Toronto Star neighbourhood map

Through much of the early part of last year, we were working on a Toronto neighbourhood map which was largely crowd-sourced: we produced a map and invited comments, then tweaked the map based on the comments, and so forth through several iterations. (You can follow the whole process here.)

The version published today has a few housekeeping issues sorted out - some boundaries have been tidied, the lines between areas have been thinned, and it is produced in a conventional .kmz format.

Map of the Week: Neighbourhood map in KML

This week, I'm trying something different: a version of the neighbourhood map which works in Google Earth, Google Maps' three-dimensional cousin. Zip file is here: 090602_kml_neighbourhoods.zip. Google Earth can be downloaded here.

Here's how it looks in action:

Working with three dimensions is a new experience. I was puzzled by a problem with broken boundary lines for a while until I realized that they were absolutely straight in all dimensions, and therefore spent quite a lot of their length underground.

The Star's Toronto neighbourhood map, redux

I should have known better than to say that the neighbourhood map was complete. Some tweaks were published today:

Added U of T Scarborough campus.

West Hill’s southern border is now the rail line.

West Hill adds the little chunk north of Kingston Rd., east of Manse Rd.

Highland Creek’s southern border dips to Hwy. 2A.

Enlarged Malvern north to Finch and west to Tapscott.

Birch Cliff Heights moved south of the CNR to Danforth Ave. instead of placement north of tracks.

Omitted chunk of Leslieville between Greenwood and Coxwell from tracks south to Gerrard. (Yes, it’s an orphan.)

Extend CityPlace east of Spadina and south of Blue Jays Way to Lake Shore, absorbing Mariner Terrace.

Trefann changed to Trefann Court.

Omitted chunk of Junction btwn Weston and Old Weston north of St. Clair. (Another orphan.)

The Thes have been dropped from the front of neighbourhoods like The Annex, which now take the form Annex, The.

The Star's Toronto neighbourhood map: complete

BORIS SPREMO/TORONTO STAR

Link to the map

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The Toronto neighbourhood map is done, or as done as these things ever can be. There may be some tweaks.

Discussions of neighbourhood maps of the 905 have begun. We will probably start with Mississauga.

Here are the final changes to the Toronto map:

1. Added O’Connor Hills, bounded by Beveridge Dr., Victoria Park, Lawrence Ave. and the Don Valley Parkway.
2. Added Glen Andrew, bounded by Ellesmere, Thompson Park, Brimley Rd. and McCowan.
3. Sliced “Cabbagetown South” out of Cabbagetown., bounded by Shuter, Sherbourne, Carleton and Parliament.
4. Added Hunt Club, bounded by Gerrard/Clonmore in the north and the lake in the south, between Warden and Victoria Park, but without altering the borders of Fallingbroke.
5. Added Curran Hall,  bounded by Lawrence, Ellesmere, Highland Creek and Markham Rd. (Golfdale Gardens remains in the south.)
6. Added Upper Jarvis, bounded by Bloor, Jarvis, Wellesley and Sherbourne.
7. Added Fenside, bounded by the 401, Don Valley Pkwy., York Mills and Victoria Park.
8. Altered named of Hillcrest to become Hillcrest-Bracondale.
9. Added Denlow, bounded by York Mills, Leslie, Lawrence in the south and the ravine in the west.
10. Added Garden District, bounded by Carlton, Yonge, Sherbourne and Queen, but excluded areas already marked Moss Park and Ryerson.
11. Added Heathbridge Park, which is south of Moore Ave., north of Heath St., west of Bayview and east of Lumley.
12. Added Rosehill, bounded by Yonge, St. Clair in the north, Avoca and the ravine in the end, south to a line between Jackes Ave., and Woodlawn Ave.
13. Added Maple Leaf, covering the area north Amesbury between Keele, Jane and the 401.

The Star's neighbourhood map, version 4.0

PETER POWER/TORONTO STAR

Link to the map

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There are many changes to the neighbourhood map, our last adjustment before the final version. Many come as a result of your dozens of comments and e-mails.

I've also reorganized the use of colour on the map, something that was overdue. 

The Mississauga News is planning a version for their neighbourhoods, which may appear here in due course.

Here is the current set:

1. Added "Willowridge." It's the area west of Martingrove and east of the 427, and bound in the north by Westway.

2. Cut "The Westway" out of the top half of Richview, basically everything north of Westway. Rename southern part Richview Gardens.
3. Extended Agincourt to Markham Rd. at the south end, between Sheppard and the 401.
4. Added "Bloordale," the area north of Bloor to Burnamthorpe, and west of the 427 - basically the little part of Eatonville on the west side of the 427.
5. Added "Eringate," north of Eringate, west of the 427 to Renforth.
6. Changed the spelling of the Norsemen Heights to Norseman Heights.
7. Added "Fifeshire", essentially the western tip of York Mills, with Legacy Court as the western boundary. Cres., and south of Carluke.
8. Added "White Haven," which is north of the 401, west of Markham Rd., south of Sheppard and east of McCowan.
9. Extended Old Town south to Front Street, but exclude Market Square, which is more correctly part of St. Lawrence.
10. Added the blank area to the northeast of the Junction to the Junction.
11. Added Dean Park, south of Sheppard, north of 401, from Conlins Rd. in the west to the 401 in the S..E.
12.Added Sherwood Park as a subset of North Toronto. It's the triangle from Sherwood Ave. in the south, between Hong and the ravine and including the park.
13. Extended Roncesvalles east to MacDonell, including Sorauren Park in the north down to Seaforth as the southern boundary.
14. Added Thompson Orchard, south of Bloor and west of Royal York to Etobicoke Creek, with Thompson Ave. as the southern border.
15. Added "Upper Jarvis," between Bloor and Wellesley, Sherbourne and Jarvis.
16. Restore southern portion of Moringside Heights, removing it from Malvern.
17. Extended Summerhill south to Ramsden Park as the border with Yorkville.
18. Added Claireville, a triangular area bounded by Steeles, the 427 and the western city limits.
19. Expand Islington to include the area south of Dundas to the CPR line, from Islington to Royal York.
20. Expand Leslieville south to the Lakeshore, and Added part of what's now in Riverside, from Booth Ave. in the west.
21. Extended Yorkville south to Charles St.
22. Added Ryerson, bounded by Gerrard and Dunda, Yonge to Mutual St.
23. Adjusted boundary of Humber Valley so it goes all the way to Eglinton. Also, eastern boundary should be Scarlett Rd.
24. Cut Northwood Park and replace it with University Heights to cover the area south of Finch, from Keele to the ravine in the west.
25. Added Greenhills, bounded by Black Creek, Trethewey, Jane and the railway.
26. Extended Amesbury slightly further north, to Maple Leaf Drive.
27. Added Humber Bay Shores, an area south of the Lakeshore. (I'll give you the map for easier reference.)
28. Added Eringate, bounded by Renforth in the westm 427 on the east, Rathburn on the south and 401 to the north.
29. Added Tarragon Village, bounded by Davenport, Bathurst, Spadina and Bridgeman St. (which is just above Dupont)
30. Added West Bend, which is currently included in High Park. It's triangle shaped, bounded by Keele in the west and Bloor in the south, and by the railway in the north and east.
31. Shaded High Park itself the same colour as the neighbourhoods with that name to the east and north, so they're not cut off from each other by the addition of West Bend.
32. Added Winston Park, bounded by Wilson Ave., the 401, Dufferin and the railway tracks.
33. Harbord Village adjusted so that it doesn't extend west of Bathurst.
34. Added Huron Sussex, bounded by Spadina, Bloor, St. George and Harbord.
35. Made North Park east of Keele, south of the 401, north of Lawrence and west of the train tracks.
36. Restored Islington Ave. as the border between Rexdale and The Elms.
37. Added Glen Agar. It's the lower portion of Princess Margaret. The boundaries are Martingrove, Rathburn, Kipling and Princess Margaret Blvd.
38. Adjusted boundaries of Lytton Park, so that it extends from Avenue Rd. to Yonge, Lawrence to Roselawn.

The Star's neighbourhood map, version 3.2

TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR

Link to the map

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Some changes have been made to the Toronto neighbourhood map:

1. Tritown was rejected by residents of the area, and has been removed.
2. Added Scarborough Junction. Boundaries: Eglinton to the north between Kennedy and Brimley. East boundary: Brimley down to the railway tracks. From there, railway tracks to St. Clair, along St. Clair to the Danforth, and then along the Danforth to Birchmount. Western boundary: Birchmount north to the railway tracks, then follow back up to Eglinton.
3. Added Leacock, carved out of Tam O’Shanter.) Boundaries are Sheppard north to Finch, between Birchmount and Warden.
4. Added Corinthian, from Sheppard to Finch, between Pharmacy and Victoria Park.
5. Added Town and Country, between Highway 401 and Sheppard between Pharmacy and Victoria Park.
6. Added West Lansing, the portion of Lansing south of Sheppard.

Map of the Week: The Star's neighbourhood map, version 3.0

TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR

Link to the map

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We went out of our way to ask you what you had to say about the neighbourhood map Kenneth Kidd wrote about on Sunday, and you responded - on top of scores of e-mails Ken received, there were 36 comments on the article and at last count 95 on this blog.

Ken distilled these into 29 specific changes, which now appear on the map:

1. Added Wellington Place, bounded by King, Spadina, Front and Bathurst.

2. Added Wynford-Concorde, a high-rise community bounded by Eglinton, Don Mills Rd., the Don Valley and the railway tracks to the north.

4. Added Keelesdale, bounded by Rogers Rd., Keele, Black Creek and the little ravine just to the north of Gulliver Rd.

5. Changed name of South Riverdale to Riverside-South Riverdale.

6. Changed name of Rouge Hill to West Rouge and extended the western boundary to Port Union Rd.

7. Altered name of Port Union neighbourhood to read Centennial-Port Union.

8. Added The Pocket, bounded by the Greenwood Yards, the train tracks to the south, the Danforth to the north and Jones to the west.

9. Added Bridlewood, bounded by Sheppard, Finch, Pharmacy and Ward.

10. Added Wishing Well, bounded by Sheppard, the 401, Warden and VP.

11. Included the little area north of the tracks in The Junction.

12. Adjusted Rosedale boundary so that it’s Rosedale Valley Rd. in the south.

13. Adjusted Yorkville boundary so it extends no further north than Davenport. Area north of that is nameless.

14. Extended Milliken boundary further west so that it includes Milliken GO station and a few remaining buildings from the original village as well as the industrial area.

15. Altered name of Humber Heights to read Humber Heights-Westmount

16. Made the western border of Corktown Parliament.

17. East of Parliament, created Old Town, and extended it to Church.

18. Added Tritown, to cover the area bounded by Bloor to the north, Sherbourne to the east, Jarvis to the west and Carlton to the south.

19. Adjust Bayview Village so that the eastern boundary is the river, and the southern boundary is Sheppard.

20. Added Chestnut Hills, bounded by Islington, Dundas and Angelsey.

21. Added Brimwood, bounded by McNicoll, Brimley, Finch and McCowan.

22. Called area at northern end of Morningside Heights, across the hydro corridor, Brookside.

23. Added Treverton Park, area north of Eglinton between Kennedy and the railway tracks until the park.

24. Make the northeast boundary of Mount Dennis the railway tracks.

25. Fix polygon to Parkview Hills to include Doris, Alder and Northline, streets on the periphery.

26. Humber Bay Shores created from part of Humber Bay. This is the condo development on the Etobicoke side of the mouth of the Humber.

27. Stonegate created from parts of Humber Bay and Sunnylea

28. Humberwood created in the Hwy. 427 and Rexdale Blvd. area.

29. Junction Triangle created, near Bloor St. W. and Perth Ave.

The Star's neighbourhood map, version 2.0

RENE JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR

Link to the map

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Kenneth Kidd is writing in Sunday's paper about the newest iteration of our neighbourhood map, which has been tweaked a great deal over the last few days, largely as a response to your comments on this blog. Neighbouhoods have been merged, unmerged, grown, shrunk, added and removed, and this is reflected on the newest version of the map.

The various iterations of the neighbourhood map are discussed here and here.

Please feel free to use the comment section below. If you disagree with where the map places you, or if you live in an area we haven't defined as a neighbourhood and feel you should be, it would be helpful to put your full postal code in the comments.

Map of the Week: The Star's neighbourhood map, version 1.0

TORONTO STAR FILE

Shortcut to the map

Thank you for your comments last week. Many have found their way on to the new version of the map.

Along with some changes of colour to sharpen contrast (and getting rid of a grey that was too close to the Google Maps default grey), here are the changes:

1. Extended Corktown down to King, then Eastern, Jarvis to River

2. Rexdale and The Elms: divided with diagonal hydro line, not straight north-south line

3. Leslieville extended west to Booth, south to Eastern, stopping at Gerrard on the north, instead of the CP tracks. Blank triangle created in the area of the Gerrard Square Mall is now in Riverdale

4. Bloor West Village extended east to Clendenan

5. Created Jane and Finch: Jane to park, Shoreham to Grandravine

6. Created Northwood Park: Finch on the north, Keele to the east, Sheppard on south, Black Creek on the west

7. Created Church and Wellesley: Bloor to Carlton, Yonge to Jarvis

8. Created Tam O'Shanter: VP to Kennedy, 401 north to Huntingwood

9. Removed line between Christie Pits and Seaton Village

10. Created Pleasantview: VP, Sheppard, 404 and Finch

11. Don Mills extended west to creek

12. South Annex becomes Harbord Village

13. St. Lawrence entended north to King, west to Yonge

14. Created U of T St. George Campus, with boundaries as shown

15. Created Seven Oaks: Ellesmere and 401, Morningside to creek on west

16. Dublin Heights shrinks, with Sheppard as the northern boundary

17. Created Bathurst Manor: Sheppard, Dufferin, Finch and Don River

18. Flemingdon Park extended east to the Don

19. Leaside: Added business area to the east

20. West Don Lands created. Borders as shown

21. South Riverdale separated from Riverdale at Gerrard.

Map of the Week: The Star's neighbourhood map (beta version)

TONY BOCK/TORONTO STAR

Shortcut to the map

After the 1998 amalgamation of the six former cities of Metro Toronto came a debate about geography - like many other things, it could be blamed on Mike Harris.

To some, referring to former cities like Etobicoke and Scarborough (especially Scarborough, for some reason) was an anachronism to be avoided. 'Toronto's east end,' once the area of the former City of Toronto east of the Don, was now the entire metropolis east of Yonge St. as far as Pickering. Somewhere there was a 'north end,' but where the east was more north than east was never completely clarified.

This system rarely seemed to be followed to its logical conclusion, locating Queen and Spadina in the ‘south end,’ (or Ward's Island in the 'southmost end') which was probably just as well.

For a time, the Star was influenced by this, banning the mention of Scarborough in crime stories,  although we have also freely referred to former towns in the 905, like Thornhill and Port Credit.

Public Editor Kathy English tackled the issue recently:

This policy is well-intentioned. But the reality is that the Star's newsroom has been inconsistent in applying the policy, leading to charges of unfairness from some Scarborough readers. Other readers are confused by the various ways in which Star writers try to locate crime in Toronto without referring to those historic geographic areas that, while officially dissolved, live on in the hearts and minds of many readers, and indeed, in institutional names like the "Scarborough Hospital."

… Does any ban on using those historic Toronto place names serve readers? If Toronto is indeed a city of neighbourhoods, should we aim to cite those more exact locations? Is Scarborough indeed "east Toronto?" Is Etobicoke "the west end?" While a map of Toronto indicates that, many long-time residents define east Toronto as the eastern reaches of the old City of Toronto. In their minds, east of that is indeed Scarborough.

For those who have forgotten where the six pre-amalgamation cities were, a map is here.

My own view, for what it’s worth, is that there is a limited relationship between communities and municipal governments. Brooklyn, for instance, hasn’t been a city in its own right for more than a century, but I have yet to hear of anybody referring to ‘New York’s mid-south end’. The idea that a recognizable area like East York can never be referred to, like Alsace and Lorraine after 1870 (‘Speak of it never – think of it always’) seems extreme, and doesn’t reflect the way residents think about their city.

But bringing back the pre-1998 cities for style purposes doesn’t solve the problem. The cities of Scarborough and Etobicoke were recognizable chunks of the map, but the borders of the former City of York (at left) were very eccentric. And the former City of Toronto poses its own problems – are we really supposed to spend the next twenty or thirty years referring to ‘the former City of Toronto’?

However, there is a third way – using the city’s rich tradition of neighbourhood names (Swansea, for example, or Agincourt) in a way that everyday urban culture recognizes.

With this in mind, feature writer Kenneth Kidd recently literally went back to the drawing board on the neighbourhood issue, carving up the city into 158 areas with a marker on an enormous laminated map. It’s in beta, and we’re posting an online version this week to find out what you think.

It’s in the nature of a map like this to be fluid and debated. Many trees could be killed, or electrons rearranged, over the Beach(es) alone: the Beach or the Beaches? And where is the northern boundary: Queen, Kingston Road, or as hopeful real estate agents would sometimes have it, the Danforth or points north?

So this week's map is to a large extent about the comment thread, particularly for those of you living in the 416. (A 905 map is planned.)

- If you live in the Toronto megacity, what do you call your neighbourhood?

- If you live in a shape on the map, does the name match the one you would use? If not, what name would you use?

 - If you live in a part of the map not covered by a shape, what would you call your neighbourhood?

The map is here.