Factories

Several contemporary high-density neighbourhoods are built on land that once produced jobs, machines, and wealth. Before Liberty Village became a hub of upscale condos, it was a cluster of factories that included the Massey-Ferguson tractor plant. CityPlace, extending from York Street to Bathurst Street, rose from Toronto’s railway lands. The West Donlands and the Portlands were once wastelands of warehouses and oil tank farms. These areas are becoming neighbourhoods.

CityPlace, which has taken 25 years to build, is home to 21,000 people, as well as shops, parks, a school, and a community centre. The neighbourhood has a residents’ association, as well as its share of crime and tensions among residents.   

The Golden Mile stretches along Eglinton Avenue East from Victoria Park Avenue to Kennedy Road. Over the next 20 years, this area will undergo a transformative change, growing into a high-rise hub with a projected 43,000 residents and 19,000 jobs — a dense and vertical suburban neighbourhood that stands in sharp contrast to the post-war suburbs that long dominated this part of Scarborough.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Scarborough’s “Golden Mile of Industry” — the stretch of Eglinton Avenue from Victoria Park Avenue to Kennedy Road — transformed farmers’ fields into sprawling factories, plazas and car dealerships. Today, that stretch, bisected by the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, is turning into a high-density mixed-use community with numerous high-rise apartment complexes, shops and parks. The neighbourhood will be called “The Golden Mile.”

How high density neighbourhoods replaced factories, plazas, and car dealerships.