Toronto's Cabbagetown

Persuasive Essay # 102957

Canadian Studies
Sociology

An analysis of the neighborhood changes undertaken by Toronto's Cabbagetown district.

1,124 words () | 3 sources | MLA | 2008 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that there have been significant demographic, social and cultural changes in what was once Toronto's infamous Cabbagetown (now Regent Park) and that these changes have not been accompanied by similar changes in the realm of economic prosperity. In other words, Regent Park is poor today just as Cabbagetown was poor yesterday. The paper also looks at how the evolving neighborhood profile of Regent Park suggests that the city of Toronto has done a poor job of combating the socio-economic stratification that plagued the area generations ago.

From the Paper:

"To begin with, Toronto's Cabbage-town district has historically always been fairly poor. To wit, in the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the neighborhood was possibly the poorest in all of Toronto - so much so, in fact, that much of the original cabbagetown was razed in the 1940s to make way for Regent Park housing project. To continue momentarily with the image of historic Cabbagetown being a place of poverty and austerity, it is generally maintained that the old neighborhood gained the monicker, "Cabbagetown," because of the popular late-nineteenth century belief that the poor Irish and Macedonian immigrants who constituted the majority of the local inhabitants could only afford to eat the cabbage they grew in their front yards (Old Cabbagetown BIA, para.4 and 6). Needless to say, Cabbagetown was a stark manifestation of the socio-economic segregation and reification that consumed Toronto - and most, if not all, other North American cities - during the industrial age."

Sample of Sources Used:

City of Toronto. "Social Profile #3: Neighborhoods, Households & Income (2001 Census)." Regent Park Neighborhood Profile. 2007. 1 Apr. 2007 <http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/pdf3/cpa72.pdf>
City of Toronto. "Social Profile #2: Neighborhoods, Immigration, Ethnicity, Language (2001 Census)." Regent Park Neighborhood Profile. 2007. 1 Apr. 2007 <http://www.toronto.ca/demographics/pdf2/cpa72.pdf>
Old Cabaggetown BIA. "Interesting tidbits regarding Cabbagetown." Community Facts. 2 Apr. 2007. Cabbagetown BIA. 2 Apr. 2007 <http://www.oldcabbagetown.com/comm_facts.php>