Abstract
This essay is an overview of how the Toronto neighbourhood of Cabbagetown has transformed over the years as seen through the eyes of writers. According to this essay, Cabbagetown has morphed, getting larger here or smaller there, depending upon any given definition. And while there has been improvement on some fronts, there have also been the social experiments gone awry in Regent Park and St. Jamestown.

From the Paper
"Back in the sixties and seventies, Toronto author Hugh Garner, a Governor General's Award winner, took Cabbagetown's border debate international with a series of literary looks at the community. In doing so, he documented phases of the community's profile complete with glimpses of how it started and what it had become, giving a history of shifts in the community as character. And, although 26 years dead, Garner managed to not only document his here-and-now, but forecast the area's slow gentrification efforts that continue revolving around what may very well be the city's longest running border dispute (Smith 21)."

Tags:neighborhood, change, cabbagetown

Abstract
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."

Tags:Regent, Park, poverty

Abstract
The paper discusses how specific areas or neighborhoods of urban space contain signs which can be interpreted so that the reality and quality of life become clear without the aid of statistics. The paper asserts that the topic of signs of status is complex and worthy of sociological study because, while poverty is easily identified, status operates in a convoluted manner. The paper explains that status is not necessarily revealed in an impressive home and several expensive cars since these may be obscured by a wall; status is indeed a symbol and is manifested in private horizontal space and subtle touches that indicate personal ownership and control over that space. The paper then describes how a walk past Regent Park in summer reveals high visibility of adults and children as well as something of personal lives in laundry drying on balconies where space is vertical and is highly limited.

Tags:status, symbols, gentrification

Abstract
This paper argues that there have been significant demographic, social and cultural changes in what was once Toronto's infamous Cabbagetown, now known as Regent Park. The paper points out that these changes have not been accompanied by similar changes in the realm of economic prosperity. Regent Park is poor today just as Cabbagetown was poor yesterday. The paper concludes by noting that 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 it generations ago.

From the Paper
"The following paper will argue that there have been significant demographic, social and cultural changes in what was once Toronto's infamous Cabbagetown (now Regent Park) but these changes have not been accompanied by similar changes in the realm of economic prosperity; to wit, Regent Park is poor today just as Cabbagetown was poor yesterday. In the end, 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 it generations ago."

Tags:cabbagetown, regent, park