The Rise and Fall...and Rise of a Neighbourhood

With few exceptions neighbourhoods go through cycles from being in development to maturity to decline and then through renewal back to being desirable places to live. In the urban centres of Toronto examples of this would be High Park or Bloor West Village in the West, Cabbagetown in Central Toronto and Riverdale and South Riverdale (now Leslieville) in the East. Some neighbourhoods like Rosedale, Forest Hill and The Kingsway appear to have avoided this cycle by virtue of their continued desirability and afflence but you never know - just ask the former mansions of Jarvis Street about that! Some neighbourhoods began as more middle class havens and have become increasingly gentrified as a result of a desirable location like Leaside or the Beach.

I was walking through Leslieville yesterday with fellow agent Sam Soukas meeting and talking to neighbours and was very much reminded of the whole process of urban renewal. 10 years ago Leslieville began an oddysey from a forgotten down on it's luck neighbourhood to one of the most desirable locations for young urbanites. Today it is an eclectic mix of trendy young professionals living in wonderfully renovated old Victorians right next door to the couple who inherited grandma's house. It was truly amazing to see the differences as we walked door to door and the different people we spoke to and met. The perfect example was an older woman living the past 37 years in a grand Victorian semi with stunning architechtural features but definately faded and in need of more than just a facelift (the term gut reno comes to mind) and her next door neighbour living in the other half of the semi who greeted me in her fabulously renovated foyer with her young baby in her arms.

I enjoyed my conversation with both ladies even though they were each at very different points in their lives...much like the neighbourhood they live in. This, to me, is part of the essense of living in a metropolis like Toronto. You can turn around a corner and never know quite what you'll see...or who you'll meet. I wouldn't live anywhere else!