A love letter to The Danforth

I love my neighbourhood.
On the East Side of the Danforth, one can walk along a strip of Ethiopian bars and cafes, bringing out to the street shared plates and coffee ceremonies. Continue West on the Danforth and you get to Greektown, where groups of middle-aged men start their drinking rituals no later than noon. A bike lane that was recently installed allows restaurants to extend their patios to the street, showing the positive effects of prioritizing communities over traffic.
Walk South to Gerrard and you get to Little India, a bright street filled with Indian wedding dresses, spice shops, and booths selling cane sugar drinks and grilled corn.
The residential streets that connect these quarters are quiet and family-oriented. A cool and sunny September day like today is when the neighbourhood’s life reveals its full richness: The park’s tree leaves have started to change their colours; one family started an improvised fire to fight the cold breeze and kids were playing around it; a teenage girl pulled out a guitar and a harmonica and played beautiful music; a group of elders practiced socially distanced yoga.
Due to its location on the other side of the DVP highway, the Danforth enjoyed a slower process of gentrification compared to the city’s West End, but an abandoned school on the other side of my street is a reminder for what’s to come.
After the school is demolished, a big glass condo is expected to rise above the neighbourhood’s duplex houses. After the construction tracks, cranes, and drilling noise will be gone, the two-lane street will be filled with cars, coming in and out of the condo’s parking and driving to distant locations. As the street becomes busier than originally planned, value will go up even more, bringing in shared workspaces, chefs’ restaurants, and “health stores.” Places where the community is coming together will turn into another traffic stop.
This is in many ways the story of Toronto. People who lived here before the construction boom of the early 2010s often tell me of their nostalgic image of the city as it exists in their memory. Little governmental protection and ruthless development have destroyed much of the city’s fabric since then. Year after year, City Council has prioritized the profit of real estate moguls over the well being of its residents. Preservation almost always gave away to development.
I know it is somewhat hypocritical of me to criticize. I’m a mostly well off white foreigner who isn’t rooted in the history of this neighbourhood. In many ways I am the face of gentrification and it doesn’t make a difference whether I live in a condo or a duplex. My love for my neighborhood still doesn’t make me a part of it.
As I must cope with this paradox, I’m reminding to myself that change is inevitable for any community, and in many instances it is welcomed. The extent of change is something we have the power to medigate, so it doens’t come on the account of our neighberhoods’ old resident; so it doesn’t change the very roots of the communities we love and the history it builds on; so it is open to everyone and not only to a rich and homogenous elite; so lovely scenes like this beautiful Saturday afternoon can continue to exist. In the meantime, I am very much enjoying my neighbourhood and its people.

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