The perilous practice of ranking neighbourhoods

Dear reader,
Listen closely and you can almost hear the murmurous rage: Toronto Life is at it again. They’ve ranked every part of the city in one gaudy, infuriating list, pitting Leslievillians against Riverdalers, North Yorkers against L’Amoreauxois. Well, yes and no. We have ranked every neighbourhood with the vital assistance of some professional dataheads. But the idea isn’t to incite neighbourhood warfare or publicly shame those areas that placed near the bottom.
Ranking anything is fraught in this, the age of outrage. If something is first, then something else is last, and that’s mean. Maybe so. But our stance is that, in a dynamic city like ours, even the last-place neighbourhood (in this case, Kennedy Park) is profoundly desirable. It’s the site of one of the prettiest cemeteries in Toronto, sun-dappled, picturesque and a closely guarded secret for distance runners. My daughter plays basketball at one of Kennedy Park’s public schools, an architecturally fascinating building with evidence of abundant school spirit. Nearby is some of the best food in the city. That a beautiful, bountiful, diverse neighbourhood places last is more a compliment to Toronto than an insult to Kennedy Park.
Since we last published our rankings, back in 2018, the city has been redrawn to include 34 new neighbourhoods. Fresh census data dropped in 2021. Add in a bevy of new transit projects, office and condo towers, cool bars, stellar restaurants, and even a hospital, and there is plenty to analyze.
We asked the folks at Environics to crunch the numbers for us. The winner is an area known for its annual street festival, gorgeous avenues, heritage homes, vibrant commerce and excellent schools. And in a city where getting around is both important and nearly impossible, the experience here is far easier than elsewhere.
We weighted the criteria based on what we felt matters most to Torontonians right now. That’s a difficult undertaking to get right, so we invite you to visit our website, where you can tweak the weighting to your preferences. Kennedy Park may be your number one. If so, you’d hear no argument from us.
Visit torontolife.com for all our real estate coverage.

Five years have passed since we last ran our neighbourhood rankings, and what a transformation there’s been. The pandemic radically altered how we live, work and commute. Downtown lost its mojo (for a time, anyway), and the suburbs gained new appeal. Change proliferated in other ways, too. The city is bursting with new transit projects, condo towers, Michelin-star restaurants, rooftop farms, hypermodern shopping complexes—even a shiny new hospital up in Vaughan. Check out our sketches of the top 10 neighbourhoods here, and our ranking of all 158 neighbourhoods here.

Chief planner Gregg Lintern believes that gentle density will help tackle Toronto’s housing crisis. Here, he explains what NIMBYs really mean when they talk about a neighbourhood’s “character” and how multiplexes can make Toronto more beautiful.

How about a 1,200-square-foot Victorian unit in Little Italy? It has walnut all over, plenty of exposed brick, a wine fridge and a huge main suite—and it’s currently going for $4,500 a month. Take the tour now.

Five years have passed since we last ran our neighbourhood rankings, and oh, how things have changed. In our November issue, a mostly scientific, slightly inflammatory, deeply informative portrait of this ever-evolving city. Plus, the scary pursuit of the perfect face, a taxonomy of Toronto’s new socialites, and more. Still not receiving Toronto Life at home? Subscribe today.