Resilient Regent Park: The Transformation Of This Toronto Neighbourhood

Bordered by Parliament St. to the west and River St. to the east in Toronto's downtown, Regent Park has seen a lot of change over the years.

But as Toronto Historian Morgan Cameron Ross highlights in this episode of Then&Now, the changes implemented in this neighbourhood haven't always benefited the resilient community within.

The area we know as Regent Park actually used to be the southern part of Cabbagetown prior to it becoming its own area. Many of the houses that had occupied the neighbourhood were "some of the oldest in Toronto" says Ross, and "in the early part of the 20th century it was composed primarily of newly arrived immigrants, who faced many hurdles."

In the later part of the 1940s, Regent Park was developed as a public housing project with some of those older buildings being torn down. But the architectural layout "led to some of the difficulties" explains Ross, where "the buildings were constructed to be independent of the neighbourhood" and ultimately the community "struggled in some ways and thrived in others."

Further changes would come beginning in the early 2000s with a revitalization effort that Ross says has left the area looking "remarkably different from even a decade ago."