Academy Soccer Field
Ravine / Naturalized Park, middle of the pack overall (score 31, rank ~36th percentile). Strongest: edge activation; weakest: enclosure.
Aerial, City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Academy Soccer Field scores 31.1 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and natural comfort. Weakest: amenity diversity (11.9). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 1.25 ha
What's here
Getting around
No walking paths mapped in OpenStreetMap.
No seating mapped in OpenStreetMap.
Nearest parking 105 m away. None of the 7 nearby lots records whether it has accessible spaces.
Path, seating and parking data comes from OpenStreetMap and reflects what volunteers have mapped, not a survey. Absence here means nobody has recorded it. This section does not assess wheelchair access: the relevant OpenStreetMap tag is present on well under 1% of Toronto paths.
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 68%
Data confidence: moderate
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Loading map…
The parks map is loading.Boundary: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Explain this score
Where did the 31 come from? Each weighted contribution against a neutral 50 baseline. Green = pushed up; red = pulled down.
Sum of contributions = the headline score. A negative bar means that dimension dragged the park below the city-wide neutral baseline.
Why this park works
Academy Soccer Field works because its edge activation score (14) is above average and its amenity diversity (12) is also above-average.
What limits this park
Academy Soccer Field is held back by enclosure (44, bottom quartile): no mid-rise frontage to provide eyes on the park.
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally low enclosure (44, bottom quartile).
Jacobs reading
Academy Soccer Field sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.
Performance in context
- Reads as a modest underperformer relative to comparable parks (gap -5; cohort: medium Ravine / Naturalized Park ravine).
Typology classification
Classified as Ravine / Naturalized Park: 97% ravine overlap, 0% canopy. Secondary read: Neighbourhood Park (1.3 ha, framed by 0 mid-rise vs 0 towers).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 1 active uses (retail) and 0 dead/hostile uses (none). Active edges keep "eyes on the park" through the day; parking lots, blank institutional walls, rail and highway frontages drain street life.
Source: OSM POIs (amenity/shop) + Toronto Building Footprints + land use
Connectivity
Connectivity blends paths, intersections, transit, entrances, and edge density. This park has 0 mapped paths/walkways and 1 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 3 street intersections within 100 m; 12 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~472 m of perimeter. low edge density, significant superblock penalty applied. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.
Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops
Amenity Diversity
1 distinct amenity types in the park (sports_field). Diversity, not raw count, drives the score so a park with many distinct activity types can outrank a larger park that repeats the same use.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: 0.0% estimated tree canopy; 96.6% inside the ravine system; nearest waterbody ~396 m. Reading: ravine-cooled. Source coverage: ravine, waterbodies. Impervious surface is approximated (Toronto's authoritative layer ships only as a raster GeoTIFF).
Source: Toronto Treed Area + Ravine + Waterbodies + Street Tree Inventory
Enclosure / Eyes on Park
8 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (0 mid-rise, 8 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 6.2 m (~2 floors); 1.7 buildings per 100 m of 472 m perimeter (moderate frontage density); edges are low-rise (mostly 2 to 3 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 0 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Park edges face the city. No significant border vacuum detected.
Source: Toronto Street Centreline (highways) + rail layer + OSM landuse + building footprints
Equity Context
Equity Context requires inputs not yet loaded for this park (Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles). Score is held at a neutral 50 with low confidence. Read with caution.
Source: Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles
Amenities (1 types · 1 records)
- sports field
Nearby active-edge features (12)
- retail: Brightside Customs54 m
- parking lot105 m
- transit stop126 m
- transit stop: 195 Bermondsey Road128 m
- retail: Fitness Depot139 m
- parking lot152 m
- community: Victoria Village Arena152 m
- parking lot177 m
- parking lot184 m
- parking lot187 m
- parking lot188 m
- parking lot192 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality36th
- Edge activation73th
- Connectivity23th
- Amenity diversity62th
- Natural comfort28th
- Enclosure9th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital CemeteryNeighbourhood Park25
- Alotment Garden ParketteCorridor / Linear Park24
- East Highland Creek WatercourseWaterfront Park28
- Families in NatureRavine / Naturalized Park27
- Humber River WatercourseWaterfront Park31
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Kew GardensNeighbourhood Park75
- Leslie Grove ParkParkette73
- Bellevue Square ParkCivic Square73
- High ParkWaterfront Park51
- Sir Winston Churchill ParkRavine / Naturalized Park71
Human activity signals: not available
No activity signals have landed for this park yet. The model has scored its physical form but it can’t yet say how often it’s programmed, photographed, or walked through. See /data-ethics for what we will and will not collect.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Academy Soccer Field matters. We’re testing whether the model lines up with how people actually use the park. Submissions are stored locally; no account needed.
Tell us how this park feels
We measure structure (canopy, edges, connectivity). You measure feeling. Both matter, and disagreement is itself useful civic data.
What would improve this park?
Generated from the weakest measured dimensions: a starting point, not a prescription.
- Activate the edges: encourage cafés, retail or community uses on the streets that face the park; replace blank or parking-lot edges where possible.
- Add or open more entrances and improve sidewalk continuity around the park. More permeability means more spontaneous use.
- Diversify what people can do in the park (playground, washroom, water, shade, performance, sport, garden): even small additions raise this score.
- Increase canopy and reduce paved area. Shade and water features extend usable hours and seasons.
- Encourage mid-rise, windowed frontages around the park so residents have direct sightlines onto it.
Data sources
- City of Toronto Open Data: Parks (Green Space)Polygon boundaries, official names, types. Boundaries are reconciled against OpenStreetMap (ODbL) for new and updated parks.
- Parks & Recreation FacilitiesInventory of in-park amenities (washrooms, fields, rinks…).
- Toronto Pedestrian NetworkSidewalk segments around and through parks; estimated park entrances.
- Toronto Centreline V2Street segments + intersection nodes near park edges; trails and walkways.
- Toronto 3D MassingBuilding footprints + heights for edge-building counts, frontage density, and tower-in-the-park risk.
- Toronto Treed AreaTree canopy share inside park polygons via stratified-grid sampling.
- Toronto Waterbodies & RiversWater surface inside parks + nearest-water distance for cooling.
- Ravine & Natural Feature ProtectionRavine overlap as a cooling / natural-comfort signal.
- Toronto Street Tree InventoryTree count + density inside park polygons.
- Neighbourhood Profiles(Pending) Equity context proxy.
- OpenStreetMap (Overpass API)Cafés, restaurants, retail, transit stops, parking, highways, rail.