Dundas - St.Clarens Parkette
Urban Plaza, one of the city's strongest overall (score 54, rank ~97th percentile). Strongest: connectivity; weakest: natural comfort.
Aerial, City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Dundas - St.Clarens Parkette scores 53.9 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (21). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.12 ha
What's here
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 65%
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 54 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
Dundas - St.Clarens Parkette works because its connectivity score (74) is one of the city's strongest and its enclosure (89) is also top decile (19 transit stops sit within a 400 m walk; 16 intersections fall within 100 m of the edge).
What limits this park
Dundas - St.Clarens Parkette is held back by natural comfort (38, below-average): only 0% canopy means little summer shade.
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high connectivity (74, top decile).
Jacobs reading
Dundas - St.Clarens Parkette sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.
Tradeoffs
- Connectivity (74) significantly outpaces natural comfort (38): well placed in the city but offers little shade or ecological respite.
Performance in context
- This park is a strong overperformer for its cohort: raw 54 versus an expected 38 for similar parks (pocket Urban Plaza) (gap +16).
Typology classification
Classified as Urban Plaza: 1224 m², paved (0% canopy), 43.3 buildings/100 m
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 21 active uses (transit_stop, restaurant, retail, cafe) and 4 dead/hostile uses (parking_lot). 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 6 mapped paths/walkways and 20 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 16 street intersections within 100 m; 19 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 3 estimated access points across ~153 m of perimeter. edge density is healthy, no superblock penalty. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.
Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops
Amenity Diversity
2 distinct amenity types in the park (playground, bench). 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: ~5.6% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); 8 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (8.0/ha). Reading: exposed. Source coverage: street_trees. 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
66 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (13 mid-rise, 52 low-rise, 1 tower); avg edge height 8.7 m (~3 floors); 43.3 buildings per 100 m of 153 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are low-rise (mostly 2 to 3 floors); 1 tower ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 13 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: parking_lot. Jacobs warned that highways, rail, parking lots and blank institutional edges act as "vacuums" that suppress foot traffic and isolate the park from its neighbourhood.
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 (2 types · 5 records)
- playground
- bench
Nearby active-edge features (63)
- retail: High Park Auto Centre1 m
- parking lot3 m
- restaurant: Viaggio3 m
- transit stop: Lansdowne Avenue41 m
- restaurant: Acute Pizzeria43 m
- retail44 m
- transit stop: Dundas Street West47 m
- retail50 m
- retail: Liah’s Aesthetics54 m
- retail: Hair Transformations By Cole55 m
- retail: Moon Milk59 m
- transit stop: Dundas Street West South Side59 m
- parking lot61 m
- restaurant: Pasta Forever64 m
- parking lot65 m
- cafe: Cygnet Coffee69 m
- retail: Mai’s Bridal73 m
- transit stop: Dundas Street West79 m
- restaurant: Bairradino Rotisserie & Grill81 m
- retail: Salao Leal Cableireira82 m
- retail: Silvershack85 m
- parking lot87 m
- restaurant: Floret97 m
- transit stop: College Street99 m
- transit stop: Lansdowne Avenue99 m
- transit stop100 m
- cafe: Tim Hortons107 m
- restaurant: Papa John's109 m
- retail: Ultramar113 m
- parking lot113 m
- parking lot117 m
- retail: Oscar's Auto Repairs118 m
- retail: S Market118 m
- retail: Savage Vape120 m
- retail: Salon Soap120 m
- restaurant: Subway121 m
- retail: College Vape123 m
- restaurant: Wallflower130 m
- transit stop: Lansdowne Avenue134 m
- retail: Pimentel137 m
- transit stop: Lansdowne Avenue139 m
- retail: Luba Design143 m
- parking lot144 m
- transit stop153 m
- transit stop: College Street154 m
- cafe: Nicola Cafés163 m
- retail: Jack’s Rental163 m
- retail: Real Coin Laundry164 m
- restaurant: Euro Sports Bar & Cafe166 m
- cafe: Tapioca Toronto171 m
- parking lot173 m
- restaurant: Town Wings174 m
- retail: The Proudest Pony Hair & Co.177 m
- parking lot184 m
- retail: Cake + Coffee186 m
- rail: Newmarket Subdivision186 m
- restaurant: Kingston Patty190 m
- retail: Spiritual Healer & Advisor190 m
- parking lot191 m
- retail: Cetiri193 m
- restaurant: Swan Dive193 m
- retail: Souvenir198 m
- rail: Weston Subdivision200 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality97th
- Edge activation95th
- Connectivity96th
- Amenity diversity72th
- Natural comfort31th
- Enclosure96th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Cathedral Church Of St. JamesParkette52
- Robertson ParketteUrban Plaza48
- Susan Tibaldi ParketteUrban Plaza46
- Lakeshore Village ParkNeighbourhood Park52
- Hubbard ParkParkette57
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Trca Lands ( 26)Ravine / Naturalized Park27
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park28
- Rouge ParkWaterfront Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
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 Dundas - St.Clarens Parkettematters. 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.
- 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.
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.