Earlscourt Park
Neighbourhood Park, in the top tier overall (score 44, rank ~87th percentile). Strongest: amenity diversity; weakest: edge activation.
Photo by Glenn Dickler via Google Places · cached 5/9/2026
Earlscourt Park scores 44 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: edge activation (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (100). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 12.66 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 68%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Street context
Park polygon highlighted on the citywide map. Connectivity, transit, and edge conditions read at a glance.
Top-down view
City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px. Reads the park’s footprint, paths, treed area, and edge conditions from above.
City of Toronto Orthophoto · cot_ortho most-current MapServer
Explain this score
Where did the 44 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
What limits this park
Most distinctive characteristic
Jacobs reading
Tradeoffs
- The park is enclosed by buildings (75) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 0) — frame without animation.
- High connectivity coexists with high border-vacuum risk (100) — much of that connectivity is to highways, rail, or parking lots, not to neighbourhoods.
- Strong physical conditions (score 44) but weak observed activity signals (9) — the model says this should work, but events, mentions, and counters say it isn't being used at the level the urban form would predict.
- High connectivity (82) coexists with little programming evidence — easy to reach, but no recurring civic life detected.
Performance in context
- A modest overperformer for its neighbourhood park typology (+10 vs the median in large Neighbourhood Park).
Typology classification
Classified as Neighbourhood Park: 12.7 ha, framed by 24 mid-rise vs 0 towers. Secondary read: Destination Park (13 ha, 10 amenity types, connectivity 82 / comfort 59).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 34 active uses (retail, restaurant, community, transit_stop, cafe) and 11 dead/hostile uses (rail, 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 34 mapped paths/walkways and 75 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 29 street intersections within 100 m; 36 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 11 estimated access points across ~1,648 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
10 distinct amenity types in the park (basketball, community_centre, dog_area, fitness, picnic, playground, …). 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: ~17.6% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); 19.8% inside the ravine system; 318 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (25.1/ha). Reading: exposed. Source coverage: ravine, 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
178 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (24 mid-rise, 154 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 7.2 m (~2 floors); 10.8 buildings per 100 m of 1,648 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are low-rise (mostly 2–3 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 24 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Newmarket Subdivision, parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot, Newmarket Subdivision, parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot. Jacobs warned that highways, rail, parking lots and blank institutional edges act as "vacuums" — they 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 (10 types · 10 records)
- basketball
- community centre
- dog area
- fitness
- picnic
- playground
- sports field
- tennis
- track
- washroom
Nearby active-edge features (71)
- community — Joseph J. Piccininni Community Centre0 m
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot0 m
- transit stop — St Clair Avenue West1 m
- transit stop — Davenport Rd at Caledonia Park Rd2 m
- transit stop — St Clair Avenue West13 m
- transit stop — Caledonia14 m
- transit stop — Foundry Avenue18 m
- transit stop — Caledonia Park Road19 m
- cafe — La Paloma20 m
- transit stop — Lansdowne25 m
- cafe — Poop-A-Licious26 m
- transit stop — Davenport Rd at Lansdowne Ave28 m
- transit stop — Caledonia Road28 m
- restaurant — Poop Cafe30 m
- restaurant — Dairy Freeze30 m
- transit stop — Davenport Rd31 m
- rail — Newmarket Subdivision34 m
- transit stop — Davenport Road34 m
- retail — Caledonia Bakery & Pastry35 m
- retail — Nova Era36 m
- restaurant — Castelo Sports Bar36 m
- retail — Astro Meats37 m
- restaurant — Rain Sushi38 m
- parking lot39 m
- parking lot40 m
- restaurant — Agio Ristorante41 m
- transit stop — 1216 Lansdowne Avenue41 m
- rail — Newmarket Subdivision45 m
- parking lot46 m
- restaurant — 241 Pizza47 m
- transit stop — Lansdowne Avenue50 m
- retail — Sunshine Market52 m
- transit stop — 1325 Lansdowne Avenue54 m
- restaurant — O Espeta Bar & Grill56 m
- transit stop — Caledonia57 m
- retail — Lovely Story58 m
- rail — Newmarket Subdivision60 m
- restaurant — Kapital Resturant and Grill62 m
- transit stop — St Clair Avenue West67 m
- rail — Newmarket Subdivision77 m
- parking lot82 m
- restaurant — Ti Carlo's Bar83 m
- retail — Verdi94 m
- transit stop — Lansdowne104 m
- restaurant — Cafe 512104 m
- parking lot112 m
- rail — Newmarket Subdivision114 m
- retail — VK Optical116 m
- retail — Ital Record & Sport117 m
- parking lot122 m
- restaurant — Sway127 m
- restaurant — Don Quixote137 m
- retail — Vespertine145 m
- parking lot147 m
- parking lot147 m
- parking lot150 m
- retail — Jasmine153 m
- retail — Ontario Fashion Textiles168 m
- parking lot168 m
- retail — Tanyas171 m
- restaurant — Távora176 m
- restaurant — Frank's Pizza House179 m
- transit stop — Davenport Rd at Primrose Ave179 m
- retail181 m
- cafe — Settemila Cafe184 m
- cafe186 m
- retail — Freedom Mobile189 m
- restaurant — La Bruschetta194 m
- retail — Praia de Mira200 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality87th
- Edge activation35th
- Connectivity99th
- Amenity diversity100th
- Natural comfort73th
- Enclosure76th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Christie Pits ParkRavine / Naturalized Park44
- Weston Lions ParkRavine / Naturalized Park43
- Tom Riley ParkWaterfront Park40
- Cedarvale ParkRavine / Naturalized Park45
- Monarch ParkNeighbourhood Park45
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Simcoe ParkTower-Community Green Space51
- Queen'S Quay Traffic IslandWaterfront Park49
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park21
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park18
Visitor signals
Public attention measured by Google Places aggregates. This proxies attention, not occupancy. Aggregate-only — no usernames, no review text, no extra photos beyond the cached hero.
p12 citywide · p17 within Neighbourhood Park
Source: Google Places API · match medium (0.90 composite confidence) · last refreshed 5/9/2026. Privacy contract. Measures public attention, not occupancy.
Human activity signals
Programming, social attention, temporal rhythm, and nearby pedestrian / cycling flow. An experimental aggregate layer that complements the spatial scores — partial coverage, partial confidence.
Activity reading: no inputs available. The strongest signal is public attention / mentions. Source coverage: google-places.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Earlscourt Parkmatters. 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.
- Mitigate border vacuums (highways, rail, parking) with active programming on the still-permeable edges and treat the hostile edge as a design challenge.
Data sources
- City of Toronto Open Data — Parks (Green Space)Polygon boundaries, official names, types.
- 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.