La Rose Park
Other, middle of the pack overall (score 37, rank ~62th percentile). Strongest: amenity diversity; weakest: natural comfort.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
La Rose Park scores 36.6 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: edge activation (5.5). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (36). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 1.93 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 68%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 37 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 (77) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 6) — frame without animation.
- 5 nearby towers cast wind and shadow without contributing canopy — passive surveillance is plentiful but human-scale comfort is not.
Performance in context
- A modest overperformer for its other typology (+8 vs the median in medium Other).
- Although its citywide rank is low (62nd), it ranks highly among similar others (87th) — strong for what it is, even if the absolute score is moderate.
Typology classification
Classified as Other: does not meet any specific typology threshold (1.9 ha, 1 amenity types, frontage 7.3/100m)
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 5 active uses (transit_stop) and 5 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 5 mapped paths/walkways and 12 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 5 street intersections within 100 m; 18 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 5 estimated access points across ~560 m of perimeter. moderate edge density — small 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 (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: ~8.7% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~474 m; 24 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (12.4/ha). Reading: exposed. Source coverage: waterbodies, 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
41 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (4 mid-rise, 32 low-rise, 5 tower); avg edge height 12.8 m (~4 floors); 7.3 buildings per 100 m of 560 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are at a Jacobs-scale walkable mid-rise (3–7 floors); 5 towers ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 4 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, 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 (1 types · 1 records)
- playground
Nearby active-edge features (19)
- parking lot7 m
- parking lot11 m
- transit stop — Arcade Drive25 m
- transit stop — Timothy Court27 m
- parking lot28 m
- transit stop — Arcade Drive30 m
- transit stop — Timothy Court54 m
- parking lot74 m
- transit stop — 60 Richview Rd - Ukrainian Canadian Care Centre80 m
- parking lot89 m
- parking lot101 m
- parking lot123 m
- parking lot139 m
- parking lot155 m
- transit stop — Eglinton Avenue West at Walkway to Lemonwood Drive176 m
- parking lot181 m
- highway — Eglinton Avenue West190 m
- transit stop — 4005 Eglinton Avenue West194 m
- parking lot195 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality62th
- Edge activation65th
- Connectivity75th
- Amenity diversity80th
- Natural comfort46th
- Enclosure80th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Mondeo ParkParkette39
- Maplehurst ParkUrban Plaza39
- Gledhill ParkUrban Plaza38
- Phil Givens ParkParkette39
- LEASIDE MEMORIAL COMMUNITY GARDENS - Building GroundsCivic Square30
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 La Rose 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.
- 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.
- 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.