Budd Sugarman Park
Urban Plaza, middle of the pack overall (score 34, rank ~49th percentile). Strongest: enclosure; weakest: amenity diversity.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Budd Sugarman Park scores 33.8 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (100). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.24 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 61%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 34 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 (95) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 12) — 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 34) but weak observed activity signals (10) — 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.
Typology classification
Classified as Urban Plaza: 2413 m², paved (12% canopy), 24.7 buildings/100 m
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 13 active uses (transit_stop, restaurant, cafe, retail) and 7 dead/hostile uses (rail, parking_lot, highway). 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 1 mapped paths/walkways and 23 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 14 street intersections within 100 m; 23 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 1 estimated access points across ~247 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
No amenities recorded — score is 0 until inventory is loaded.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: 11.8% estimated tree canopy; nearest waterbody ~826 m. Reading: exposed. Source coverage: treed_area, 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
61 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (26 mid-rise, 35 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 11.4 m (~4 floors); 24.7 buildings per 100 m of 247 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are at a Jacobs-scale walkable mid-rise (3–7 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 26 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Yonge-University-Spadina Line, Yonge-University-Spadina Line, parking_lot, Yonge Street, Yonge Street, Yonge Street. 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 (0)
No amenities recorded for this park.
Nearby active-edge features (61)
- transit stop — Rosedale8 m
- highway — Yonge Street10 m
- highway — Yonge Street10 m
- transit stop — Rosedale12 m
- transit stop — Belmont Street17 m
- highway — Yonge Street31 m
- transit stop — Aylmer Avenue34 m
- rail — Yonge-University-Spadina Line38 m
- cafe — Spring Cafe Bistro38 m
- rail — Yonge-University-Spadina Line43 m
- parking lot49 m
- transit stop — Rosedale Station53 m
- retail — Christian Science Reading Room59 m
- highway — Yonge Street64 m
- transit stop — Cresecent Road Entrance74 m
- transit stop — Crescent Road77 m
- retail — Rosedale Computers77 m
- transit stop — Crescent Road80 m
- restaurant — El Tenedor Restaurant Bar89 m
- transit stop — Frichot Avenue91 m
- retail — Way Young Tech Aesthetics102 m
- restaurant — Black Camel102 m
- retail — Paris Grocery103 m
- retail — The Flower# Project106 m
- retail — YY Hair Nails & Spa109 m
- retail — Dogfather & Co.110 m
- restaurant — Tokyo Sushi112 m
- retail — In Style Home & Rugs113 m
- restaurant — Rollstar Sushi117 m
- restaurant — Robot Boil House118 m
- highway — Yonge Street118 m
- retail — Lather & Steel122 m
- retail — Farideh Spa123 m
- retail — Dry Cleaners Plus126 m
- retail — Clementine's127 m
- retail — colour lab130 m
- retail — Gentle Beau Cleaners131 m
- retail — Expedia Cruises132 m
- retail — House of Tea133 m
- restaurant — Tao Tea Leaf137 m
- restaurant — Subway142 m
- retail — Civello145 m
- parking lot150 m
- retail — Laurier du Vallon Travel and Discovery150 m
- retail — Paul Hahn & Co.155 m
- restaurant — Happy Burger155 m
- cafe — Coffee Lunar157 m
- retail — Shopnyla163 m
- highway — Yonge Street164 m
- parking lot165 m
- retail — Coco Market169 m
- highway — Yonge Street171 m
- cafe — The Alaska174 m
- restaurant — The Rebel House179 m
- retail — European Flooring181 m
- retail — James Perse184 m
- retail185 m
- parking lot186 m
- parking lot189 m
- transit stop190 m
- transit stop — Crescent Rd at Cluny Dr196 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality49th
- Edge activation71th
- Connectivity88th
- Amenity diversity61th
- Natural comfort62th
- Enclosure99th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Robertson Davies ParkUrban Plaza38
- Spadina ParkUrban Plaza41
- Gerrard - Carlaw ParketteUrban Plaza37
- Chaplin ParketteParkette37
- Fred Young ParkNeighbourhood Park40
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space — useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- Toronto Islands - Muggs Island ParkRavine / Naturalized Park25
- Trca Lands ( 26)Ravine / Naturalized Park27
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park21
- Rouge ParkWaterfront Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park28
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: pedestrian intensity 16.8/100; cycling/trail 28/100. The strongest signal is observed pedestrian/cycling activity. Source coverage: counters.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Budd Sugarman 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.
- 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.