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.
Loading map…
The parks map is loading.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
Budd Sugarman Park works because its enclosure score (95) is one of the city's strongest and its connectivity (68) is also top quartile (26 mid-rise buildings frame the edge with passive surveillance).
What limits this park
Budd Sugarman Park's edges are fronted by border-vacuum land uses (highways, rail, parking, blank institutional), risk score 100.
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high enclosure (95, top decile).
Jacobs reading
Budd Sugarman Park sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.
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.
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 to 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" 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 (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: 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 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.