East Toronto Athletic Field
Neighbourhood Park, in the top tier overall (score 50, rank ~95th percentile). Strongest: connectivity; weakest: natural comfort.
Photo by Paul Conley via Google Places · cached 5/9/2026
East Toronto Athletic Field scores 49.5 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (28.4). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (66). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 4.34 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 68%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
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Explain this score
Where did the 50 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
East Toronto Athletic Field works because its connectivity score (78) is one of the city's strongest and its edge activation (44) is also top decile (40 transit stops sit within a 400 m walk; 27 intersections fall within 100 m of the edge).
What limits this park
East Toronto Athletic Field is held back by natural comfort (38, below-average): only 0% canopy means little summer shade; border-vacuum risk is also elevated (66).
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high connectivity (78, top decile).
Jacobs reading
East Toronto Athletic Field sits between an urban social park and an ecological retreat: moderately useful for both, exceptionally suited to neither.
Tradeoffs
- Connectivity (78) significantly outpaces natural comfort (38): well placed in the city but offers little shade or ecological respite.
- High connectivity coexists with high border-vacuum risk (66): much of that connectivity is to highways, rail, or parking lots, not to neighbourhoods.
Performance in context
- This park is a strong overperformer for its cohort: raw 50 versus an expected 37 for similar parks (medium Neighbourhood Park) (gap +12).
Typology classification
Classified as Neighbourhood Park: 4.3 ha, framed by 30 mid-rise vs 0 towers
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 19 active uses (transit_stop, restaurant, retail, cafe, community) and 4 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 3 mapped paths/walkways and 49 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 27 street intersections within 100 m; 40 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 5 estimated access points across ~836 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
3 distinct amenity types in the park (community_centre, playground, sports_field). 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: ~4.5% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~838 m; 28 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (6.5/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
120 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (30 mid-rise, 90 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 7.3 m (~2 floors); 14.4 buildings per 100 m of 836 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are low-rise (mostly 2 to 3 floors); no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 30 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Kingston Subdivision, Kingston Subdivision, Kingston Subdivision, 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 (3 types · 3 records)
- community centre
- playground
- sports field
Nearby active-edge features (32)
- parking lot0 m
- transit stop: Main Street2 m
- transit stop: Gerrard Street East12 m
- transit stop: Gerrard Street East15 m
- transit stop: Osborne Avenue18 m
- rail: Kingston Subdivision19 m
- retail: S Market24 m
- rail: Kingston Subdivision25 m
- transit stop: Gerrard Street East28 m
- cafe: The Bothy28 m
- rail: Kingston Subdivision29 m
- transit stop: Osborne Avenue30 m
- transit stop: Gerrard Street East35 m
- transit stop: Main Street36 m
- transit stop: Danforth38 m
- restaurant: Beach Hill Smokehouse47 m
- retail: Go Transit48 m
- transit stop: Danforth56 m
- cafe: Fade In: Cafe58 m
- restaurant: Hutchie Catering & Caribbean Restaurant84 m
- community: Toronto Public Library - Main Street85 m
- transit stop: Danforth88 m
- transit stop: Danforth90 m
- parking lot110 m
- retail: Pioneer118 m
- retail: Your Convenience123 m
- cafe: Might and Main127 m
- parking lot156 m
- parking lot164 m
- school: Beaches Alternative Junior School179 m
- parking lot181 m
- transit stop: Swanwick Avenue185 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality95th
- Edge activation94th
- Connectivity98th
- Amenity diversity92th
- Natural comfort33th
- Enclosure84th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- S.A.D.R.A. ParkCorridor / Linear Park52
- Wallace Emerson ParkNeighbourhood Park54
- Alexandra ParkNeighbourhood Park55
- Trace Manes ParkAthletic / Recreation Park55
- Fred Hamilton PlaygroundNeighbourhood Park56
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 ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
- Rouge ParkWaterfront Park25
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.
p37 citywide · p44 within Neighbourhood Park
Source: Google Places API · match high (0.94 composite confidence) · last refreshed 5/9/2026. Privacy contract. Measures public attention, not occupancy.
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 East Toronto Athletic Fieldmatters. 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.