Our Area Rife With Culture

It's not a shock, but a new report that outlines where artists work and live in Toronto shows that our area is rife with them.

More artists live than work here and, as you would expect, there is a concentration of artists in the downtown core.

Here's an interesting tidbit from a BlogTO post about it:
"Occupational hubs include Liberty Village, the Entertainment District, Queen Street, and, wait for it, Scarborough at the 401. By way of explanation, the report notes that "Liberty Village specializes in desktop publishing, the Entertainment District specializes in architecture, Historic Queen Street specializes in editors, and Scarborough at 401 specializes in audio recording and video recording."

The most popular places to live are, on the other hand, quite predictable. Making up the top five are what the authors refer to as Parkdale Village, West Queen West, College Promenade, Little Italy, and the Annex."
Cheers,
Vanessa

Where Do Our Artists Live?

Did you see the articles last week about where artists live in Canada and TO? Not surprisingly, my own postal code -- M5R -- is rife with them. The article in the Globe says that "artists, as with artists everywhere, like to congregate where the rent is (relatively) cheap, public transit is available, coffee houses, bars and job-related resources are plentiful and nearby, and the atmosphere can be described as bohemian (or at least faintly so)." I've got to admit that our area ticks a lot of those boxes. I also find the statistics interesting because they might point to areas that are up and coming on the real estate front. We all know the scenario... central but rundown area offers cheap rents and good transportation; artists move in, bringing new life and creativity to the neighbourhood; "gentrifiers" move in and begin renovating and then the whole area blooms. Whether the blooming is a good or bad thing, I'll leave to you to decide. The articles arebased on 2006 Census information and the neighbourhood housing the most "starving artists," as it were, was Parkdale. Interesting. Happy reading, Vanessa