Toronto is redrawing its map, creating 34 new neighbourhoods -- including one called ‘Ryerson’

Thestar.com
March 22, 2021

For the first time in more than 20 years, the city of Toronto is redrawing its map and creating 34 new neighbourhoods to account for population growth. One addition, however, is reigniting a recent controversy.

To fit in the new neighbourhoods, the city is taking large areas, such as Islington-City Centre West, Waterfront Communities -- The Island and Niagara, and breaking them up into smaller geographic chunks meant to have equivalent populations. Toronto has had 140 officially recognized neighbourhoods for more than 20 years, and will end up with 158 after the changes take effect later this year.

City plans currently suggest one of those new neighbourhoods be called “Ryerson,” a contentious choice given recent efforts to remove commemorations of Egerton Ryerson, a man whom protesters have said represents “colonialism and violence.” The Ryerson neighbourhood would take over the south end of what is now the Church-Yonge Corridor.

“Naming the neighbourhood Ryerson is a bit backward,” said Maaz Khan, creator of a 2020 petition to remove the frequently vandalized statue of Ryerson from its namesake university campus.

“I feel like they didn’t do their research, or if they did, didn’t consider how this would make people feel.”

Khan said he made the petition, which garnered nearly 10,000 signatories, because Ryerson the man stands against the values of Ryerson the school.

Egerton Ryerson was a proponent of residential schooling, which led to widespread child abuse. It’s been referred to as the “main weapon” used by Canada to carry out cultural genocide against Indigenous peoples.

Following the petition, the university created a task force to “recommend actions to reconcile the legacy of Egerton Ryerson.”

Khan, who graduated from Ryerson in 2019, hopes the school will change its name one day in addition to deposing the statue.

Joanne Dallaire and Catherine Ellis, co-chairs of the Ryerson task force, told the Star in a statement that the city of Toronto’s decision to refer to the neighbourhood as Ryerson “speaks to the important role the university has in the community.”

However, they note there are “many different views on Egerton Ryerson’s history, including his relationship with Indigenous people.”

The co-chairs said they cannot speculate on the recommendations they will give the school, to be drawn from an online survey of the university community closing in May. They did not rule out renaming the school.

The city of Toronto declined to comment on the neighbourhood naming project as details related to it “are still being finalized and could change,” said spokesperson Natasha Hinds Fitzsimmins.

The link the city posted announcing the project, including a map featuring all the new neighbourhood names, was uploaded to “help facilitate input from stakeholders and help them prepare for the change,” she added.

No reference to consultation being offered to stakeholders was on the site on Thursday, only a note at the end saying feedback is welcome and more details on the project are available upon request.

Murtaza Haider, research director of Ryerson University’s Urban Analytics Institute, said the map change is a response to population growth, which upset the balance between neighbourhoods sought by cities to ensure clear data distribution.

“Let’s say you don’t divide existing neighbourhoods after populations changes, and you report that two per cent of a certain neighbourhood has tested positive for COVID-19,” he said. “People might not think it matters much -- it’s such a low number in just one place -- but it could be that that neighbourhood has half the population of the city.”

David Hulchanski, a professor of housing and community development at the University of Toronto, said the city’s neighbourhood distribution matters little in terms of data collection, and there is “no scientific logic” as to where boundaries for neighbourhoods are drawn.

“The change has little practical impact or significance for most people,” said Hulchanski. “For research and for accurate reporting on how the city is changing, the city’s 140, and now 158 neighbourhoods, should not be used.”

Hulchanski said Toronto has about 500 census tracts -- small geographic areas from which population data is taken. Each of Toronto’s neighbourhoods “arbitrarily” combines two to five tracts because the city “simply can’t name all 500,” he said.

The process of naming neighbourhoods is just to provide a helpful service to “average interested citizens” by giving summary key facts for the named areas, he added.