[URBAN NOTE] "University of Toronto conducting study to learn what makes Kensington Market tick"
Julien Gignac's exploration in The Globe and Mail about Kensington Market and this new study is just lovely. Gignac's photographs of the neighbourhood and its residents are a nice touch.
On a sunny recent weekday afternoon, a woman walked with her pet pigeon through Bellevue Square. To her left, a man played chinlone - a traditional Myanmar game - as lo-fi tunes emanated from a radio strapped to a vintage bicycle. Across the park on a shaded patio, people lounged on their lunch breaks, clinking drinks.
Kensington Market is a hub of eccentricity in the heart of downtown Toronto with a deeply rooted sense of multiculturalism and celebrated unconventionality. But the identity it’s famous for may be endangered. At the northern end of Augusta Avenue, trendy independent shops draw clientele to buy French cookware and macaron-making kits, a stark contrast to the endearing grit found elsewhere in the market.
The University of Toronto wants to formally understand the neighbourhood’s dynamic. That’s why the university’s ethnography lab is busy conducting a multiyear research project to document the Market’s rich history and changes caused by urban encroachment.
The area is so unique that researchers have committed to studying it as they would some faraway, exotic locale - the first time the lab has focused on an urban neighbourhood.
“It’s hard to find a more interesting place to study, both in terms of its real life socio-economic dynamics and processes of gentrification that are ongoing there,” said Dr. Joshua Barker, director of the Kensington Market project and vice-dean of anthropology at the university. He mentioned the “pressure” of development projects happening at each and every threshold of the neighbourhood, such as a new community housing complex that’s due to sprout up on the neighbourhood’s south border of Dundas Street, or a chain retail building in the works on Bathurst Street, to the west.
On a sunny recent weekday afternoon, a woman walked with her pet pigeon through Bellevue Square. To her left, a man played chinlone - a traditional Myanmar game - as lo-fi tunes emanated from a radio strapped to a vintage bicycle. Across the park on a shaded patio, people lounged on their lunch breaks, clinking drinks.
Kensington Market is a hub of eccentricity in the heart of downtown Toronto with a deeply rooted sense of multiculturalism and celebrated unconventionality. But the identity it’s famous for may be endangered. At the northern end of Augusta Avenue, trendy independent shops draw clientele to buy French cookware and macaron-making kits, a stark contrast to the endearing grit found elsewhere in the market.
The University of Toronto wants to formally understand the neighbourhood’s dynamic. That’s why the university’s ethnography lab is busy conducting a multiyear research project to document the Market’s rich history and changes caused by urban encroachment.
The area is so unique that researchers have committed to studying it as they would some faraway, exotic locale - the first time the lab has focused on an urban neighbourhood.
“It’s hard to find a more interesting place to study, both in terms of its real life socio-economic dynamics and processes of gentrification that are ongoing there,” said Dr. Joshua Barker, director of the Kensington Market project and vice-dean of anthropology at the university. He mentioned the “pressure” of development projects happening at each and every threshold of the neighbourhood, such as a new community housing complex that’s due to sprout up on the neighbourhood’s south border of Dundas Street, or a chain retail building in the works on Bathurst Street, to the west.