
Confederation Park
Neighbourhood Park, middle of the pack overall (score 39, rank ~69th percentile). Strongest: amenity diversity; weakest: enclosure.
Aerial, City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
Confederation Park scores 39.2 / 100. Strongest dimensions: connectivity and enclosure / eyes on park. Weakest: edge activation (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (60). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors, not a definitive judgment.
Area · 10.06 ha
What's here
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 68%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Loading map…
The parks map is loading.Boundary: OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Explain this score
Where did the 39 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
Confederation Park works because its amenity diversity score (54) is one of the city's strongest and its connectivity (61) is also top quartile (9 distinct amenity types support different kinds of use).
What limits this park
Confederation Park is held back by enclosure (58, below-average); border-vacuum risk is also elevated (60).
Most distinctive characteristic
Most distinctive feature: exceptionally high amenity diversity (54, top decile).
Jacobs reading
Confederation Park is currently underperforming on both axes: neither integrated into the city nor offering deep natural respite. A candidate for design intervention.
Tradeoffs
- High connectivity coexists with high border-vacuum risk (60): much of that connectivity is to highways, rail, or parking lots, not to neighbourhoods.
Performance in context
- Citywide rank is high (69th) but typology rank is more modest (49th): the strength likely comes from the dataset average pulling lower than this typology’s baseline.
Typology classification
Classified as Neighbourhood Park: 10.1 ha, framed by 1 mid-rise vs 0 towers. Secondary read: Destination Park (10 ha, 9 amenity types, connectivity 61 / comfort 42).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 11 active uses (restaurant, transit_stop, retail, cafe) and 11 dead/hostile uses (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 11 mapped paths/walkways and 27 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 8 street intersections within 100 m; 17 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 3 estimated access points across ~1,570 m of perimeter. low edge density, significant superblock penalty applied. Source coverage: centreline, pedestrian_network, transit_osm.
Source: Toronto Centreline V2 + Pedestrian Network + OSM transit stops
Amenity Diversity
9 distinct amenity types in the park (basketball, community_centre, dog_area, fitness, playground, tennis, …). 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: ~6.7% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~466 m; 96 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (9.6/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
134 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (1 mid-rise, 133 low-rise, 0 tower); avg edge height 4.5 m (~2 floors); 8.5 buildings per 100 m of 1,570 m perimeter (strong frontage density); edges are barely there or single-storey; no towers immediately adjacent. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 1 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot, parking_lot, 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 (9 types · 18 records)
- basketball
- community centre
- dog area
- fitness
- playground
- tennis
- ice rink
- sports field
- washroom
Nearby active-edge features (47)
- parking lot0 m
- parking lot0 m
- transit stop: Dolly Varden Boulevard8 m
- parking lot30 m
- parking lot30 m
- parking lot31 m
- transit stop: Dolly Varden Boulevard32 m
- restaurant: Popeyes52 m
- parking lot52 m
- restaurant: Gwalia66 m
- restaurant: Burger factory71 m
- parking lot82 m
- retail: Coin Laundry82 m
- parking lot87 m
- cafe: brand=Chatime88 m
- parking lot88 m
- restaurant: Federick Restaurant89 m
- parking lot90 m
- parking lot90 m
- restaurant92 m
- restaurant: Haka legend95 m
- restaurant: Dspot99 m
- retail: Freedom Mobile101 m
- parking lot104 m
- restaurant: So Into Cupcakes106 m
- cafe: Coffee Culture108 m
- retail: Haircut109 m
- cafe: Coffee Time113 m
- parking lot113 m
- parking lot115 m
- transit stop: Bellamy Road North120 m
- parking lot122 m
- retail: Beauty collection122 m
- transit stop: Bellamy Rd N at Ellesmere Rd137 m
- parking lot138 m
- parking lot138 m
- parking lot139 m
- parking lot140 m
- parking lot157 m
- parking lot160 m
- transit stop: Bellamy Rd N at Ellesmere Rd162 m
- parking lot175 m
- transit stop: Bellamy Road North179 m
- parking lot180 m
- parking lot181 m
- parking lot184 m
- parking lot197 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality69th
- Edge activation49th
- Connectivity79th
- Amenity diversity99th
- Natural comfort40th
- Enclosure34th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Silver Creek ParkRavine / Naturalized Park41
- Flagstaff ParkAthletic / Recreation Park44
- Firgrove ParkNeighbourhood Park44
- Sentinel ParkNeighbourhood Park41
- Bellbury ParkNeighbourhood Park44
Most opposite parks
Furthest in metric space. Useful for recognising what kind of park this isn’t.
- ALEX WILSON COMMUNITY GARDEN - Open Green SpaceUrban Plaza59
- Arnell PlazaCivic Square50
- Queen'S Quay Traffic IslandWaterfront Park49
- Ryerson Community ParkUrban Plaza62
- Market Lane ParkUrban Plaza67
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 Confederation 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.
- 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. Boundaries are reconciled against OpenStreetMap (ODbL) for new and updated parks.
- 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.