Lisgar Park
Urban Plaza, in the top tier overall (score 47, rank ~91th percentile). Strongest: enclosure; weakest: natural comfort.
Photo by Gordon Su via Google Places · cached 5/9/2026
Lisgar Park scores 46.8 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (11.9). Border-vacuum risk is low. This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.30 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 66%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Street context
Park polygon highlighted on the citywide map. Connectivity, transit, and edge conditions read at a glance.
Top-down view
City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px. Reads the park’s footprint, paths, treed area, and edge conditions from above.
City of Toronto Orthophoto · cot_ortho most-current MapServer
Explain this score
Where did the 47 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
What limits this park
Most distinctive characteristic
Jacobs reading
Tradeoffs
- 6 nearby towers cast wind and shadow without contributing canopy — passive surveillance is plentiful but human-scale comfort is not.
- Strong physical conditions (score 47) but weak observed activity signals (8) — the model says this should work, but events, mentions, and counters say it isn't being used at the level the urban form would predict.
Performance in context
- A modest overperformer for its urban plaza typology (+8 vs the median in small Urban Plaza).
Typology classification
Classified as Urban Plaza: 2961 m², paved (0% canopy), 27.0 buildings/100 m
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 26 active uses (restaurant, retail, cafe, transit_stop) and 5 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 0 mapped paths/walkways and 10 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 8 street intersections within 100 m; 18 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~218 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
1 distinct amenity types in the park (playground). 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: ~4.2% effective canopy (0.0% from contiguous tree polygons + scattered tree density); nearest waterbody ~1391 m; 6 city-mapped trees inside the polygon (6.0/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
59 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (33 mid-rise, 20 low-rise, 6 tower); avg edge height 19.3 m (~6 floors); 27.0 buildings per 100 m of 218 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges are at a Jacobs-scale walkable mid-rise (3–7 floors); 6 towers ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 33 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. Jacobs warned that highways, rail, parking lots and blank institutional edges act as "vacuums" — they 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 (1 types · 1 records)
- playground
Nearby active-edge features (77)
- retail — Am2Pm Express Market19 m
- retail — Glad Day20 m
- parking lot23 m
- retail — Shmata Thrift Store45 m
- parking lot54 m
- retail — Starlight Med Spa54 m
- transit stop — Abell Street58 m
- transit stop — Abell Street59 m
- retail — SJ Tattoo Studio60 m
- restaurant — Subway67 m
- retail68 m
- restaurant — Pizza Pizza69 m
- parking lot70 m
- restaurant — Hello 12373 m
- cafe — The Drake Café73 m
- restaurant — The Burger's Priest75 m
- restaurant — Fat Bastard Burrito76 m
- rail — Weston Subdivision77 m
- restaurant — Queen Star Restaurant77 m
- retail — Birds of North America80 m
- restaurant — Poutini’s House of Poutine82 m
- rail — Galt Subdivision85 m
- restaurant — Death and Taxes86 m
- retail — Mabel’s Bakery & Specialty Foods Inc.90 m
- retail — Craft Ontario90 m
- cafe — Major Treat Coffee92 m
- retail — Town Barber94 m
- retail — Convenience Canada95 m
- retail — INabstracto97 m
- retail — The Makeover Place Inc.97 m
- restaurant — The Dog & Bear Pub98 m
- retail — Free Geek Toronto102 m
- retail — Mani's Toke105 m
- restaurant — Good Son108 m
- restaurant — IKUNE by Après Wine Bar109 m
- transit stop — Dovercourt Road112 m
- restaurant — Nuit Social113 m
- retail — Poppies114 m
- restaurant — Pizzaiolo119 m
- retail120 m
- restaurant — Levetto122 m
- retail — Helen + Hildegard123 m
- retail — Nail Art Bar127 m
- retail127 m
- retail129 m
- parking lot130 m
- restaurant — Nunu132 m
- retail134 m
- rail — Weston Subdivision136 m
- restaurant137 m
- restaurant — Pastalia137 m
- cafe — Tim Hortons141 m
- restaurant — Church142 m
- cafe — Hams Art Market Souk & Cafe143 m
- transit stop — Dovercourt Road144 m
- retail — Aeya Studios150 m
- retail — Dynasty154 m
- retail — Average154 m
- restaurant — Jamil's Chaat House158 m
- retail — Quasi Modo159 m
- restaurant — Bar Piquette163 m
- retail168 m
- parking lot168 m
- retail — Eye Wonder168 m
- rail — Weston Subdivision173 m
- restaurant — Convenience174 m
- retail — Rec + Art History174 m
- retail — Hopeless Romantic176 m
- parking lot179 m
- retail181 m
- retail — Gioia Beauty and Spa188 m
- restaurant — Butter Chicken Roti189 m
- rail — Weston Subdivision190 m
- retail — Monkey Vapes191 m
- retail195 m
- retail — Royal197 m
- restaurant — Liliana199 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality91th
- Edge activation93th
- Connectivity61th
- Amenity diversity80th
- Natural comfort28th
- Enclosure98th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Bright Street PlaygroundUrban Plaza48
- Dane ParketteNeighbourhood Park48
- Northumberland PlaygroundUrban Plaza46
- Sally Bird ParkUrban Plaza45
- Thompson Street ParketteUrban Plaza50
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 ParkWaterfront Park25
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
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.
p19 citywide · p15 within Urban Plaza
Source: Google Places API · match high (0.97 composite confidence) · last refreshed 5/9/2026. Privacy contract. Measures public attention, not occupancy.
Human activity signals
Programming, social attention, temporal rhythm, and nearby pedestrian / cycling flow. An experimental aggregate layer that complements the spatial scores — partial coverage, partial confidence.
Activity reading: no inputs available. The strongest signal is consistent rhythm across the day. Source coverage: google-places.
Does this score feel accurate?
Your read of Lisgar 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.
- 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.
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.