North York Rose Garden
Tower-Community Green Space, below average overall (score 29, rank ~26th percentile). Strongest: edge activation; weakest: natural comfort.
Aerial — City of Toronto orthophoto, ~8 cm/px source · cached 5/9/2026
North York Rose Garden scores 29.1 / 100. Strongest dimensions: enclosure / eyes on park and connectivity. Weakest: amenity diversity (0). Border-vacuum risk is elevated (60). This score is a transparent reading of Jane Jacobs-style vitality factors — not a definitive judgment.
Area · 0.13 ha
Weighted across six dimensions · confidence 56%
Scores are not bell-curved. Percentiles and expected scores provide context without changing the underlying model.
Explain this score
Where did the 29 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
- Connectivity (53) significantly outpaces natural comfort (23) — well placed in the city but offers little shade or ecological respite.
- The park is enclosed by buildings (65) but the surrounding streets are quiet (edge activation 18) — frame without animation.
- 23 nearby towers cast wind and shadow without contributing canopy — passive surveillance is plentiful but human-scale comfort is not.
Typology classification
Classified as Tower-Community Green Space: 23 towers vs 9 mid-rise within 25 m on a 0.1 ha park. Secondary read: Civic Square (tower-walled, low canopy (0%), tight frontage — reads as a civic square).
Edge Activation
Within 100 m of the park edge: 28 active uses (transit_stop, restaurant, retail, cafe) and 8 dead/hostile uses (highway, 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 1 mapped paths/walkways and 13 sidewalk segments within 50 m; 6 street intersections within 100 m; 13 transit stops within a 400 m walk; 0 estimated access points across ~143 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
No amenities recorded — score is 0 until inventory is loaded.
Source: Toronto Parks & Recreation Facilities + OSM amenity tags
Natural Comfort
Natural-comfort components for this park: 0.0% estimated tree canopy; nearest waterbody ~1203 m. Reading: exposed. Source coverage: waterbodies. 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
42 buildings within 25 m of the park edge (9 mid-rise, 10 low-rise, 23 tower); avg edge height 76.9 m (~26 floors); 29.4 buildings per 100 m of 143 m perimeter — strong frontage density; edges dominated by towers; 23 towers ≥ 40 m within 25 m of the edge. "Eyes on the park" come strongest from the 9 mid-rise edge buildings.
Source: Toronto 3D Massing (building footprints + heights)
Border Vacuum Risk
Border-vacuum factors within 50 m of the park: Yonge Street, Yonge Street. 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 (0)
No amenities recorded for this park.
Nearby active-edge features (80)
- transit stop — Yonge Street at Park Home Avenue7 m
- retail — Taya14 m
- cafe — Aroma Espresso Bar15 m
- highway — Yonge Street24 m
- restaurant — Boston Pizza31 m
- highway — Yonge Street47 m
- retail — Tavazo Dried Nuts & Fruits49 m
- transit stop — Yonge Street at Empress Avenue50 m
- retail52 m
- retail — PetSmart56 m
- restaurant — Morals Village61 m
- parking lot63 m
- transit stop — North York City Centre Entrance67 m
- retail — Jazz Casuals69 m
- highway — Yonge Street70 m
- cafe — Ten Ren's Tea71 m
- cafe — A Corner Cafe72 m
- retail — Pixel Ink Tattoo73 m
- restaurant — Trio 376 m
- retail — Elysia Beauty Bar79 m
- retail — North York Ink79 m
- retail — La Memoire81 m
- restaurant — Cafe Palma84 m
- transit stop — North York Centre88 m
- retail — Geneva Fine Jewellery & Watches88 m
- retail — Midnight Sun Tanning Salon90 m
- transit stop — North York Centre90 m
- retail — Hermosa Medical Esthetics90 m
- retail — LCBO92 m
- parking lot92 m
- parking lot93 m
- parking lot93 m
- cafe — Second Cup96 m
- highway — Yonge Street97 m
- retail — Quattro Boutique97 m
- retail — Mumuso98 m
- retail — Pet Valu102 m
- restaurant103 m
- retail — Walking on a Cloud104 m
- restaurant — La Prep104 m
- cafe — ITS TEA107 m
- retail — Fido108 m
- retail — Flight Centre109 m
- restaurant — Wendy's112 m
- restaurant — Good Taste Casserole Rice112 m
- restaurant — Daldongnae Korean BBQ117 m
- restaurant — Villa Fruit118 m
- highway — Yonge Street118 m
- retail — Lucullus119 m
- transit stop — Yonge Street at Hillcrest Avenue119 m
- parking lot119 m
- transit stop — Empress Walk Entrance120 m
- cafe — Second Cup121 m
- transit stop — Mel Lastman Square Entrance121 m
- cafe — Starbucks122 m
- retail — Dollarama122 m
- transit stop — Yonge St. @ North York Blvd. (Mel Lastman Square)127 m
- restaurant — California Thai127 m
- retail — Value Mobile129 m
- retail — Shefield & Sons129 m
- parking lot130 m
- retail — Empress Optical131 m
- retail — Ardene133 m
- retail — City Centre Convenience139 m
- parking lot140 m
- cafe — Centre Cafe140 m
- restaurant — Petit Potato143 m
- parking lot145 m
- parking lot152 m
- retail — Centrestage Hair Design & Beauty Products153 m
- retail — Palm Tree162 m
- community — Toronto Public Library - North York Central Library164 m
- restaurant — Evivva Restaurant Breakfast & Lunch165 m
- parking lot168 m
- highway — Yonge Street169 m
- parking lot170 m
- retail — Book Ends171 m
- parking lot179 m
- parking lot179 m
- retail — Yamaha Music School182 m
Park profile
Five-axis radar across the structural dimensions.
Citywide percentile ranks
Across all Toronto parks in the dataset.
- Overall vitality26th
- Edge activation78th
- Connectivity61th
- Amenity diversity47th
- Natural comfort1th
- Enclosure56th
Most similar parks
Closest in metric space across the five structural dimensions.
- Etobicoke Hydro Green SpaceNeighbourhood Park35
- Etobicoke Hydro Green SpaceParkette35
- City Wide Open SpaceParkette32
- City Wide Open SpaceCorridor / Linear Park35
- Saunders Crescent ParketteParkette34
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
- Kew GardensNeighbourhood Park71
- Rouge ParkRavine / Naturalized Park26
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 North York Rose Gardenmatters. 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.
- 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.
- 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.