Scarberia [working title]
This is my chosen place of residence: Scarberia (Scarborough, Ontario). After over 10 years living in different areas within Scarborough I can only say it certainly does not live up to its negative moniker, in fact it has become my favourite area in the GTA if only for the sheer amount of excellent food options; East-, South-East Asian and Caribbean being among my favourites.
The Scarborough Highlands, a.k.a. the “Bluffs”
Former shoreline of Glacial Lake Iroquois, renamed by Elisabeth Simcoe in 1793
On the other hand…I wouldn’t call this a walkable neighbourhood. It’s a typical North-American, mostly car-centric, zoning by-law defined area which took some getting used to coming from the European continent. Within the decade I’ve spent here I’ve seen strip mall after corner store disappear, making way for cookie-cutter high rises with no discernible hard-to-access commercial replacements below overpriced tiny apartment blocks.
Despite being born with a bicycle between my legs, I don’t bike here. It’s not safe. With very few exceptions implemented over the past few years, there’s no pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure to speak of. Every road is a strode and intersections and parking lots are like what I imagine the Wild West used to be, which cumulatively does not add to quality of life. Oh, and those stop signs. Argh.
Rouge River, in Rouge National Urban Park
A 79 square kilometer urban wilderness and the archaeological site of an intact 17th century Seneca village and a 3,000 year-old Archaic campsite
It isn’t all doom-and-gloom of course. There’s much more than Walmarts and Costcos. There are many independent grocery stores, bakers, butchers, cafés and restaurants…you just have to plan for a drive to get to them. The South of Scarborough may be the most interesting area for me, where you can feel the city-feel of neighbour Toronto bleed into the streets within just a block or two.
Incorporated in 1850 and amalgamated into Toronto in 1998, Scarborough has always been an immigrant city from the moment it borrowed the name from it’s twin city in the UK. The current population of around 630,000 makes for a plethora of ethnicities present, from Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Filipino and Japanese to Indigenous, Indian, Iraqi, Somali, Ethiopean and Caribbean – and many more. In my first few years here I did a lot of driving around (as one does), discovering restaurants, shops, lively neighbourhoods and dead-end streets, but there’s much more to do and see in Scarborough’s many parks, lake-side beaches and cliffs and other entertainment venues and festivals. Which is a good thing – especially in summer – because it does get cold and much more desolate than the big city here in winter.
‘Scarborough’, of course, is much older than this. And Scarborough is not a First Nations name – the closest Indigenous name being “Chi Sippi” for the Rouge River, which means Large Creek in Anishnaabemowin. The area has been settled for at least 10,000 years, and the appropriation of land through (gunshot) Treaties is still contested to this day as for 97% of that time, First Nations were in sole possession of the region.
This project hopes to give you a peek into the diverse identity of Scarborough and will be updated sporadically, with a printed work planned once completed. Subscribe to the Sneakerzoom Bulletin to stay updated of its progress.