“Way beyond a charitable model”: This collaborative initiative is transforming Scarborough’s Golden Mile
Why It Matters
While economic development of suburban communities can decrease poverty, it may also come at the expense of local residents through an increased cost of living, pushing them out of their own neighbourhoods due to unaffordability. This is our eighth piece in a series in partnership with the United Way Centraide of Canada.
Cynthia Du Mont’s fondest childhood memories take place in Scarborough’s Golden Mile.
“It was like this really exciting day… It wasn’t just shopping, it was a whole experience,” Du Mont said of one of Canada’s first model industrial areas, located along Eglinton Avenue East, east of Victoria Park Avenue in Toronto.
Du Mont grew up near the neighbourhood in the mid-60s to mid-70s, and remembers donning white gloves and a hat on visits to the area with her mom and brother. As a child, she would frequent the theatre, browse records at Sam the Record Man, and order egg rolls from a local Chinese restaurant.
But over time, as factories moved out of the area — notably, a General Motors plant — stores began to shut down, and poverty rates rose.
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