Context:
Toronto is known as a 'city of neighbourhoods'. Much of its social/cultural and economic landscape has been shaped by a number of issues e.g. the diversity of immigrant groups that settled in the city, changes in the socio-economic make-up of the neighbourhood's population, gentrification etc.
General:
Based on the LAST DIGIT of your student number, you will select the corresponding neighbourhood, from the list below. All are easily accessible on foot or by TTC from the university campus. Once selected, you will create a profile of that neighbourhood in two stages (hence two assignments) from a number of different perspectives e.g. demographic, social, cultural, economic etc.
Assignment 1 - Description based on observation
In this first assignment, you will create a profile of the neighbourhood from your own observation. You can do this over one visit, or multiple visits. However, you must record in your written submission, when (date and time of day) you visited the neighbourhood. What you are looking for is evidence of the demographic, social, cultural, and economic fabric of the neighbourhood based solely on your observations. In essence, you are describing the neighbourhood from visual as opposed to empirical evidence. Some questions you might want to consider are:
• What is the demographic structure of the neighbourhood e.g. age range of inhabitants; proportion of young and old; families versus single inhabitants etc?
• What evidence exists of the economic structure of the neighbourhood e.g. income profile, occupational profile, industry sectors represented etc?
• What is the social/cultural structure of the neighbourhood e.g. is there evidence of a dominant ethnic/cultural group and if so, how is it shown etc?
• Is there retail and other service activity present, and does this provide any evidence of the neighbourhood structure?
• What is the housing structure of the neighbourhood e.g. single family homes, apartment buildings, condos etc. and what might this tell you about the neighbourhood?
Assignment 1 Notes:
• You MUST use a standard essay format. The maximum length of the essay, excluding any visual material e.g. charts, tables, photographs is 1200 words.
• A bibliography is not required for this essay but, if you do use external material to support any points you make, it must be referenced correctly.