ABSTRACT
The first Regent Park Housing was built on a site in east-central Toronto, barely a mile from where the town originally known as York was founded in 1793. From the 1970s onwards, the name Cabbagetown has been extended or transferred—first by realtors and then by residents—to describe neighbourhoods immediately north and west of Regent Park, in which extensive renovation and resettlement has been taking place. Inspired in part by the ideas of English social reformer Ebenezer Howard, Regent Park North was conceived as a "garden city". In December 1953 Toronto City Council passed a resolution proposing negotiations with provincial and federal authorities to construct an additional 19960 units of housing as Regent Park South. The Regent Park development was touted as a product of citizen initiative, but it should be noted that the citizens who promoted it were not, in the main, residents of the area that was redeveloped.
