GGR124 Assignment: Analyzing Kensington Market's Local and Global Ties

This report analyzes Kensington Market, a diverse Toronto neighborhood, through local, urban, and global scales. It examines the area's accessibility, land use, and settlement patterns, referencing David Hulchanski's 'Three Cities' concept and Doreen Massey's 'A Global Sense of Place.' The report explores income polarization, settlement segregation, and the impact of globalization on Kensington Market, highlighting its role as a tourist attraction and its connection to Toronto's urban fabric. It considers the influence of globalization, technology, and capitalism on the neighborhood's character, while also acknowledging gender and socio-economic disparities. The study concludes by emphasizing the ongoing development trends and the varied experiences of different social groups within Kensington Market, emphasizing the significance of money in shaping globalization's effects.

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
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The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
The local scale.................................................................................................................................3
The urban scale................................................................................................................................5
The global scale...............................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
Introduction
Kensington Market is strategically situated in the suburbs of Toronto city, it’s a neighborhood of
diversity and for the cultural diversity, it has then been considered a historic site of Canada. The
entire area of Kensington is a microcosm of Canada’s diverse, multicultural population, making
it the most preferred area of residence who harvests their daily livelihood either from the Capital
of Toronto or the nearby neighborhoods1.
Figure 1: Transits to Kensington Market
Kensington Market serves as a tourist attraction center in itself, both to Canadians and foreign
visitors. It’s the location to the Westside of the downtown region of Toronto, accessibility to the
1 Jackson, Peter. "Thinking geographically." GEOGRAPHY-LONDON- 91, no. 3 (2016): 199.

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
area is magnificent as it is surrounded by transits all around; Dundas Street, Spadina Avenue,
Bathurst street, College street as it is centered along Kensington and Baldwin.
Figure 2: Kensington Market land occupation
The local scale
It’s a fact that both David Hulchanski vividly describes our neighborhood of Kensington in his
publication of ‘The three cities’. Kensington is adversely affected by income polarization2, where
2 Hulchanski, John David. The three cities within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto's
neighbourhoods, 1970-2000. University of Toronto Centre for Urban and Community Studies, 2007.

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
few individuals lives to their best, having whatever they would need, majority of population
living a healthy life that one would say the middle class; they don’t have that lucrative lifestyle
but they can access the essentials of the basic needs with a little surplus to what they would need
to serve while another click of community living towards the western side of the market, striving
to have the least of the essential provision for survival3.
Kinds of settlement segregation present in the Kensington market is a clear indication that Prof.
Daniel’s take on Canada’s cities segregation is pure reality. And the soil on which the town
stands on is a class II, very productive and favors agricultural practices such as crop. For
agricultural reasons, many residents moved from their original places f settlement to come and
utilize the fertility of the land. The land conditions and profile are strong enough with perfect
drainage systems and good permeability thus encouraging settlement ad structural construction
as well as cultivation of potatoes.
The most prominent land-use application is on the establishment of an industrial park extended
up to boarders of town to the southeast and protrudes to the west. Institutional land use through
the presence of two sizeable schools and commercial developments toward the eastern side
Kensington town and availability of recreational fields well distributed across the city.
3 Di Chiro, Giovanna. "Performing a ‘global sense of place’: women’s actions for environmental justice." A
Companion to Feminist Geography (2015): 496-515

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
Figure 3: Kensington Recreation centers4
4 Wallace, Marcia. "Where planning meets multiculturalism: A view of planning practice in the Greater Toronto
Area." (2017).

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
Figure 4: Community engagement centers

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
The Generated Maps
Figure 5: Hand drawn map of Kensington Market Activities

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
Figure 6: Settlement Distribution of Kensington Market
The urban scale
Kensington tow perfectly fits in Professor Daniel’s description of three typical cities of Toronto.
A general overview of settlement pattern across the town gives a clear reflection of income
distribution among residents of Kensington town as modern structures encroaching towards the
town center with informal settlement distributed at the periphery of the city, this could confirm
Daniel’s sentimental projection that by 2025 poverty shall have moved from downtown to the

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
edges. The leafy areas with formal and modern settlement patterns have good accessibility with
good transit network while areas towards the southwest of the town are associated with dusty and
narrow pathways making them quite inaccessible
Figure 7: Modern structures of Kensington market5
Kensington is a typical modern urban town since it possesses various characteristics that would
qualify a place as a modern town, for example, it is situated just a few kilometers from Canada’s
capital, Toronto Central business district CBD, high-rise buildings, all-weather transits winding
to the capital, good schools and recreational centers and formal settlement patterns constituting
larger share of settlement. Basing an argument on Doreen Massey’s description of the formal
5 Peterson, Sheila, and N. A. B. C. Summer. "Canada." Desarrollo de pequeñas (2014).

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
urban town, while in Kensington, one could access any services they need since the globalization
and technological advancements are well represented within the city, good infrastructure, shops
and economy that operates 24/7 all days.
Figure 8: Shops and stores of Kensington market
The global scale
Thanks to globalization, since it has fused geographical boundaries and presents the entire world
as a sizable community where information and services can easily be accessed from any Conner
of the world. Doreen Massey describes her city as one pack shop where she could find anything
she might need through the help of more advanced information and communication network6. It
6 Kostogriz, Alex, and Georgina Tsolidis. "Transcultural literacy: Between the global and the local." Pedagogy,
Culture & Society 16, no. 2 (2018): 125-136.

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
can be argued that Karl Max’s capitalism has to some considerable extent, contribute towards
globalization of the world through its acquisition, one can transverse the globe as if going to the
neighboring towns7. However, she brings out the aspect of gender restrictions for the
accessibility of some particular spaces in reference to race and time. Consequently, in
Kensington suburbs, I would not advise a female friend to commute along its streets because of
the kind of settlements around town freely8.
She puts across a complex argument that encompasses, ex-colonialism era, colonialism, gender,
religion, and race in relation to wealth possession and distribution, this relates to Kensington
wealth distribution as this evident in capital and money that give those with much capital,
economic power to rule those within middle class and low income as slaves to their decisions9.
And for this reason, to residences of Kensington, time-space is nothing of interest to then not
because they have no desires to tour the world through planes from Ontario to horns of Africa,
not really but all these because they lack the power of geometry to make such travels and
expeditions
7 Massey, Doreen. "A Global Sense of Place. Space, Place, and Gender, Minneapolis." (1994).
8 Li, Na. Kensington market: collective memory, public history, and Toronto's urban landscape. University of
Toronto Press, 2015
9 Li, Na. Kensington market: collective memory, public history, and Toronto's urban landscape. University of
Toronto Press, 2015.

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
Conclusion
Trends in Kensington town development over the past few years have registered a steady and
stable process within the region. Expansion of communication networks and infrastructural
advancements are efforts by the authorities to present Kensington town as modern urban centers
with this imaginary connection with places as described by Doreen Massey in his global sense of
place.
The town's settlement and distribution of resources typically point out the kind of state the city is
at, not very different from what professor Daniel describes as segregation of town into three
distinct cities with the projection of middle-income people reducing with time. Doreen Massey
summarizes her arguments by concluding that different social groups experience a different
global sense of place as the availability of money greatly influences globalization.

The Local And The Global (Kensington Market)
References
Di Chiro, Giovanna. "Performing a ‘global sense of place’: women’s actions for environmental
justice." A Companion to Feminist Geography (2015): 496-515.
Hulchanski, John David. The three cities within Toronto: Income polarization among Toronto's
neighbourhoods, 1970-2000. University of Toronto Centre for Urban and Community Studies,
2007.
Jackson, Peter. "Thinking geographically." GEOGRAPHY-LONDON- 91, no. 3 (2016): 199.
Kostogriz, Alex, and Georgina Tsolidis. "Transcultural literacy: Between the global and the
local." Pedagogy, Culture & Society 16, no. 2 (2018): 125-136.
Li, Na. Kensington market: collective memory, public history, and Toronto's urban landscape.
University of Toronto Press, 2015.
Major, Benjamin. "Aspects of place." Teaching Geography 35, no. 3 (2010): 90.
Massey, Doreen. "A Global Sense of Place. Space, Place, and Gender, Minneapolis." (1994).
Peterson, Sheila, and N. A. B. C. Summer. "Canada." Desarrollo de pequeñas (2014).
Wallace, Marcia. "Where planning meets multiculturalism: A view of planning practice in the
Greater Toronto Area." (2017).