chephy

I don't think driving gives that much of a feel for the area. In fact, even biking doesn't quite do it... for me anyway.

A few weeks ago I walked through a neighbourhood of Toronto called Cabbagetown. I ride through Cabbagetown a lot, and it always seemed like a pretty cool and interesting neighbourhood to me. It's a real weird mix of million-dollar homes and social housing in the area... pretty neat. Anyway, since I ride through it so much, I knew there was a mix of quite rich and very poor around there, but as I walked around it, I was completely amazed at how dingy, sad and run-down much of the area looked, how many homeless there are, how much garbage, and how many times I was approached by panhandlers and startled by crazies yelling things. I never noticed any of this when I just biked through. I did notice that it wasn't the poshest place around... and that's about it.