Koreatown, Toronto: Victorian houses turned storefronts. 1/

One remnant shows what the block looked like before. 2/

Queen Anne fruit market. 3/

In back: you can see the bones of these Bay’n’Gables, likely built around 1890. 4/

This kind of incremental growth is rare now: the change of use would be illegal anywhere but a main street. 5/

But missing middle can certainly happen under the right conditions. This is around the corner. Thanks to quirks of zoning, an apartment building got put in its backyard. 6/

And a block away. This used to be a shop. If you tried to put a shop or café here now, you wouldn’t be allowed as of right. Even here, in an area with relatively permissive zoning. 7/

This kind of growth made Toronto‘s most interesting neighborhood, Kensington Market. But as @jm_mcgrath argued here, the next iterations of that neighbourhood – in the postwar suburbs — will never exist because planning won’t allow them. https://www.tvo.org/article/toronto-celebrates-kensington-market-in-word-but-not-deed 8/

(Just to complicate things a bit: this block and those around it are served by two subway stations, and they should have been intensified decades ago.) https://earth.app.goo.gl/FJsM9M  9/

Subways in yellow. The building pattern I’ve identified here (green) is a century old. It’s attractive, appropriate in many places; in this spot it should’ve been replaced by something denser. 10/

I have an essay on this neighborhood, Seaton Village, in this book: #missingmiddle #HouseDividedTO https://twitter.com/alexbozikovic/status/1130921162656165888