Why did the Annex decline while Rosedale stayed wealthy?
 

In 1900, the Annex was probably Toronto's most elite neighborhood. It was certainly marketed as an upmarket community.

But in the 1920s it saw "rich flight" as many moved "up the hill." In the depression and postwar years, it was kind of of an old bourgeois neighborhood down on its luck. Of course in recent decades it has re-emerged as a desirable central city neighborhood but still retains a socioeconomic mix.

Rosedale is thought of as the same era as the Annex, but it didn't decline. It was high income even in 1960.

My guess: Rosedale was developed as a more homogeneous community (and there was more geographic sorting by class by the turn of the 20th century) and it was more contained from the city center due to the geography of the Rosedale Valley. Rosedale may be close to Yonge and Bloor, but its orientation and feel seems more "North Toronto" than "downtown." While the Annex orientation is more to downtown.

^ I have no particular insight to share regarding those neighbourhoods specifically, but I do find it fascinating in general how neighbourhoods move up and down the socioeconomic ladder through the years.

Toronto Social Register sample (1921):

Rosedale 26%
Annex 21%
Hill District 13%
Deer Park 6%

So two-thirds live in the area north of Bloor, east of Bathurst and south of St. Clair. The movement north of St. Clair really took off over the next decade.
The favored quarter map of today is already in place.

The rich were already pretty much gone from Jarvis/Sherbourne and Parkdale.

Rosedale was always the premier area. The quality of the original housing stock is definitely a step or two above that of the Annex. Aside from some of the other reasons you've mentioned, there was simply more wealth established there and the housing was inherently more desirable.

This is not National. Wrong section.
Mods please move to the Toronto section.

+1

Perhaps you could find comparisons in various Canadian cities. A comparison in Vancouver might be why the West End declined, but Shaughnessy didn't.

I'm open to that.

The West End was to Vancouver what Jarvis St. is to Toronto and the Golden Square Mile was to Montreal.

The West End was originally a more upscale residential area, which included mansions of the day. The West End is still a residential area, and dates from 1886, but it's primarily from after 1900. Shaughnessy, a garden suburb, about 2 km to the South, dates from 1907, so is almost as old. It overtook the WE as the more prestigious area, and the West End declined as a result, even though the West end was and still is, more valuable in terms of location.

https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/shaughnessy.aspx

There's a big shift to the "garden suburb" by WWI.

Toronto Social Register (1902):

Annex 19%
Jarvis/Sherbourne 9%
Rosedale 7%

I vote to allow it in this section (not that we vote on things lol)

I don't live in Toronto, never have, never intend to, and still find this interesting, but don't have a ton of time for SSP, definitely not enough to ever delve into regional subforums other than Atlantic. So if it were not in the Canada section I would never see it otherwise.

I'm not just saying it because it's Toronto; if it were two neighbourhoods in Montreal, or Vancouver, or Edmonton, or [whatever city] that are well-known across the country then I don't see the harm in it being in the Canada section. If someone had a legitimate question about "Why is Point Grey like this but Kerrisdale is like that" (or even "why is Vancouver like this but Victoria is like that"), that they wanted to crowdsource an answer to, I'd be interested in seeing that thread.

Does having a thread like this in the Canada section cause any real functional problems or is it more that people are annoyed that they have to see a thread title that they don't care about?

Certainly the discussion can be national in scope.

Shaughnessy had all the might of its developer, the CPR, behind it. It was established in 1907 when streetcars had recently liberated people from living near the office and the motorcar was just being taken up by the well to do. Hemmed in on the downtown peninsula the West End was getting more crowded and Shaughnessy offered a chance to escape that.

The railways had a lot of influence over development in Western Canadian cities (I included that in my quote too). It turns out the West End would have been a better long term investment for profit, seeing how it is now the residential heart of the city. It's also more geographically advantaged than Shaughnessy, being adjacent to the beaches, Stanley Park, and downtown. Shaughnessy afforded more gentrified and auto-friendly living given it's large lots and beautifully designed street layout, and was comfortably far enough away from the more industrial downtown area. It's probably the best bastion of elite Nimbyism in the city. ;) The East End is older than the West End, but has suffered a different fate.

I am not familiar enough with Toronto to make any further comparisons.

When Shaughnessy was being built up, it wasn't part of the city of Vancouver yet. It was part of the municipality of Point Grey. In 1929, Vancouver established its modern-day boundaries when it annexed affluent Point Grey and the more working class South Vancouver south of 16th. I think Cambie was the boundary between South Vancouver and Point Grey.

I believe there was also a move to have Shaughnessy be a municipality, but the efforts to do that were thwarted. But it got some special zoning rights and protections in return.

This map doesn't show if Cambie Street was a boundary, as this map only shows Vancouver, where 16th Ave. was the main part of the southern boundary. Shaughnessy is just to the South on this 1915 map, where it says "Vancouver". Shaughnessy is not the oldest suburb, that would be Mt. Pleasant where I live today, the gravitational centre of the map, which was always part of the city.

https://a4.pbase.com/g13/52/479852/2....ab688b66.JPEG

"Exclusive municipalities" are pretty rare in Canada, unlike in the US where a lot of old-line establishmentarian suburbs remained independent.

Montreal is the main exception, where Westmount is (and remains) the most prestigious community, though it feels more like an affluent intown neighborhood. It grew quickly in the early 20th century. Mount Royal and Hampstead were incorporated around WWI, but took a long time to develop and were mostly built up in the postwar years.

Forest Hill (incorporated in 1923, annexed by the city of Toronto in 1967) was a "Westmount" that later got subsumed into the city. Rosedale and Lawrence Park were built up after these areas were annexed by Toronto.

Shaughnessy, as mentioned, was thwarted in its attempts to become a municipality. Though West Vancouver (a post-war suburb, I'm not sure if it was already wealthy before the Lions Gate Bridge was built or more of a small town) still remains independent.

Winnipeg had Tuxedo, but it was tiny and is mostly post-war housing (and amalgamated into Winnipeg in the early 1970s).

I might throw in Armstrong's Point and Kingston Row for Winnipeg.

Were they ever independent municipalities?