The Estates of Old Toronto

Before Toronto was a city, it was a colony. And in a colony, land is the whole game. The people who got here first and staked their claim built estates on the high ground and those estates shaped everything that came after.

The streets still run along the old property lines. The parks sit where the lawns once were. The lot shapes in certain neighbourhoods only make sense when you know the estate that was subdivided to create them.

Lundell traced what became of those houses, families, and land, and what she found is that Toronto's geography is still fundamentally colonial. The bones of the old order are underneath every block. This is the book that shows you where to look.