Location, location, location! When purchasing a new home this is one of the more obvious factors to consider and perhaps the most important. Buyers should be aware of the locations they are looking at in regards to factors such as: crime rate, quality of education, social housing, health care facilities, daycare facilities, public transportation. Plus, of course, are a multitude of personal requirements and preferences.
The city of Toronto has recently launched, as part of their website, a tool called Wellbeing Toronto. Described as a measurement and visualization tool that helps evaluate community well being across the city's 140 neighbourhoods, this site may become a handy tool for those of you out there that are looking to narrow down your choices for potential locations.
It is a well laid out tool and fairly easy to use, allowing you to select neighbourhoods from a clearly labelled map and giving you statistics for the area including; physical size, population, children, youth, seniors, average family income. Below is the information retrieved about South Riverdale.
- More Info:Neighbourhood Details
- Area:10 km2
- Population:24,415
- Children:3,485
- Youth:2,865
- Seniors:2,655
- Avg Family Income:$75,333.00
- LICO After Tax:18.0%
- Lower Education:44.7%
- Higher Education:6.4%
- Visible Minority:47.8%
If you would still like further information you can click on Neighbourhood Details to get a more in depth look or you can add layers to your map search and see schools, fire services, EMS, seniors housing, arenas, community centres and libraries.
I found the tool to be effective and user friendly. It ran a little slow on my computer but I'm really not sure who's to blame in regards to that! I would, however, recommend following the advice on which browsers to use, at first I didn't and it failed to load the graphics properly. Certainly this tool can be helpful for those of you that haven't figured out where you want to live and want to get snapshot for what is out there.