Why a Two-Kilometre Strip of Yonge Street Has the Highest Life Expectancy in Toronto | The Local

But why exactly do people in Yonge-Doris live so long?

“It’s always hard to attribute a phenomenon [like a high life expectancy] to any one specific thing,” says Dr. Andrew Pinto, a physician and scientist at the University of Toronto, and the director of the Upstream Lab at Unity Health Toronto. “Income, immigration status, transit and walkability, access to services, housing conditions…there are a lot of factors that come into play.”

Income is typically a major factor in overall health. A 2015 study from the City of Toronto found that men in the lowest income group were 50 percent more likely to die before age 75 than men in the highest income group. But wealth isn’t the entire story. Yonge-Doris residents are by no means the richest in the city—the neighbourhood’s median household income was just $73,000 in 2020, below the city average of $84,000. In fact, East Willowdale, filled with McMansions and cul-de-sacs immediately east of this strip of condos, has a median household income of $95,000, but a marginally lower life expectancy (84.6 compared to Yonge-Doris’s 86.2). Even people in the city’s wealthiest neighourhoods, like Rosedale and the Bridle Path, don’t live as long as Yonge-Doris residents.

Related to the healthy immigrant effect is what’s called the “salmon effect.” Like salmon, many immigrants return to their place of origin as they age and their health declines, driving up the relative proportion of healthy immigrants, explains Yasmin Aboelzahab, a PhD candidate at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto who studies how pharmacists can support newcomers and international students as they transition to the Canadian healthcare system. That complicates the healthy immigrant effect, and suggests that the Canadian healthcare system actually pushes out certain immigrants.

The neighbourhood’s diversity could be another one of the keys to its healthiness. In Yonge-Doris, 81 percent of residents are part of a visible minority, compared to Toronto’s 56 percent, with most of the immigrants coming from China, Iran, or South Korea, though newcomers from India and other places in Asia are increasingly also calling the neighbourhood home.

Both Aboelzahab and Pinto point to the neighbourhood’s large immigrant communities as a big reason residents are thriving. In Yonge-Doris, there are a number of resources dedicated to newcomers—ESL schools, newcomer centres, and services available at the public library, just to name a few. Other immigrants are an invaluable resource for newcomers, too, and moving somewhere where there are other people from your cultural background can ease the transition to a new country. Immigrants in Yonge-Doris can “easily connect with people who have come before them, and can share ideas on how to get ready for health issues they may experience,” says Aboelzahab. “This might be one of the reasons why, in an area with a lot of shared community knowledge, the healthy immigrant effect may be higher.”

An area with thriving newcomer communities will also draw more new immigrants to the area, and keep them there happily. “It can create a virtuous cycle where you have a number of immigrants coming to an area, establishing businesses and creating a more welcoming space for new people,” Pinto says. “It creates a thriving local economy and local business improvement in an area that is attuned to the needs of these communities.”

That was certainly true for 28-year-old Yonge-Doris resident Noushin Ziafati. When Ziafati and her family first lived in the area from 2009 to 2011, they loved living close to so many other Iranian families, having easy access to Iranian Plaza (a strip mall at Yonge and Steeles with a large number of Iranian businesses and restaurants) and the ability to participate in cultural events. “Every year for Iranian New Year, or other Iranian holidays, you could go celebrate in Mel Lastman Square,” says Ziafati, who moved back to the neighbourhood in 2021 after living on the east coast for a few years. “It’s one of the reasons I think my parents wanted to move here. They felt a bit more at home around their community.”

For Chu, the wealth of public services and spaces has been important for him and his family. With two young kids, Chu and his family love attending the weekly farmer’s markets, live music shows, and cultural events at the public square. It’s all a part of what makes their lives vibrant and fun. “All things considered, we’re fortunate to live in this neighbourhood,” Chu says. “Even the streets here are wider—like 50 percent wider than downtown.”

Yes, this stretch of Yonge is six-lanes wide, instead of the typical two or four farther south in the city (though there are proposals to transform Yonge and install medians, wider sidewalks, and bike lanes). But the rush of cars on Yonge is accompanied by wide sidewalks, superior walkability, and transit access. Walkscore, a website that ranks addresses and neighbourhoods based on how easily people can walk, bike, and use public transit, gives Yonge-Doris a 97/100 walk score. It’s a walker’s paradise, it says, and most errands don’t require a car. Similarly, with three TTC stations along this two-kilometre stretch, Yonge-Doris is a commuter’s dream. Most people in the neighbourhood live along Yonge, and many of these condos connect directly to the subway, making moving around the city via public transportation easy.

Housing is another reason this neighbourhood is an outlier. The majority of residents here are condo-dwellers—a whopping 92 percent of housing in this area is five storeys or taller, compared to the city-wide average of 47 percent. While much of the housing in this area is expensive, most of the buildings in the area were constructed pre-2018, meaning they’re rent controlled. Pinto points out that tenants who have lived in their homes for a long time have been able to keep their rents relatively affordable, compared to an area with exclusively new builds and no rent control.

Chu, for his part, bought his condo just over a decade ago. “Back then, condos were cheaper in North York. Still is, compared to downtown Toronto—and you get a lot more space,” Chu says. Another bonus: condos tend to have gyms and pools, which Chu says he and his neighbours use to stay fit and healthy.

And unlike neighbourhoods dominated by single-family homes separated by fences and lawns, residents in Yonge-Doris benefit from having to leave their private spaces for green space and other community amenities. “Housing that allows people to interact with one another really is key,” says Pinto.

Correction—October 9, 2024: This article was updated to correct the age of Noushin Ziafati.