For the summer I’m subletting a place in the heart of U of T’s student ghetto, and I must say, living here is definitely something that needs a little bit of adapting to.

It’s a tiny place, but it’s clean and cheap. Most of the places down in my neighbourhood are Victorian-era row-houses (built fantastically densely), and while it’s obvious that none of the interior in my home is original, many of the 100+ year old buildings are holding up much better than the shoddily constructed sprawl of suburban homes just a few decades old.

There are little idiosyncrasies everywhere. My bedroom has a hugely slanted roof. The wires leading to my computer speakers are acting like radio antennas, so if I’m not playing music, there’s a constant ghostly hum of voices and little tunes in the background. I needed to get a snap-on ferrite sleeve from Active Surplus to shield them. Never had to do that before.

The dryer wedged haphazardly under the basement stairwell apparently doesn’t work, but that’s okay, because I’m planning on rigging up clotheslines on our expansive, flat roof (accessible by wriggling through a tiny window).

After living in the armpit of Toronto’s suburbs near Humber, having everything I need within walking distance is a bizarre experience. Kensington Market is 3 minutes away, and there are at least four farmers’ markets that are in about a 1 km radius from my house. Not to mention a 24-hour market at the end of my street. And a hardware store at the corner (it took me 5 minutes to go buy a plunger the other afternoon, which definitely came in handy).

I went and saw my friend’s band play a show the other night. The venue (a church, oddly enough) was less than 5 minutes away. The bar where I met my friends afterward was 10 minutes in the other direction.

Despite being a minute away from a major street, it’s astonishing how peaceful and quiet the place it is at night. The patio is going to get put to very good use once it’s a little bit warmer out.

I haven’t put them into practice yet, but there are also bike lanes that go all the way from my house down to the office where I’m working. As it stands, its a 40 minute walk, but I’ve done it the past three days and haven’t minded it one bit.

Living down here and talking to people has also made it patently obvious that very little of the traffic that makes the downtown core so brutally congested comes from people who actually live in the city. Toronto’s lead city planner recently said Toronto doesn’t need a congestion tax, but given the positive effect it’s had in Singapore, London, and Stockholm, it’s pretty clear that it’s chicken-shit politics and not real planning that’s behind that decision.

I’ve only been down here for less than a week, and even in a cramped house with random housemates, I can’t see myself wanting to live anywhere else.