Overview
Over the past forty years, Kensington Market has preserved its status as a vibrant and distinctive multicultural community within Toronto’s downtown core. The neighbourhood’s maintenance of an outdoor market, interior milieu of vintage and ethnic stores and unique pedestrian environment demonstrates that immigrant entrepreneurism and bohemian culture remain pillars of community life.
The period between 1970 and 1980 witnessed several major shifts in Kensington’s social profile in terms of immigration and marketplace culture. During the 1970s, an influx of immigrant groups particularly from East and Southeast Asian and Caribbean further diversified the community’s ethnic makeup. Another change to Kensington’s social profile occurred throughout the 1980s and 1990s when bohemian merchants and young urban professionals settled and established businesses and galleries in the Market. Shifts in the social profile of Kensington Market during this period transformed the neighbourhood into the diverse national landmark that it remains today within the city of Toronto.