[eemy]

I actually lived in in the Elmvale Acres area, albeit 10 years ago. As a community, it functioned remarkably well - the mall itself, though nothing remarkable, was central to the community and was always relatively busy. It had remarkably good transit access, and most kids I went to school with walked or took transit to school. (Commuting pattern in 2006 - 51% car, 26% transit - likely due to economic conditions as much as planning) Its street network is also surprisingly grid-like for a post-war suburb and it was never a challenge moving through the neighbourhood on foot.

I expect that most of its problems are more social then planning problems - associated with higher rates of poverty due to the availability of affordable housing. There was a definite split between the single-family housing, which was generally quite WASPish, and the higher-density apartment dwellings which were overwhelmingly composed of recent immigrants. Redeveloping the area wouldn't solve any problems - it would likely push out the lower-income families b/c physically improving an area invariably makes it unaffordable to them - whether intended or not by the planners.