Regent Park is a neighbourhood located in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, built in the late 1940s as a public housing project. The project is managed by Toronto Community Housing. It used to be the centre of the Cabbagetown neighbourhood, and is bounded by Gerrard Street East to the north, River Street to the east, Shuter Street to the south, and Parliament Street to the west.Regent Park's residential dwellings, prior to the ongoing redevelopment, were entirely social housing, and covered all of the 69 acres (280,000 m²) which comprise the community. The Toronto neighbourhood known as Cabbagetown was razed in the process of creating Regent Park; the nickname Cabbagetown is now applied to the historical, upscale area north of the housing project.HistoryRegent Park, and adjoining areas of the Old City's east end, were home to some of Toronto's historic slum districts in the early 1900s. Most residents of the area were poor and working-class people of British and Irish descent, along with smaller numbers of continental European Jewish and Balkan immigrants. Concern over crime and social problems in the area, as well as substandard housing, led to plans for affordable housing during the Second World War. These plans came to fruition soon after the end of the war, when the Regent Park North public housing project was approved in 1947. Families began to move into Regent Park North in 1949, but construction continued into the 1950s. The last families moved into Regent Park North in 1957. In subsequent years, more public housing units were built in Toronto, including Regent Park South, which was completed in 1960.
