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 nickname Cabbagetown is now applied to the remaining historical, area north and west of the housing project, which has experienced considerable gentrification since the 1960s and 1970s.

Regent 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 Macedonian immigrants.

[1] These plans came to fruition soon after the end of the war, when the Regent Park North public housing project was approved in 1947.

In subsequent years, more public housing units were built in Toronto, including Regent Park South, which was completed in 1960.

[2] Although Regent Park had been designed to alleviate the area's substandard housing, crime, and social problems, these issues soon reemerged.

Some of these people, including immigrants from the Caribbean, China and Southeast Asia, settled in Regent Park in the 1960s and 1970s, changing the ethnic and racial composition of the neighbourhood.

The city government developed a plan to demolish and rebuild Regent Park over the next many years, with the first phase having started in the fall of 2005.

Former street patterns will be restored and housing will be designed to reflect that of adjacent neighbourhoods (including Cabbagetown and Corktown) in order to end Regent Park's physical isolation from the rest of the city.

Toronto-based architectsAlliance was selected winner of the competition, with a modern glass point tower set on top of a red-brick podium structure in their proposal.

In particular, a transitional community failed to generate the awareness, interest and commitment of its residents to invest in the development and sustainability of a higher quality of life.

Another such organization is Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre, which "uses media technology as a tool to employ young people, enhance resiliency, bridge information gaps, increase civic engagement, promote health and effect positive change."

There is a higher representation of visible minorities, refugees, immigrants and Indigenous people in the neighbourhood compared to neighboring areas.

It[8] experiences a higher rate of violence, crime, drug abuse and social ills compared to many other Toronto communities.

In 2002, Toronto City Councillors recognized the need for increased tenant participation in the day-to-day management of housing.

As a result, Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) initiated the Tenant Participation System (TPS).

Overall the formal mechanism set up to give tenants voice in the day-to-day management of the Regent Park had a positive impact.

[17] There are four Toronto-based school boards that provides public education for the city, including the neighbourhood of Regent Park.

[18] The recent Regent Park Revitalization Plan is also viewed and undertaken as a pilot Canadian social re-engineering effort.

Although such enthusiasm adds to the momentum of the revitalization plan, the Regent Park history warrants caution as not to repeat or reproduce the shortcomings of its past.