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West Queen West ranked one of the coolest streets in North America

Toronto's West Queen West is continuing to rake in accolades. Back in 2014 Vogue named it one of the coolest neighbourhoods in the world and now real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield named it one of the coolest streets in the United States and Canada in its first ever Cool Streets of North America Report.

While the Vogue article mainly focused on street style, this report looked at the retail landscape on streets (well, neighbourhoods) in both the U.S. and Canada and analyzed what made certain areas more favourable for cutting-edge storefront businesses.

Cushman & Wakefield say that Queen, between Bathurst and Gladstone, has a large millennial population (75.9 per cent) and that its cool factor is only increasing.

"On this stretch of QSW," says the report, "you will find Canada's largest concentration of independent art galleries, an abundance of independent boutiques, a flourishing restaurant and bar scene, and a couple of new hipster, boutique hotels."

And best of all, West Queen West gets a red-hot "prime hipness" score on the report's "hip-o-meter."

West Queen West joins Vancouver's Mount Pleasant and Main Street (which is still up-and-coming on the "hip-o-meter") on top 15 list.

Other streets included in the ranking include Sunset Park in Brooklyn, Logan Square in Chicago and Silver Lake in Los Angeles.

Photo by twurdemann in the blogTO Flickr pool.


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