Neighbourhoods Program

The Neighbourhoods Program invests in selected neighbourhoods across Windsor-Essex experiencing economic hardship and reduced quality of life. The program aims to advance P2P’s strategic goal of strengthening priority neighbourhoods. The Neighbourhoods Program recognizes that neighbourhoods play an important role in quality of life and shaping the human experience. Neighbourhoods are the places where residents live, work, play and age. The Neighbourhoods Program focuses on improving the local conditions within selected neighbourhoods in need by strengthening connections between and among residents, community organizations, business and local government.

Program Goals

To build resilient neighbourhoods and to improve residents’ quality of life.

Key Neighbourhood Objectives

Activate resources
Empower residents
Generate social capital

Connected Community Approach

The Neighbourhoods Program embraces and supports the important work of change-makers across Windsor-Essex County, including residents, community organizations, community leaders, businesses and municipal departments. The program adopts the connected community approach (CCA). CCA focuses on strengthening the connections within a community as the groundwork for making transformative change. CCA puts residents at the forefront of change-making, where residents play an important role in improving their local community.

The connected community approach includes the following elements:

Community-based facilitator/community backbone organization (CBO)
Neighbourhoods spaces
A framework of ten (10) principles for unlocking a community’s potential:

Let values lead
Facilitate collaborative processes
Create connected communities from inside out
Learn together
Embrace the messiness
Prioritize equity and power-sharing
Build on everyone’s strengths
Work at multiple scales
Make community building visual
Build creative infrastructure

To learn further about the connected community approach, please visit the following resources:

Selected Neighbourhoods (Social Planning Districts)

The Neighbourhoods Program defines neighbourhoods as Social Planning Districts (SPDs). Social Planning Districts are geographic boundaries that are experiencing similar quality of life and have population sizes between 1,500 and 7,500. 52 SPDs have been identified in Windsor, and 45 SPDs have been identified across Essex County.

Between 2025 and 2028, the Neighbourhoods Program will focus on five (5) at-risk and priority neighbourhoods:

1. Social Planning District: W3

Region: Windsor

Municipality: Windsor

Quality of Life Score: 31.73

Neighbourhood Classification: Priority

Data from Statistics Canada:

Population (2021): 6,479
Population Density: 7,245
Median Age: 42
Median After-Tax Household Income (2020): $40,708

2. Social Planning District: W5

Region: Windsor

Municipality: Windsor

Quality of Life Score: 23.97

Neighbourhood Classification: Priority

Data from Statistics Canada:

Population (2021): 3,909
Population Density: 5,576
Median Age: 42
Median After-Tax Household Income (2020): $42,350

3. Social Planning District: W6

Region: Windsor

Municipality: Windsor

Quality of Life Score: 41.42

Neighbourhood Classification: At Risk

Data from Statistics Canada:

Population (2021): 7,270
Population Density: 4,734
Median Age: 30
Median After-Tax Household Income: $43,560

4. Social Planning District: E4

Region: Essex County

Municipality: Amherstburg

Quality of Life Score: 28.61

Neighbourhood Classification: Priority

Data from Statistics Canada:

Population (2021): 2,814
Population Density: 2,346
Median Age: 55
Median After-Tax Household Income (2020): $49,760

5. Social Planning District: E2

Region: Essex County

Municipality: Leamington

Quality of Life Score: 18.03

Neighbourhood Classification: Priority

Data from Statistics Canada:

Population (2021): 4,058
Population Density: 2,492
Median Age: 39
Median After-Tax Household Income (2020): $63,388