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Canada is home to a large number of ethnic communities, and it's natural that when immigrants come to a new land, they tend to congregate in areas where others like them have settled.
There are also some communities that have been marginalized in their homeland, so they tend to stick together. One example is the Ahmadiyya Muslims who have been persecuted in Pakistan, so now they live mostly in Vaughan, Ont., where they are close to each other and their mosque. In their particular case, it's understandable that they feel vulnerable and tend to find security in proximity to each other.
Now there's news that residents of a Thornhill, Ont., community are proposing to construct two residential highrise buildings and 61 townhouses in a low-density neighbourhood. The proposed condos would be built on the site of the Jaffari Community Centre, at 9000 Bathurst St., and would contain 377 units, primarily for Muslims.