Housing built in waves around the auto plants
Oshawa’s housing follows its industrial history closely, which makes the eras easy to read. The Plan of Simcoe Heights came into effect in May 1912, laying out sixty-eight acres and four hundred and twenty-four lots east of Simcoe Street, and the houses documented on those streets are two and a half storey detached homes in Tudor Revival and Foursquare styles. General Motors of Canada was formed in 1918 and industrial employment passed three thousand by 1920, driving another wave. The GM South Plant began construction in 1950 and was operating by late 1953, and final assembly moved there in 1954, which produced the big postwar subdivision push. Oshawa retains a higher share of genuinely pre-1945 housing than most of Durham, and all four of those waves sit comfortably inside the range where nailed subfloors loosen.