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Rob Ford grew up on a cul-de-sac with no sidewalks. His parents’ house, a brick two-storey with a three-door garage fronted by stone lions and a bronze eagle, hugs a near-wilderness area where the chirping of birds and the burbling of a creek drown out the traffic from Royal York Road.

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One can learn little new about the mayor by staking out, as reporters have done for two weeks, the hallway outside his office at city hall. The mayor spends as little time as possible downtown. He much prefers north Etobicoke.

So thePost ventured to the Fords’ stomping grounds this week, to find out how allegations that the mayor smoked crack cocaine are playing out in the heart of Ford Nation, with its leafy suburbs and the nearby highrises that house many Canadians of Somali origin.

Everything that matters to Rob Ford is close at hand. In 2010 the City of Toronto renamed a park on Royal York Road, connected by a grassy path to the Ford family home, as Douglas B. Ford Park. Mr. Ford lives about two kilometres to the southeast, on a winding street of big trees, ranch-style split-levels and new McMansions, on the banks of the Humber River. The mayor still frequents businesses at the Royal York Plaza, across from his mother’s house, including the Drugtown pharmacy. A few blocks to the northeast is Don Bosco Catholic Secondary School, where, for 10 years, he coached the Eagles football team until the school board banned him last week from coaching in its schools. And it is here, in north Etobicoke, that the family-owned business, Deco Labels and Tags, founded in 1962, thrives.