Describe Your City's Neighbourhoods

[SignalHillHiker]

We've discussed topics similar to this in the past, especially regarding Montreal, but I'm curious what the divisions are between the neighbourhoods of your city? What makes them different?

Marty_Mcfly found this excellent breakdown of the neighbourhoods in St. John's.



(Note the one called Little Canada lol).

I'm going to focus on the downtown ones that I know quite well:



Right now I live exactly on the border between The Circle and Central, and am moving to Rabbittown at the end of the month. Here's my impression of the surrounding neighbourhoods:

The Circle: Traditionally one of the roughest neighbourhoods in St. John's. It's predominantly subsidized housing (large apartment blocks in the style of rowhouses) for the city's poor. However, in recent years, the number of new immigrants moving into the neighbourhood has greatly improved its lifestyle and reputation. Main street: Buckmaster's Circle.

Central: Small and simple (for example, rarely with a bay window) but very well-maintained rowhouses home to socially respected, lower-middle class families. A LOT of rental homes mixed in among them, enough that it feels a little transient. Main Street: Prince of Wales Street.

Rabbittown: Much the same as central, but more established. The vast majority of homes are lived in by the owners. It's also a much more close-knit neighbourhood, with its own community centre, theatre company, grocery stores, etc. Still has VERY rough sections and is still VERY lower-middle class. Main Street: Merrymeeting Road.

Pennywell: A giant leap above surrounding neighbourhoods. The vast majority of homes are beautiful rowhouses with bay windows on all floors. Main Street: Pennywell Road.

Georgestown: Hipster/yuppie central. It is, by far, the wealthiest and most prestigious neighbourhood of the middle class. Beautiful rowhouses and estate houses, extremely high density, and - very unusually for St. John's, it's on a sort of plateau so most of the streets are relatively level. Main Street: Bonaventure Avenue (which is on the edge of it) or Barnes Road (which runs right through it).

Circular Road: The primary upper class neighbourhood of downtown St. John's. Large estate homes, tree-lined boulevards, servants houses on large lots, etc. Main Street: It's named for it.

Old West End: A blend of upper-middle class and upper class residential areas. Lots of grand, old riverside manors with lots large enough to put sports fields on. And also very dense areas that blend traditional and modern homes. Main Street: Hamilton Avenue.

Bannerman: The same as Circular Road, except that a lot of government buildings and parks take up more room than the residences. Main Street: Military Road.

Fort William: Blend of luxury condos and middle class rowhouses. Main Street: Duckworth Street.

*****

A little glimpse of some of these - just taking an old video from the winter and explaining below the different neighbourhoods:

• Video Link

From start to 1:23: Old West End
1:23 - 2:26 : Central
2:26 - 3:43: Downtown
3:43 - 4:10: Ecclesiastical District
From 4:10 to end: Downtown

[MonkeyRonin]

Here's a graphic of Toronto's neighbourhoods:



Click for enlarged view of centre




I can't be arsed to describe them all though.

[SignalHillHiker]

Awesome map, though. Everyone I know in TO from here is in Cabbagetown and Ajax.

[vid]

Thunder Bay doesn't really name it's neighbourhoods. Some of them have names (in a few cases, 3 or 4 names) while most parts of the city are unnamed or are simply referred to by the major street running through or near them, or they're referred to relative to a downtown core. The neighbourhood I grew up in is either Dawson Heights or Jumbo Gardens, depending on who you ask. The city considers Dawson Heights to be further northwest of the area, but everything with that name is located in the southeast part; and the Geographical Names Board of Canada puts Jumbo Gardens in the location that the city put Dawson Heights in but it's not in the actual area that we considered to be Jumbo Gardens. Jumbo Gardens Park is located in a neighbourhood that everyone now calls Sherwood.

The North End (also known as the North Ward) has a neighbourhood called The North End, which within itself has another neighbourhood (a locality, really) called the North End. There is also a neighbourhood called the North End in the South End, it's also called the West End because it's across from the East End. But it's in East Fort, distinguished from West Fort which was nowhere near the old Fort and is east of the new Fort.

Vickers Heights is a flood plain. North McIntyre is the geographic centre of McIntyre. There are two downtowns, so you'd better learn what context is and how to use it if you want to visit this place.

I think the only accurate name for a neighbourhood in this city is O'Brien's Survey, because it was surveyed by O'Brien. But no one calls it that. It's one of the neighbourhoods that has no name, and since three major streets run though it, no one knows what to call it.

Our bus routes don't help either. Five of them have the same name and number. Until the 1990s, we had a bus route that was named for a street that ran parallel to a street that it ran on, but that street wasn't the most important street that that route served. I have no idea why that is.

Anyway, if St. Paul is what happens when drunk Irishmen design a city, Thunder Bay is the result of blind Scots. St. Paul is actually very neat and organized compared to Thunder Bay.

[north 42]

Windsor has 20 neighbourhoods in all, here's a description of all of them. I haven't found a good map to show them though unfortunately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighbo...ndsor,_Ontario

[Marty_Mcfly]

I lived in Baird in St. John's for a solid 5 years. Relatively quiet neighborhood with an interesting mix between students and older couples (the neighborhood id pretty devoid of younger families). Lots of mature trees like maples line the streets.

When I move back I'll be moving into Summerville, which essentially just like Baird but except on the other side of the Prince Philip Parkway A lot more students over older couples though; most of the streets are named after the MUN campus residence houses, with the main street cutting through there being University Avenue.

Also I'm so happy my girlfriend found this and sent it along to me, neighborhood names are often lost in St. John's, with the exceptions of the main ones (like Churchill Park and Rabbittown).

[SignalHillHiker]

I find it's a downtown/everywhere else divide. I think just about every resident of St. John's knows when they're in any of the downtown neighbourhoods.

Personally, I already knew most of the East End neighbourhoods as well, from Quidi Vidi to Wedgewood Park.

The Central ones (anything above Churchill Park in that image) is all whatever... never even heard half of those names before.

And out in Mount Pearl it's all new to me as well. I'm sure there it's just stupid subdivision names.

But, yeah... everything like Waterford Valley, Southside Hills, Shea Heights, Riverhead, the Circle, Central, Pennywell, Rabbittown, Ecclesiastical District, Georgestown, Fort William, Hoylestown, the Bettery, Quidi Vidi, Mundy Pond, the Gut, Pleasantville, Virginia Park, etc., etc. I always knew all these neighbourhood names. They're still a part of daily consciousness.

Bally Hally, Mount Cashel... I haven't really heard those used to refer to the whole neighbourhood before.

I just call that East End.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I find it's a downtown/everywhere else divide. I think just about every resident of St. John's knows when they're in any of the downtown neighbourhoods.

Personally, I already knew most of the East End neighbourhoods as well, from Quidi Vidi to Wedgewood Park.

The Central ones (anything above Churchill Park in that image) is all whatever... never even heard half of those names before.

And out in Mount Pearl it's all new to me as well. I'm sure there it's just stupid subdivision names.

But, yeah... everything like Waterford Valley, Southside Hills, Shea Heights, Riverhead, the Circle, Central, Pennywell, Rabbittown, Ecclesiastical District, Georgestown, Fort William, Hoylestown, the Bettery, Quidi Vidi, Mundy Pond, the Gut, Pleasantville, Virginia Park, etc., etc. I always knew all these neighbourhood names. They're still a part of daily consciousness.

Bally Hally, Mount Cashel... I haven't really heard those used to refer to the whole neighbourhood before.

I just call that East End.

I knew of Mount Cashel but only because google maps had that area labeled as such (even if I wasn't sure if they had mistakenly thought the orphanage is still there)

There's an area of Kilbride called Richmond Hill, and Kenmount Terrace is actually a combination of Westgate and Bristolwood. But maybe the city doesn't recognize these as actual neighborhoods.

[SignalHillHiker]

I think in a city as small as ours there's some confusion between subdivision marketing names and neighbourhoods in outlying areas.

I always called it Kenmount Terrace, but I'm aware the subdivision is Bristolwood. But neither is really wrong, and neither should be taken to mean "neighbourhood" in the sense that Georgestown, Rabbittown, Hoylestown, etc. do.

[Marty_Mcfly]

Very true. And Little Canada makes complete sense now knowing the area and the street names in that area

[lio45]

There's also a Little Canada neighborhood in Sherbrooke... slightly outside downtown, in what used to be the factory-heavy area.

Named like that because it was one basically the first neighborhood to be overwhelmingly Canadian in population (Sherbrooke for its first century was mostly an Anglo city, and when Little Canada was opened up for development right next to the factories with its mostly four-, six- and eight-plex type housing, it was right about at the time where the booming manufacturing town was starting to attract workers from other areas in the province)... Little Canada was the place where the Canadians were concentrated in the early days, before they eventually started over the next decades to spill all over the place (to the point they've been dominating the city for decades now, but they've swapped names with the Anglos in the meantime and they're more accurately called Québécois nowadays...)

I suppose the reason behind the naming of the neighborhood in St. John's was the same, but I'm guessing the definition of Canadian definitely wasn't...

[SignalHillHiker]

St. John's was a very densely populated city when we joined Canada in 1949. We even had one of the only proper shantytown-style slums in the English-speaking world.

There was little if anything outside of Empire Avenue, which is only a few blocks from the harbour. The city was very small geographically. As one woman described it in an article in the Independent: "Roads like Portugal Cove Road and Torbay Road existed, but they were long, lonely drives."

Little Canada was built as a celebration of our "better life". The typically North American subdivision-style homes were presented as a generous gift to us poor unfortunates who knew only rubbish old rowhouses. ;-) Sentiments have changed since. It was the beginning of our "everything NOT our own is better, let's sprawl too!" post-Confederation phase.

And, as Marty noted, the streets make the neighbourhood easy to define:



It's an awful place. Here's Quebec Street:

[matt602]

The only neighborhood map of Hamilton I can find is on someone's facebook page, so I'm not gonna post it as I didn't create it it but basically all of the lower city wards (1, 2, 3, and 4) are Hamilton's urban, inner-city wards. Ward 1 (Westdale) and 2 (Downtown) are particularly higher density as they contain McMaster University and the downtown business district respectively.

The rest of the wards (5-15) include Hamilton mountain (6,7, 8), Dundas (13) Ancaster (12), Waterdown (15), Flamborough (14), Stoney Creek (sort of a mix of 5, 9, 10, and 11). They range from semi-suburban post-war housing North of Stone Church Road on the mountain to generic townhouses South of Stone Church and in Ancaster, Stoney Creek, Flamborough, Binbrook, Waterdown, etc. Wards 1-8 represent the Old City of Hamilton, pre-2001 amalgamation.

[lio45]

^ Interesting, SHH!

So my theory was wrong... Unlike Sherbrooke's Little Canada, Miami's Little Havana, and all of this continent's Little Italys, it has never historically been a pocket of concentrated mainland Canadians in a city otherwise populated by Newfoundlanders.

Needless to mention, I prefer the rowhouses.

But have you ever thought about how much you'd save yearly in house insurance if you lived on Quebec Street?

[Trevor3]

I lived on Gambier in what is apparently Summerville, though I never knew the name, and Rabbittown. I preferred Rabbittown since it had more character, looked more "St. John's" to me, and the people were generally more interesting. I once watched a guy walk up the street with his lawnmower running (it was old too, so not self-propelled), then a kid run up the street in his underwear shortly after. Our neighbours had their house decked out in Christmas decorations until St. Patrick's Day, it was quirky but fun.

Stephenville really only has a few distinct neighbourhoods:

Area 13: 1980's subdivision. A lot of split levels, split-entry's, back-splits, and a few banana splits before the convenience store on the corner closed. The high school is the centre of activity for the neighbourhood. The soccer and softball fields are the only parks in the west end of town.

The Valley: All the area off of Brook Street between New Mexico Drive and the Hansen Highway. Used to be known as Moonshine Valley because of several stills that were located in the woods around Ned's Pond.

Blanche Brook: 90% destroyed in the 2005 flood, now mostly park space. It runs along Blanche Brook from Hansen Highway to St. George's Avenue and is bounded on the west by Queen Street.

The Base: Everything east of Blanche Brook with the exception of the Valley. Former US Base housing since converted to civilian housing, office space and commercial or recreation buildings. This could be subdivided into west base (2, 4 and 8 plex buildings) and east base (multiple storey building nearer the airport with more mixed use) but it isn't. It functions like that, but it's just Base, no matter which part of it you're on.

Little Port Harmon: Our little fishing village. Mostly cabins, a couple homes used year round but mostly buildings for the few fishermen in the area and retirees. Port Harmon Photo Thread I posted in December.

Cornwall Heights: Area of mostly subsidized housing, generally considered a rough area.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Trevor3

I lived on Gambier in what is apparently Summerville, though I never knew the name, and Rabbittown. I preferred Rabbittown since it had more character, looked more "St. John's" to me, and the people were generally more interesting. I once watched a guy walk up the street with his lawnmower running (it was old too, so not self-propelled), then a kid run up the street in his underwear shortly after. Our neighbours had their house decked out in Christmas decorations until St. Patrick's Day, it was quirky but fun.

It's brilliant. Ayreonaut and I often share stories about the goings-on in these neighbourhoods.

The most enjoyable for me was a street cleaner outside my house. He had to be in his 60s, white-haired. He was laughing so hard, completely alone sweeping, that he was wheezing and it made me laugh too. Went on for 5 minutes or more.

And once I was at the store across the street, in line behind two pre-teen girls. Remembering it from a while ago so some of the details might be wrong, but basically:

This guy comes in, and he's yelling at the cashiers about being barred (banned) and the cashiers are yelling back. Apparently, he stole ice cream and one of the cashiers reported him. But she wasn't mad about that, she was mad that he threatened her with, "By the time I spreads the word about you, you won't be able to get a gram from nobody. Ain't nobody in the Circle will sell you a bit a weed!" - THAT'S what pissed her off. Then the guy threatened to go get his girlfriend, who's apparently scarier than he is (and talk about a waste - he was SO hot, such a pity he's a loser). Then all that's over... he leaves... and I expect the two girls to be terrified but no. They start talking with the cashier like a couple of 40 years olds.

"Family Services told her if they catches him around her anymore, she's not getting her kids."
"That's shocking, wha. That woman choosing the likes of him over her kids."

[vid]

This looks like all the parts of Thunder Bay that were built in the 1960s.

[240glt]

^ I find those a lot less offensive than a lot of the stuff built in the last 10 years

[manny_santos]

Kingston as a whole doesn't really have a lot of distinct neighbourhoods, but there are a few, with some overlap:

- Downtown - anything along Princess Street from Division Street to the waterfront, as well as along King Street from Johnson Street to Place d'Armes. Home to a mix of tourist traps, the historic City Hall, the waterfront, a number of historic buildings and National Historic Sites, and unfortunately a sizable homeless population.

- Queen's (aka the Student Ghetto) - residential area north of the Queen's campus up to Brock Street, roughly between Albert and Barrie Streets, and home to the infamous Aberdeen Street. Students make up the majority of residents in the area, as Queen's has limited on-campus housing.

- Portsmouth - historic village located just west of Kingston Penitentiary, around King, Union, and Yonge Streets. Has a mix of residents including some students.

- Williamsville - also known as Midtown, basically the Princess Street corridor between Barrie Street and Bath Road, including the Memorial Centre, and slightly overlapping with downtown. The area of overlap is at the corner of Division and Princess and is sometimes referred to as "The Hub". Located immediately north of the Queen's neighbourhood, the area is also home to many students, though it is somewhat quieter than the Queen's neighbourhood. It has a mix of grad students, young professionals, and long-time residents.

- Rideau Heights - north of the railway tracks up to Highway 401, between Division and Montreal Streets. Has a reputation for higher crime.

There also the base (CFB Kingston), and much of the east side of the Cataraqui River is sometimes referred to as Pittsburgh, which was the name of the township east of the river before amalgamation in 1998.

[manny_santos]

London has its share of distinct neighbourhoods.

- Downtown - A very diverse area where the richest and the poorest of London meet and coexist. The area is centered around Dundas and Richmond, an area noted for several violent crimes over the years, panhandlers, drug dealing, the Bongo Drum Guy, Friday Knight Lights, a seemingly out-of-place Starbucks, and hoardes of people getting on and off London Transit buses. Fortunately you don't have to go far to find the Covent Garden Market, Bud Gardens, and Victoria Park.

- SoHo - London likes to "borrow" famous names from much larger world cities, and in recent years South of Horton has adopted this name. (London has also borrowed the Thames River, Oxford Street, St. Peter's Basilica, and its namesake in England as local names.)

- Old South - Not related in any way to the frozen concentrated orange juice of the same name, this area is generally regarded as being south of the Thames River, between Wharncliffe and Wellington, south to Base Line Road. Includes Wortley Village.

- White Oaks - a suburban area that has grown around White Oaks Mall, today has a large immigrant population. Usually the first neighbourhood one enters on the way into London from the 401.

- Westmount - another suburban area that has grown around a mall of the same name. Not a particularly interesting area.

- Hyde Park - A former hamlet in London Township, today home to a big box SmartCentre, Lord Gainsborough Restaurant, and one of SSP's most prolific posters.

- Byron - Historically a village in Westminster Township bordering the Thames River north of Lambeth, the area became one of the fastest-growing communities in Ontario outside Toronto following World War II, and after annexation by the City of London, grew into a large low-density residential suburb. Also home of Boler "Mountain" and Springbank Park.

- Oakridge - area surrounding Oxford Street and Hyde Park Road. Mostly residential suburb developed between the 1950s and 90s.

- Kipps Lane - has a reputation for violent crime, likely due to a number of murders in the area in recent years.

- Fleming Drive - area east of Fanshawe College, dominated by students and well-known for large, disruptive parties.

- Kensington (aka Petersville) - just west of the downtown, along Wharncliffe Road. Home to Labatt Park, and with a lot of Western students.

- Old North - mix of Western students and old money. Generally north of Oxford Street, between the North Thames River and Adelaide Street, and including King's College.

- Old East - generally along Dundas Street from Colborne to Highbury.