What is "downtown"?

[Docere]

Inspired by Hipster Duck's thread. which raises the question of what separates downtown from the rest of the city.

In others, what makes a downtown and how do you define downtown?

Vancouver has the "Downtown Peninsula" which includes downtown proper as well as the very urban and densely populated West End.

Toronto's downtown definition is quite extensive, and is really more of a greater downtown, stretching from Bathurst to the Don and from Yorkville to the lake. Certainly the Financial District, the area around City Hall and Dundas Square and the Entertainment District are downtown, but what about Church-Wellesley, Yorkville, Bay-Cloverhill, the Grange, Kensington, Harbord Village etc.

[caltrane74]

Everything you mentioned there is in downtown Toronto.

My only question is the western boundary which fluctuates between Bathurst in the North at Bloor and Dufferin near the lake.

[SignalHillHiker]

As I'm sure is the case everywhere else, in St. John's there are a few different things people might mean when they say "downtown".

"The Downtown" is a clearly-defined neighbourhood that is mostly commercial but includes some residential areas closest to the core (which, in turn, are these days mainly rental suites, hostels, etc.).

This basically corresponds with topography. The hill gets especially steep after a few blocks and is generally just cliff-face in certain areas. That line, which is sometimes not cliff-face especially toward the East End, nonetheless forms the mental barrier between downtown near sea level and the rest. Uphill, where it's mostly residential, is center city. Downhill, where it's mostly commercial, is "The Downtown". The view up Beck's Cove toward George Street demonstrates this well because the divide between the two levels of the core is obvious:

April 14, 2017 by R C, on Flickr

Livingstone Street is another good example. It's the one running across the photo. Foreground isn't downtown, background on the other side of that street is.

Christmas Parade by R C, on Flickr

Just "downtown" can be somewhat broader than that, typically corresponding with the crest of the first hill up from the harbour. In that instance, the absolute edge of "downtown" would run along Pennywell, Merrymeeting, Bonaventure, and Military. It's much bigger. For example, in that photo above, now the foreground as well would be "downtown". But that tends to be a view only held by people not from the core. The divide is strong enough that one of the oldest jokes here is a tourist stopping someone on Kenmount Road and asking how to get to Signal Hill. Local thinks and minute and says, "You can't get there from here" lol.

The Basilica of St. John the Baptist near the centre of this photo is at the crest of the hill. To the left side of the photo (which is downhill and heads toward the harbour) could be considered "downtown". To the right (Georgestown neighbourhood, on to Churchill Park neighbourhood) never would. And just to hammer in how not-wide downtown is, cut off from the left side of this photo is only about 3-4 blocks of city before the harbour, that's as wide as downtown gets):

Bird's Eye View # XXXI ... ; (c)rebfoto by rebfoto, on Flickr

For urbanists like us, it's really only two streets and the countless little ones that connect them - Water and Duckworth. They're not broad - it's only say three blocks wide - but they're very long, stretching more than the length of the harbour itself and urban for the majority of that distance.

December 13, 2015 by R C, on Flickr

[manny_santos]

In Kingston it's generally considered anything east of Division Street along Princess, Queen, Brock and Johnson Streets, as well as anything along Lake Ontario between the causeway and Gore Street. I've heard some broader definitions that stretch west to Bath Road.

[ue]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

As I'm sure is the case everywhere else, in St. John's there are a few different things people might mean when they say "downtown".

"The Downtown" is a clearly-defined neighbourhood that is mostly commercial but includes some residential areas closest to the core (which, in turn, are these days mainly rental suites, hostels, etc.).

This basically corresponds with topography. The hill gets especially steep after a few blocks and is generally just cliff-face in certain areas. That line, which is sometimes not cliff-face especially toward the East End, nonetheless forms the mental barrier between downtown near sea level and the rest. Uphill, where it's mostly residential, is center city. Downhill, where it's mostly commercial, is "The Downtown". The view up Beck's Cove toward George Street demonstrates this well because the divide between the two levels of the core is obvious:

April 14, 2017 by R C, on Flickr

Livingstone Street is another good example. It's the one running across the photo. Foreground isn't downtown, background on the other side of that street is.

Christmas Parade by R C, on Flickr

Just "downtown" can be somewhat broader than that, typically corresponding with the crest of the first hill up from the harbour. In that instance, the absolute edge of "downtown" would run along Pennywell, Merrymeeting, Bonaventure, and Military. It's much bigger. For example, in that photo above, now the foreground as well would be "downtown". But that tends to be a view only held by people not from the core. The divide is strong enough that one of the oldest jokes here is a tourist stopping someone on Kenmount Road and asking how to get to Signal Hill. Local thinks and minute and says, "You can't get there from here" lol.

The Basilica of St. John the Baptist near the centre of this photo is at the crest of the hill. To the left side of the photo (which is downhill and heads toward the harbour) could be considered "downtown". To the right (Georgestown neighbourhood, on to Churchill Park neighbourhood) never would. And just to hammer in how not-wide downtown is, cut off from the left side of this photo is only about 3-4 blocks of city before the harbour, that's as wide as downtown gets):

Bird's Eye View # XXXI ... ; (c)rebfoto by rebfoto, on Flickr

For urbanists like us, it's really only two streets and the countless little ones that connect them - Water and Duckworth. They're not broad - it's only say three blocks wide - but they're very long, stretching more than the length of the harbour itself and urban for the majority of that distance.

December 13, 2015 by R C, on Flickr

You really like showing off that map, don't you?

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by ue

You really like showing off that map, don't you?

It's just so easy. I've probably posted sections of it 1,000 times yeah. Sorry!

[Beedok]

For Ottawa: the area between Bronson, Somerset, the Canal, and Ottawa River, excluding a big of the golden triangle and adding about a block around Sussex and Rideau.

Hamilton's is really blurry. Partly because people on the mountain consider practically the whole lover city 'downtown'. But for a more standard count... Bay, Hunter, Wellington, and Cannon maybe?

Thunder Bay north is probably bounded by Pearl, Algoma, and Camelot. South I'm less sure... Miles, Vickers, Arthur, and . . . either Simpson or the River depending on how picky you feel.

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Hamilton's is really blurry. Partly because people on the mountain consider practically the whole lover city 'downtown'. But for a more standard count... Bay, Hunter, Wellington, and Cannon maybe?

When I lived in Hamilton, I was between Dundurn and Locke, and my coworkers considered me to be living downtown. I lived in Kirkendall, and even longtime Hamiltonians from the Mountain would sometimes not know what that was, and try to insist that I lived downtown. I knew one person who lived near Ottawa Street, and would get exasperated when someone implied that was downtown- really, it was quite a trek downtown for her. I think that your boundaries are pretty close, but that James South might be part of it, and the western boundary may be Queen.

I think this confusion about what constitutes "downtown" is common to a lot of smaller Canadian cities. Folks who live in older neighbourhoods or streetcar suburbs can see the clear distinction between their 'hoods and the central business district. Suburbanites might see (relatively) dense urban neighbourhoods as all part of one huge "downtown." Here in Kitchener, I live in a neighbourhood close to downtown but absolutely not part of it, but a lot of people (coworkers) just lump my area in with downtown. Kitchener's downtown is bordered by Victoria, Cedar (maybe a bit further east), Weber and Courtland.

I'm from London but don't know the boundaries of its downtown. Is Dufferin the boundary? Or is Richmond Row now part of downtown, either de facto or officially?

[TorontoDrew]

For me the TTC map better describes what I consider Downtown Toronto to be. The traditional borders of Bathurst and the Don I think have spilled over into more urban built up areas now. I used to live at Ossignton and College which I considered downtown, I now liver near Queen and Broadview I feel like it's more downtown then my last address. If we are discussing neighbourhoods then downtown is a much smaller region but the downtown or the parts of the city where people are considered downtowner's is much larger. In the East I'd go as far to say the Beacheas is the eastern border of downtown Toronto where people who consider themselves downtowners live. In the west Bloor West Village and the Junction, and to the north almost everything south of St Clair east of Dufferin and west of O'connor.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

For me the TTC map better describes what I consider Downtown Toronto to be. The traditional borders of Bathurst and the Don I think have spilled over into more urban built up areas now. I used to live at Ossignton and College which I considered downtown, I now liver near Queen and Broadview I feel like it's more downtown then my last address. If we are discussing neighbourhoods then downtown is a much smaller region but the downtown or the parts of the city where people are considered downtowner's is much larger. In the East I'd go as far to say the Beacheas is the eastern border of downtown Toronto where people who consider themselves downtowners live. In the west Bloor West Village and the Junction, and to the north almost everything south of St Clair east of Dufferin and west of O'connor.

That's almost all of the Old City of Toronto.

Bathurst to Don is already a rather extensive definition IMO.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Docere

That's almost all of the Old City of Toronto.

Bathurst to Don is already a rather extensive definition IMO.

TorontoDrew's description is more of "living in the city" to me. Downtown is more Bathurst-Jarvis, Bloor-the lake.

I live in the Queen and Dufferin area, and while I certianly live in the city, I wouldn't say I live downtown in the traditional sense. That said, when my parents visit from the outer suburbs, they say they are heading downtown. So its a matter of perspective.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by Docere

That's almost all of the Old City of Toronto.

Bathurst to Don is already a rather extensive definition IMO.

This seems to be a perennial Toronto point of contention. A lot of people seem to define practically anywhere between the Don and the Humber as downtown. I get that if someone is in, say, Markham, and they're going to Parkdale, they might say they're going "downtown" as a general directional indicator.

But that seems to be a suburban conflating of "urban" or "old" with "downtown". Realistically, I think it's approximately Sherburne to University, below Bloor. And there's an argument to be made that it widens out the further south you go. i.e., I wouldn't call the Annex between Spadina and Bathurst downtown, but I could see Queen West as far as Spadina, and King West as far as Bathurst.

But if I'm on Ossington or Parliament, I'm not downtown.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

This seems to be a perennial Toronto point of contention. A lot of people seem to define practically anywhere between the Don and the Humber as downtown. I get that if someone is in, say, Markham, and they're going to Parkdale, they might say they're going "downtown" as a general directional indicator.

In Toronto having those in the suburbs refer to virtually all of the Old City (and even parts of the York's) as "downtown" is more or less synonymous with people in the Bay Area referring to San Francisco as the "City". Or those in the NYC area with Manhattan, without trying to invoke *that* comparison. In context it simply means inner-city. I have heard the term "City" refer to older parts of Toronto as well, but it's much more rare than just downtown.

To keep things simple I usually say I live downtown when someone from the GTA asks, and say Parkdale when someone from Toronto asks.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

This seems to be a perennial Toronto point of contention. A lot of people seem to define practically anywhere between the Don and the Humber as downtown. I get that if someone is in, say, Markham, and they're going to Parkdale, they might say they're going "downtown" as a general directional indicator.

But that seems to be a suburban conflating of "urban" or "old" with "downtown". Realistically, I think it's approximately Sherburne to University, below Bloor. And there's an argument to be made that it widens out the further south you go. i.e., I wouldn't call the Annex between Spadina and Bathurst downtown, but I could see Queen West as far as Spadina, and King West as far as Bathurst.

But if I'm on Ossington or Parliament, I'm not downtown.

Yeah, I think Bathurst to Don is more a central area than downtown. I agree the western boundary is further west the further south you go.

[Echoes]

Downtown Saskatoon has neatly defined boundaries, being 25th Street to the north, Idylwyld Drive to the west, and the South Saskatchewan River to the east and south. Geographically, it's a massive area for the downtown of a city of Saskatoon's size. You'll find that on the fringes of this zone there are large areas that don't feel or function like a downtown - a mostly single-use high density residential area in the northeast, the Warehouse District to the northwest, River Landing on the south, and a lot of vacant property/surface parking thrown in the mix. The office/retail/entertainment core is centered on 21st Street (Midtown Plaza - Bessborough Hotel) and 2nd and 3rd Avenues, and then a further block or two in each direction.

For planning and public realm investment purposes, the City defines a larger City Centre area, which combines Downtown with adjoining corridors of 20th Street (Riversdale) to the west, Broadway Avenue (Nutana) to the south and College Drive (U of S) to the east across the river, and the high density portion of City Park to the north.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

This seems to be a perennial Toronto point of contention. A lot of people seem to define practically anywhere between the Don and the Humber as downtown. I get that if someone is in, say, Markham, and they're going to Parkdale, they might say they're going "downtown" as a general directional indicator.

But that seems to be a suburban conflating of "urban" or "old" with "downtown". Realistically, I think it's approximately Sherburne to University, below Bloor. And there's an argument to be made that it widens out the further south you go. i.e., I wouldn't call the Annex between Spadina and Bathurst downtown, but I could see Queen West as far as Spadina, and King West as far as Bathurst.

But if I'm on Ossington or Parliament, I'm not downtown.

I see it just working something like this - with the red area corresponding to the Downtown core and the green being a sort of "Greater Downtown" (give or take the boundaries a bit):

[Docere]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I see it just working something like this - with the red area corresponding to the Downtown core and the green being a sort of "Greater Downtown" (give or take the boundaries a bit)

So the bulk of the West End is greater downtown?

Would you say the west end/west side begins at Spadina or Bathurst? The east end/side at Jarvis or the Don River?

[shappy]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I see it just working something like this - with the red area corresponding to the Downtown core and the green being a sort of "Greater Downtown" (give or take the boundaries a bit):

I pretty much agree with this and like the idea of distinguishing between downtown and surrounding central neighbourhoods. I suppose a rule of thumb IMO is if I feel like I'm in a neighbouhood then I'm probably not downtown. Cabbagetown, Kensington, Riverside, Annex, Niagara, etc... these are all distinct areas where the neighbourhood feel dominates.

[Xelebes]

Edmonton doesn't have a downtown. It chose to build its fort, and eventual main street on higher ground. So it has an uptown. But then most of Edmonton is uptown.

[balletomane]

Downtown Winnipeg is bounded roughly by the Red River to the east, the Assiniboine River to the south, Isabel/Colony/Memorial/Osborne North street(s) to the west and the CPR tracks to the north. Population 18,000 in about 4.1 sq km.