Your city's "favoured quarter"

[Docere]

Does your city have "favored quarter" - i.e. a wedge running from the core towards affluent suburbs. Thinking for example of Chicago's North Side lakefront to North Shore for example.

In Toronto, there's a "favored quarter" area that runs north from downtown. The area looks something like this:

[mhays]

Seattle would be anywhere near water, and/or on a hill overlooking water. That's in all directions on both sides of the city limits.

The eastern suburbs are generally the favored third otherwise.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by mhays

Seattle would be anywhere near water, and/or on a hill overlooking water. That's in all directions on both sides of the city limits.

The eastern suburbs are generally the favored third otherwise.

Isn't there a sort of affluent corridor running east from central Seattle, taking in Capitol Hill, Madison Park, Mercer Island, Medina etc.?

There's also a north/south split within the city and metro - with the southern city and southern suburbs being more industrial and working class.

[ue]

In Edmonton, it's generally south, but more specifically, southwest, hugging the river valley as it heads southwest towards Devon. West end would be closely following thereafter.

[Chef]

In the Twin Cities it runs from downtown Minneapolis through the southwest. It probably began because the best lakes in Minneapolis are to the southwest of downtown. These became the focus of most of the cities early upscale neighborhoods (Uptown, Kenwood, Linden Hills), then when suburbanization began, the first high end suburbs (Edina, St Louis Park) were a continuation of that. The west suburbs are favored too, mostly because Lake Minnetonka is a big lake with tons of bays and inlets which gave it a huge amount of shoreline for upscale development. The least favored is to the north and northwest.

[Citylover94]

Boston is arranged more like the "donut" model with a wealthy center and then lower income neighborhoods in the rest of the urban area with wealthier areas resuming outside their but most of the wealthiest areas are concentrated towards the west and northwest of the city.

Here is a map of per capita income.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Citylover94

Boston is arranged more like the "donut" model with a wealthy center and then lower income neighborhoods in the rest of the urban area with wealthier areas resuming outside their but most of the wealthiest areas are concentrated towards the west and northwest of the city.

Here is a map of per capita income.

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Here's the simplified version for DC. Basically, go northwest.



And here's Denver/Boulder. Both face southeast.

These two surprised me. In a lot of cities, "favoured quarters" tend to have geographic advantages; ie being near or in the region's more interesting geographic features. In Minneapolis, its the lakes, in LA its the coast and the hills, in Vancouver its the mountains and coast.

Following that logic, Boston's favoured quarters would more likely hug the coastline and Denver's hug the Front Ranges, but they don't. Instead, the favoured quarters abutt prairie and forest.

Why is this?

[10023]

Like most cities in Europe, London's runs west (upwind), starting from Mayfair.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 10023

Like most cities in Europe, London's runs west (upwind), starting from Mayfair.

I never thought of this, but you're right. It's definitely true in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Budapest.

Frankfurt and Rome are north, though. I think Madrid too. There are probably some other exceptions.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I never thought of this, but you're right. It's definitely true in Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Budapest.

Frankfurt and Rome are north, though. I think Madrid too. There are probably some other exceptions.

Frankfurt and Rome aren't really big industrial cities, so perhaps that rule doesn't apply. Although north is also upriver in Rome, so perhaps that meant cleaner water at one point (Paris and Berlin are opposite, though).

Madrid is a bit strange. Yes, you have the wealthier residential areas to the north (beginning with Salamanca). But the palace is west, and then Casa de Campo beyond that prevented urban development from going that way. If you say that the center is Retiro park, rather than Plaza Mayor (there's so much sprawl to the east that Centro is not the geographic center), then it's more north-northwest that's the favored quarter.

I'm curious about Denver and Boulder. Does the prevailing wind come up from the south due to the Front Range? I'd expect the west sides to be favored because of the mountain views.

edit: just saw Cirrus' reply. That all makes sense (especially with respect to Boulder).

[Kingofthehill]

west oslo, definitely. the east was historically factories and workforce housing, and its more modern areas are where most of the city's (and by extension, country's) immigrant population live. parts of the groruddalen, as it is known in norwegian, are 95-100% immigrant. west oslo, by contrast, is much more posh, aristocratic, grand, etc. - at least to the extent modest norwegian culture will allow.

la's western areas, especially those on the beach and in nearby hills, are indeed the preferred areas. this extends all the way down from malibu to the palos verdes area, before picking up again in coastal orange county. the non-coastal, but hilly areas, of west la, such as beverly hills, brentwood, bel-air, calabasa, beverly park, etc., - are also very sought after, historically influential, and expensive areas.

more recently, however, the cultural, dining, arts, creative, etc., scenes have been moving east. it has more or less been expanding west-to-eat from hollywood, to silverlake, to echo park, to downtown la and boyle heights, and up to highland park. even koreatown, in the geographic center of the city, is getting in on the action. i'd say this is where most young people and those into the arts, urbanity, etc., are (or want to be) these days.

[Centropolis]

archcityhomes.com

this is a 10 year old map, and property values are much higher now in the city (in the middle and south), and much much much higher in the inner pre-war suburbs in the middle. nonetheless it very plainly shows the favored quarter around and west of forest park, right down the center. west is obviously upwind of city factory corridors as well as the huge concentrations of Illinois-side industry.

the center-to-west corridor is also the highest elevation area in the close-in areas, kind of a saddle between the rivers, historically far less pollution, cooler temperatures in summer, less flooding, etc.

[PoshSteve]

Cleveland is a bit strange in this regard. Within the city limits, downtown and the west side neighborhoods are favored (and receiving the bulk of reinvestment). But as soon as you leave the city limits, its the east side the is favored, starting with Cleveland Hts and moving in a wedge eastward and also including the University Circle area within the city.

Here's a quick sketch of the dividing line within the city and the suburbs...

[Cirrus]

Here's the simplified version for DC. Basically, go northwest.



And here's Denver/Boulder. Both face southeast.

[Cirrus]

Oh hey, a friend of mine, Payton Chung, made a whole series of income maps looking at favored quarters in some cities (I don't know why some and not others). Here are small versions. Click the link to see them bigger.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

This map pretty much shows within Pittsburgh there is no favored quarter.

Within the city, the favored quarter is clearly the East End. The East End has been the playground for the city's wealthy since around 1900 when Allegheny City (now the City's north side) was largely abandoned in favor of the East End's streetcar suburbia. City neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, and Point Breeze never went into any decline to speak of, mostly maintained a "good feeder zone," and continue to house some of the wealthiest residents in the metropolitan area. Many other areas of the East End went through some period of decline, but are either gentrified or are gentrifying now, including (in rough order of gentrification) Friendship, Highland Park, Lawrenceville, and East Liberty. Honestly the overall wealth concentration in the East End is probably somewhat underrepresented in Census statistics because it also happens to be the main student area of the city, dropping household incomes considerably.

The wealth of the East End almost entirely stops at city limits these days however. The postwar suburb of Penn Hills and the formerly upper-middle class streetcar suburb of Wilkinsburg have both been heavily affected by white flight - a process which continues to this day in Penn Hills as gentrification pushes lower-income black city residents further into the suburbs. To the south, there were a number of streetcar suburban and actually suburban boroughs which were wealthy and desirable decades ago, but a court-ordered school district merger pushed these municipalities into the same school district as poor, majority-black mill towns, which in turn triggered flight from the school district and declining property values. The neighborhood of Regent Square (which is split between Pittsburgh and three suburban municipalities) remains desirable, as do some neighborhoods with grand old homes in portions of Wilkinsburg and Edgewood. But everywhere else is in decline, although there is residual wealth in the Forest Hills/Churchill area.

The income doughnut is very different in the other quadrants of the metro. Both basically have a small area closer to the core which is either wealthy or gentrifying, a wide swathe of poor or lower-middle class, then wealth picking up again in second-ring suburbs, fanning out to the exurbs across the county line. The concentration of wealth is much greater in the North Hills, where it fanned out from two historic old money suburbs (Fox Chapel and Sewickley) versus in the South, where it only fanned out from one (Mount Lebanon). The North Hills have also benefited because good highway access was built relatively recently (within the last 20-30 years) which resulted in much better driving commutes into Downtown than the South Hills has, and a resulting suburban building boom.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Within the city, the favored quarter is clearly the East End. The East End has been the playground for the city's wealthy since around 1900 when Allegheny City (now the City's north side) was largely abandoned in favor of the East End's streetcar suburbia. City neighborhoods like Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, and Point Breeze never went into any decline to speak of, mostly maintained a "good feeder zone," and continue to house some of the wealthiest residents in the metropolitan area.

Is Pittsburgh possibly the only old, industrial city where the wealth has traditionally gravitated to the east?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Is Pittsburgh possibly the only old, industrial city where the wealth has traditionally gravitated to the east?

Cleveland's wealthiest suburbs are all due east.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Is Pittsburgh possibly the only old, industrial city where the wealth has traditionally gravitated to the east?

I've heard this is also true for Cincinnati. Seems to be the case:



Keep in mind that many major cities have either a body of water to their east (Boston, San Francisco, Chicago) or else are at a state line (Philly, Saint Louis). Baltimore and Detroit didn't have much room for an east side either for that matter.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by eschaton

I've heard this is also true for Cincinnati. Seems to be the case

Okay so it's not the only one. I guess it makes sense that these cities would buck the usual western preference though, being that they're both on a westward flowing river.