Do suburbanites use a ridiculousy extensive definition of "downtown"?

[edale]

Originally Posted by badrunner

In LA there is no confusion among locals about the location of DTLA. It's pretty clearly defined by the 10, 110 and 101 freeways (although there is some debate about the Eastern border). Any other part of LA's urban core that might be confused for "downtown" has more name recognition than downtown itself, so there would by no reason to call it that. And the surrounding neighborhoods like Boyle Heights, Westlake and Silver Lake are distinctive enough that they would never get confused for DTLA.

When I was at USC, I constantly heard people call the campus area 'downtown' despite it being south of the 10. But overall, I agree that the freeway moat around DTLA make for pretty obvious boundary lines. I do hear the "going to LA" thing from people in the Valley quite often. Also, lots of people here can't seem to grasp the city boundaries. If you look at the comments on LA Times or Curbed articles, you will often see people claiming that "LA" really refers to LA County, not just the city. That one pisses me off a bit.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

does that extend to the metro area as a whole as well? when a suburbanite in jersey or long island says "the city", are they specifically referring to manhattan at the the exclusion of the other 4 boroughs?

Anecdotally, yes for Long Islanders. They’re closest to Queens and Brooklyn. People from Jersey hit Manhattan first anyway, so I guess it’s hard to tell.

But also, with NY having 5 easily identifiable boroughs, each with a strong identity, people tend to just say which part they mean. They don’t say they’re going into “New York”. They might say Manhattan, or “the city”, but if they mean one of “the boroughs” (which, in some contexts, means only the other 4), they’ll just say Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx. I suppose they would say Staten Island as well, but I have never personally witnessed this.

Imagine if Chicago had 4 boroughs, one encompassing the central area (Loop, River North, Gold Coast, West Loop, South Loop, etc), and then one for each of the North, West and South Sides. I don’t think even someone from Barrington would say “downtown” referring to Wrigleyville - they’d probably just use the name of that borough.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

does that extend to the metro area as a whole as well? when a suburbanite in jersey or long island says "the city", are they specifically referring to manhattan at the the exclusion of the other 4 boroughs?

or put another way, would someone from hicksville say they are "going into the city" if the were headed to barclays center to catch an islanders game?

No, they would say Brooklyn. The City is Manhattan. No one would say they're headed to "New York", you would say the borough name or The City/Manhattan.

[Steely Dan]

^^ yeah, i'd imagine having those 5 distinct, well-known borough names helps eliminate a lot of ambiguity because people can always just fall back on those.

i was just curious because (as i'm sure you know) in chicago "the city" means exactly that, the city of chicago, the whole enchilada, from howard down to 138th.

in chicago there seems to be just two realms in people's speech: "the city" and "the burbs". not being on an archipelago, the geography of chicagoland is way more amorphous, so we only get to have two things.

[suburbanite]

I would think New York is a bit unique in this sense because it's boroughs are so well-defined and widely recognized even outside of the metro. If the average person in Toronto can be as specific as Soho, The Village, Williamsburg, etc. when talking about where they went, I can't imagine someone from White Plains would describe downtown as anything larger than the area from Central Park to The Battery.

[10023]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

I would think New York is a bit unique in this sense because it's boroughs are so well-defined and widely recognized even outside of the metro. If the average person in Toronto can be as specific as Soho, The Village, Williamsburg, etc. when talking about where they went, I can't imagine someone from White Plains would describe downtown as anything larger than the area from Central Park to The Battery.

Actually, they’d be much more specific than that. “Downtown” does not mean the central business district in NYC, it usually means south of 14th Street.

But it can also be directional. If I’m going to Midtown from Harlem, I’m going downtown. If I’m going there from SoHo, I’m going uptown. The term “downtown” to mean CBD originated from the fact that Manhattan’s financial district happened to be all the way downtown, at the tip of the island.

[Crawford]

Yeah, "downtown" in NYC is a directional, mostly. Harlem is "downtown" from the Bronx. "Uptown" is the same.

"Downtown" also refers to Manhattan south of 14th Street, but often used as a cultural marker, and kinda murky if it includes anything south of Tribeca. It roughly correlates to "formerly bohemian areas still considered younger, artsier and less stuffy than elsewhere in Manhattan", so nothing to do with traditional CBD definitions.

[JManc]

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[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by 10023

Is this not just something Canadians have carried over from British English?

In London, pretty much anywhere that is suburban in form will be referred to as a suburb, whether or not it is part of Greater London.

E.g., Barnet is “a suburban London borough”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lond...ough_of_Barnet

And New Malden is “a suburb in south-west London”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Malden

I guess not. I would agree with what MonkeyRonin just said.

Take Vancouver as an example. Vancouver is obviously "the city" that the other municipalities depend on, so it can't be a suburb. But its southeastern neighbourhoods are fairly suburbAN in form.

Meanwhile, Burnaby, adjacent to Vancouver separated only by a street called Boundary Road, is unquestionably a suburb, because it's not Vancouver, even if some (most?) of its neighbourhoods are urban in the overall Vancouver context. However, if it was amalgamated into Vancouver, it would immediately also become the city.

Like if all of Metro Vancouver was a Calgary-style unicity, where people are forced to use words like "city" and "suburb" based on form rather than administrative boundaries, I would probably consider Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster to all form a collective "city." But Vancouver's not a unicity, so Burnaby has to be a suburb the same way that Langley is, despite them being totally different in built form, character, and planning.

[softee]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

During the Greektown and North York attacks in Toronto, I saw US media report (or at least initially report, maybe corrected or changed later on) in both cases that the attack took place in "downtown Toronto".

That's because in the case of the North York attack, they saw that it happened on a stretch of Yonge Street lined with tall buildings and just assumed it must be downtown Toronto.

[softee]

Originally Posted by isaidso

The reverse is also true. Downtowners tend to have a limited view of what constitutes downtown while periphery areas that are technically part of the city might not be considered as such.

I tend to have a pre-amalgamation view of what's Toronto and what isn't. North York, East York, York, Etobicoke, Scarborough, and Toronto amalgamated to form the new City of Toronto but I feel like I've left Toronto when I venture beyond the old City of Toronto boundaries. The sales person at a store at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in North York was taken aback when I asked if they had a store in Toronto.

Going way back, I always considered the entire pre-amalgamation two-tier Metro municipality to be Toronto -- same transit system, same police service, same housing authority etc. -- I would have have looked at you in a weird way too.

[10023]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I guess not. I would agree with what MonkeyRonin just said.

Take Vancouver as an example. Vancouver is obviously "the city" that the other municipalities depend on, so it can't be a suburb. But its southeastern neighbourhoods are fairly suburbAN in form.

Meanwhile, Burnaby, adjacent to Vancouver separated only by a street called Boundary Road, is unquestionably a suburb, because it's not Vancouver, even if some (most?) of its neighbourhoods are urban in the overall Vancouver context. However, if it was amalgamated into Vancouver, it would immediately also become the city.

Like if all of Metro Vancouver was a Calgary-style unicity, where people are forced to use words like "city" and "suburb" based on form rather than administrative boundaries, I would probably consider Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster to all form a collective "city." But Vancouver's not a unicity, so Burnaby has to be a suburb the same way that Langley is, despite them being totally different in built form, character, and planning.

I think you are making the opposite point. I am talking about neighborhoods within the city proper that are called “suburbs”, despite actually being part of the city.

Regardless the tradition might not extend west of Ontario (the old part of Anglo Canada), or to cities with smaller city limits. It would probably only be a thing that Toronto picked up from London.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by 10023

I think you are making the opposite point. I am talking about neighborhoods within the city proper that are called “suburbs”, despite actually being part of the city.

Regardless the tradition might not extend west of Ontario (the old part of Anglo Canada), or to cities with smaller city limits. It would probably only be a thing that Toronto picked up from London.

I don't think I am - MonkeyRonin said few would consider them suburbs, but they are suburban. My instinct, as a Toronto outsider, would be to use the same terms if I was there.

[10023]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I don't think I am - MonkeyRonin said few would consider them suburbs, but they are suburban. My instinct, as a Toronto outsider, would be to use the same terms if I was there.

Are these places part of the city proper?

And again, I don’t think it necessarily disproves my idea if Vancouver is different from Toronto. It’s Toronto that would have “borrowed” from London.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by 10023

Are these places part of the city proper?

And again, I don’t think it necessarily disproves my idea if Vancouver is different from Toronto. It’s Toronto that would have “borrowed” from London.

Yes, Etobicoke and Scarborough are names for former separate municipalities prior to their amalgamation; live in either today and your address will say Toronto. MonkeyRonin says he wouldn't consider them suburbs, while many other forumers do in fact refer to them as suburbs, so that seems split.

This may be Toronto borrowing from the UK, but I think it's more likely just a relic of Etobicoke and Scarborough being their own municipalities before, which meant at one time they really were true "suburbs" in the North American sense. I think this pre-amalgamation legacy is what drives peoples' language more so than their urban form. Because the posh, mansion-dominated Bridle Path neighbourhood is in Toronto, but I don't think anyone would refer to it as a suburb. It's just a neighbourhood.

[Docere]

I think Londoners refer to areas outside of the pre-1965 County of London as "suburbs."

[softee]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Yes, Etobicoke and Scarborough are names for former separate municipalities prior to their amalgamation; live in either today and your address will say Toronto.

Canada Post still recognizes North York, Scarborough, etc. on mailing addresses, and many homes and businesses still use those place names on their address. Even older place names within those former boroughs are still used and recognized such as Willowdale, Long Branch, Weston, etc.

Many Torontonians do refer to the old 416 boroughs as suburbs, but most do know that they are now a part of the city of Toronto proper. There are still quite a lot of people who don't seem to know that, though -- for that matter they don't even know the difference between the 416 and the 905 (they think Scarborough is part of "the GTA" not the city, or that "the GTA" only extends to the borders of the 416, excluding farther flung places such as Oakville, Burlington, Whitby and Oshawa). I've seen people on reddit ask questions such as "how long would it take me to commute to the GTA from Newmarket?"

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by softee

Canada Post still recognizes North York, Scarborough, etc. on mailing addresses, and many homes and businesses still use those place names on their address. Even older place names within those former boroughs are still used and recognized such as Willowdale, Long Branch, Weston, etc.

Many Torontonians do refer to the old 416 boroughs as suburbs, but most do know that they are now a part of the city of Toronto proper. There are still quite a lot of people who don't seem to know that, though -- for that matter they don't even know the difference between the 416 and the 905 (they think Scarborough is part of "the GTA" not the city, or that "the GTA" only extends to the borders of the 416, excluding farther flung places such as Oakville, Burlington, Whitby and Oshawa). I've seen people on reddit ask questions such as "how long would it take me to commute to the GTA from Newmarket?"

It doesn't surprise me that Canada Post still recognizes these (I see Etobicoke, Scarborough, and the Yorks all the time on packaging), but you get my point. In BC I live in Delta, but Delta is really two small towns (Ladner and Tsawwassen) separated by farmland, and an extension of Surrey separated by farmland from them as well. Canada Post accepts Ladner, BC when really no such town exists - my "real" address is in Delta.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Docere

I think Londoners refer to areas outside of the pre-1965 County of London as "suburbs."

Some of them, but not all of them. Really it’s just a different definition here that has absolutely nothing to do with the legal boundaries of municipalities (which themselves aren’t quite the same as in the US, at least).

Examples...

Some of these are just outside of Greater London. Others like Charlton, and obviously Hackney, have been part of London for hundreds of years:
https://www.winkworth.co.uk/articles...break-the-bank

Being a vaguely urbanist blog, this sort of debates “what is a suburb”:
https://londonist.com/london/feature...burbs-nowadays

Note the Cambridge dictionary definition of “An area on the edge of a large town or city where people who work in the town or city often live.” It has nothing to do with whether the Mayor of London is in charge or not. A place is a suburb (noun) if it is suburban (adj.). And then they debate whether an area can really be suburban if it has culture and interesting restaurants.

It’s really a less, rather than more muddled definition, IMO. It’s a suburb if it’s “suburban”. If it’s urban or rural, it’s not a suburb. And a suburb can become no longer a suburb if it urbanises.

Anyway, I still wonder if there’s some element of that in Canada because of the closer connection that was maintained, at least in Toronto and Ontario, well into the mid-20c.

[PhilliesPhan]

Not here in Philly. Center City, which was originally considered to extend from Vine to South and along both rivers (though newer definitions tend to define "Greater Center City" as Girard to Tasker, river to river), is pretty well-defined. If someone says that they're going to Center City/"downtown" (you'd get funny stares if you said that here), people from my area recognize exactly where they will be. If a suburbanite wants to take the Regional Rail in and spend the night dining on Passyunk Avenue, they'll most likely say that they're heading to "the city" or South Philly.