Downtown Canada

[giallo]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Broadway & Cambie are definitely considered inner city but I haven't met anyone who thinks of the area as downtown. When I, and I think most people, think of downtown we think of the peninsula. Broadway & Cambie very close to downtown but the bridge and False Creek act as not only a physical barrier but much more importantly, a psychological one.

I have friends that recently immigrated to Canada, and have settled in Surrey. They refer to the entire city of Vancouver as downtown. It's really weird, and always throws me off.

[Docere]

Van Peninsula has clearer boundaries imo. Can't say I've heard anyone refer to Kitsilano or Commercial Drive as downtown in Vancouver but I have not talked to a lot of Surreyites.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by giallo

I have friends that recently immigrated to Canada, and have settled in Surrey. They refer to the entire city of Vancouver as downtown. It's really weird, and always throws me off.

Same thing happens in Toronto and Montreal with people who live in the suburbs.

(It only seems to be an anglo phenomenon here in Montreal though. West Islanders often refer to anything east of the airport as "downtown" but I've never heard a francophone refer to "le centre-ville" as anything but downtown proper.)

[Docere]

So Hampstead and TMR are "downtown"?

[rdaner]

I find the concept of a traditional NA downtown no longer accurately describes the reality of Canadian urban areas and have started saying central.

[J.OT13]

Ottawa has four "Downtown" Councillors, but only two represent areas that are truly Downtown, so that's not an indication, at least here.

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Docere

Van Peninsula has clearer boundaries imo. Can't say I've heard anyone refer to Kitsilano or Commercial Drive as downtown in Vancouver but I have not talked to a lot of Surreyites.

I think of the Central Broadway area as the outer ring of downtown, beginning at Main and west to Arbutus, and and anything north of 12th. One defining factor is; anywhere you can park for free isn't "downtown", although anywhere you have to pay isn't necessarily.

[Docere]

All the councillors representing wards in the Toronto/East York Community Council area are often referred to as "downtown councillors." Of course politics is defined by a core-periphery split.

[MonkeyRonin]

There's the capital-D Downtown - ie. the CBD and adjacent central areas - and there's the broader use of downtown, which (particularly for suburbanites) seems to have become used more generally as a stand-in to describe the entire inner city.

[Zeej]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Same thing happens in Toronto and Montreal with people who live in the suburbs.

(It only seems to be an anglo phenomenon here in Montreal though. West Islanders often refer to anything east of the airport as "downtown" but I've never heard a francophone refer to "le centre-ville" as anything but downtown proper.)

Yes, the concept of NDG as Downtown or High Park (when I lived there) as Downtown is strange.

That being said, some francophone media refer to NDG as the West Island, which is also not accurate.

[Docere]

Toronto has a pretty well-defined downtown area of Bathurst to the Don, south of the CPR tracks and Rosedale Valley Rd. The city has used this definition for quite a while - it goes back to the Central Area plan of the 1970s. One can nit-pick and say some areas on the edges - like Cabbagetown and parts of the Annex aren't "really" downtown. But these are pretty clear-cut boundaries and pretty much all the "downtown" stuff falls within this area.

[MolsonExport]

Downtown is where the buildings come right up to the side walk, where there is very little surface parking, where (at least some of) the buildings tend to be tall, where retail/dining options are very diverse and plentiful, where the population (office and/or office) density is very high, where there is actually some decent transit, and where the streets are filled with pedestrians.

Thus, many New Downtowns are not really true downtowns, as they fail on one (or usually several) of the metrics people invoke when they describe what a downtown represents (and why it draws people in). Mind you, there are former downtowns that are a shadow of what they once were (Detroit, for example), and there are places with density that are virtually bereft of pedestrian traffic (Missingsausage City Centre, Centre-Ville de Longueuil, Metrotown, as examples). There are also downtown-plus environments, such as Montreal's Centre-Ville that extends well to the East into the Plateau and beyond, and Toronto's CBD that extends along a wide spine centred on Yonge Street as well as Westwards along Bloor.

[Acajack]

The City of Montreal has a weird definition of downtown. It leaps over the mountain to encompass the Université de Montréal on the north side of it, for example.

https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/.../media/documents/CENTRE-VILLE_SURVOL.PDF

[Docere]

It's also coterminous with the borough of Ville-Marie is it not?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Docere

It's also coterminous with the borough of Ville-Marie is it not?

No. Ville-Marie borough extends onto the mountain, but only as far as the roads that run across the top of it (Remembrance and Camilien-Houde).

The Université de Montréal is further, on the north side of the mountain and in Côte-des-Neiges - Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

According to the map I posted that area is also part of downtown.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The City of Montreal has a weird definition of downtown. It leaps over the mountain to encompass the Université de Montréal on the north side of it, for example.

https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/.../media/documents/CENTRE-VILLE_SURVOL.PDF

Hmm that's different. I stayed at UofM a few years ago and had no idea I was downtown.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Hmm that's different. I stayed at UofM a few years ago and had no idea I was downtown.

I guess there are strategic or political reasons for wanting to have the U de Mtl included in the definition of downtown.

In Gatineau there is also an oddity which is the Boulevard St-Joseph commercial strip which is right up on the left edge of the official downtown demarcated by the red lines on this map. This is a mid to late 20th century commercial strip where I assume business owners lobbied to be included in "downtown" for financial reasons of some sort.

In reality, while that is definitely an inner city area, everyone considers the area bounded by water to the right of that (literally an island, named Hull), as our true downtown. And more specificially the southernmost portion of it. Once you're off the island, you're clearly no longer downtown.

https://www.gatineau.ca/docs/guichet_municipal/centre_ville_gatineau/carte.pdf

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Acajack

No. Ville-Marie borough extends onto the mountain, but only as far as the roads that run across the top of it (Remembrance and Camilien-Houde).

The Université de Montréal is further, on the north side of the mountain and in Côte-des-Neiges - Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

According to the map I posted that area is also part of downtown.

OK I see. The eastern bit of Ville-Marie is not downtown, but downtown also stretches a bit into Plateau-Mont Royal, CDN and Sud-Ouest.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Docere

OK I see. The eastern bit of Ville-Marie is not downtown, but downtown also stretches a bit into Plateau-Mont Royal, CDN and Sud-Ouest.

The easternmost part of Westmount is also arguably part of downtown Montreal, but... politics.

[Docere]

Toronto's is much more clear-cut. I would probably remove most of the Annex, Harbord Village and Cabbagetown east of Parliament though if I was more interested in exact precision.