How does your city define its neighborhoods/districts?

[Xelebes]

Edmonton has community leagues that act as neighbourhoods, and some neighbourhoods without a community league. A higher level than that is wards, which act more as ridings for city hall. There is something called a "sector" which is used to simply group neighbourhoods. There are 375 neighbourhoods, with 157 community leagues, and 7 sectors.

[begratto]

Originally Posted by Docere

Canada's other big three:

Montreal is organized into 19 boroughs, which range in size from about 20,000-170,000. List of neighborhoods by borough:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_neighbourhoods_in_Montreal

Montreal does indeed have 19 boroughs, but it has way more neighbourhoods - which usually correspond to old villages / town limits, before they were merged into Montreal, starting in the late 1800's. For example, these are some of the neighbourhoods of the Sud-Ouest borough :

Everyone knows these neighbourhoods, like Saint-Henri, Petite-Bourgogne, Ville-Émard etc and use them when referencing to an area of the city.

You can see more of them on this Agora Mtl forum post

[Docere]

NDG for example is a macro-neigborhood, but with two different parts: Monkland Village and Loyola.

Montreal proper was quite small in 1900 (and the urban area has already expanded beyond it) but it really expanded its land area before WWI. The communities that got annexed (St Henri, Mile End, NDG) retained their neighborhood identity and often became wards (which had names not numbers).

[begratto]

Originally Posted by Docere

NDG for example is a macro-neigborhood, but with two different parts: Monkland Village and Loyola.

Montreal proper was quite small in 1900 (and the urban area has already expanded beyond it) but it really expanded its land area before WWI. The communities that got annexed (St Henri, Mile End, NDG) retained their neighborhood identity and often became wards (which had names not numbers).

To illustrate this, here's the maps of the Notre-dane-de-Grâce neighbourhoods

[muppet]

^Loving the Montreal neighbourhood names. In London we have a hangover of French ones, back when the Norman city and the court spoke it:

Hainault (hay-nolt), Theydon Bois (theydun boyce), Grosvenor (grove-nur), Holborn (hoe-burn, almost silent L), Marylebone (marla-b'n, silent Y), Petty France, St John (sinjun)


Some interesting ones from the Old Smoke:


Vale of Health, Piccadilly Circus, Fitzrovia, Furzedown, Soho

Seven Sisters, Seven Kings, Green Street Green, Cripplegate, Cheapside

Cockfosters, Laycock, Dickerage, Anerley (the locals like to point out it's pronounced Anna-lee)


Whalebone, Gospel Oak, Coper's Cope, Fortune Green, Crystal Palace

Shooters Hill, Headstone North, Ponder's End, The Wrythe, Angel

Gooshays, Havering-atte-Bower, Hans Town, Dalgarno, Oval

Valentines, Cazenove, Blackfriars, White City, Canary Wharf

Little Venice, Canada Water, East India, Jamaica, Marylands, Cyprus, Swiss Cottage


and places still show their ancient namings, sounding like a country walk rather than the urban cityscape they became:

Bullsmoor, Eels Brook, Burnt Oak, Shepherd's Bush, Turnpike Lane, Squirrel's Heath, Brooklands,
Heathrow, Thornhill, Redcliffe, Seething Wells, Knightsbridge, Gipsy Hill, Lavender Fields, Poplar,
Figge's Marsh, Forest Gate, Goose Green, Nunhead, Limehouse, Berrylands, Child's Hill, Blackheath.


another gem in the metro region:

[Docere]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Doesn't explain why Boston has only 23 neighborhoods.

And a huge variation in size in these official neighborhoods. You have little enclaves in central Boston such as Beacon Hill and the North End, but Dorchester isn't split up into different sections.

[Docere]

A very long list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_areas_of_London

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Docere

And a huge variation in size in these official neighborhoods. You have little enclaves in central Boston such as Beacon Hill and the North End, but Dorchester isn't split up into different sections.

Yeah, Dorchester is probably the Boston neighborhood that makes the least sense. While there are other neighborhoods of roughly the same size, Dorchester is particularly odd, because it has no central identity. There are old-stock Irish areas, black areas, and even Vietnamese areas. It also contains several different business districts.

As far as I can tell, it's just considered a single neighborhood because the land area (mostly) aligns to the Town of Dorchester which was annexed in the 19th Century.

[Crawford]

Dorchester is a prosperous Irish and gentrified eastern half, and a black/Hispanic, working class and rough (for Boston standards) western half. Also a sprinkling of SE Asian presence in the middle.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by muppet

^Loving the Montreal neighbourhood names. In London we have a hangover of French ones, back when the Norman city and the court spoke it:

Hainault (hay-nolt), Theydon Bois (theydun boyce), Grosvenor (grove-nur), Holborn (hoe-burn, almost silent L), Marylebone (marla-b'n, silent Y), Petty France, St John (sinjun)


Some interesting ones from the Old Smoke:


Vale of Health, Piccadilly Circus, Fitzrovia, Furzedown, Soho

Seven Sisters, Seven Kings, Green Street Green, Cripplegate, Cheapside

Cockfosters, Laycock, Dickerage, Anerley (the locals like to point out it's pronounced Anna-lee)


Whalebone, Gospel Oak, Coper's Cope, Fortune Green, Crystal Palace

Shooters Hill, Headstone North, Ponder's End, The Wrythe, Angel

Gooshays, Havering-atte-Bower, Hans Town, Dalgarno, Oval

Valentines, Cazenove, Blackfriars, White City, Canary Wharf

Little Venice, Canada Water, East India, Jamaica, Marylands, Cyprus, Swiss Cottage


and places still show their ancient namings, sounding like a country walk rather than the urban cityscape they became:

Bullsmoor, Eels Brook, Burnt Oak, Shepherd's Bush, Turnpike Lane, Squirrel's Heath, Brooklands,
Heathrow, Thornhill, Redcliffe, Seething Wells, Knightsbridge, Gipsy Hill, Lavender Fields, Poplar,
Figge's Marsh, Forest Gate, Goose Green, Nunhead, Limehouse, Berrylands, Child's Hill, Blackheath.


another gem in the metro region:

My favorite London place name is still Hammersmith.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

Edmonton has community leagues that act as neighbourhoods, and some neighbourhoods without a community league. A higher level than that is wards, which act more as ridings for city hall. There is something called a "sector" which is used to simply group neighbourhoods. There are 375 neighbourhoods, with 157 community leagues, and 7 sectors.

Edmonton neigbourhoods and districts:

https://www.edmonton.ca/sites/default/files/public-files/assets/Districts-and-Neighbourhoods.pdf

[Docere]

How is this map of Manhattan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ma...#/media/File:Manhattan_neighborhoods.png

[muppet]

Edmonton wow.

Really like the sound of Terwillegar Town, Blue Quill, Lago Lindo, Elsinore, Lorelei, Beaumaris, Klarvatten, Eaux Claires, Cashman, Cybecker, Rapperswill, Canossa, Rio Terrace, La Perle, Wild Rose, Tamarack, Overlanders, Ekota, Industrial Heights (bet that's a twee little village), Dovercourt, North Glenora, Capilano, Cristallina Nera East, Ozerna, Rabbit Hill, Horse Hill, Malmo Plains, Empire Park, Bonnie Doon.

Winner has got to be one of these: Decoteau North, Papaschase Industrial, Bearspaw, Tipaskan, Ermineskin, Skyrattler, Winterburn, Sweet Grass, Dechine, Dunluce.

^Also noted how the names echo the First Nations, Scandinavian, Scotch, Irish, French, Italian, Ukrainian and English waves of immigration. Even the specific counties -Edmontonians must have DNA from Cumbria (England's Lake District).


NYC -Flatiron District, Gramercy, Little Germany, Stuyvesant Town, Alphabet City, NoMad, Nolita, Sugar Hill.

[Docere]

A lot of English settlers in the Toronto area seem to have come from Yorkshire (Scarborough, Whitby etc.)

[Docere]

Population of Chicago's community areas:

100,000+ 2
50,000-100,000 16
30,000-50,000 19
10,000-30,000 33
Less than 10,000 7

[Docere]

# of "official" neighborhoods:

Edmonton 375(!)
Columbus 189
Toronto 158
Dayton 94
Pittsburgh 90
Chicago 77
Cincinnati 52
Boston 23
Vancouver 22
Salt Lake City 10(?)
London ?
Los Angeles ?
Montreal ?
New York City ?
Sao Paolo ?

[Steely Dan]

^ Chicago doesn't really have "official" neighborhoods.

From wikipedia about the 77 official "Community Areas":

The city of Chicago is officially divided into 77 community areas. Census data and other statistics are tied to the areas, which serve as the basis for a variety of urban planning initiatives on both the local and regional levels. The areas' boundaries do not generally change, allowing comparisons of statistics across time. The areas are distinct from but related to the more numerous neighborhoods of Chicago; an area often corresponds to a neighborhood or encompasses several neighborhoods, but the areas do not always correspond to popular conceptions of the neighborhoods due to a number of factors including historical evolution and choices made by the creators of the areas.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_areas_of_Chicago


When you get down to the level of "neighborhood" in chicago, it gets really messy and is anything but "official".

[mousquet]

This is what Greater Paris looks like and what the municipality of Paris alone should be these days.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Paris

It is fairly large, 7.1 million people, and that map actually shows a single administrative layer.
There are at least 4 more. From bottom to top:

• commune (municipality). There are 130 in all;
• intercommunalité (groups of municipalities usually sharing a same political leaning);
• département (counterpart of a US county). Four of them;
• région (counterpart of a US state). There's a single one, though.

Moreover, Central Paris is split into 20 arrondissements (districts). And each district or suburban town is divided into several neighborhoods.
Enough French red tape to drive anybody insane, so we're not going to get into details. You just don't want to, lol.
It won't last this way forever, cause it's been too much taxpayer money wasted.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

How is this map of Manhattan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ma...#/media/File:Manhattan_neighborhoods.png

It's okay except it cuts off upper Manhattan. Some of those neighborhood names are fading or dead names for neighborhoods (I've never heard of Ansonia or Tenderloin). Some are also too specific to be an actual neighborhood (e.g. Diamond District). NYC doesn't really have official neighborhood boundaries.

[Crawford]

I don't think the Tenderloin name has been in common usage in NYC in like 100 years. I had heard about it, but it's really old history.

Native New Yorkers would generally have no idea what you're talking about re. most of these more obscure names.