Destination districts

[rousseau]

What do you call a commercial neighbourhood that is mostly devoted to the sale of one type of product or service? A "destination district"? There must be a more official urban studies delineation. I can think of five major ones in Hamilton and Toronto. Are there any more in Toronto? How about other cities?

1. Largest textile district in Canada: Ottawa Street, Hamilton.


2. Antiques: Locke Street, Hamilton.


3. Vintage/used clothing: Kensington Market, Toronto.


4. Pawn shops (and cameras): Queen and Church, Toronto.


5. Home decor: Castlefield and environs, Toronto. Very much auto-centric, no strolling from shop to shop here.


6. Computer shops: College and Spadina, Toronto. I purchased a laptop in this district once.

[vid]

The intersection of Bay and Machar in Thunder Bay has long been home to competing "adult superstores". (They sell bongs and pornos.) I like to refer to that intersection as "the porn district".

The intersection of May and Cameron in Thunder Bay has two cremation centres across from each other. I refer to it as the "Cremation District".

I think a better term would be "specialized retail districts".

[Bdog]

The corner of College and Spadina in Toronto has tonnes of Computer/computer accessory/computer repair shops...

[bulliver]

Originally Posted by vid

(They sell bongs and pornos.)

Everything I need in one stop! Nice!

Edmonton has an Fine Art district centered at Jasper Ave and 124 Street. There are probably 10-15 galleries/dealers in a few blocks.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Bdog

The corner of College and Spadina in Toronto has tonnes of Computer/computer accessory/computer repair shops...

Oh yeah, how could I forget? I've even purchased a laptop there. I've updated my post.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by rousseau

What do you call a commercial neighbourhood that is mostly devoted to the sale of one type of product or service? A "destination district"? There must be a more official urban studies delineation. I can think of five major ones in Hamilton and Toronto. Are there any more in Toronto? How about other cities?

1. Largest textile district in Canada: Ottawa Street, Hamilton.

The textile district in Montreal would be a stretch of St.Laurent blvd in Ahuntsic (just north of A-40) It is a heritage of the fur trade, once locatede in downtown just northwest of Old Montreal (Beaver Hall) before it was pushed out of the central areas. That place is very desolated.




Other than that, Griffintown is apparently the place to go for antiques. The Quartier latin is for hipsters, filled with stores selling bohemian stuff, arts, clothes and decoration. And I noticed there are lots of pawn shops on Ontario in Hochelaga. Japan/Korean-related stores (grocery stores, anime and manga bookstore and Japanese/Korean restaurants...) seem to be gathered on Ste.Catherine between Guy and Atwater even though it's not very significant.

[PoscStudent]

While it has evolved over the last number of years Kenmount Road in St. John's is home to dozens of car dealerships. Possibly 75%, or even more, of the car dealerships in the city are located there.

This is a horrible example.

With the exception of a tiny pizza shop, George Street only has bars located on the street.

[flar]

I think Ottawa St. in Hamilton is a good example, it attracts people from all over Southern Ontario and Western New York, often on organized bus tours. There is no other place with as much selection of fabric and sewing and knitting supplies.

I'm not sure if I'd consider Locke Street in Hamilton a destination street. It's more like a local shopping district, reminds me of the Glebe or Westboro in Ottawa.

As for destination streets in Ottawa, I don't think there are any, although tons of people visit Ottawa for the Parliament Buildings and national museums.

[Andrewjm3D]

Toronto's Entertainment District - The district is comprised of the Warehouse area, the Theatre Area, the Commercial area, the Events Area, and Union Station Area. From Spadina East to Bay St, and from Richmond south to the Gardiner it's Toronto's largest District.

[The_Architect]

I think the Distillery District, the Fashion District, the Entertainment District and Kensington Market/Chinatown are the most popular destination districts.

[rousseau]

My title is inaccurate. I meant "specialized retail destrict" as per vid's suggestion. I was thinking more in terms of similar types of shops all huddled together along one street, like in the photos of my first post. But they need not be only selling things. Think of Harley Street, which has had an association with medicine for several centuries.

I sense that these types of districts might once have been more common, but now in this auto-centric internet age they probably don't serve that much of a purpose. Though somehow Ottawa Street remains vital and well-known to people in Ontario (and indeed in neighbouring U.S. states) who do a lot of sewing and the like.

[SpongeG]

Main and broadway is sort of where all the hipster hangouts are cafes, shops etc.

West 4th & burrard is home to a lot of snowboard and ski shops, a little west along west 4th you find outdoor/lifestyle type shops like north face, helly hansen, lululemon, icebreaker etc.

richmond has an area called the golden village where there are over 35 asian shopping centres

also in richmond and in the golden village is a street everyone calls "eat street" cause its all restaurants of the chinese/asian variety and always busy


in Vancouver on burrard just north of west 4th is where you will find all the luxury car dealers, Maserati, Ferrari, Lexus, Ranger Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Porsche


garibaldiglass.com


regencyauto.com


flickr


vancouver.porschedealer.com

[Razor]

For Ottawa it would be the Byward Market...Local farmers on a couple of streets surrounded by a few square blocks of wall to wall outdoor patios, bistros and lil shops...Quite busy down there in the summertime..Good spot to hang and enjoy a pint ot two or three.

[miketoronto]

These districts are so important and many cities have lost almost all special retail districts. So the ones we have really should be promoted.

For Toronto, there are others:

Kennedy Road in Scarborough is famous for home appliances, furniture, and home decor stores.

King Street East in downtown Toronto is a famous furniture and home design district. Great great stores.

Yonge between Dundas and College Street, as well as Queen East, between Victoria and Church are both famous electronics and camera districts. Queen East has the Henry's Camera mega store.

St. Clair Ave west of Dufferin while not as vibrant as before, is famous for Italian shoes and textiles. Although like I said, some of its claim to fame has fallen as Italian stores continue to locate in Woodbridge.

[eemy]

I don't know if any other city in Canada has quite the same sort of concentration of hospitals in one location, but the Discovery District in Toronto is indisputably a destination for medical care and research with Toronto General, Sick Kids, Princess Margaret, and Mount Sinai hospitals all across the street from one another, along with the MaRS Discovery District and U of T immediately to the north.

[yaletown_fella]

Caledonia Road north of Eglinton in Toronto has some great outlet stores. It's quite an auto-centric area though.

[Xelebes]

Edmonton

South 124th Street-West Jasper Avenue: Lots of Galleries
Whyte Avenue: Bars, funky shopping, arts stuff.
West Edmonton M. . . *gunshot*

[manny_santos]

London, Ontario has two. One is a pawn district along Dundas Street near Adelaide, which has numerous payday loan and pawn brokerages, including Centretown Pawnbrokers.

The other is the bar district along Richmond Street south of Oxford, which is frequented by students from the University of Western Ontario and includes late-night food establishments.

Shopping in London usually means supporting corporate chain stores at power centres and malls in the suburbs. We have nothing comparable to Kensington Market in Toronto or the Byward Market in Ottawa, or some of the pedestrian-oriented shopping districts I've seen internationally. Richmond Row in London could be something more than it is if it wasn't dominated by bars.

[Marty_Mcfly]

I can only think of a few dedicated areas in St. John's...

Kenmount Road (West): Car Dealerships. It's the only thing out there, besides a Pentecostal church.

George Street: Adult District (bars, pubs, strip clubs, etc)

[SteelTown]

There's also Hess Village which is the Entertainment district and James St N the Art district, there an Art bus that brings people to the monthly Art Crawl.