Silence&Motion
Senior Member
The Beltline is way too big to be considered a neighbourhood in the same sense of Marda Loop, Bridgeland, etc. The Beltline is 2.5 to 3 km wide east to west, and 600 to 700 m north to south. The equivalent area in Toronto around Yonge Street would stretch from the Financial District to Yorkville, covering at least half a dozen distinct neighbourhoods.
We tend to think of the Beltline as a single neighbourhood only because it suffers from a frustrating lack of centres of gravity, so it's easy to just draw a big rectangle on the map and call it a neighbourhood. It's more like a void that exists between 17th Ave, the rail corridor, 14th St, and the Stampede grounds that happens to have some interesting things inside it scattered amongst empty lots and fortress-like office and apartment buildings.
There are some emerging centers like 17th ave and 8th street (Mount Royal Village), 1st street and 13th ave (Victoria Park), and other declining centres (Electric Ave/Design District). Hopefully as the population grows, these areas will become recognized as distinct neighbourhoods in their own right. Mount Royal Village is already there. Hopefully one day 1st street SW will fill in between 12 Ave and 17th Ave and anchor the mid-eastern portion of the Beltline.
Also, why is Chinatown not listed as an option in the poll?
We tend to think of the Beltline as a single neighbourhood only because it suffers from a frustrating lack of centres of gravity, so it's easy to just draw a big rectangle on the map and call it a neighbourhood. It's more like a void that exists between 17th Ave, the rail corridor, 14th St, and the Stampede grounds that happens to have some interesting things inside it scattered amongst empty lots and fortress-like office and apartment buildings.
There are some emerging centers like 17th ave and 8th street (Mount Royal Village), 1st street and 13th ave (Victoria Park), and other declining centres (Electric Ave/Design District). Hopefully as the population grows, these areas will become recognized as distinct neighbourhoods in their own right. Mount Royal Village is already there. Hopefully one day 1st street SW will fill in between 12 Ave and 17th Ave and anchor the mid-eastern portion of the Beltline.
Also, why is Chinatown not listed as an option in the poll?