“Neighborhood is a word that has come to sound like a Valentine. As a sentimental concept, ‘neighborhood’ is harmful to city planning. It leads to attempts at warping city life into imitations of town or suburban life. Sentimentality plays with sweet intentions in place of good sense.”
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Answer below:
Jane Jacobs, in Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Something to keep in mind when structuring the city-wide planning process.
Thanks to Daily Durning.
The other obfuscatory words are “community”and “village”. Estate agents love using weasel words like “neighbourhood”.
We’ve live in the same house almost 14 years. Neighbourhood? Meaningless.
A block away is a different zoning with land values double ours. Zoning is real. Neighbourhood is nonsense. Near Joyce Station crappy little lots are selling for triple and quadruple thanks to zoning. Neighbourhood? Nonsense.
Is Shaugnessy a neighbourhood? It’s an enclave.
What are the right words? Precinct sounds like policing. District? School. Borough? New York.
Whatever the word, zoning is real.
From our windows we can see Brentwood and Gilmore mushrooming. Our ground floor is as high as their 40th floors. It’s positively bucolic here; but illogical. We’re four minutes walk from Skytrain – which we never use. We love it here, but it should be towers. With logical zoning, we’d cash out. Bye bye “neighbourhood”.