Quote:
Originally Posted by Addick
Would it be wrong to say we have the following groups of neigbourhoods in Calgary?
Central Calgary (e.g. Beltline, Downtown, East Village, Mission)
Inner City (e.g. Bridgeland, Inglewood, Sunnyside)
Northwest & Central North
Northeast & Near Southeast
South Calgary
Deep South Calgary
West Calgary
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Expanding a bit on the concept of grouping areas of the city.
I think Calgarians as a collective need to stop using the quadrants (SW, SE, NW, NE) for anything beyond describing a civic address for mail or mapping/navigation tools. Saying "it's in the northeast," or "I live in the southwest." is just too crude, especially when describing ongoing or developing issues with an area. For a simple example, it can be snowing, raining and sunshine in different parts of the NW at the same time. Saying "I live in the southeast" can mean Dover or Ogden or Douglasdale or Auburn Bay, which are all different in many ways. The media could be reporting a "huge explosion and fire in the northeast" and many people who have an address in the northeast would be rather unaffected and it could be more relevant to people with a northwest address.
By the same token, breaking it as far down as communities is almost too much for many purposes too. First, there are too many for the average person to know or be familiar with. Also, there are many neighbouring communities that either sound similar in name, or more importantly are roughly similar in most facets. Many communities are broken down further into sub areas. "Estate" areas of certain communities, for example, or some newer communities where phases are given different names for marketing purposes.
I made this map a few years ago and have shared it here before, but I personally think of the city, for certain purposes, in this way:
It doesn't have to be exactly this, and one could nitpick any number of ways, but I say it is a good middle ground between quadrants and communities.