East/west divide seems to be a thing in most western cities (but not US)

[Docere]

In Toronto, Yonge St. splits city streets east and west. Favored quarter is centered on Yonge, running north from downtown for maybe 2 or 3 miles west and east (Bathurst/Allen Road or Bayview/Leslie). Annex, Rosedale, Forest Hill, North Toronto, Leaside, York Mills all there.

The west and east sides of the older city are socioeconomically similar. Both traditionally working class, both have become more affluent with gentrification and a shift to an affluent core/poorer periphery.

However Etobicoke to the west is more affluent than Scarborough to the east. The western lakeshore suburb of Oakville is the wealthiest of the "905" suburbs.

Montreal and Vancouver have a "main street" splitting the city east and west, which have historically represented a dividing line. St. Laurent in Montreal. Main St. (technically Ontario St. but effectively Main St.) in Vancouver.

A bit dated but here is income mapped for 8 Canadian cities:

http://neighbourhoodchange.ca/docume...-cmas-2012.pdf

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

It’s definitely the case in both Houston and Austin. Los Angeles as well. Also New Orleans.

Fort Worth also, west side and southwest side are most affluent.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Docere

Looking at some of the rust belt cities.

Pittsburgh - favored east

Of course, because there is no west side in Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's East End neighborhoods sit on a relatively flat plateau. That's why the city developed the way it did, i.e., it pushed east from downtown (Pittsburgh), the north side (Allegheny City), and the south side (Birmingham).

There was nowhere to go west of these areas to develop a viable "side" of the city.

[Docere]

DC has an east/west divide, but obviously not related to industry.

[Comrade]

The West Side of Salt Lake is generally the poorer, more diverse area of the city.

Here's the racial breakdown:



This area is where the city saw most its growth in the 80s and 90s. It's essentially everything west of the freeway and railroad tracks:

[mrnyc]

not so much anymore, today its more only joking around, but historically cleveland has a major east-west divide, including an actual war.


ARTS & CULTURE

The Cleveland Bridge War of 1836

APRIL 24, 2018
KEVIN NAUGHTON


There has always been a healthy rivalry between the city’s East and West sides. Playful teasing and jabs made in jest are about as serious as things get these days, but nothing a pitcher of Dortmunder shared over a corned beef sandwich can’t fix.

200 years ago, however, was an entirely different matter. On Halloween in 1836, tensions between the East and West sides boiled over, resulting in an actual battle, complete with muskets and a cannon, fought on what is now the Columbus Street Bridge.


more:
http://pressurelife.com/the-clevelan...e-war-of-1836/

[BG918]

Cities with prominent geographic features on one side i.e. lakes, hills and mountains generally attract more affluence in those areas. Denver and Salt Lake City, for example, have mountains on one side and desert/prairie on the other. Austin, San Antonio and Little Rock have lakes and hills on the west side and ranch/farm land on the east. Chicago has the lakefront and Miami has the ocean on its east sides.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ which has always been a little interesting to me because, as I understand it, Detroit's original "old money" burbs were the gross pointes, which lie to the east of the city, not the west.

It's the exact same logic actually: the reason west sides are more desirable is that they're upwind from the industrial city while east sides are downwind from it, and in Detroit, the desirable locations are on the river before the city, and since it flows nearly due west for a little bit at Detroit, well...

[dave8721]

South Florida has stripes. Water views and sea breezes put wealth farthest east. Then comes a ribbon of poverty, then middle class farther west.

[dimondpark]

Regionally, the Bay Area has a lot of wealth really on all 4 sides of the Metro Area, the East Bay has a reputation for being blue collar but really that's just along the 80/880 corridor from oh Vallejo to Hayward and the Hy 4 Corridor from Pittsburg to Antioch. Otherwise, this report from Measure of America breaking down the state's neighborhoods into clusters really demonstrates how spread out the wealth is is the Bay Area.

They look at basic human development statistics: Life Expectancy, Educational Attainment, Health Care, Income, etc.

I can't help but laugh at how prominent the East Bay is in the area considered top 1% considering the blue collar image the region has, yet here we are:

2021 One Percent California: Human Development Score, 9.00 or Higher
Population: 906,214
Rank/Neighborhood Cluster(County)
1 San Ramon, Danville & Alamo(Contra Costa)
2 Mountain View, Palo Alto & Los Altos(Santa Clara)
3 West Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda & Moraga(Contra Costa)
4 Cupertino, Saratoga & Los Gatos(Santa Clara)
5 Pacific Palisades(Los Angeles)
6 Piedmont & Oakland Hills(Alameda)

Originally Posted by Measure of America

An opportunity wonderland where the extraordinarily well educated and affluent have access to the best the world has to offer, One Percent California scores 9.31 on the HDI. Residents of One Percent California enjoy higher levels of well-being and greater access to opportunity than people almost anywhere else in the United States.

2021 Elite Enclave California, Human Development Score, 7.14-8.94
Population: 8,083,082
7 Rancho Santa Margarita & Ladera Ranch(Orange)
8 Del Mar Mesa(San Diego)
9 Newport Beach, Aliso Viejo & Laguna Hills(Orange)
10 Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach & Hermosa Beach(Los Angeles)
11 Encinitas & San Dieguito(San Diego)
12 North San Mateo, Burlingame & Millbrae(San Mateo)
13 South San Mateo & Half Moon Bay(San Mateo)
14 Livermore, Pleasanton & Dublin(Alameda)
15 Central Irvine(Orange)
16 Redwood City, San Carlos & Belmont(San Mateo)
17 Fremont(Alameda)
18 Sunnyvale & North San Jose(Santa Clara)
19 Northwest San Jose & Santa Clara(Santa Clara)
20 Richmond District(San Francisco)
21 Southwest San Jose: Almaden Valley(Santa Clara)
22 Culver City & City of Los Angeles: Marina del Rey & Westchester(Los Angeles)
23 West Central San Jose & Campbell(Santa Clara)
24 Palos Verdes Peninsula(Los Angeles)
25 Santa Monica(Los Angeles)
26 North Beach & Chinatown(San Francisco)
27 Milpitas & Northeast San Jose(Santa Clara)
28 Calabasas, Agoura Hills & Westlake Village(Los Angeles)
29 San Gabriel Valley Region(Los Angeles)
30 Inner Mission & Castro(San Francisco)
31 South San Rafale, Mill Valley & Sausalito(Marin)
32 North Sunset District(San Francisco)
33 Menlo Park, East Palo Alto & Atherton(San Mateo)
34 Union City, Newark & West Fremont(Alameda)
35 West Hollywood & Beverly Hills(Los Angeles)
36 Poway and San Diego: Rancho Bernardo(San Diego)
37 Cambrian Park & South Central San Jose: Branham(Santa Clara)
38 Berkeley & Albany(Alameda)
39 South of Market & Portrero(San Francisco)
40 Novato & North San Rafael(Marin)
41 South Concord, East Walnut Creek & Clayton(Contra Costa)
42 Westwood & West Los Angeles(Los Angeles)
42 Thousand Oaks(Ventura)
44 Lake Forest, North Irvine & Silverado(Orange)
45 South Sunset District(San Francisco)
46 Torrance(Los Angeles)
47 San Diego: Centra Coastal(San Diego)
48 Mission Viejo & West Rancho Santa Margarita(Orange)
49 Chula Vista East(San Diego)
50 Carlsbad(San Diego)
51 Southeast San Jose: Evergreen(Santa Clara)
52 Folsom, Orangevale & East Fair Oaks(Sacramento)
53 Arcadia, San Gabriel & Temple City(Los Angeles)
54 Pasadena(Los Angeles)
55 East Long Beach(Los Angeles)
56 San Clemente, Laguna Niguel & San Juan Capistrano(Orange)
57 Hancock Park & Mid-Wilshire(Los Angeles)
58 North Richmond, Hercules & El Cerrito(Contra Costa)
59 Northwest San Jose(Santa Clara)
60 Rocklin, Lincoln & Loomis(Placer)
61 Diamond Bar, La Habra Heights & Rowland Heighs(Los Angeles)
62 San Leandro, Alameda & Southwest Oakland(Alameda)

Originally Posted by Measure of America

Elite Enclave California is made up of fifty-six neighborhood clusters found almost entirely in greater San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego; in addition, one lies in Oxnard-Thousand Oaks and two in greater Sacramento. The roughly eight million people—one in five state residents—who call Elite Enclave California home have extremely high levels of well-being. Their score of 8.15 is higher than the well-being score of every US state and all but one of the country’s 435 congressional districts

[edale]

Originally Posted by The North One

Lol this is such an ignorant take. West side of Detroit is basically fully intact and it's absolutely enormous, nothing "little" about it. Try driving though it some time.

The 'basically fully intact' west side of Detroit:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3686...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3754...7i16384!8i8192

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3398...7i16384!8i8192

Let's take those homer blinders off and be honest. The west side is less abandoned than the east side, but I don't know how anyone could make the claim that it's basically fully intact.

[Docere]

Detroit's population is about a third of its peak in 1950. So I can't imagine the west side was untouched.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by lio45

It's the exact same logic actually: the reason west sides are more desirable is that they're upwind from the industrial city while east sides are downwind from it, and in Detroit, the desirable locations are on the river before the city, and since it flows nearly due west for a little bit at Detroit, well...

i understand all that about being upwind/upstream from industry.

why i find detroit's situation a little intersting is because the grosse pointes share(d) a lot of general similarities/functions with chicago's north shore burbs (ie. the original waterfront "old money" burbs), but in chicago's case, the northshore was simply a developmental extension of the generally favored north side of the city, while in detroit's case, apparently the west side was the city's favored side, and yet the original old money burbs ended up east of the city. it's a bit of a flip-flop going from city to burbs, or at least was.

i guess that dispcrepancy probably plays a role in why the grosse pointes have faded a bit in a relative sense, while chicago's northshore burbs are still the tip-top wealth center of the metro area.

[pdxtex]

Portland definitely has an east/west divide. Downtown is to the west of the river and is more urban and wealthy. The east side of Portland is the Portlandia everyone knows plus a mish mash of ethnic neighborhoods and fringe rural communities.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Docere

Detroit's population is about a third of its peak in 1950. So I can't imagine the west side was untouched.

Most of the west side depopulation has occurred since the 90s. There was very little abandonment before then, unlike the east side.

Originally Posted by edale

The 'basically fully intact' west side of Detroit:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3398...7i16384!8i8192

Let's take those homer blinders off and be honest. The west side is less abandoned than the east side, but I don't know how anyone could make the claim that it's basically fully intact.

In colloquial terms, Detroiters aren't usually referring to southwest Detroit when they say "west side". Southwest Detroit is roughly considered to be everything west of I-96 and south of I-94. That said, southwest Detroit was for a long time considered the worst area in Detroit west of Woodward. Hispanic immigration in the 90s really saved it from a far worse fate.

[Crawford]

The real old money Metro Detroit "burbs" are Northwest Detroit, and the Woodward Corridor in Oakland County. The Pointes were exceptional even when they were more important.

Much of Northwest Detroit has high-end prewar housing, just much cheaper nowadays due to Detroit's decline. And the Woodward corridor in Oakland County has high end prewar housing out to about Quarton Road (roughly 16 Mile Road). I'm pretty sure, even in 1950, the strong majority of Metro Detroit wealth was North/Northwest. Livernois/7 Mile was a high-end retail area, serving the upper class. It was never similar to Chicago, with the North Side/Lakefront orientation. The Pointes were always surrounded by more working class areas like Harper Woods, St. Clair Shores, etc. Working class white ethnics working in the factories dominated the East Side, excepting the Pointes.

[Docere]

memph has documented the population changes in Detroit over time:

http://swontariourbanist.blogspot.co...etroit-by.html

[iheartthed]

Detroit's 1990 population density map:



source: https://detroitography.com/2020/06/1...-density-1990/

Almost no tracts west of Woodward and north of I-94 were below 4-7.9k density. Almost all of the depopulated tracts were in southwest Detroit or the east side of Detroit. The city's 2020 population density is about 4,600 ppsm, versus the 1990 density of 7,400 ppsm.

[TempleGuy1000]

Philadelphia's main line is probably a pretty good US example. Though it isn't directly west, but runs in a line northwest of the city.

Even the archieture in west philadelphia and northwest philly tends to be much more ornate than the eastern side of the city near the Delaware and old industry.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

It was never similar to Chicago, with the North Side/Lakefront orientation. The Pointes were always surrounded by more working class areas like Harper Woods, St. Clair Shores, etc. Working class white ethnics working in the factories dominated the East Side, excepting the Pointes.

i was just making that connection because for decades i've heard detroiters on this forum make comparisons between the pointes and new trier township (wilmette/winnetka/glencoe).

if, in fact, wealthy indutrialists of late 19th/early 20th century detroit were more likely to suburbainze out to oakland county instead the pointes, then yes, that would be a significant departure from chicago's northshore phenomenon.