Do you think your neighbourhood is the city’s best, or is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? Over the year, Avenue and Banister Research & Consulting Inc.polled readers about that very question. But we also asked what made a neighbourhood great: Hospitals? Schools? Restaurants? Shops? Parks?Low crime rate? A strong community league? The answers were fascinating.
You told us that, despite the emergence of other trendy districts, our top neighbourhood wonnot for shopping and nightlife but rather for its walkability and historic architecture. In fact, the vast majority of you told us you prefer older, character homes over newer homes, and that proximity to parks is more important than proximity to shopping.
In our first annual list of Edmonton’s Best Neighbourhoods, we used your measures to rank the top 10 communities. We chose neighbourhood boundaries according to City of Edmonton maps, the same boundaries the Edmonton Police Service use when compiling crime statistics. So when we looked at these city or police stats, we could compare them to what you, our readers, were telling us in the survey, and compare apples to apples.
But it also meant that most new subdivisions in the city are parts of larger recognized communities, such as Terwillegar Gardens and Terwillegar Towne, which both fall under the much larger Terwillegar South.It also affected older neighbourhoods, like Mill Creek,which is split between Strathcona and Bonnie Doon.
In the following links, you’ll find the results.We’re satisfied that this wasn’t a popularity contest.The number of votes for our winning neighbourhood more than doubled the number of people from that community who took part in the survey.
No. 1. Strathcona
No. 2. Garneau
No. 3. Westmount
No. 4. Oliver
No. 5. Cloverdale
No. 6-10. Crestwood, Highlands, Belgravia, Windermere and Parkallen
Why Coffeehouses Matter: In a time when business has left the office and gone online, the need for a public space for work and community is more imperative than ever
Chips off the Old Block: Why developers and designers shouldn’t think young
Size Matters Not: What homebuyers really want is character, cleanliness and, yes, resale value
The Price of Parks: More than just your neighbourhood’s green space
