Local geo-slang???

October 12, 2007 10:17 AM

LISTS of neighborhoods, local landmarks and local slang names... an example of each in the Philadelphia area would be Chestnut Hill, Fairmount Park and Philly. Is there any place I can go to get a list of these items per state (or for the entire US)? Free is good, but I wouldn't be opposed to paying for it.

If someone from Ohio was going to be going to Philadelphia for the weekend and they wanted to have some familiarity with local terms for areas of interest, where would they go?

I'm not just looking for info on major cities either... If the situation was reversed and I was heading to a small town in Ohio, where would I find the same info?

TIA!


.//chris

posted by hummercash to travel & transportation (8 comments total)

I'm fascinated by these neighborhood names, and the differences they represent, but having found no list myself, I'll contribute what I know to be complete: a list for where I live, Santa Cruz, CA.

Westside/Eastside/Downtown
The Circles
Bonny Doon
West Cliff
Beach Hill
Beach Flats
Banana Belt
B-40
Harvey West
Seabright
Pleasure Point
De LaVeaga
Live Oak
Twin Lakes
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:39 AM on October 12, 2007

I bet you can get this information from a local realtor.
posted by vacapinta at 10:44 AM on October 12, 2007

So not helpful, but my favorite neighborhood slang name is the Pork 'n' Beans in Miami
posted by clh at 10:51 AM on October 12, 2007

It's not perfect (and there really should be a new category to pull this all together), but if you go to Wikipedia and start inserting "Neighborhoods of [city name]" or "List of [city name] neighborhoods" at the end of the URL, you'll get a lot of hits.

For example:

Brooklyn
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Chicago
posted by adamrice at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2007

A lot of cities (Philly included) also have neighborhood maps available through the .gov site or the local newspaper. The Wikipedia suggestion is good too.

Realtors might give you a good start, but a lot of times the info is not exactly accurate. Realtors have a funny idea about how far in any direction the "desirable" neighborhoods go.
posted by desuetude at 11:39 AM on October 12, 2007

I don't know of a list, but one of my favorite neighborhood names is DUMBO:
Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 11:53 AM on October 12, 2007

In the cities for which it is available, the Not For Tourists guides are really awesome. No relation, but I've plugged them before. The moleskine-esque books are good for actually finding your way around the city, but if you just want neighborhood names, the website has a nice index [Phily's] of pdf-printable maps
posted by zachxman at 2:01 PM on October 12, 2007

Add the "Neighborhoods" app on facebook. You can drill down to see neighborhood listings for every city/state combo in the US.

Not sure if they're working from a base dataset or if it's all user-generated..
posted by joshwa at 2:24 PM on October 12, 2007