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Downtown, Midtown and Uptown

I was always confused by this but here is what my understanding is from people who live or work in these areas:
Downtown: rough borders: gardiner, bathurst (or just a little more west, but not Trinity), Sherbourne(-ish), and just south of Bloor
Uptown: I hear Yorkville get called Uptown the most; I always presumed bloor/avenue rd. and bloor/yonge were included. Personally, when I think of an uptown I usually connect it with upscale retail.
Midtown: Eglinton and yonge/egg (obviously the most confusing being north uptown.)

Re: St.Clair: I've never heard a resident of St. Clair call the area anything but St. Clair. Personally experience, of course.
 
I'll try and explain the consensus amongst my friends. We're a mix of people who were born here, and transplants from elsewhere in Ontario. We all live within the old boundaries of Toronto, spread out all over. Some of us have lived in the other 416 cities in the past, but no one presently does. We use the term downtown and rarely midtown, but never uptown. We spend 99% of our social time south of "York Mills".

Downtown is bounded approximately by Front, University, College and Jarvis. I used to live a few blocks east of Jarvis and no one ever said I lived downtown. I always said I lived east of downtown. Midtown is used for places on Yonge Street, north of St. Clair (around Heath Street) to south of Eglinton. It's pretty rare though as it has to be in the context of an non-specific destination on Yonge, like "Let's go somewhere in midtown for dinner". That's a rare place to pick for us, but it has come up. Eglinton to York Mills is "North Toronto". We often say York Mills instead of Wilson. Everywhere else along Yonge Street is a neighbourhood or intersection name, just like the rest of the city. Harbourfront is everything south of Front, though it's mostly used for west of York. One guy works at Yonge and Crescent and that's how we describe where he works. Yonge and Bloor is "Yonge and Bloor". Yorkville is only Cumberland and Yorkville and the streets north to Davenport. Neither Yonge or Bloor are part of it. North of the 401 is North York, regardless of where the actual border was.

I should add that we all have a pretty non-Yonge centric view of the city. If we were to use the term Uptown, it would probably be for Bayview from York Mills to Sheppard. Midtown could also around St.Clair from Bathurst to Spadina.
 
It would be interesting to have a look historically and see how downtown is defined. At one time it seemed to be further south, but today it seems to be generally accepted as going up to at least Bloor. I

Downtown is certainly more broadly defined than the CBD in Toronto. The Central Area is defined as running from Bathurst to the Don River up to Dupont and Rosedale Valley Rd. (thus including Annex and Yorkville but not Rosedale). I believe they came up with this definition long before amalgamation. Meanwhile a more narrowly defined "downtown" is University to Jarvis, Front to Bloor (which for statistical purposes the City now splits into Bay Street Corridor and Church-Yonge Corridor.

Meanwhile I remember reading a planning document (from the 1980s I think) for north Toronto. They basically defined it as the area from roughly Bathurst to Bayview and north of Dupont/Rosedale Valley Rd. So basically the old Town of North Toronto plus Rosedale, Deer Park and thereabouts (I guess we can be generous with the term North Toronto because there is the old North Toronto train station). A broad area but no broader than the "west end."

David Dunkelman, the Toronto realtor, has a book and website and includes the area above Bloor and below the Belt Line as "Midtown" and the area north of that are "North Toronto". Downtown is below Bloor. He has downtown stretch all the way west to Dufferin, which I think is way too far.

As for midtown/uptown, do we want a more narrow definition or as a "side" of town? Narrowly we can have midtown be Yonge/St. Clair and uptown be Yonge/Eglinton, perhaps, for the city's secondary CBDs?
 
It would be interesting to have a look historically and see how downtown is defined.
Click to expand...

A long time ago, downtown was south of College...uptown was north of college (no such thing as midtown)

These days, the official city boundaries for downtown is:

south...lake
east...Don Valley (Bayview)
north...Rosedale Valley Rd/Davenport/Dupont
west (north of Queen)...Bathurst
west (south of Queen)...Dufferin

And that sounds right with me
 
going by the NYC template (which i find appropriate), i classify downtown as south of wellesley (from jarvis to bathrust, although there are places in there that don't seem downtownish), midtown is from avenue road > sherbourne along bloor, and uptown is from summerhill to eglinton along yonge (mostly).

sheppard > finch is NYCC.
 
I guess a key to the discussion is do downtown, midtown and uptown have to be continuous, or can there be gaps between them?
 
Downtown: ... where all the lights are bright ...

Uptown: ... she's been living in her white bread world ...

Midtown: Does anyone sing about it?
 
Urban Shocker said:
Downtown: ... where all the lights are bright ...

Uptown: ... she's been living in her white bread world ...

Midtown: Does anyone sing about it?
Click to expand...

hahaha, i live for music so that made my wee hours of the morning. good point there!
 
This was discussed on some other thread about a year ago...the closer you are to downtown, the smaller your version of downtown gets.

Also, it doesn't really matter where Midtown or Uptown actually are because no one uses these names on a daily basis, not when perfectly cromulent names like Yorkville or Yonge & Eglinton already exist and are used by practically everyone. They're real estate names, not real names.
 
I think what people would consider downtown, midtown, and uptown also changes as a city grows and gets older. They must change... especially when the boundaries have changed as well. It might have made sense to call Yonge-Eglinton "Uptown" back when it was actually in the north part of Toronto, but now that it is in the central part of Toronto, still calling it "Uptown" is just living in the past, and nostalgia is just sad.
 
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