Neighbourhoods in Regina, Saskatchewan

Seven neighbourhoods are of considerable note:

Regina's residential areas, apart from the remaining residential portion of the original town between the CPR tracks and Wascana Lake to the immediate south of the central business district, are largely typical of western Canadian cities, mostly consisting of unremarkable post-World War II single-family dwellings on substantial lots.

(1) The downtown business district;

(2) the West End (latterly deemed the "Cathedral Area");

(3) the historic and affluent Crescents area, immediately to the north of Wascana Creek west of the Albert Street bridge and dam which creates Wascana Lake);

(4) Germantown, originally an impoverished and ill-serviced ghetto of continental Europeans;

(5) South Albert Street, adjacent to the provincial Legislative Building and office buildings, a neighbourhood of imposing mansions dating from the before the First World War through the post-War '20s boom;

(6) the Warehouse District, formerly — obviously, as its name suggests — the reception zone for freight arriving from eastern Canada and the USA for sale by Regina wholesalers, and latterly, with the eclipse of rail shipping, being redeveloped as desirable residential accommodation, upscale restaurants and fashionable shopping precincts; and

(7) the latterly notorious North-Central district, an area of low-rent housing nowadays characterised by serious problems of crime, drug use and prostitution.

According to the 22 November 2004 report of the Regina Planning Commission to the Mayor and City Council, "The current directions of residential [growth] for Regina (northwest, southeast and infill in existing areas of development) were essentially established in 1961…and …[i]n the most recent review of the Development Plan undertaken in 2001, it was determined that these directions continue to be the most appropriate for the next 20 years."^[1] An eighth general residential category, therefore, is:

(8) the newer residential subdivisions in the east, north and northwest precincts of the city, planned in anticipation of gradual urban growth over several decades, a development which now with Saskatchewan's recent and unexpected economic boom is occurring in a matter of years rather than decades.