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I ride my bike a lot. Mostly from the Bywater, through the Marigny neighborhood, to the French Quarter or past it. The extent of these neighborhoods together is from the Mississippi River to St. Claude Ave./N. Rampart St. and from the Industrial Canal to Canal St. The Bywater neighborhood goes from the Industrial Canal to Franklin Ave. The Marigny neighborhood goes from Franklin Ave. to Esplanade Ave. And the French Quarter goes from Esplanade Ave. to Canal St. There are about three ways I ride from the Bywater to the French Quarter and back: Chartres/Decatur/N. Peters ST., Royal, and Dauphine. Each route allows for a slightly different reading of the neighborhoods, as they are different and as they are similar and where the borders are. Chartres is predominately residential in the Bywater and Marigny, and commercial in the French Quarter. Decatur is predominately commercial. N. Peters St. is commercial in the French Quarter and industrial in Marigny. Royal is mixed commercial/residential in the French Quarter, the closer to Canal street the more commercial, and mostly residential in Bywater and Marigny. Dauphine is the most mixed use route, from commercial to industrial to residential (mainly).

The density within the neighborhoods increases more or less linearly from the Bywater to the French Quarter. In the Bywater sidewalks are often set back off of the road. There are a lot of open lots. Many houses have more than a walkway between them and the next house. The Bywater has little vehicular or pedestrian traffic, not to say that people don't drive or walk in the Bywater. Charters and St. Claude are busy, but the interior of the neighborhood is slow. Traffic does not necessarily increase in Marigny. However, the shotguns are closer together. There is no gap from sidwalk to road. Open lots decrease. The French Quarter is densely packed. Buildings are built together. The street blocks are solid masses rather than objects in a field. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic increases greatly. The amount of people moving in the Quarter add a whole lot to its the sense of density. If you ride your bike there you have to squeeze through traffic. In the Bywater its an open road. The verticality also increases from the Bywater through Marigny to the French Quarter. There are comparably tall buildings in all three of these neighborhoods. The French Quarter just has the largest amount. A majority of buildings there are two stories at least. Another issue of verticality in the French Quarter is actually the CBD. The grid shifts again in the CBD, and if you look at it from the Quarter it feels as dense as New York. The rate of building repair decreases from the French Quarter to the Bywater. I feel like that's effecting the sense of density but I'm not sure why--vacancy pehaps.

Bywater has stoops, Marigny has porches, and the French Quarter has balconies.

The Marigny seems to me very much a border in and of itself, between the Bywater and the French Quarter. It's a middle condition. The street grid of Marigny reconciles the grid difference between the Bywater and the French Quarter, which are caused by the bend of the river. Marigny is a small pie shaped neighborhood as well. These things combined make the Marigny more a transition than destination. Especially if you go to the Quarter by way of Chartres St./N. St. Peters. Because of the pie shape you would be in the Marigny for only about three or four blocks of industry (on N. Peters). It doesn't read as a neighborhood at all by that route, besides the handful of houses visible through warehouses. But it does smell like coffee there. Also, the Marigny is cut in half by Elysian Fields Ave. Elysian fields is a big road. Big roads are more often than not big borders. This cut makes the Marigny feel even smaller. Until I looked on the map I assumed the Marigny ended at Elysian Fields and that from Elysian fields on was the French Quarter. That's how it seems the neighborhood actually operates. What I thought was the Marigny is more similar to the Bywater than it is to the French Quarter, i.e. chiefly residential shotguns, small amount of commercial and industrial areas(not including wharfs). And the border there is more obvious. The map border is Franklin Ave. but the actual cut is at the train tracks, slightly more east. The tracks create an industrial corridor between the neighborhoods. Warehouses run parallel to the tracks and there is a lot of open space around the tracks. Sometimes the train cuts the two neighborhoods off from each other completely. But mostly its a definite gap between two areas. If the gap didn't exist, any physical distinction would be less apparent, if there at all.

I researched U.S. census data (2000) for the Bywater, the Marigny, and the French Quarter, focusing on income and poverty, and a little on household and housing costs. The average household income for the Bywater was $27,246, for under $200,000 was $26,290 (roughly 60% of the population with under $10,000 as 29.2%) and over $200,000 was $336,000, .3% of the population. People who were in poverty was 38.6% of the population and people at or above poverty was 61.4%. The average household income for the Marigny was $35,764, under $200,000 was $34,895 (roughly 70% of the population with under $10,000 as 23.3%), over $200,000 was $317,450, .3% of the population. People who were in poverty was 24.1% of the population and people at or above poverty was 75.9%. The average household income for the French Quarter was $58,571, under $200,000 was $41,791 (roughly 63% of the population with under $10,000 as 9.5%, over $200,000 was $369,277, 5.1% of the population. People who were in poverty was 10.8% of the population and people at or above poverty was 89.2%. Economically speaking the Marigny is the median between the Bywater and the French Quarter. In terms of the poverty rate, it is the near exact mean of the Bywater and the Quarter. As far as percentage of the population under $10,000, the rate drops by 5.9% from Bywater to Marigny but from there drops another 13.8% to the French Quarter. More or less, Bywater has less money than Marigny, and the Marigny has less money than the French Quarter. Housing costs reflect this. What is evident then is grouping by economic level. Houses are cheaper in the Bywater than in the French Quarter. The factor of affordability can in cases supersede other criteria of self-placement, i.e. similar cultural beliefs. The article Village Space: Fences and Neighborhoods states "In pluralistic societies, people tend to cluster in neighborhoods with people who have similar values and codes of behavior, as a way of reducing information overload" (Village Space, p3). I'm not saying people don't group themselves by cultural values and familiarity, however, even in a "pluralistic society", there are factors, i.e. affordability and exterior pressure, which heavily effect placement regardless of cultural feelings or associations.