New Haven
About New Haven
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New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut, after Bridgeport. It is in New Haven County, on New Haven Harbor, on the northern coast of Long Island Sound.
Founded in 1638, New Haven could be considered to be the oldest formally planned community in the United States due to the original grid of four streets by four streets. This created what is now commonly known as the “Nine Squares,” now the center of Downtown New Haven.
The city is best known as the home of Yale University but also lays claim to being the birthplace of American football, the Frisbee flying toy, the nation’s first defense contractor and large-scale interchangable parts manufacturer (Eli Whitney), and, according to the proprietors’ claims, both American pizza (see Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana) and the modern hamburger (see Louis’ Lunch). Along with Yale University, healthcare (hospitals, biotechnology), business, financial services and retail trade form the base of the economy. Since the mid-1990s, the city’s downtown area and many of its neighborhoods have seen extensive revitalization.
New Haven has a long tradition of urban planning and a purposeful design of the city’s layout. Upon founding, New Haven was laid out in a grid plan of nine square blocks; the central square was left open, in the tradition of many New England towns, as the city green (a commons area). The New Haven Green is currently home to three separate historic churches which speak to the original theocratic nature of the city. The Green remains the social center of the city today. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1970.
Albeit modest in scale, with nearly 6,000 residents per square kilometer, Downtown New Haven, which wraps around the Green, is one of the densest downtown areas in the United States according to a Federal report. The downtown provides about half of the city’s jobs and half of its tax base, and in recent years has become filled with many new upscale restaurants, several of which have garnered national praise (such as Ibiza, recognized by Esquire and Wine Spectator magazines as well as the New York Times as the best Spanish food in the country), in addition to shops and thousands of apartments and condominium units.
The city has many distinct neighborhoods despite its relatively compact size. In addition to Downtown, centered on the central business district and the Green, are the following neighborhoods: the west central neighborhoods of Dixwell and Dwight; the southern neighborhoods of The Hill, historic water-front City Point (or Oyster Point), and the harborside district of Long Wharf; the western neighborhoods of Edgewood-West River, Westville, Amity, and West Rock-Westhills; East Rock and a smaller part of East Rock is the Cedar Hill Area, Prospect Hill, and Newhallville in the northern side of town; the east central neighborhoods of Mill River and Wooster Square, an Italian-American neighborhood; Fair Haven, located between the Mill and Quinnipiac rivers; Quinnipiac Meadows and Fair Haven Heights across the Quinnipiac River; and facing the eastern side of the harbor, The Annex and Morris Cove.