Neighbourhoods

Boise’s core follows a simple grid laid out in the 1860s: numbered streets run north-south, named streets run east-west, and the whole pattern is cut through by one diagonal-feeling exception, Capitol Boulevard. Around that grid, the city rises onto river-carved terraces called benches, which is why “up on the Bench” is a real direction here, … Read more

The Depot Bench is a residential neighborhood in Boise that sits on the raised terrace, or “bench,” immediately south of downtown, taking its name from the Boise Depot (also called the Union Pacific Depot), the landmark train station that anchors its northern edge. It is one of the city’s officially recognized neighborhood associations, distinct from … Read more

Boise, Meridian and Eagle are three separate, independently incorporated cities that sit next to one another in Ada County, Idaho. Boise is the state capital and the largest of the three, built where the Boise River meets the foothills. Meridian lies west of Boise on flatter valley ground and has grown fastest. Eagle sits northwest … Read more

The Central Bench is a mostly residential district on the elevated terrace of land that rises south of the Boise River and downtown Boise. It is one of the city’s officially recognized neighborhood associations, sitting roughly in the middle of a wider landform — the Bench — that stretches across the south side of the … Read more

West Boise is the broad, largely residential and commercial section of the city stretching from around Curtis Road west toward the Ada–Canyon county line, bounded by the Boise River and Garden City to the north and by the Boise Bench and Interstate 84 to the south. Most of it grew from irrigated farmland into subdivisions … Read more

What is Southeast Boise like? Southeast Boise is a largely residential district that follows the south bank of the Boise River east from Boise State University toward Barber Valley. It combines one of the city’s oldest streets, Warm Springs Avenue, with newer subdivisions further out, and it is threaded almost end to end by the … Read more

Bown Crossing is a small, mixed-use commercial center in East Boise, built in a walkable style with shops, restaurants and offices at street level and apartments, condominiums or upper-floor offices above them. It sits on Warm Springs Avenue at its junction with Bown Way, a short distance from the Boise River Greenbelt and the growing … Read more

What is Harris Ranch and the Barber Valley? The Barber Valley is a stretch of the Boise River corridor on the city’s southeast edge, upstream from the East End. Harris Ranch is the large, master-planned residential and mixed-use development built inside that valley over the past two decades, on land that was ranch and mill … Read more

Garden City is a small, independent municipality that sits entirely inside the metropolitan footprint of Boise, along the Boise River northwest of downtown, with its own mayor, city council, and city services. It is a separate city — not a Boise neighborhood — because it incorporated on its own in the mid-20th century and never … Read more

Downtown Boise is the city’s original street grid and civic core, laid out around the mid-1800s townsite between the Boise River and the base of the foothills. It has no single fixed legal boundary. Most residents and city documents treat it as the area roughly bounded by the river to the south, Americana Boulevard to … Read more