Single-Family House Values in Metropolitan Halifax, 1981

The overall pattern of home values in metropolitan Halifax has been strongly influenced by the early (mid-nineteenth-century) establishment of a prestige sector in the South End. This sector failed to develop outward due to the barrier of the Northwest Arm, which, paradoxically, was not bridged, since to have done so would have marred the original attraction of the sector. While nearly all ‘exclusive’ housing remains in pockets on or near the Arm, new prestige housing areas have been developed in the suburbs, wherever fine settings and the absence of wartime shacks allow. In particular, the presence of extensive ‘low-value’ tracts south of Armdale has forced most new high-value developments in Halifax to the north mainland. Finally, while public housing has tended only to reinforce the low-value pattern established by 1950, publicly funded land developments, particularly Forest Hills, have created large peripheral areas of below-median value.