Peppered with century-old birch and popular trees, the southwest neighbourhood of Britannia offers old-world charm and a magical aesthetic.

Drawing a line down Elbow Drive from north to south traces a rough timeline of Calgary community creation. This one road spans nearly 60 years of development – starting with some of Calgary's earliest, inner-city neighbourhoods and ending with several of the
1960s-era suburbs that now make up the city's middle ring. Here are the communities that  fall within the city's Elbow Drive corridor.

A special stretch of residential development in Calgary, including communities that took root more than 100 years ago, continues to be a treasure trove for today's high-end homebuyers.

Throughout the past 39 years living in Calgary, I've always been fascinated by one roadway in the city: Elbow Drive.

It very well might be my favourite road to travel by vehicle, with its picturesque views of the river, parks, commercial development and interesting homes.

Middle-ring neighbourhoods offer perfect balance of suburban charm and inner-city convenience

Between the inner city and the burgeoning suburbs lie Calgary's so-called "middle-ring neighbourhoods," a concept explored in a 2010 study by the University of Calgary's faculty of environmental design.

As the study describes, Calgary's 80 middle-ring neighbourhoods – which include communities like Acadia, Glamorgan and Huntington Hills – are those developed between the 1950s and 1970s and "poised to undergo redevelopment."

Canyon Meadows, established in 1963, is one such community. When Gurmit Bhachu, the current president of the Canyon Meadows Community Association, moved to Calgary in 2004, he and his wife looked for a home.