I think most of the time it’s just a contrivance to make a place sound fancier. Washington Heights sounds fancier than calling it Washington Drainage Basin. It really doesn’t usually have anything to do with the actual elevation of the property.
Brickton definitely lacks much charm as a town name. Most of Utah (where I am) could be called Granitetown for all the granite dug up and used in buildings here. There’s a huge quarry where they used to dig up building material, now it’s a very fancy and upscale area that costs mega $$ - just to live next to a big pit in the ground.
That’s generally how it’s used in Australia. There will be an existing suburb named ‘generic suburb’, and developers will come and build a new housing development full of cookie cutter houses on 300m2 blocks with their gutters near touching eachother and call it ‘generic suburb heights’ as an attempt to give the schmucks that buy there some sort of feeling of prestige over the older neighbourhood with larger block sizes and more human compatible dwellings.
Other guy in here nailed it with the British origins but for some reason he’s been downvoted.
Because he put in the same comment, that high street and highway are called that way because they where elevated over the other streets, which is nonsense.
In fact, high street/highway are that way, because in Old English high didn’t only denote elevation, but also a high status/rank/importance.
Modern English still uses that meaning, but it’s rarer nowadays. For example, high society, high sheriff or high priest aren’t called that because they are tall.
High is also used with a lot of words where elevation doesn’t matter: high rank, high value and so on.
I think most of the time it’s just a contrivance to make a place sound fancier. Washington Heights sounds fancier than calling it Washington Drainage Basin. It really doesn’t usually have anything to do with the actual elevation of the property.
there is a town in illinois that was called brickton because chicago brick was dug up there. Now its a hoity toity suburb called park ridge.
Brickton definitely lacks much charm as a town name. Most of Utah (where I am) could be called Granitetown for all the granite dug up and used in buildings here. There’s a huge quarry where they used to dig up building material, now it’s a very fancy and upscale area that costs mega $$ - just to live next to a big pit in the ground.
Washington Heights in NYC, at any rate, is physically high in elevation, and it’s not a particularly fancy area at all.
That’s generally how it’s used in Australia. There will be an existing suburb named ‘generic suburb’, and developers will come and build a new housing development full of cookie cutter houses on 300m2 blocks with their gutters near touching eachother and call it ‘generic suburb heights’ as an attempt to give the schmucks that buy there some sort of feeling of prestige over the older neighbourhood with larger block sizes and more human compatible dwellings.
Other guy in here nailed it with the British origins but for some reason he’s been downvoted.
Because he put in the same comment, that high street and highway are called that way because they where elevated over the other streets, which is nonsense.
In fact, high street/highway are that way, because in Old English high didn’t only denote elevation, but also a high status/rank/importance.
Modern English still uses that meaning, but it’s rarer nowadays. For example, high society, high sheriff or high priest aren’t called that because they are tall.
High is also used with a lot of words where elevation doesn’t matter: high rank, high value and so on.