Location: The West Village is everything west of Sixth Avenue, from Houston to 14th street. Essentially, the West Village is the original Greenwich Village. The need for the modifier ("West") is a relatively new thing resulting from the emergence of the Eastern counterpart, the East Village.

There is a certain degree of ambiguity as to whether the West Village includes the area around NYU - i.e. Fifth avenue and University Place (a.k.a. the Central Village). Our panel of experts maintains that it doesn't.

Demographics: The population stands at about 72,000. Although the West Village used to be visibly gay, in the last few years young families (often with children) started to take over as the neighborhood's most "visible" constituency. As far as the social makeup is concerned, the majority could easily qualify as affluent. Real estate prices here are among the highest in Manhattan, not to mention other boroughs.

In the past, the area was considered a natural place to live for intellectuals of all kinds (the literary kind in particular), but nowadays it would be difficult to find any full-time writers who could afford living there. Stockbrokers and media/adverising executives probably have a much better shot.