The character of Piedmont, Duluth, Minnesota

Piedmont is quiet, wooded, and vertical. The residential streets carry little through traffic because they do not lead anywhere except further up the hill, and the tree cover on the upper blocks is heavy enough that houses disappear from view a short distance apart.

The neighborhood's rhythm is set by the trails and the weather. On a summer evening there are bikes on Piedmont Avenue heading up to the trailhead. In winter the same people are on fat bikes or skis. It is a genuinely outdoor-oriented population in a way that is visible from the street, with bike racks, ski boxes, and gear on decks.

Views are the other constant. From the upper streets the harbor, the ore docks, the bridges, and the St. Louis River estuary lay out below, and the light on that view at the end of a summer day is one of the underrated pleasures of living on this side of the city.

There is no commercial center and no gathering place beyond the trailhead, so social life here runs through the trails, the school, and increasingly the Craft District downhill.

The streetscape itself is unremarkable and residents mostly do not mind. This is postwar housing on hard ground, tidy rather than picturesque, and the neighborhood's pleasures are the view from the deck and the trail at the top of the road rather than anything you would photograph from the sidewalk.

Character next door

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