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Dickens is a small neighbourhood in East Vancouver, Canada.
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Boundary
Its areas is from East 12th Avenue (northern boundary) to King Edward Avenue (southern boundary) and from Fraser Street (western boundary) to Knight Street (eastern boundary). Kingsway runs diagonally through the neighbourhood.
The neighbourhood lies within the city-defined community of Kensington-Cedar Cottage.
The area is named after the schools in the area, both named Dickens (Charles Dickens Elementary School and its Annex), which are rated one of the top forty schools in Canada. (broken link)
Amenities
Parks in the Dickens area include Glen Park (adjacent to Charles Dickens Annex) and Sunnyside Park (adjacent to Charles Dickens Elementary). The Windsor Way bike path travels past both schools and provides a traffic-calmed north-south route through the neighbourhood.
The community library is on Knight Street and is part of the King Edward Village condo-shopping project.
The City of Vancouver has recently invested $2.7 million in traffic-calming and beautification measures in the area. This includes improved sidewalks and streetlights, new street trees, sidewalk benches, and others.
Active community association
An active neighbourhood association (the Dickens Community Group) works to improve the area.
Activities include community gardening projects, working with city planners on zoning and related issues, garbage clean-ups, hosting celebrations (such as the annual Dickens Multi-Cultural Festival or "music in the park" evenings) and community-safety foot patrols. A running group ("Run like the Dickens") was started in 2006. All events are led by local residents.