Hyde Park/SoHo isn’t exactly one neighborhood.

In fact, it’s three, if you go by the boundaries set by neighborhood associations (and that’s not even including the area called North Hyde Park above Kennedy). And South Howard Avenue — the core of the SoHo entertainment district — passes through (or borders upon) four neighborhoods between Kennedy and Bayshore, none of them Hyde Park.

But I hope we can be forgiven for pairing the two. Because the close proximity of historic houses to busy nightclubs, of tree-lined residential streets to traffic-heavy main drags, is part of what distinguishes this area as uniquely and attractively urban. Some tensions arise from that closeness, of course (see Mitch Perry’s story), but these varied environments also complement each other. And they’re all located in an area that is, for Tampa, unusually walkable.

Moms with strollers can take a morning constitutional to Kate Jackson Park, join their gal pals for brunch at Piquant, shop in Hyde Park Village and never fire up the SUV once. Clubhoppers can hop the clubs up and down South Howard without risking a DUI, assuming one of them orders a taxi to get home, as Leilani Polk and crew did after their own SoHo adventure. (Just make sure you have the money to pay for it, a lesson painfully learned by Daniel Figueroa.)

And anyone and everyone can walk, run or blade down Bayshore.

Hyde Park has gone through periods as middle-class haven (see Julie Garisto’s history) and down-market bohemia (see stories by Linda Saul-Sena and Scott Harrell), and is now what you could call an aspirational community — as in, many aspire to live there, but few can afford it. That was my story when I first moved to Tampa Bay 10 years ago with my partner (now husband).

But even now that we’re happily ensconced in St. Pete, I roam the leafy lanes of Hyde Park with wonder at what a goddamned beautiful residential neighborhood it is. The sense of history, the generous proportions of the houses and their wide porches, the ancient trees — it is not what I thought Tampa would look like, if I’d had any notion of Tampa at all, and I still wonder whether the world has gotten the word of how beautiful this city can be.

And that it is a city — that like NY and Philly and Boston and San Francisco, it has urban villages where everything you need is close by, and you have choices — bookstores and bars, gourmet restaurants and friendly dives, peaceful parks and crowded parking lots — a place where even the chains have character, or characters (e.g., the cross-section of caffeinated humanity that passes daily through SoHo’s Panera and Starbucks).

As always with our Neighborhood Guides, we’ve included Destination Guide with quick tips on where to eat and drink and what to do, as well as more in-depth stories you can linger over — whether you’re hanging out in Bern’s Park, or Daily Eats, or, if you’re lucky, on your own Hyde Park porch.

Have fun choosing.

This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2014.