An upper middle-class residential district, the area generally contains a mixture of terraced townhouses with private communal gardens, detached villas with private grounds and a number of four-storey tenement buildings.

Dowanhill's postcode district, G12, is the most expensive in Glasgow, beating the average property price of second place, G3, by more than £100,000 as of 2022.

[citation needed] In 1869 Jefferson Davis, the only president of the Confederate States of America, stayed in Dowanhill while visiting the Glasgow merchant James Smith.

Captain 'Boss' Young established the troop in 1907 and the group was registered with Scout HQ, London on 16 January 1908.

[4] 35 Saltoun Street, the building depicted in the 1993 painting Windows in the West, is located in Dowanhill.