[4] Due to its historical roots as a town housing railroad workers, Hillyard acquired a rather rough reputation, which lasts into recent decades.

(As recently as 1979, Daniel Leen described the Hillyard train yards in his book The Freighthoppers Manual for North America as having "the feel of warmed-over death.")

Many of the neighborhood's residents are descended from the railroad workers who started the town, but Hillyard is recently becoming a popular home for immigrants of Russian, Ukrainian, Micronesian, and Southeast Asian descent.

The downtown Hillyard business district, located on Market Street, has become Spokane's first neighborhood to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Immediately north of Francis Avenue is the semi-rural community of Morgan Acres, an area that was overlooked by homesteaders and developers due to its parched and dry landscape of sand dunes that is unable to retain rainwater.

[14] Half a mile to the north of Beacon Hill is Little Baldy, which rises to an even higher 2,664 feet, but its slopes flatten out before reaching into Hillyard proper.

[15][16] Hillyard is home to a diverse mix of land uses, including residential, commercial and industrial zones as well as open spaces and parkland.

Commercial and retail districts line Market Street and the Market/Haven couplet, with the Hillyard Corridor neighborhood center being located in the former.

[2] A three-to-four block wide swath of Hillyard running through the center of the neighborhood north to south is largely vacant, being the former site of the Great Northern rail yard.

[18] Another largely vacant area exists in the far southeast corner of Hillyard, east of Esmeralda Golf Course, rising along the slopes of Beacon Hill.

Cooper Elementary, located in the Minnehaha neighborhood to the south, serves a small area in the southern reach of Hillyard, next to Esmeralda Golf Course.

[20] St. Patrick's Catholic School operated in Hillyard for 100 years before closing in 2013 due to dwindling attendance numbers.

[22] Aside from the large vacant area in the north central portion of Hillyard, at the site of the former rail yard, almost all of the neighborhood aligns and connects with the city's street grid.

Francis and Wellesley Avenues stretch from Hillyard west across the entire north side of the city, and continue east to Orchard Prairie.