''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in
American and
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the Variety (linguistics), varieties of English language, English used in Canada. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or ...
to refer to a city's sometimes
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services
** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money
* a dose of advertising ...
,
cultural
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...
and often the historical,
political
Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its
central business district
A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...
(CBD). It may also be a center for shopping and entertainment. Downtowns typically contain a small percentage of a city's employment but are concentrated in services, including high-end services (office or
white-collar jobs). Sometimes, smaller downtowns include lower population densities and nearby lower incomes than
suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
. It is often distinguished as a hub of public transit and culture.
History

Origins
The ''
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...
s first citation for "down town" or "downtown" dates to 1770, in reference to the center of
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
. Some have posited that the term "downtown" was coined in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
, where it was in use by the 1830s to refer to the original settlement, or
town
A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city.
The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...
, at the
southern tip of the island of
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
.
[Fogelson, p. 10.] As the town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow on the island was
toward the north, proceeding upriver from the original settlement, the "up" and "down" terminology coming from the customary map design in which up was
north
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography.
Etymology
T ...
and down was
south
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
.
Thus, anything north of the original town became known as "
uptown" (
Upper Manhattan
Upper Manhattan is the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary has been variously defined, but some of the most common usages are 96th Street, 110th Street (the northern boundary of Central Park), 1 ...
), and was generally a residential area, while the original town – which was also New York's only major center of business at the time – became known as "downtown" (
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...
).
During the late 19th century, the term was gradually adopted by cities across the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
to refer to the historical core of the city, which was most often the same as the
commercial heart of the city. "Uptown" also spread, but to a much lesser extent. In both cases, though, the directionality of both words was lost, so that a Bostonian might refer to going "downtown", even though it was north of where they were.
[Fogelson, p. 11.] Downtown lay to the south in Detroit
Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...
, but to the north in Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
, to the east in St. Louis, and to the west in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
. In Boston, a resident pointed out in 1880, downtown was in the center of the city. Uptown was north of downtown in Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...
, but south of downtown in New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
and San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
.
Notably, "downtown" was not included in dictionaries as late as the 1880s.
[Fogelson, p. 12.] But by the early 1900s, "downtown" was clearly established as the proper term in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
for a city's central business district, although the word was virtually unknown in Britain and Western Europe, where expressions such as "city centre" (British English), ''"el centro"'' (Spanish), ''"das Zentrum"'' (German), etc are used. Even as late as the early part of the 20th century, English travel writers felt it necessary to explain to their readers what "downtown" meant.
Although American downtowns lacked legally-defined boundaries, and were often parts of several of the wards that most cities used as their basic functional district, locating the downtown area was not difficult, as it was the place where all the
street railway
A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which Rolling stock, vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some ...
s and
elevated railway
An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train or el for short) is a railway with the Track (rail transport), tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast iron, concre ...
s converged, and – at least in most places – where the railroad terminals were. It was the location of the great department stores and hotels, as well as that of theaters, clubs, cabarets, and dance halls, and where skyscrapers were built once that technology was perfected. It was also frequently, at first, the only part of a city that was electrified. It was also the place where street congestion was the worst, a problem for which a solution was never really found.
But most of all, downtown was the place where the city did its business. Inside its small precincts, sometimes as small as several hundred acres, the majority of the trading, selling, and purchasing – retail and wholesale – in the entire area would take place. There were hubs of business in other places around the city and its environs, but the downtown area was the chief one, truly the central business district. And as more and more business was done downtown, those who had their homes there were gradually pushed out, selling their property and moving to quieter residential areas uptown.
Skyscrapers
The
skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Most modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise bui ...
would become the hallmark of the downtown area. Prior to the invention of the
elevator
An elevator (American English) or lift (Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive traction cables and counterweight systems suc ...
– and later the high-speed elevator – buildings were limited in height to about six stories, which was a ''de facto'' limit set by the amount of stairs it was assumed that people would climb, but with the elevator, that limit was shattered, and buildings began to be constructed up to about sixteen stories. What limited them then was the thickness of the masonry needed at the base to hold the weight of the building above it. As the buildings got taller, the thickness of the masonry and the space needed for elevators did not allow for sufficient rentable space to make the building profitable. What shattered that restriction was the invention of first the iron- and then the
steel frame
Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The develop ...
building, in which the building's load was carried by an internal metal frame skeleton, from which the masonry – and later glass – simply hung, without carrying any weight.
[
Although first used in Chicago, the steel-framed skyscraper caught on most quickly in New York City in the 1880s, and from there spread to most other American cities in the 1890s and 1900s. The apparent lack of a height limitation of this type of building set off a fervent debate over whether their height should be restricted by law, with proponents and opponents of height limits bringing out numerous arguments in favor of their position. The question of height limits also had a profound implication for the nature of downtown itself: would it continue to be a concentrated core, or as it grew, would height limits force it to spread out into a larger area.][Fogelson, pp. 114–38] In the short run, the proponents of height limits were successful in their efforts. By the 1910s, most of the large and medium-sized cities had height limits in effect, although New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis were notable exceptions.
Zoning
Ultimately, it was not simple height limits that restricted skyscrapers, but they were limited by comprehensive zoning laws which set up separate requirements for different parts of a city. Zoning rules would regulate not only height, but also a building's volume, the percentage of the lot used, and the amount of light the building blocked. Zoning regulations sometimes encouraged setbacks (step-like recessions in the outer wall, making higher-up segments of the building progressively narrower than the base) to reduce a building's bulk by allowing additional height per foot of setback – the exact amount depending on what zone the building was in. The ultimate effect of setbacks is to increase the sunlight and visible sky at street level. New York City was the first to do this, with the 1916 Zoning Resolution
The 1916 Zoning Resolution in New York City was the first citywide Zoning in the United States, zoning code in the United States. The zoning resolution reflected both Boroughs of New York City, borough and local interests, and was adopted primar ...
, which was prompted in large part by the construction of the Equitable Building in 1915. The Equitable Building was a 40-story building with straight sides and no setbacks, which raised fears of the downtown area becoming a maze of dark streets that never saw the sun. Worse yet, at least from a real estate perspective, this new building created 1.2 million square feet (111,000 m2) of office space, flooding into what was already a sluggish market. To many in the real estate industry, the zoning law was an example of a "reasonable restriction."
Once New York had passed its law, other cities followed, although proposed zoning measures did meet stiff resistance in some places, often because of the inclusion of overly restrictive height limits, and sometimes because the entire concept of zoning was seen as undemocratic and bordering on socialism
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
. Eventually, a model law, the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act of 1922 was drawn up for the guidance of cities wishing to enact zoning regulations, which are now part of virtually every American city.
Central business district
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the downtown area was ''the'' business district of the American city, but beginning around the 1920s and 1930s, as cities continued to grow in size and population, rival business districts began to appear outside of downtown in outlying districts. This was the time when the term "central business district
A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...
" began to appear as more-or-less synonymous with the downtown area. The phrase acknowledged the existence of other business districts in the city, but allocated to downtown the primacy of being "central", not only geographically, in many cities, but also in importance. And in many cases, the downtown area or central business district, itself began to grow, such as in Manhattan where the business district lower Manhattan and the newer one in midtown began to grow towards each other,[The movement of the two districts towards each other was stopped at first by the difficulty of building very tall buildings in the area between them, because the bedrock of Manhattan schist was so deep there, and later by zoning regulations. In effect then, contemporary Manhattan has ''two'' "central business districts", the one in Lower Manhattan, usually referred to as the ]Financial District
A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host ...
, and the one in midtown, usually called Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...
. "Downtown", therefore, is now primarily a direction, but can also be said to encompass most of Manhattan below Central Park
Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...
, even though this includes residential neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...
, Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...
, Chelsea, the Flatiron District
The Flatiron District is a neighborhood in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan of New York City, named after the Flatiron Building at 23rd Street (Manhattan), 23rd Street, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Generally ...
– located around one of the city's very first "skyscrapers", the 22-story Flatiron Building
The Flatiron Building, originally the Fuller Building, is a 22-story, steel-framed triangular building at 175 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. Designed by Daniel Burnham and Frederick P. Dinke ...
, and Gramercy Park
Gramercy ParkSometimes misspelled as Grammercy () is the name of both a small, fenced-in private park, and the surrounding neighborhood (which is also referred to as Gramercy), in Manhattan in New York City.
The approximately park, located ...
. or in Chicago, where downtown expanded from the Loop across the Chicago River
The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). The river is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chic ...
to Michigan Avenue. In fact, the instability of downtown was a cause for concern for business and real estate interests, as the business district refused to stay where it had been, and shifted its location in response to numerous factors, although it generally stayed fairly compact – in the early 1930s even the largest took up less than 2% of the city's space, and most were significantly smaller – and remained the primary business district of the city.
Real estate interests were particularly concerned about the tendency of downtown to move because the downtown area had by far the highest land values in each city. One commentator said that if Chicago's land values were shown as height on a relief map, the Loop would be equivalent to the peaks of the Himalayas compared to the rest of the city. In 1926, Chicago's central business district, which took up less than 1% of the city, had 20% of the city's land value. The same relationship was true in St. Louis in the mid-20s (20%) and Los Angeles in the early 1930s (17%). So when a downtown area started to shift its location, some property owners were bound to lose a great deal of money, while others would stand to gain.
Decentralization
One way in which downtown changed from the late 19th century to the early part of the 20th century was that industrial concerns began to leave downtown and move to the periphery of the city, which meant that downtown's businesses were chiefly part of the burgeoning service sector
The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the ...
. Brand new firms followed the older ones, and never came to downtown, settling at the edges of the city or the urban area. Industrial districts developed in these areas, which were sometimes specifically zoned for manufacturing. There, land was considerably cheaper than downtown, property taxes were lower, transportation of supplies and finished products was much easier without the constant congestion emblematic of downtown, and with the improvement of the telephone
A telephone, colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that enables two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most ...
system, the industrial firms could still keep in touch with the companies they did business with elsewhere. As a result of this migration, manufacturing was no longer a significant part of the downtown mix of businesses.
Another sector which began to move away from downtown even before the turn of the 20th century were the great cultural institutions: museums, symphony halls, main libraries and so on. Not only was the high cost of land downtown a factor, but these institutions wanted larger plots of land than were available there, so that their buildings could themselves be easily perceived as works of art. Organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, the New-York Historical Society
The New York Historical (known as the New-York Historical Society from 1804 to 2024) is an American history museum and library on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. It ...
, the American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
and the Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of the City of New York (MCNY) is a history and art museum in Manhattan, New York City, New York. It was founded by Henry Collins Brown, in 1923Beard, Rick. "Museum of the City of New York" in to preserve and present the history ...
, all in Manhattan, moved out of downtown, as did the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...
, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five (orchestras), Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in ...
, and the Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) is a major historical archive specializing in early American, Massachusetts, and New England history. The Massachusetts Historical Society was established in 1791 and is located at 1154 Boylston Street ...
in Boston, the Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
, the Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of modern art, ...
, the Detroit Public Library
The Detroit Public Library is the second largest library system in the U.S. state of Michigan by volumes held (after the University of Michigan Library) and the List of largest libraries in the United States, 12th-largest public library system i ...
and the Detroit Institute of Art
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) is a museum institution located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan. It has list of largest art museums, one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it cove ...
, and most of the cultural institutions in Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...
. Public reaction to these moves was mixed, with some bemoaning the loss of a counterbalance to the overall materialism of downtown, while others, particularly those involved in real estate, looked positively on the availability of the land which the cultural institutions left behind.
The loss of the major cultural institutions left downtown as a place primarily dedicated to business, but the loss of another sector, retail shopping, defined the ''type'' of business that was done there. The great retail outlets like the department stores had always had the tendency to move closer to the residential districts, to make it easier for their customers to get to them, but after 1920 they started to congregate in secondary business districts on the periphery of the city. The growth of chain stores such as J. C. Penney, F. W. Woolworth
Frank Winfield Woolworth (April 13, 1852 – April 8, 1919) was an American entrepreneur, the founder of F. W. Woolworth Company, and the operator of variety stores known as "Five-and-Dimes" (5- and 10-cent stores or dime stores) which featured a ...
, Kresge and W. T. Grant, contributed to the increased importance of the outlying shopping districts, which began outselling those retail stores which had remained in the central business district, and provoked those stores to open branches in the secondary districts in attempt to go to where there customers were instead of having them come downtown to them.
Entertainment venues also contributed to the decentralization of commerce which affected the importance and influence of downtown and the central business district. Theater
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...
s, vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...
houses, dance hall
Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for Dance, dancing, but usually refers to a specific type of twentieth-century venue, with dance clubs (nightclubs) becoming more popular towards the end of the century. The palais de danse was a term ap ...
s and night club
A nightclub or dance club is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a Bar (establishment), bar and discotheque (usually simply known as disco) with a dance floor, laser lighti ...
s had been primarily located in downtown, with nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...
s spread throughout the city. When film became the dominant medium, and exhibitors started to build movie theater
A movie theater (American English) or cinema (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), also known as a movie house, cinema hall, picture house, picture theater, the movies, the pictures, or simply theater, is a business ...
s to show them in, they at first built those venues downtown as well, but, as in retail shopping, chain exhibitors such as Loews began to construct them in locations convenient to the mass audience they were seeking; again, it was a matter of bringing their product to where the people were. By the late 1920s, movie houses outside of downtown far outnumbered those in the central district. Not all the movie theaters in the periphery were palaces
A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...
, but some were, and the net effect was that downtown was no longer the entertainment center of the city.
With the loss of manufacturing, the major cultural institutions, much of the retail shopping in the city, and its loss of status as the entertainment center, the nature of downtown had changed considerably. It was still the location of banks, stocks and commodity exchanges, law and accounting firms, the headquarters of the major industrial concerns and public utilities, insurance companies, and advertising agencies, and in its confines continued to be built new and taller skyscrapers housing offices, hotels and even department stores, but it was still steadily losing ground as decentralization took its toll. Its daytime population was not keeping pace with the population growth of the city around it, and property values, while continuing to rise, were not rising as fast as those in the secondary business districts. Downtown was still the central business district, and was still the most important area for doing business and commerce, but it was no longer as dominant as it once was.
Cause and effect
The causes of decentralization, which decreased the importance of downtown in the life of American cities, have been ascribed to many factors, including each city's normal growth patterns; advances in technology like the telephone, which made it easier for business-to-business intercourse to take place over a distance, thus lessening the need for a centralized commercial core; the rise of the private automobile, which allowed shoppers to go to peripheral business districts more easily; a strong increase in streetcar fares; and the continuing problem of congestion in the narrow streets of the downtown area.
As much as people disagreed about what caused decentralization, they were even less in agreement about how decentralization would affect the central business district, with opinions varying all the way from the belief that it would diminish downtown sufficiently that it would eventually consist of only offices and the headquarters of corporate giants, to the belief that decentralization would lead to the (perhaps deserved) death of downtown entirely as unnecessary, a victim of its untameable traffic congestion. In between were those who saw a diminishment of the area's influence, but not enough to prevent it from remaining the "Sun" that the outlying business districts revolved around. Others doubted whether decentralization had as strong an impact as it was credited with. Positions were taken that downtown was a natural part of the evolution of a city, or the unnatural result of a ''de facto'' conspiracy by merchants and property owners, so the question of what decentralization would do to downtown became bound up with the question about the area's legitimacy.
Decentralization also increased the incidences of rivalry between downtown and burgeoning business districts. In Los Angeles, for instance, downtown and Wilshire Boulevard battled for dominance, and in Cincinnati the rivalry was between the old downtown centered around Fountain Square and the one on Canal Street. The diminishment of downtown by decentralization caused these battles to be between areas that were now more relatively equal.
The Great Depression
Like almost every other aspect of American life, the Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
had a major effect on the country's downtown area. Downtown was just coming off a major building boom, in which significant amounts of new commercial and office space, hotels, and department stores had been built. By 1931 there were 89 buildings of 30 stories or more in Manhattan, and between 1925 and 1931, office space nearly doubled; in Chicago, it increased by almost 75%, in Philadelphia by almost two-thirds, and by more than 50% in New Orleans and Denver. In the 1920s, 500,000 additional hotel rooms were built in New York, and from 1927 to 1931 there were 84 large hotels built there, an increase of hotel space by two-thirds.
When the boom was over, and the Depression had begun to have its effect, much of this new space became unneeded excess. Owners of smaller buildings who could not keep a sufficient number of tenants to pay their overhead, tore down their buildings, but whereas in the recent past they would have been replaced with taller buildings, now they became one- and two-story parking garages or ground-level parking lots. These were widely known as "taxpayers", as they generated enough revenue for the owner of the lot to pay the taxes on it. Rents fell, sometimes as much as 30%, and non-payment of rent increased. Even with the "taxpayers" taking away commercial space, vacancy rates rose precipitously. Owners went into default, and downtown real estate lost considerable value: 25–30% in the Chicago Loop – although values in other parts of the city, including the outlying business districts, fared even worse.[
]
Department stores were hit hard; most managed to keep their doors open, but few made money. Hotels which needed to have large staffs, and required high occupancy rates to make a profit were also deeply affected; in Manhattan the hotel occupancy rate fell from 1929's 70% to around 50% in 1933. Room rates were slashed, revenue dropped, and many hotels closed or defaulted. By 1934, 80% of hotels in Manhattan were owned by their creditors.[Fogelson, pp. 218–21]
Recovery
The slow recovery from the effects of the Great Depression began in the mid-1930s, decelerated at the end of the 1930s, and picked up speed with the start of World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, so that by the early 1940s the country was for the most part out of the Depression. Excess commercial space began to be used, vacancy rates dropped, department store sales rose, hotel occupancy rates went up, and revenues increased.[Fogelson, pp. 221–26]
Despite this recovery, the daytime population of the country's downtowns did not rebound. For instance, in Chicago between 1929 and 1949, the population of the city grew 7%, and that of the entire metropolitan area by about 14%, but the daytime population of The Loop only rose 1/3 of 1%. With a few exceptions, such as New York City, this pattern was typical across American cities, and was tied to the slowing down of the rate of growth of the cities themselves. Cities in the US grew much more slowly than during any other period in the history of the country, and some even lost population. Metropolitan regions grew faster than the cities inside them, indicating the start of the decades of urban sprawl
Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city". Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted ...
, but they too grew at a slower pace than usual. Downtowns also had less daytime population because people now went to the outlying business districts, which were closer to their homes by car, for their shopping and entertainment, to do business, and to work. The increased use of automobiles over mass transit also damaged downtown, since the streetcar lines converged on downtown, while the roads went everywhere. All of these factors contributed to the lesser recovery of downtown relative to the city as a whole and the metropolitan area.
Another sign that downtowns were no longer as central to city life as they once were include the decreased portion of retail trade that took place there as compared to the peripheral business areas, which profited by the growth of the chain stores, to the detriment of the big downtown department stores. Furthermore, the "taxpayers", which many people had expected to disappear once the economy improved, remained in place, and even increased in number. In the Loop in Chicago, by the early 1940s, 18% of the land was vacant or was used for parking; in Los Angeles at the same time, the figure was 25%. Demand for commercial space was so light that it did not make financial sense to construct expensive new buildings, and banks began to refuse to make loans for that purpose, redlining
Redlining is a Discrimination, discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of Race (human categorization), racial and Ethnic group, ethnic minorities. Redlining has been mos ...
whole neighborhoods in the central business district.
Characteristics
The typical American downtown has certain unique characteristics. During the postwar economic boom in the 1950s, the residential population of most downtowns crashed. This has been attributed to reasons such as slum clearance
Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low-income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...
, construction of the Interstate Highway System
The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Hi ...
, and white flight
The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...
from urban cores to rapidly expanding suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
s. Due to well-intended but ineptly executed urban revitalization projects, downtowns eventually came to be dominated by high-rise office buildings in which commuters from the suburbs filled white-collar jobs, while the remaining residential populations sank further into unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. By the 1990s, many office-oriented businesses began to abandon the tired old downtowns for the suburbs, resulting in what are now known as "edge cities
An edge city is a concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment outside a traditional downtown or central business district, in what had previously been a suburban, residential or rural area. The term was popularized by the 1991 boo ...
". One textbook, in explaining why edge cities are so popular, stated:
Since then, between 2000 and 2010, downtown areas grew rapidly in population. In U.S. metro areas with at least five million people, the population within two miles of the city hall grew twice as fast as the overall population in the metro area.
Relative geography
The terms ''downtown'' and ''uptown'' can refer to cardinal direction
The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the four main compass directions: north (N), south (S), east (E), and west (W). The corresponding azimuths ( clockwise horizontal angle from north) are 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°.
The ...
s, for example, in Manhattan, where ''downtown'' is also a relative geographical term. Anything south of where the speaker is currently standing, in most places, is said to be ''downtown''. Anything north of the speaker is ''uptown''. In the common New York City phrase "We're going to take the subway downtown", ''downtown'' refers to traveling in the geographic direction of south. A person standing on 121st Street and walking ten blocks south could also be said to have walked ten blocks downtown. The term ''uptown'' is used to refer to the cardinal direction north. Such concepts derive from Manhattan's elongated shape, running roughly north–south and nowhere more than wide. As such, transportation on the island travels in the uptown/downtown directions. The other boroughs
A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
...
are wider, and "downtown" there refers to Lower Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn is the third-largest central business district in New York City (after Midtown Manhattan, Midtown and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighb ...
, or some more local business district. Mercantile efforts to promote the South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...
as "Downtown Bronx" have met with little success.[Feuer, Alan (June 23, 2008]
"Washing 'South' Out of Bronx Mouths; Hoping That 'Downtown Bronx' Will Sound More Uptown"
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''
In some North American cities, ''downtown'' is the formal name of the neighborhood in which the city's central business district is located. Most major North American cities are located on major bodies of water, like oceans, lakes, and rivers. As cities expanded, people built further away from the water and their historical cores, often uphill. Thus the central business district of a North American city, or the historical core of the city, is often located "down", in altitude, relative to the remainder of the city. Many cities use the Manhattan model and continue to use ''downtown'', ''midtown'', and ''uptown'' both as informal relative geographical terms and as formal names for distinct districts. However, the city of Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...
uses the designation Center City, not downtown, due to the business district's central location, as well as Philadelphia's age and circumstances; "Center City" corresponds to the City of Philadelphia prior to its amalgamation with Philadelphia County
Philadelphia County is the most populous of the 67 counties of Pennsylvania and the 24th-most populous county in the nation. As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 1,603,797. It is coextensive with Philadelphia, the nation's ...
in 1854
Events
January–March
* January 4 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the ''Samarang''.
* January 6 – The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is perhaps born.
* January 9 – The Te ...
, leaving it without a unique name, unlike the former boroughs surrounding it; the center of the city is also where Philadelphia City Hall
Philadelphia City Hall is the seat of the municipal government of the City of Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Built in the ornate Second Empire style, City Hall houses the chambers of the Philadelphia City Council and the office ...
is located within the city's original plat
In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...
. New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
uses the term Central Business District
A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...
(or CBD) for its downtown due to the French Quarter
The French Quarter, also known as the (; ; ), is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans () was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Square" in English), a ...
and other historic neighborhoods downriver from the CBD being referred to as "downtown".
Major downtowns
United States
(50 most populous American cities)
* Downtown Albuquerque
Downtown Albuquerque is the central business district of Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. It is where a significant number of the city's highrise buildings are located, and is the center of government and business for the Greater Alb ...
* Downtown Arlington, Texas
* Downtown Atlanta
Downtown Atlanta is the central business district of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The largest of the city's three commercial districts (Midtown Atlanta, Midtown and Buckhead being the others), it is the location of many corporate and region ...
* Downtown Austin
Downtown Austin is the central business district of Austin, Texas, United States. The area of the district is bound by Lamar Boulevard to the west, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (Austin), Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north, Inte ...
* Downtown Baltimore
Downtown Baltimore is the central business district of the Baltimore, city of Baltimore traditionally bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard (Baltimore), Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard to the west, List of streets in Baltimore#F, Frank ...
* Downtown Boston
Downtown Boston is the central business district of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Boston was founded in 1630. The largest of the city's commercial districts, Downtown is the location of many corporate or regional headquarters; city, c ...
* Financial District, Boston
The Financial District of Boston is located in Downtown Boston, near Government Center and Chinatown.
Like many areas within Boston, the Financial District has no official definition. It is roughly bounded by Atlantic Avenue, State Street, ...
* Uptown Charlotte
Uptown Charlotte, also called Center City, is the central business district of Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. The area is split into four wards by the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets, and bordered by Interstate 277 and Int ...
* Chicago Loop
The Loop is Chicago's central business district and one of the city's 77 municipally recognized Community areas in Chicago, community areas. Located at the center of downtown Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is the second-largest busi ...
* Downtown Colorado Springs
* Downtown Columbus
* Downtown Denver
Downtown Denver is the main financial, commercial, business, and entertainment district in Denver, Colorado, United States. There is over of office space in downtown Denver, with 132,000 workers.
The downtown area consists mostly of the neigh ...
* Downtown Detroit
Downtown Detroit is the central business district and a Neighborhoods in Detroit, residential area of the city of Detroit, Michigan, United States. Locally, "downtown" tends to refer to the 1.4 square mile region bordered by M-10 (Michigan high ...
* Downtown Dallas
Downtown Dallas is the central business district (CBD) of Dallas, Texas, United States, located in the geographic center of the city. It is the second-largest business district in the state of Texas. The area termed "Downtown" has traditionally ...
* Downtown El Paso
Downtown El Paso is the central business district of El Paso, Texas.
Historical downtown
James Day, an El Paso historian, said that downtown's main business area was originally centered between Second Street and San Francisco Street. At a lat ...
* Downtown Fort Worth
Downtown Fort Worth is the central business district of Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Most of Fort Worth's tallest buildings and skyscrapers are located downtown.
Attractions
Sundance Square
Sundance Square began as an effort by Sid Bass ...
* Downtown Fresno
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American English, American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart. It is often syn ...
* Downtown Houston
Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...
* Downtown Indianapolis
Downtown Indianapolis is a neighborhood area in and the central business district of Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Downtown is bordered by Interstate 65 in Indiana, Interstate 65, Interstate 70 in Indiana, Interstate 70, and the White ...
* Downtown Jacksonville
Downtown Jacksonville is the historic core and central business district (CBD) of Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It comprises the earliest area of the city to be developed and is located in its geographic center along the narrowing point ...
* Downtown Kansas City
Downtown Kansas City is the central business district (CBD) of Kansas City, Missouri and the Kansas City metropolitan area which contains 3.8% of the area's employment. It is between the Missouri River in the north, to 31st Street in the south; ...
* Downtown Las Vegas
Downtown Las Vegas (commonly abbreviated as DTLV) is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is the original townsite, and the Downtown gaming Las Vegas, Downtown Gaming Area was the primary gambl ...
* Downtown Long Beach
Downtown Long Beach, California, United States is the location for most of the city's major tourist attractions, municipal services and for numerous businesses. There are many hotels and restaurants in the area that serve locals, tourists, and c ...
* Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...
* Downtown Louisville
Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Kentucky, Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, ...
* Downtown Memphis
Downtown Memphis is the central business district of Memphis, Tennessee, and is located along the Mississippi River between Interstate 40 to the north, Interstate 55 to the south, and Interstate 240 (Tennessee), Interstate 240 to the east, where ...
* Downtown Mesa
* Downtown Miami
Downtown Miami is the urban city center of Miami, Florida, United States. The city's greater downtown region consists of the Central Business District, Brickell, the Historic District, Government Center, the Arts & Entertainment District, and ...
* Downtown Milwaukee
Downtown Milwaukee is the central business district of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The economic and symbolic center of the city and the Milwaukee metropolitan area, it is Milwaukee's oldest district and home to many of region's cultural, financial ed ...
* Downtown Minneapolis
Central is a defined community in Minneapolis that consists of six smaller official neighborhoods around the downtown and central business core. It also includes the many old flour mills, the Mill District, and other historical and industri ...
* Downtown Nashville
Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, located on the Cumberland River. Nashville had a population of 689,447 at the 20 ...
* Downtown New Orleans
In New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, downtown has historically referred to neighborhoods along the Mississippi River, downriver (roughly northeast) from Canal Street, New Orleans, Canal Street – including the French Quarter, Tremé, ...
* Midtown Manhattan
Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan, serving as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Building, the ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
* Financial District
A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
* Downtown Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn is the third-largest central business district in New York City (after Midtown Manhattan, Midtown and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighb ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
* Downtown Oakland
Downtown Oakland is the central business district of Oakland, California, United States. It is located roughly bounded by both the Oakland Estuary and Interstate 880 (California), Interstate 880 on the southwest, Interstate 980 on the north ...
* Downtown Oklahoma City
Downtown Oklahoma City is located at the geographic center of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area and contains the principal, central business district of the region. Downtown has over 80,000 workers and over of leasable office space to-date. D ...
* Downtown Omaha
Downtown Omaha is the central business, government and social core of the Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area, U.S. state of Nebraska. The boundaries are Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha's 20th Street on the west to the Missouri River on the east ...
* Center City, Philadelphia
Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the ci ...
* Downtown Phoenix
Downtown Phoenix is the central business district (CBD) of the City of Phoenix, Arizona, United States. It is in the heart of the Phoenix metropolitan area or Valley of the Sun. Phoenix, being the county seat of Maricopa County, Arizona, ...
* Downtown Portland
Downtown Portland is the central business district of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildi ...
* Downtown Raleigh
* Downtown Sacramento
Downtown Sacramento is the central business district of the city of Sacramento, California, United States. Downtown is generally defined as the area south of the American River, east of the Sacramento River, north of Broadway, and west of 16th S ...
* Downtown Saint Paul
Downtown Saint Paul is the central business district of Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Its boundaries are the Mississippi River to the south, University Avenue to the north, US 52 to the east, and Kellogg Boulevard to the west. It is b ...
* Downtown San Antonio
Downtown San Antonio is the central business district of San Antonio, Texas, and the urban core of Greater San Antonio, a metropolitan area with nearly 2.5 million people.
Downtown San Antonio is encircled by Texas State Highway Loop 1604, 16 ...
* Downtown San Diego
Downtown San Diego is the central business district of San Diego, California, the eighth largest city in the United States. It houses the major local headquarters of the city, county, state, and federal governments. The area comprises seven d ...
* Downtown San Francisco
The Financial District is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, United States, that serves as its main central business district and had 372,829 jobs according to U.S. census tracts as of 2012–2016. It is home to the city's largest con ...
* Downtown San Jose
Downtown San Jose is the central business district of San Jose, California, San Jose, California, United States. Downtown is one of the largest tech Business cluster, clusters in Silicon Valley, as well as the cultural and political center of Sa ...
* Downtown Seattle
Downtown is the central business district of Seattle, Washington. It is fairly compact compared with other city centers on the U.S. West Coast due to its geographical situation, being hemmed in on the north and east by hills, on the west by ...
* Downtown Tampa
Downtown Tampa is the central business district of Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and the chief financial district of the Tampa Bay Area.
It is second only to Westshore, Tampa, Westshore regarding employment in the area. Compani ...
* Downtown Tucson
* Downtown Tulsa
Downtown Tulsa is an area of approximately surrounded by an inner-dispersal loop created by Interstate 244, U.S. Route 64 in Oklahoma, US 64 and U.S. Route 75 in Oklahoma, US 75. The area serves as Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tulsa's financial and business ...
* Downtown Virginia Beach
* Downtown, Washington, D.C.
* Downtown Wichita
Canada
* Downtown Calgary
Downtown Calgary is a dense urban district in central Calgary, Alberta. It contains the second largest concentration of head offices in Canada, despite only being the country's fourth largest city in terms of population. The downtown is divided in ...
* Downtown Edmonton
Downtown Edmonton is the central business district of Edmonton, Alberta. Located at the geographical centre of the city, the downtown area is bounded by 109 Street to the west, 105 Avenue to the north, 97 Street to the east, 97 Avenue and Rossdale ...
* Downtown Halifax
Downtown Halifax is the primary central business district of the Municipality of Halifax. Located on the central-eastern portion of the Halifax Peninsula, on Halifax Harbour. Along with Downtown Dartmouth, and other de facto central business di ...
* Downtown Montreal
Downtown Montreal (French language, French: ''Centre-Ville de Montréal'') is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The district is situated on the southernmost slope of Mount Royal, and occupies the western portion of the ...
* Downtown Ottawa
Downtown Ottawa is the central area of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is sometimes referred to as the Central Business District and contains Ottawa's financial district. It is bordered by the Ottawa River to the north, the Rideau Canal to the east, ...
* Downtown St. John's
* Downtown Brampton
* Downtown Toronto
Downtown Toronto is the main city centre of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Street to the nor ...
* Downtown Vancouver
Downtown Vancouver is the central business district and the city centre list of neighbourhoods in Vancouver, neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada, on the northwestern shore of the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. ...
* Downtown Victoria
Downtown Victoria is a neighbourhood of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada that serves as the city centre and the central business district for the City of Victoria, and the Greater Victoria regions.
Characteristics
The downtown area is an ex ...
* Downtown Winnipeg
Downtown Winnipeg is an area of Winnipeg located near the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. It is the oldest urban area in Winnipeg, and is home to the city's commercial core, city hall, the ...
File:Financial District, Toronto.jpg, Downtown Toronto
Downtown Toronto is the main city centre of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Street to the nor ...
, Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
File:Montreal skyline September 2013 crop.jpg, Downtown Montreal
Downtown Montreal (French language, French: ''Centre-Ville de Montréal'') is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The district is situated on the southernmost slope of Mount Royal, and occupies the western portion of the ...
, Quebec
Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...
File:Downtownbramp.jpg, Downtown Brampton, Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
File:Downtown Hdr (238713623).jpeg, Downtown Vancouver
Downtown Vancouver is the central business district and the city centre list of neighbourhoods in Vancouver, neighbourhood of Vancouver, Canada, on the northwestern shore of the Burrard Peninsula in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. ...
, British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
File:Downtown Calgary 2020-2.jpg, Downtown Calgary
Downtown Calgary is a dense urban district in central Calgary, Alberta. It contains the second largest concentration of head offices in Canada, despite only being the country's fourth largest city in terms of population. The downtown is divided in ...
, Alberta
Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
See also
* Concentric zone model
The concentric zone model, also known as the Burgess model or the CCD model, is one of the earliest theoretical models to explain urban social structures. It was created by sociologist Ernest Burgess in 1925.
The model
Based on human ecology ...
* High Street
High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...
* Inner city
The term inner city (also called the hood) has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Soc ...
* Main Street
* Urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation in British English) is the population shift from Rural area, rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. ...
Notes
References
Bibliography
* Fogelson, Robert M. (2003)
''Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880–1950''
New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. .
External links
*
International Downtown Association
.
{{Authority control
Cities
Neighbourhoods
Urban studies and planning terminology
Articles containing video clips