Downtown

Downtown is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district (CBD). Downtowns typically contain a small percentage of a city’s employment. In some metropolitan areas it is marked by a cluster of tall buildings, cultural institutions and the convergence of rail transit and bus lines. In British English, the term "city centre" is most often used instead. The Oxford English Dictionary's first citation for "down town" or "downtown" dates to 1770, in reference to the center of Boston. Some have posited that the term "downtown" was coined in New York City, where it was in use by the 1830s to refer to the original town at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan. 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 and down was south. Thus, anything north of the original town became known as "uptown" (Upper Manhattan), 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). During the late 19th century, the term was gradually adopted by cities across the United States and Canada 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. Downtown lay to the south in Detroit, but to the north in Cleveland, to the east in St. Louis, and to the west in Pittsburgh. In Boston, a resident pointed out in 1880, downtown was in the center of the city.