ABSTRACT
Downtown is an American term not much used in the Third World or in Europe (it is difficult to translate), yet is useful because vague enough to cover the CBD, the urban core, and the inner city (where this exists); and, in addition, the word offers a suggestion of relative distance from a periphery towards an urban centre. Perhaps it is wise to start by defining the terms just mentioned, and even wiser to follow the lead of H.W. Ter Hart (1967), who took advantage of an Amsterdam study week on the urban core to produce a list of multi-lingual equivalents. The definition of the CBD is however taken from the pioneer paper which initiated much geographical work in this area. https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
urban core:
hard core area and core fringe; or inner core area and outer frame (this is more extensive than the CBD) [all variously delimited] (cf. J. Rannels, 1956)
CBD:
central business district. ‘Here one finds the greatest concentration of offices and retail stores reflected in the city's highest land values and its tallest buildings’ (R.E. Murphy and J.E. Vance, 1954, 189). The definition adumbrates the Murphy-Vance delimitation method based on an intensity index and a height index (see below). (Note: V. Gruen, 1965, 47, feels that the term is misleading in that it implies that the heart of the city is meant only to serve business. It is perhaps rather the district of centralized business, but it is too late to change the name now.)
inner city:
part of the town formerly enclosed by walls. If this has ‘significant architectural qualities’ and ‘a continuing social life’, A. Papageorgiou (1971, 28) would use the term ‘historic urban centre’. Other types he recognizes under this heading are: (1) independent and monumental groups of buildings which resemble settlements; (2) small rural historic centres; and (3) medium-sized towns which reached a peak of growth in the past such that the past pattern has not been greatly affected by this century's explosive phases of urban growth (idem, 32-34).
downtown:
central zone [= vague, from the location of Wall Street near the southern tip of Manhattan Island; perhaps could be defined as the original urban core, based on commerce, plus any urban core encroachment over areas originally wholly residential.]
