Central business district
Encyclopedia : C : CE : CEN : Central business district
- "City center" redirects here. For the performing arts venue, see New York City Center.
Central business district (CBD) and downtown are terms referring to a commercial heart of a city. Downtown is the usual term in North America. In the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland, parts of South Africa and New Zealand, the term "central business district" is used by geographers and sometimes by others, but the term city centre is much more common in colloquial usage. City centre is also a term used in some urban areas of Canada. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Canada and New Zealand, the term is often just shortened to the single word "city" in general conversation among residents of a city, giving rise to the phrase "going to the city". One exception is in London where "the City" specifically refers to the City of London financial district rather than to any other part of central London. Some cities in the United States have a mixed use district known as uptown near the downtown area (in Minneapolis, for example, Uptown is a district nearly adjacent to downtown, centered around the Uptown Theater on the intersection of Lagoon St. and Hennepin Ave.) On the other hand, in some cities, like Charlotte, North Carolina, uptown is simply the historic name for the business center. In Waterloo, ON, the downtown area with prime shopping is called Uptown Waterloo to distinguish it from the downtown in Kitchener, Ontario.
The CBD or downtown is the central district of a city, usually typified by a concentration of retail and commercial buildings. Although applicable to any city, both terms usually refer to larger cities.
The term city centre (or center city) is similar to CBD or downtown in that both serve the same purpose for the city, and both are seen by a higher-than-usual urban density as well as the often having the tallest buildings in a city. City centre differs from downtown in that downtown can be geographically located anywhere in a city, while city centre is located near the geographic heart of the city. Examples of a city centre can be found in Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, London, Sydney, and other cities. London effectively has three city centres rolled into one, namely the City of London, the medieval City of Westminster, and the newly built Canary Wharf.
List of typical CBD characteristics
A CBD is likely to have many of the following characteristics:- It has a distinct land use pattern that can be delimited from the rest of the settlement.
- It is the geographical centre of the settlement.
- It contains the settlement's main public buildings.
- It contains the major retail outlets (though this may be less often the case, especially in the United States).
- Similar activities within it are concentrated in certain areas (functional zoning).
- It features vertical zoning.
- It has the greatest concentration and number of pedestrians and traffic in general.
- It is a focal point for transport.
- It contains the greatest proportion of the settlement's offices.
- It has the tallest buildings in the region to maximize land use.
- It has the highest land values of the region.
- It attracts people from outside its sphere of influence to work and spend money inside.
- It is advancing into new areas (assimilation) and/or losing old commercial functions (discard).
List of some notable CBDs and downtowns
Africa and the Middle East
Business District & Sandton- Cape Town, Central Business District
- Pretoria, Central Business District
- Durban, Central Business District and Umhlanga New Town Center
- Abidjan, Central Business District/Le Plateau
- Lagos, Victoria Island
- Nairobi, Central Business District
- Jerusalem, Ben-Yehuda Street
- Tel Aviv, Central Business District Tel Aviv and the Ramat Gan Diamond Exchange District
- Haifa, Hadar HaCarmel Business District, Haifa Downtown District and Merkaz HaCarmel District
- Dubai, Sheikh Zayed Road
- Dubai, Dubai Creek
- Bangkok: For full list, see List of central business district in Bangkok.
- Beijing, Beijing Central Business District
- Hong Kong, Central and Tsim Sha Tsui
- Seoul, Gangnam-gu
- Shanghai, Pudong District
- Taipei, Xinyi District
- Tokyo, Marunouchi and Otemachi ward.
- Saddar, Karachi
- Kuala Lumpur, Daerah Sentral Johor Bahru (Central District of Johor Bahru), Golden Triangle of Kuala Lumpur.Kuala Lumpur City Centre
- Manila, Makati, Ortigas Center, Taguig
- Singapore, The Central Area, Raffles Place, Orchard Road, Shenton Way and Marina Centre,Marina Bay, Singapore
- Jakarta, Jalan Jendral Sudirman, Kuningan (Jl. H. R. Rasuna Said), Jalan M. H. Thamrin
Australia and New Zealand
- Adelaide, Adelaide central business district, South Australia
- Melbourne, Melbourne central business district, Victoria
- Sydney, Sydney central business district, New South Wales
- Brisbane, Brisbane central business district, Queensland
- Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise (CBD), Queensland
- Perth, Perth central business district, Western Australia
- Canberra, City Centre, Australian Capital Territory
- Townsville, Queensland, Townsville central business district
- Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin central business district
- Hobart, Hobart central business district, Tasmania
- Auckland, Auckland central business district,
- Wellington, Wellington central business district
- Christchurch, Christchurch central business district
- Amsterdam around the central rings of canals.
- Antwerp, between the river Scheldt and main station.
- Barcelona The Northern section of the Barri Gotic, Ramblas and surrounding Eixample area.
- Belfast's city centre.
- Berlin With two downtowns, one between Zoolog.Gtn Station to Kurfürstendamm (Traditionally West Berlin), and the other from Potsdamer Platz to Unter den Linden (Traditionally East Berlin)
- Birmingham, Surrounding the Bullring complex and business center.
- Brussels, in particular, the city of Brussels
- Budapest, central core and surrounding areas.
- Copenhagen, central core
- Dublin, Ireland, Dublin City Centre - central area of Greater Dublin Area, including docklands and city core.
- Düsseldorf, central core.
- Edinburgh, areas between the Old and New Towns.
- Frankfurt, The Bankenviertel (Banking District) or Innenstadt
- Geneva, near the mouth of the Rhône River
- Glasgow, in particular the city of Glasgow area.
- Hamburg, between the Elbe River to Binnenalster
- Helsinki, central core.
- Istanbul, The Levent District.
- Lisbon, central core.
- London, The City of London, West End, Canary Wharf.
- Lyon, Quartier de la Part-Dieu.
- Madrid, AZCA / Nuevos Ministerios
- Manchester, Manchester City Centre
- Milan within central ring.
- Moscow, Areas within the Garden Ring; especially Kitai-gorod, Tverskoy District and Presnya (Moscow-City).
- Munich, The central core of the city.
- Naples central core and Centro Direzionale
- Oslo, central core
- Paris, Quartier de La Defense, Quartier de l'Opéra, Quartier du Val de Seine.
- Porto, central core.
- Prague, central core and surrounding areas.
- Rome, within central area. and the E.U.R. Esposizione Universale Roma
- Rotterdam, central city core.
- Sheffield, Sheffield City Centre
- St Petersburg, Central Business District and Municipal district 7.
- Stockholm, central core near entrance of lake Mälaren
- Valencia The area surrounding its historical core.
- Vienna, centrao core and UNO-City
- Warsaw, Śródmieście
- Zagreb, from the Savska-Vukovarska to Heinzlova-Vukovarska intersections
- Zurich, between the rivers Sihl and Limmat
- Downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Downtown Anchorage, Alaska
- Downtown Atlanta, Georgia
- Inner Harbor, Baltimore, Maryland
- Downtown Boston, Massachusetts
- Downtown Calgary, Alberta
- Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina
- Chicago Loop, Chicago, Illinois
- Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio
- Downtown Cleveland, Ohio
- Downtown Columbus, Ohio
- Downtown Dallas, Texas
- Downtown Denver, Colorado
- Downtown Detroit, Michigan
- Downtown Edmonton, Alberta
- Providencia, Country Club and Puerta de Hierro, Guadalajara, Mexico
- Downtown Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- Downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia
- Downtown Hamilton, Ontario
- Downtown Hartford, Connecticut
- Downtown Houston, Texas
- Downtown Indianapolis, Indiana
- Downtown Jacksonville, Florida
- Downtown Kansas City, Missouri
- Downtown Los Angeles, California
- Downtown Louisville, Kentucky
- Paseo de la Reforma and Santa Fe; Mexico City, Mexico
- Downtown Miami, Florida
- Downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Loda, Downtown Mobile, Alabama
- Downtown Montreal, Quebec
- Downtown Nashville, Tennessee
- Downtown New Haven, Connecticut
- Central Business District, New Orleans, Louisiana
- Downtown Manhattan, Lower Manhattan, Midtown Manhattan, Downtown Brooklyn; New York City, New York
- Downtown Oakland, California
- Downtown Orlando, Florida
- Downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
- Panama City, Panama
- Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Downtown Phoenix, Arizona
- Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Downtown Portland, Oregon
- Downtown Quebec City, Quebec
- Downtown Regina, Saskatchewan
- Downtown Richmond, Virginia
- Downtown Salt Lake City, Utah
- Downtown San Diego, California
- San Francisco Financial District, California
- Downtown Seattle, Washington
- Downtown St. Louis, Missouri
- Downtown Syracuse, New York
- Downtown Tampa and Westshore, Tampa, Florida
- Downtown Toronto, Ontario
- Downtown Vancouver, British Columbia
- Downtown Washington, District of Columbia
- Downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba
- International Center, Bogotá, Colombia
- Downtown São Paulo, Brazil
- Downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- San Isidro District, Miraflores District, Lima, Peru
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