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I have noticed some cities, mostly very large cities, have certain classifications for areas of the cities, known as downtown, midtown, and uptown. Now, almost every town or city has a downtown. In my mind, downtown is usually the older part of the city, where many of the businesses or corporations chose to place their offices. Downtown is mostly commercial dominated, with some condos or apartments in the area, and little to no housing.
What exactly are midtown and uptown???
Downtowns in North America usually refer to "the" CBD. Midtowns, uptowns are lose base terms for places outside of them. Most Midtowns, uptowns don't have a propose for their names. But cities are different and they can mean different things.
For example Downtown Atlanta is "a" CBD, but it's not "the" CBD. Midtown Atlanta has a meaning it's another CBD. Otherwise Midtown Atlanta is like Another Downtown and could actually out grow Downtown. This may confuse people because people are expecting Downtown to mean something more than Midtown.
Baltimore has a downtown and a midtown, but no uptown. Interestingly, suburbanites generally refer to the entire city as "downtown." This can get confusing.
Suburbanites consider anywhere within Detroit city limits downtown. I actually had some facebook friends announce that they were "moving into a house next to Wayne State in downtown". Where the house is located and where Wayne State is a 6 mile distance.
But I mean, I guess I can understand when you grow up in an area where nothing is over 3 stories to an area with mid-and high-rise apartment buildings then it probably does seem like a 'downtown' to many.
Outside of New York, downtown (un-capitalized) is a generic term for a central business district. Every city has a generic downtown, even if it doesn’t actually use the term (like the Loop in Chicago or Center City, Philadelphia). Small towns and some suburbs also also use the term, like Downtown Greenwich, Connecticut.
One oddity is New York’s generic downtown is actually Midtown, which nowadays is much larger than the Financial District, which is in Downtown Manhattan.
Uptown and Midtown are almost always proper nouns (and capitalized) and refer to specific areas within a city, like Midtown, Atlanta or Uptown, Minneapolis. The terms have no accepted generic meaning.
In Manhattan they're both directions (except "midtown") and terms for parts of the island. Midtown Manhattan is the area between a street somewhere in the lower 30s (which one depends on who you ask) and the southern boundary of Central Park (59th street). Uptown is usually used as a direction but can refer to anything north of 59th street (although I think it's safe to say that Christie Brinkley didn't live in Harlem). Downtown Manhattan as a place is kind of vaguely defined, but it at least includes the Financial District.
Note that much of Midtown is also a business district, but nobody calls the business districts in other cities "midtowns".
I always thought the boundary between lower Manhattan and midtown Manhattan was Houston (HOW-ston) Street. Obviously the Financial District doesn't extend anywhere near as far north as Houston, but lower Manhattan is a lot bigger than just the Financial District too.
Here in Kitchener-Waterloo, the two cities grew together to form a single urban organism quite early on in their history. Kitchener is the dominant city (less so now than in the past though), so Waterloo's CBD gets referred to as Uptown Waterloo and Kitchener's CBD is Downtown Kitchener.
In Toronto the meaning of Uptown and Midtown has changed. Originally, Uptown referred to the Yonge and Bloor area, but the CBD has grown to include that area so the whole CBD is referred to as Downtown by most people. Midtown refers to an area that more or less corresponds to the former suburb of North Toronto. This area was a streetcar suburb built in the early 20th century but was annexed by Toronto in 1912. With the opening of the Yonge Subway, 3 high density nodes developed around subway stations, which are functionally like mini-downtowns. Even though these 3 nodes are separated by lower density development, the whole area is usually referred to as Midtown Toronto. That would technically mean Uptown Toronto is North York Centre, another node where intensification occured after the subway was extended North of Midtown. However, in common usage, the area isn't really referred to as Uptown but North York Centre/Downtown North York or Yonge & Sheppard. I think Uptown more often refers to pretty much anywhere North of Midtown Toronto (North of Lawrence Avenue), including North York Centre but also surrounding suburban areas.
In the US, downtown is pretty much a universal term for the core business/civic area. There are exceptions, but most cities have someplace called "downtown." The term is coming to use even in cities where it wasn't used much. For example, NPR's quiz show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" comes from the "Chase Auditorium in Downtown Chicago," in a location that would have previously been called The Loop. Center City Philadelphia seems to be drifting towards being downtown.
It's a little hard to tell where downtown ends, though it's before the city line! Sometimes people talk about downtown as just the central business district, sometimes as including neighboring high density residential areas. In San Francisco, I think of Nob Hill north of the downtown core and South of Market south of it as downtown residential areas.
Midtown and uptown are much less universal terms, whose use is more idiosyncratic to each city. San Francisco has an area west of downtown that sometimes called Midtown, but I think people would be just as likely to call it (Lower) Pacific Heights. There is no Uptown in San Francisco or Los Angeles. Los Angeles has a "Mid-City" but it's about 7 miles west of Downtown LA, with several neighborhoods intervening between. No Midtown or Uptown in Philadelphia or Boston either.
Suburbanites consider anywhere within Detroit city limits downtown.
NYC suburbanites do the reverse; the "city" colloquially usually refers to Manhattan only while the other boroughs are just referred to by name — they may not look like the burbs but it's still not "the city". Downtown is just one part of Manhattan which doesn't contain the largest business district, or more often a cardinal direction.
I always thought the boundary between lower Manhattan and midtown Manhattan was Houston (HOW-ston) Street. Obviously the Financial District doesn't extend anywhere near as far north as Houston, but lower Manhattan is a lot bigger than just the Financial District too.
No. I live in Greenwich Village (i.e., south of 14th Street) and it’s definitely downtown. I don’t know if there is a formal dividing line. 34th Street (Macy’s, Penn Station, Madison Square Garden) is definitely Midtown. After that it starts to get vague. Some people consider Chelsea part of downtown, which would put the border around 28th Street. Some people consider Madison Square part of midtown, which would put the border at 23rd Street.
In New York downtown is also an adjective. There is “downtown theater,” and “downtown bars,” or “downtown music.” It implies younger, edgier, hip, more indy and less corporate—but still expensive. It’s the difference between the Village and the Upper East Side.
In the US, downtown is pretty much a universal term for the core business/civic area. There are exceptions, but most cities have someplace called "downtown." The term is coming to use even in cities where it wasn't used much. For example, NPR's quiz show "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" comes from the "Chase Auditorium in Downtown Chicago," in a location that would have previously been called The Loop. Center City Philadelphia seems to be drifting towards being downtown.
With Chicago it is a bit weird. The Loop is a specific area that is in Downtown, but most people would consider downtown a larger area than the loop (basically the area where the EL makes it's loop is the loop). The neighborhoods of River North,Streetville,Gold Coast,Loop,South Loop are generally considered the downtown area.
Suburbanites and people not from the area often call all of Chicago downtown which can be a bit confusing. i.e. I don't think most people want to tour the Ford Plant on the Far South East side nor would that be a good area to live in If you work downtown or want to be near some of the North Side(or heck even South side) night life.
Pittsburgh has a distinct downtown and an area called Uptown, which is mostly economically depressed (by Duquense U), put not the historic black community, which is the Hill District (and geographically, more "uptown" than Uptown, which is due east).
There is no Midtown however.
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