Municipalities without a downtown

[TheStranger]

Does Danville, California have a downtown at all?  I'm honestly not sure.

[yanksfan6129]

True that...Downtown Manhattan is where New York was founded, hell it was one of the first colonized places in all of the western hemisphere.

Ahem, Verulamium beats it by about 1500 years - colonised by the Romans! Not that it wins - the Celts were colonists before then and the Romans reached modern-day France, Spain and Morroco before hand.

If you take 'western hemisphere' to mean the Americas, rather than anything west of Greenwich (as those to the west of Atlantic tend to do), then you also have Greenland (and from there Labrador) in about 1000AD. If you mean the USA, then yes, you are pretty much right.

Isn't downtown Manhattan the origin of the term 'downtown'?

I'm looking at it from the "American" perspective, meaning the New World rather than anything west of the prime meridian. Also, jeebus for the exact scrutiny of that statement - I even used the qualifier "one of"

[english si]

Saying 'all of the Western Hemisphere' and then excluding the Old World portion of it is rather insulting to those who live in the excluded place - use the term New World, or Americas: it's not only more accurate, but shorter! The 'all of' bit makes it a lot worse.

Perhaps the diss I gave your statement and NYC is making you feel a bit like I felt when you dissed 80% of my country, including everywhere I've lived by ignoring it's existence.

[yanksfan6129]

I did not diss your country at all...I resent that sentiment. It's not like I want to preclude the UK from being part of the western hemisphere...in this case it was a simple oversight on my part. I'm sorry that when I think of the western hemisphere I think of the Americas...yes it's wrong I know that but it's not like I have any ill will toward western Europe. Hell I always talk about being more like Europe.

[jwolfer]

Saying 'all of the Western Hemisphere' and then excluding the Old World portion of it is rather insulting to those who live in the excluded place - use the term New World, or Americas: it's not only more accurate, but shorter! The 'all of' bit makes it a lot worse.

Perhaps the diss I gave your statement and NYC is making you feel a bit like I felt when you dissed 80% of my country, including everywhere I've lived by ignoring it's existence.

Get the wad out of your panties

[agentsteel53]

Saying 'all of the Western Hemisphere' and then excluding the Old World portion of it is rather insulting to those who live in the excluded place - use the term New World, or Americas: it's not only more accurate, but shorter! The 'all of' bit makes it a lot worse.

hey, who decided to put the 0 meridian right down the middle of their country?  had you any common sense, you'd have put it somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.  preferably between westernmost Africa and easternmost Brazil, but I do not know what the state of geographic knowledge of the world was at the time the Greenwich routing was decided.

at least, as a matter of coincidence, the international date line goes through a fairly sparsely inhabited segment of the planet.

[golden eagle]

To get back on topic...

I'm curious to hear examples of downtowns that were developed after the fact such as these, and their level of success in creating a true community center for their cities.

I'm curious about that too. Since the communities near me have yet to see that realized, I can't tell. I know downtowns just didn't pop up out of thin air, but my guess would be that newly created downtowns wouldn't have the authenticity that existing downtowns do.

[yanksfan6129]

My town, which is a suburb of NYC, is mainly residential: it lacks a downtown. It has a few strip malls. However, in terms of developing a downtown after the fact, the township is has been attempting for years to develop a small section of US 202 right next to our train station into a small downtown-like area, but they have been unsuccessful. There are a few stores there, but it's definitely not an authentic downtown.

A nearby town called got it right...they even have fewer people than my hometown, but near their train station they have a cute little downtown...and it is little, but it has a few nice stores and restaurants.

[english si]

at least, as a matter of coincidence, the international date line goes through a fairly sparsely inhabited segment of the planet.

Reliant on two things - the non-straight nature of the line (bypassing all land and following country boundaries), and - more importantly - the location of 0 being in the right place. You talk about having the line in the middle of the Atlantic, which would put 180 through the middle of Japan, Indonesia, Australia or somewhere like that - far worse. -1, 0, 1 is a lot easier to deal with than -179, 180, 179, so you would really want the 180 point to be in the middle of an ocean (which happened more by luck than judgement, though it was known, pretty much, where the land was when the meridian was set)

The zero point was also seen a badge of honour - look at the fight the French put up to have Paris as the zero point. Likewise all those world maps (French and German ones less noticably different than American, Russian, Chinese, etc) that put their country in the middle, even if it means chopping large landmasses in half.

All I'm suggesting that the term "all of the Western Hemisphere" should mean that, and not just the New World. It's perhaps a little pedantic to you guys (though that barely warrants the level of comments I got back - the comments seem to have much more to do with me showing that the 'centre of the universe' wasn't as special as people were claiming at the wrong time of year), but it's home to me.

Back to the main topic, Telford's town centre is simply a shopping mall - which for us Brits doesn't count as a town centre. The original villages that were turned into the new town all have their own historic centres, and the new bits all have their little planned centres.

In fact, I find it hard to think of British towns that don't have a focal point where much of the commercial stuff is. Town centres might be dying in the UK, thanks to supermarkets, but they still exist. Even suburbs in cities have them, normally as they were villages that got eaten up by the growth of the city. Perhaps some of the 60s New Towns, but even then, a lot of them were expansions/mergers of existing places and/or had a centre planned in.

[MDOTFanFB]

Taylor, Riverview and Woodhaven, MI all have no downtown. Southgate, MI also has no downtown, but there have been plans earlier this year to develop a downtown along Eureka Road.

And Michigan also spells "DOWNTOWN" in all caps on their BGSes.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

Muscle Shoals, AL.

"Downtown" is the stretch between the city hall and the police department on Avalon Ave.

That's a bunch of stripmalls.

edit:// http://g.co/maps/95mg5 - there ya go folks, "downtown" Muscle Shoals in all its glory.

[golden eagle]

Does Washington, DC have a true downtown? I've heard of a Downtown Washington, but I never see pictures of high rises.

[Brandon]

Does Washington, DC have a true downtown? I've heard of a Downtown Washington, but I never see pictures of high rises.

Yes.  It's the Mall area with the Capitol and the White House.  IIRC, DC has an ordinance against building taller than the Capitol (or is it the Washington Monument)?

[formulanone]

I recall a tour guide mentioning that no building may be taller than the Capitol Building. The Washington Monument was erected before that law was enacted, so it was exempt. Then again, it was a tour guide...reality or details never get in the way of a good story.

[NE2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heights_of_Buildings_Act_of_1910

[empirestate]

So far I've been unable to locate Chesapeake, VA's on a map.

[NE2]

So far I've been unable to locate Chesapeake, VA's on a map.

Since it was formed by merging South Norfolk with Norfolk County, I'd assume downtown would be the original South Norfolk.

[OCGuy81]

Orange County is, otherwise, a nightmare of large corporate buildings.

You got us there! That's for sure! 

First time I had some friends visiting from Seattle, they flew into John Wayne Airport and saw the group of buildings thinking it's downtown Irvine.

"Not really, just office buildings" I replied.

Most people here refer to downtown as LA.

[tchafe1978]

My original hometown of Brookfield, WI doesn't really have a downtown. It does however have what the city likes to call the "Old Village" which is where the train depot used to be. Now that area is just a collection of older buildings and a few businesses, I don't think it really qulafies as a downtown. The city does have a couple large commercial areas, namely the whole stretch of Bluemound Rd (US 18) within the city.

My adopted hometown of Belmont, WI is so small it really can't have a downtown. Downtown would be called bar street.

[OCGuy81]

Downtown would be called bar street.

Gotta love Wisconsin! I love the number of taverns the smaller towns have there.  And all of them have great food and good beer!

[mhallack]

My old hometown if Simi Valley, Ca. All surburbia. If there is a square inch of land open anywhere, they would build a housing tract or mini-mall on it, even if it wasn't needed.

[empirestate]

So far I've been unable to locate Chesapeake, VA's on a map.

Since it was formed by merging South Norfolk with Norfolk County, I'd assume downtown would be the original South Norfolk.

Makes sense...

On a nearby, semi-related note, I just got back from Virginia Beach, where I was staying in the Town Center area, which is really just a shopping/entertainment/luxury residential kind of development. Now I know VA Beach has a proper downtown over towards the ocean, and I also know that places similar to Town Center are rampant all over the country, but in this case I've actually seen Town Center labeled as the CBD of Virginia Beach, rather than the historical center near the ocean. Is this a false assumption on the mapmaker's part, or is the city actually trying to position Town Center that way? (I believe the tallest building in the city is there, for example.)

[roadman65]

Elizabeth and Jersey City in New Jersey both have Downtowns, but not like we know them as.  Elizabeth uses Midtown to call its main business district on Broad Street and Jersey City calls it Journal Square.  The riverfront areas in both cities are the areas they call Downtown in both cases east of the Turnpike.

To me a Downtown is a business district and not a section of town. I will call it that because that is how I see it.

Also, Linden, NJ refers to its downtown area as the Linden Shopping Center as if it were a strip mall.

[HazMatt]

Some people claim that Charlotte has an "uptown" rather than a "downtown."

We do (or did) that in Lenoir, NC as well.  They completely revamped everything recently and are pushing the Downtown label now, but we've always called it Uptown.  They've also rerouted NC 90 to bypass the area and truncated US 321-A south of town for some reason.