What do You Call Your Town/City Center

Mike

Mike

Well-known Member
Location
London
This has puzzled me for some time and I have come to
the conclusion that it is a local and not a national choice.

I read a lot and watch TV from here and from America,
some say, uptown, most say downtown, in American TV,
There are songs of both versions, "Uptown Girl", "Downtown",
is the other.

Here it is the, "Town Centre, or City Centre", or I am going
into town.

In London, they say the "West End", or I am going up West.

Is it different where you live?

Mike.
 

Sacramento is basically divided into these major quarters, Downtown, Midtown, South Sac and West Sac. There's also an East, of course, but it's known as River Town at the north end and Land Park at the south end. Mostly wealthier people live there. Then there's historic Sacramento which everyone calls Old Sac. It's for tourists. There's a huge paddle-boat there (Old Sac is on the river) that's been converted to a restaurant, and they have live music or dinner plays.

Downtown is loaded with shops and clubs, and its nice and clean. Midtown is newer than Downtown, and it used to have lots of newer shops and all that, but something went horribly wrong there in the 80s (corruption) and all the original businesses moved out. Now there's a few small restaurants, second-hand shops, and a struggling theater, a huge homeless camp, a whole lot of graffiti, and the mission where homeless people can get a meal and a cot.
 
Mike said:
This has puzzled me for some time and I have come to
the conclusion that it is a local and not a national choice.

I read a lot and watch TV from here and from America,
some say, uptown, most say downtown, in American TV,
There are songs of both versions, "Uptown Girl", "Downtown",
is the other.

Here it is the, "Town Centre, or City Centre", or I am going
into town.

In London, they say the "West End", or I am going up West.

Is it different where you live?

Mike.
Click to expand...
Generally "uptown" means wealthy. (It's also a specific area in Manhattan, NY.) Billy Joel was talking about a girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth in Uptown Girl. He called himself a Downtown Man, meaning he was born poor and hailed from a grittier neighborhood.

Downtown Los Angeles refers to business, manufacturing, shopping and commercial districts. Same with the dozens of So Cal suburbs. If I'm going to Downtown Burbank, people know I'm going near the studios, arts and shopping districts rather than residential neighborhoods.

We don't use the term uptown here.
 
When I lived on an island, I had to learn that the clump of 5 or 6 business was "downtown," and the small city 20 km away was "town." So going to town and going downtown were two different things.

Where I live now, many of the businesses are more or less on the same street, but weirdly spaced out along the length of the town. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say "downtown" or anything similar. They'll just name the store, e.g., "I saw her in front of the hardware store."
 
Mike said:
This has puzzled me for some time and I have come to
the conclusion that it is a local and not a national choice.

I read a lot and watch TV from here and from America,
some say, uptown, most say downtown, in American TV,
There are songs of both versions, "Uptown Girl", "Downtown",
is the other.

Here it is the, "Town Centre, or City Centre", or I am going
into town.

In London, they say the "West End", or I am going up West.

Is it different where you live?

Mike.
Click to expand...
in the city where I was born and raised ( G) in Scotland.. we lived in the west end.. so we would always say we were going Up town if we were going into the city centre...

Here in the rural backwaters we say going ''into town'' when going to our little 2 street market town centre..
 
“Going into town” in our small community means where the stores and businesses are

in Savannah you could spend time in the Historical District (boutiques, antique stores, museums, historical homes—what the British would refer to as Grade II, I believe) or you can go downtown / business district where the malls and larger retail outlets are
 
ours..

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our-town-cafe-rouge.jpg
 
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