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I ask this question because I just realized that College Station doesn't have a neighborhood that is called Downtown. This is mostly because the town clearly spurned from the University. But it got me thinking what's the largest city without a Downtown in America.
Now their are 3 categories for this.
Largest Suburb- Some suburbs with no historic town in the center, have no identifiable downtown, a place like West Valley City has it's own "New Downtown" in the works but it's just called a City Center or something else. Currently it doesn't have a Downtown though, and it's just a suburb. Clearly people are commuting to Downtown Salt Lake City.
CBD- A city that has an actual CBD that is akin to a Downtown in virtually every aspect, it just has a different name. Center City, Philadelphia falls into this, as it obviously is considered a downtown but it simply doesn't have the name but has the main police station, city hall, main fire department and everything you would get out of a Downtown.
True "Downtown-less" City- College Station isn't a suburb of Bryan, and while the campus is their as the major employer, it clearly doesn't function as a true Downtown as City Hall and all the administrative services that are associated with Downtowns do not exist on the campus. The word Downtown doesn't exist in the College Station "zeitgeist", from what I've seen.
So for the first two categories it would be interesting to see the Top 5 of each. Obviously Philly, is number one in the 2nd category but whose number 2-5. Also West Valley City probably doesn't make the top 10 for the 1st category, which large suburbs have no identifiable place named Downtown.
Take in mind lots of suburbs qualify for the 2nd category as well, but them being a suburb disqualifies them from the 2nd category. Also for suburb we are talking all cities that are economically dwarfed by nearby cities. So city-fied suburbs like Hoboken would not qualify for the 2nd or 3rd categories.
For now the lists are.
Largest Suburb
1. Aurora- questionable, they claim to have a Downtown but I can't find any info on it.
2. Henderson
3. Irvine
4. Gilbert- questionable, Heritage District which seems to also be called Downtown.
5. Fremont
I think that it's far more interesting to identify cities that, regardless of what it's called, have no real functioning urban downtown.
One city that comes to mind is Cape Coral, FL. While there's a tiny main drag where Google Maps places the name Cape Coral, it's not exactly what one would consider worthy of being noted as a downtown.
I think that it's far more interesting to identify cities that, regardless of what it's called, have no real functioning urban downtown.
One city that comes to mind is Cape Coral, FL. While there's a tiny main drag where Google Maps places the name Cape Coral, it's not exactly what one would consider worthy of being noted as a downtown.
Exactly, that's why I highlighted College Station which not only doesn't have a Downtown neighborhood, but with a College being the main business district, doesn't function at all like a traditional CBD in that sense, and no one refers to A and M as downtown either. Even Cape Coral's small strip is referred to as Downtown, and Chicago and Charlotte are in the Philly category of places that people treat, and even call "downtown" when advertising but their names aren't actually downtown Charlotte, Philly or Chicago.
As someone else mentioned, Chicago doesn't have an official "downtown" neighborhood designation. "The Loop" is probably the official, central downtown. Although "The Loop," "West Loop," South Loop," "River North," and "Gold Coast" (and sometimes "Old Town") are all distinct neighborhoods which many people consider collectively "downtown."
But there is not an official "downtown" neighborhood or even district designation. If restricting to one single neighborhood, you would be referring to "The Loop."
Tri-cities (Kennewick, Pasco, Richland) don’t really have a downtown, each city does kinda have a central core with some semblance of a “main st.” But considering the metro area has around 300k people, those downtowns are too small to anchor such a large population. And everything pretty decentralized and suburban.
Not sure about others but Moreno Valley CA is a suburb of Riverside county in the LA combined metro.. a suburb town of about 210,000 with no downtown..only a tiny 2 mile long strip thats sorta rundown with few business called Sunnymead blvd but nowhere near anything special.
Last time I was in San Jose, I could find no discernable downtown, despite the large size of the city. But I haven't been there in almost 30 years, so maybe it's different now.
I think it's worth noting that the term "downtown" has a distinctly New York origin. The Central Business District was (and, to an extent, still is) located in the southern portion of Manhattan. Thus, to anyone living north of it, one had to go "down" (i.e. south) to get there. I find it interesting that the word "downtown" has become so widely accepted in America, even though in many places it is not geographically "down" any more than it is "up" or "over."
I believe that most other cities in the world don't use "downtown" but instead say "Central [Name of City]" or "Center City" (e.g. "Centre-ville" in French) to describe the area. This has always made more sense to me, for any city not situated like New York is, so I do appreciate Philadelphia's "Center City."
Downtown New Orleans isn’t normal Downtown, it’s Downriver sections of the city not the CBD. (Actually Downtown of the center) ditto with Uptown New Orleans
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