The way people say "downtown" has changed and it bugs me

I grew up in a smaller city, like 50,000 people, and downtown was just a few blocks around the main square. Now I hear people call any strip mall with a coffee shop "downtown" and it drives me nuts. I was talking to a younger guy last week who said he was heading downtown and he meant a Target parking lot. There's a difference between a real city center with old buildings and a commercial zone built in the 90s. Am I just being old or does this bug anyone else?

3 comments

3 Comments

wyatt_green311mo ago

Doesn't downtown just mean where the stuff is now though?

patricialee18d ago

oh man I used to totally think that way too honestly I thought downtown was just whatever part of a city had the most stuff going on at any given time you know? but then I moved to a smaller town a few years back and realized the downtown is literally the original part of town where everything started like our downtown has these old buildings from the 1800s and the courthouse is still the main landmark even though most of the shopping moved out to the highway years ago. it kind of clicked for me that downtown is more about history and being the core that everything else grew out from not just wherever the current action is. so now I'm with you on this whole thing.

miamitchell1mo agoTop Commenter

Wow... @wyatt_green31 I get where you're coming from but I think it's kinda the opposite actually. Downtown is where the old stuff used to be, the original center of town before everything spread out. Like those old brick buildings and the courthouse square and all that. The newer shopping centers and strip malls are usually way out on the edges now, not downtown. Downtown's more like the historic core that's been there forever, even if some people think it's dead or rundown these days. It's the heart of the city before everything got all spread out with suburbs and highways.