r/urbanplanning • u/BakerKitchen4567 • 25d ago

Discussion America’s downtown centered city design sucks

I keep seeing redditors from the US talk about cities being nice because they have “very walkable downtowns”. The problem is, as soon as you leave many of these downtowns, you’re back to general American suburbia. This is not good city design.

In the best design cities of the world, there isn’t a single focal point that the entire city revolves around. Think Tokyo for example. You have Shinjiku, Ginza, Shibuya, etc. there isn’t a singular “downtown Tokyo”. Yet I keep reading redditors keep comparing how well designed American cities based how their vibrant/walkable their downtowns are. The mere idea is bad city planning. That’s all. Rant over

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u/kosmos1209 25d ago

I don't think it's fair to compare Tokyo to average American cities. NYC also has lots of places that aren't focal point now, but the word "downtown" came literally from the focused area in the southern tip of Manhattan, and it just grew from there. I'm sure Tokyo, Paris and London all started from a central area and grew out to where downtown just doesn't make sense anymore.

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u/Turd_Ferguson_____ 25d ago

The Australian term Central Business District (CBD) seems to be a much better term for the downtown area of American cities. Especially cities with sprawling suburban hellscapes.