Central Business District

The term “Central Business District” (CBD) has a long and varied history. Since the industrial age, the term has evolved in accordance with different modes of transport, global competition, especially among megacities, and advances in new technology. There has been a gradual shift away from the idealized core-frame models which once defined and delimited CBD based on spatial economic theories and an urban–suburban dualism. Spatial thinking has expanded to show that there is no longer such a simple relationship between CBD, downtown, and region. The decentralization of people, capital, and employment across large regions have, to different degrees of intensity, “hollowed out” CBDs. However, this has not sounded the death knell for the CBD. New forms of centrality have also emerged. In an effort to keep their cities globally competitive, national governments in Africa and Asia have encouraged more rural to CBD migration so as to reap economic rewards from the intensification of finically driven capitalism.