The Central Business District (CBD)
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\nThe city centre is also called the Central Business District (CBD). The CBD contains the city’s main shops, together with leisure and entertainment facilities , e.g. cafes, bars, restaurants and theatres. It also includes buildings like town halls. Around its edge are the offices of professional people like solicitors and accountants. The tallest buildings are found here and land costs a lot to buy. There is a lot of traffic and very few people live there, instead commuting from the suburbs.
\nThe inner city
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\nThe inner city use to include a lot of manufacturing industry, but much of this has now closed down. Traditionally, it also provided cheap terraced housing for the factory workers. These house were small, and the streets containing them were arranged in a grid pattern – with little or no green spaces. Recently, however inner cities have become more popular (especially with young adults), because they’re close to office workplaces and the facilities of the city centre. They’ve been smartened-up and redeveloped, with expensive upmarket apartments for young professionals being built to replace the old terraced housing.
\nThe suburbs
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\nThe suburbs are more expensive places to live, and are popular with families. They can be divided into inner and outer suburbs. The further you go out from the city centre, the bigger the houses get – changing from semi-detached to detached. They also have bigger gardens, and there are more open spaces like parks.
\nThe rural-urban fringe
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\nThe rural-urban fringe is on the edge of the city. It’s almost in the countryside. New housing estates are often built here, as well as big retail and leisure parks. It has villages and fields, as well as recreational facilities like golf courses and riding stables.
\nSimplified layout of a British City
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\nMy very first video – on land use in the UK<\/p>\n
Land use in poorer countries
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\nJust like richer countries, cities in poorer countries tend to have similar patterns of land use. The CBD is still in the centre, but the
\npattern changes from the one seen in richer countries. The land use pattern in poorer countries is not that simple:
\n\u00b7 the closest ring to the CBD isn’t a zone of old industry and cheap housing. It’s a high class residential area, with large villas and modern expensive apartments.
\n\u00b7 cheaper housing is found further out of the city
\n\u00b7 poor-quality housing can be found right next to the posh expensive areas, but shanty towns and slums are often found on the very edge of the city
\n\u00b7 industry tends to be found along the main roads into the city<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"