Downtown is a common name for a city centre. It is especially used in the USA. It is the central area of shopping and entertainments and is often where skyscrapers will be found. This is because so many people want to work or shop in the downtown area that the only way to get many different enterprises in is to build upwards.

Downtown is popular because it is the place where most main city highways and rail line meet. This means more people can easily get to this part of the city than any other part. So if you have a specialist business, for example an expensive restaurant, your customers are small in number and scattered all over the city. So the best place to be is in the middle (downtown) where they can all get easily. The same is true for museums, headquarters of companies and many other enterprises.