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InNew Orleans, Louisiana, United States,downtown has historically referred to neighborhoods along theMississippi River, downriver (roughly northeast) fromCanal Street – including theFrench Quarter,Tremé,Faubourg Marigny,Bywater, the9th Ward, and otherneighborhoods. Contrary to the common usage of the termdowntown in other cities, this historic application of the term excluded theNew Orleans Central Business District. The term continues to be employed as it has been historically, although many younger people and migrants from other parts of the country will use "downtown" as it is used elsewhere; that is, to mean the Central Business District/Warehouse District area.
In the 19th century, much of New Orleans' downtown (downriver from Canal Street) was still predominantlyFrancophone. Downtown hosted the city's French-speakingCreole communities. There was a traditional rivalry with the predominantlyAnglophoneuptown New Orleans on the other side of Canal Street. The broad median of Canal Street became known as theneutral ground, where partisans of the two sections of the city could meet for discussions and business without going into each other's territory. The term "neutral ground" underwent broadening in the local lexicon, and now refers to medians in general. The city was for years divided into Downtown and Uptown.
Development of the low-lyingBack of Town (the swamp and marsh extending northwards from the edge of development to the shores ofLake Pontchartrain) only began after 1900, aslongstanding drainage issues were solved. While the downtown/uptown division of the city has sometimes been overstated (by the late 19th century there were already substantial numbers of people of francophone orientation living uptown, and of anglophone orientation living downtown), it continues to be a factor in New Orleans culture into the 21st century, marking, for example, the division of theMardi Gras Indians into Downtown and Uptown tribes.With the increasing development of the Back of Town in the years afterWorld War II resulting in the mature districts ofLakeview andGentilly, it became increasingly difficult to categorize neighborhoods as "Uptown" or "Downtown". The growth ofNew Orleans East, as well as suburbanJefferson Parish, further complicated the picture. By the 1990s, the terms had largely fallen out of use, with only the merest fraction of the population ofGreater New Orleans inhabiting the region once divided into Uptown and Downtown zones. Today, use of the word "downtown" will most likely be taken to mean theCBD/Warehouse District neighborhood (i.e., the area within the Downtown Development District's ambit), and the use of individual neighborhood names orwards has replaced the historic use of the term "downtown", although"uptown" has remained in use – albeit with a lower boundary, now stretching along thePontchartrain Expressway rather thanCanal Street.
