Hello and welcome to today's English lesson my name is Stuart in today's
lesson we're looking at words and vocabulary we use in English when we
talk about towns and cities let's go to the intro now as I said today's lesson
is looking at words that we used to talk about towns and cities or towns and
cities and regions as well and all of these words here will come in handy if
you have an exam that you need to speak about this particular topic if you need
to describe a city or a town perhaps where you come from or just in general
in English if you want to improve your vocabulary and be able to talk about
this topic fluently then these are some of the words for you now we'll have a
look at the groups of words and I'll do my best to explain what these words mean
and how we use them in English so for example the first group of words we've
got city centre Downtown Midtown uptown and CBD now the first word here city
centre when we talk about cities or towns we normally refer to the center as
being the main hub of the city the main area where I come from in Australia the
cities always have a center which is the business and financial district a lot of
shops as well a lot of activity in the streets but people don't normally live
in the city centre in Australia people live in residential areas which I'll
show you in a minute what they are or suburbs but the city center or the CBD
the central business district or city centre normally in Australia that's what
we refer to Kobi talked about that city centre but you quite often hear the word
Downtown Midtown and uptown referring to cities as well
town means the center but normally they use that more in American English in the
States Canada perhaps when they talk about downtown meaning the center you'll
also hear the word Midtown and uptown as well referring to different parts of the
city but as I said in Australia normally we talk about the city centre Downtown
Midtown uptown referring to the USA Canada North America CBD central
business district as I said where all the businesses are where people come in
to work every day the CBD we can also refer to inner city outskirts inner ring
and outer ring when we're talking about cities and towns as well the inner city
obviously again that center part of the city the outskirts of the city are the
areas on the outer part of the city so the center when the cities go out you
have the outskirts the inner ring in a city or inner ring again that part in
the middle and the outer ring so outskirts outer ring in a city inner
ring similar in that meaning there okay now we also talk about residential
industrial built-up and suburban areas when we talk about cities so for example
residential areas obviously where people reside where people live residential
areas houses flats apartment blocks smaller shops restaurants residential
areas industrial areas where there are factories where people are producing
things making things a lot of activity with trucks and lorries coming in and
out people are doing a lot of business a lot of business activity in the
industrial areas built-up areas where there's a lot of infrastructure a lot of
maybe housing activity shops again built-up areas where traffic
can also be a problem built-up areas and suburban areas now remember I said in
Australia we have the center of the city the CBD and then we have the suburbs
which spread out from the city so in Perth where I come from which is on the
coast you have the center of the city center of Perth and then the suburbs go
north and they go south mainly there are some suburbs that go east as well but
mainly they go up and they go down okay so they spread those are called suburbs
and it's a suburban area okay now neighbourhood suburb district borough
quarter precinct and ward now neighbourhood the area that you live is
your neighbourhood maybe you have a neighborhood school
neighbourhood shops neighborhood friends okay in your neighborhood suburb when I
lived in Australia I lived in a suburb called Karen up so city centre was about
20 kilometres away and my suburb was you know you had to catch a bus to go into
the centre or you you know you had to get another way into the city centre
because we lived in suburbs okay my neighbourhood and it was in a suburb
called Karen up as I said we also used the word district borough quarter
precinct in Ward when we're referring to towns and cities district is an area of
different suburbs can make up the district it's an area of different
suburbs or different neighborhoods can form a district you can also have a
shopping district okay as well Barra in the UK a city like London is divided
into boroughs for administrative purposes primarily I suppose quarter you
will hear the word quarter especially with older type cities you'll hear that
some cities have a French Quarter or Latin Quarter or maybe if it's divided
into different religions they have a Jewish quarter or a a Christian quarter
etc then we have the word precinct now this word varies in meaning precinct can
be an area where there's shops as well pedestrian precinct shopping precinct
but it can also be a political area as well where maybe you have a police
station in a certain type of precinct okay can be a precinct and in that sense
it's similar to this word here ward okay precinct and ward where cities are
divided politically again where I come from Perth Perth is divided into
different areas and inside those areas we have wards where people are
politically represent different wards inside that particular city now these
words here are negative words that we use when we talk about cities so for
example wasteland slum ghetto no-go area shanty town suburbia
so wasteland is part of a city or town where there's no activity there's no
housing perhaps there's vacant land the land is not used for any specific
purpose maybe there was some type of activity in the past and now it's been
abandoned it can become a Waste Land slum is
normally a poorer neighborhood inside a city a slum where people don't have
maybe a lot of money maybe they have a lot of social problems they're living in
a slum the housing normally is very bad quality ghetto ghetto we refer to an
area where a particular ethnic group lives in some European cities there are
certain ethnic groups living in certain areas and sort of it's a negative word
when you talk about a Geter no-go area as the name suggests it's an area that
you don't one to go to or you shouldn't go to perhaps
because it's a dangerous area a lot of crime drug use and maybe you're not
going to be safe in that area so it's a no-go area shanty town is an area of the
city especially on some of the big big cities around the world they have shanty
towns with people erect illegal housing and they don't have access to water or
electricity they just use any material they can to build some type of
accommodation for their family and many people do the same thing and you end up
with a shanty town okay and suburbia also has a negative connotation suburbia
has the idea that it's a boring area in the suburbs where there's no life
nothing ever happens people are bored there's no activity they're living in
suburbia okay as opposed to the dynamic center of the cities where a lot of
things happen suburbia it's where you know the children go up and people go to
work every day and there's no life in suburbia these words here the last for
housing estates council estates gated communities in dormitory towns or
dormitory cities housing estates where there is obviously housing is built
again in Australia there are a lot of new housing developments or housing
estates where people move to normally their first home young couples move into
housing estates council estates where the council or the town hall builds
housing to help to help people have access to housing so perhaps they don't
have a good job or they're unemployed and they don't have access to maybe a
mortgage from the bank so they are forced to live in council estates or
council housing gated communities in some of the more dangerous cities in the
world people live in gated communities for security purposes normally it's an
area where the houses to get into the area you have to pass some type of
security control to get into the gated community where people feel safe again
if there's a lot of violence in the city I don't know any cities off the top of
my head but people do live in gated communities and dormitory towns again on
big cities dormitory towns pop up where the cost of living is cheaper but people
travel to and from work every day they commute so they sleep in the dormitory
town hence the name dormitory town they travel to and from work every day so
dormitory towns so all of these words we can use in English when we talk about
towns and cities now thank you very much for watching the lesson if you have any
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next video lesson have a good day bye