Well, I somehow completely missed your point (sorry about that, I got 2 hours sleep last night). All I know is that I worked in the Central Business District of N.O. for many, many years and we always called it either the "CBD" or "downtown". And to us, "uptown" is the Garden District. Guess different people call it different things. Is that OK?
I was born and raised in the shabby part of town, or "downtown".....lower Ninth Ward, to be precise. When I got into the military and heard people refer to "downtown" as the city of San Diego I thought they were insane. :-)
Of course, it's OK. I'm from "the other side of the tracks." :-)