1.   Even today, downtown Managua remains a collection of ruins and vacant lots overgrown with weeds, inhabited only by a few squatters.

2.   The new businesses proved popular with office workers, but downtown remained a virtual ghost town after five.

3.   While downtown will remain a central hub, the Los Angeles area was always intended to grow around well-defined urban hubs.

4.   At one point flames flickered a few hundred yards from the police department, although downtown remained mostly unscathed.

5.   Suburban businesses opened their doors cautiously and people defied threats of violence to walk to work in a light drizzle but downtown Port-au-Prince remained shuttered.