The metropolitan area remains focused on the large city at its center, especially the downtown central business district, which is the oldest part of the urban agglomeration and contains the region's largest concentration of business, government, and shopping facilities as well as its wealthiest and most prestigious residences. Wide residential sectors radiate outward from the central business district across the rest of the central city, each one home to a particular income group and thereby perpetuating spatially the strong class system of European society. The spatial structure of the European city c. The Central Business District d. East Asia is a case in point.
Japan is one of the most developed countries on Earth, and Mongolia is one of the least developed.
Virtually all researchers still distinguish between developed countries and underdeveloped countries, but even at this larger scale the distinction can be misleading. Along its Pacific Rim, China in places is taking on the characteristics of a developed country. But in its interior, China displays symptoms of underdevelopment. During the Second World War, when the Japanese ruled Malaya, they were ruthlessly persecuted. Today, the commercially active, urbanized Chinese sector still is victimized by discrimination, now by the dominant Malays.