From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishinner cityˌinner ˈcity noun (plural inner cities) [countable] SSTOWNthe part near the middle of a city, especially where the buildings are in a bad condition and the people are poor the problems of our inner cities —inner-city adjective inner-city schools
Examples from the Corpus
inner city• Browntown L.A. hosts 50 inner city kids at every Sunday home game.• Holidays for inner city groups are also to be provided.• The respectable residents have long since fled to the suburbs to escape the inner city pathologies.• The shy, scholarly Republican has roots both on the farm and in the inner city.• Twice he worked for the Wellington City Mission, among the lost and lonely people of the inner city.• The inner city question For one reason or another the inner city has always been a target for public regulation and control.From Longman Business Dictionaryinner cityˌinner ˈcity noun (plural inner cities) [countable] the part near the centre of a city where the buildings are often in a bad condition and the people are poorThe inner cities are covered with dilapidated and dangerous housing.poor, inner-city neighborhoods 