I am designing a site that will be very much like Craigslist in structure.
Multiple cities.

It will be a membership based operation based on individual cities
with a replicated master format.

On each Citysite will be a passworded area for members.
behind that password will be features, articles, resources, downloads,et...
The downloads will be everything from E-Books to Graphics to MP3's

Each city will have a moderator with FTP access.
I will maintain all scripts and passwords.
UNIX Server.

I will start small and build city by city. Don't need and can't afford a dedicated server yet. But am willing to do that as soon as revenues allow.

I do need a host that will give me a lot of features and bandwith for a low price now and grow with me in the future.

Also no or few hassles! I'm not going to have much time to deal with
any of the typical idiotic hosting company behavior.

And don't tell me about any of the sites who get all the bogus reviews.
I've already eliminated them all.

IE: Godaddy, Midphase, Hostgater, ect.......
Especially Globat and their hidden TOS upgrades and fees.

Can you please not self advertise here... it ain't the place to do it...

I think that you have to look for special web hosting or at least for dedicated or VPS/semi dedicated.

I think if your going to have consistent downloads, shared hosting needs to be out of the idea.

Looks like you are trying to set up a serious website/business hence you'll need to deal with a serious company....You might want to check out Iron Mountain (imountain.com). I've been hosting a few sites with them for a few months now. You'll find disk space, bandwidth, RAM & CPU almost everywhere but I think that what sets these guys apart is service and support. My time zone is GMT+2 and they are on PST i.e. we have a good 10 hours time difference yet I get almost instant answers any time I send a support ticket. I must have sent 4-5 so far and only once it took them about a day to get back to me. In the other cases they came back with an answer within minutes. Let me know if you want to check out a hosted site.

Guess you need file hosting?

I've looked at separating things. using a web host, a File host et.....

I was trying to keep things simple and under one "Wrapper" so to speak.

Thanks for the hosting suggestions.
I have reviewed them all.

I'd definitely recommend a VPS for this (potentially managed, depending on your experience).

Aside from the obvious benefit of having dedicated/guaranteed resources - unlike shared hosting - the upgrade path is very smooth. We regularly upgrade our customers from VPS:5 / VPS:10 up through our entire VPS range, and as their sites become even more successful onto an appropriate dedicated server.

The upgrade process is completely hassle free (zero downtime) and upgrades are available at any time.

Many other VPS providers are able to offer this same trouble-free upgrade path too... although some seem to forcefully overcomplicate things for some reason

If you want more info. specifically on our offerings then you can check out our website or drop me a PM.

However, I'm happy to help discuss the pros/cons of the VPS route further in a general sense here...

You need file hosting or a dedicated server most likely

For MP3 need to have listen in order store in the hosting pack