Another thread's random tangent got me thinking about the N. American cities that are often forgotten. Sure, we are always singing the praises of places like NYC, Boston, Chicago, Vancouver, Portland, LA, etc. All great cities in their own unique ways, but what about those places that get less publicity but are great as well?
Mine: My adopted hometown by virtue of living here longer than anywhere else, Minneapolis-St Paul.
As the 16th largest American metro we are often over shadowed by the nearly identical sized 15th largest, Seattle-Tacoma. The design community here is quite strong with plenty of local talent plus a very healthy supply of imported star-architect talent. We are also the best place to sleep, something architects never get enough of. Tying into that, Minnesota is the healthiest state. Not bad for the biggest metro on the Mississippi. Shall I go on?
i concur with minneapolissss'sss awesomeness
i actually think it gets a very strong amount of respect
largely cause there are lots of northerners in here... and lots of north midwesterners who are all bout places like chicago milwaukee minneapolis
as they should be
Cooperstown is a pretty amazing place, and a potential example of why "benevolent dictatorship" might be the best choice of government.
Cooperstown is a small town, the county seat, beautifully sited on Lake Oswego, has a lovely little historic main street, and is just the general Currier and Ives portrait of small town charms. It is also home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, of course, which keeps the tourist-based economy of Cooperstown forever strong and ensures that the every summer will bring lots of people from all of the country into its borders.
But Cooperstown is also home of The Clark Foundation. The Foundation owns virtually all of the property around Cooperstown. It has, I'm not sure by what means, prevented all "big box" and cookie-cutter-builder-home development in Otsego County, or at least within the city limits, which is a huge feat in itself. However, it has also opened up all of its owned property for local recreational use, meaning the town is surrounded by miles and miles of land for hiking, biking, snowshoeing, canoeing, you name it - but not hunting, and I believe there are motorized vehicle restrictions.
The Foundation also provides - free - a ton of scholarship money and scholarship research for the graduates of the Cooperstown high school, so the population of the town is largely made up of people who went out in the world, got an education, and came back smarter and in love with their hometown. It is an incredibly liberal and educated populace for a small agricultural community!
I got married in Cooperstown, so it holds a special place in my heart, and I also have a lot of good memories of it as a respite from my downtown Philly lifestyle.
Sorry about the redux, but that was over a year ago. My memory is only good for about 15 minutes. Then I get distracted and fall asleep. Must be a hazard of living in Minneapolis.
before minneapolitans get their heads too big, i'll just note that i lived there for three years:
year 1: liked it, the winter was an exciting 'great white north' adventure.
year 2: hadn't yet found a way to get involved in various aspects of the arts community i had heard so much about, finding everything so established that i couldn't get in. realized that 'minnesota nice' means 'hi, nice to meet you, don't get too close to me.' started to feel the cold seeping in.
year 3: it was freakin' cold in april! cabin fever bigtime. still no real involvement in anything i found interesting. working for a hack architect, which was the best i could find. started to look for a way out.
wait, the organisation that ranked minnesota as the healthiest state (for the 4th year in a row) is based in minnesota?
seattle itself is only 600k inhabitants, and when you live in the city, you don't even realize there are 2.6 mil zombies outside.
-we're the most overpriced city, but having lived in copenhagen and london, it's not so bad.
-we're also the fittest city, though ironically we have all that greasy goodness that is dick's and redmill.
-journalistic integrity via the stranger
I recall landing at the Atlanta Airport and needing to get to Highland North Carolina on a Friday.....Stuck in Traffic for hours and once we were out of the city the people were just plumb scarry.
if your not from the south and staying in atlanta, i would suggest keeping your activities limitied to within the perimeter. I takes skill to survive in the 'burbs of that town. Once you're in the perim and you know where to go though things are pretty sweet.
i love the twin cities, been here a month, but i will say this - THEY HAVE THE WORST, THE ABSOLUTE WORST NEWS STATIONS - AND SOOO WHITEBREAD TO BOOT! It really is unwatchable. This is a fairly decent size metro and they talk about the most inane shit, it's like listening to the farm report when i was a kid in indianapolis...uggh.
I vacationed in Guanojuato (central mexico), once..you will find crazy Mimes and wild packs of children and statues of Don Quixote everywhere. It is in the "Midwest of Mexico"...every October, there is an international arts fest ...when I hear about american midwestern cities ( I live in Denver) I immediately shut down with disinterest. I wish our "midwest" had some place like Guanojuato...aaaahhh, crazy mimes.
Well, I'm clearly biased, but I'd like to give props to Cincinnati, city of flying pigs, Oprah's favorite ice cream, missed opportunities and the longest continually-elected third political party in the nation. We have a really incredible and mostly undiscovered park system, and, don't laugh, quite possible the best public library system in the country. (Based on casual polling of us arch kids who run off to co-op in cities across the nation.)
While the local architecture scene is somewhat less progressive than other places, if you want signature, we've got it.
Last year, when I was living on the other side of campus, I could say I took all of my classes in an Eisenman, walked through a Hargreaves and a Michael Graves to get there, saw my co-op advisor in a Moore, Ruble, Yudell, paid my bills in a Leers Weinzapfel, worked out in a Morphosis, went to concerts in a Cobb and a Pelli, looked at art in a Hadid and that my dad worked in a Gehry.
I'm personally not all that gaga about the signature stuff, but apparently it's good marketing. . .
i had a lunch and learn about those tree mover things. it's really sorta crazy how big of a tree they can move...
oh and i'll have to give props to Williamstown, MA,
3 quality art museums. (1 is truly world class, the Clark Art Institute) the picturesque berkshires in all 4 seasons, and the best wings and beer east of the mississippi (time to start a debate). an ando (supposedly) in the works, 18th century towns. and a great example in cultural revitalization of a town next door (north adams).
Don't miss Bmore: art schools and good housing stock, repurposed industrial waterfronts, low cost of living and zero attitude, unless you bring it yourself ...
I understand the appeal of the happy valley in western mass as the birthplace of teenage mutant ninja turtles. But I'm still having issues with cinci - not that my time in columbus or the censorship of maplethorp 16 years ago influences my perception of the place...
Archtopus - if you can name a campus (of similar size) that doesn't have the same collection of starchitects then you get 100 garwondler points (and didn't you forget to include venturi?). I'm a little cranky because I didn't sleep well - so don't take this personally.
I've taken classes with eisenman, hargreaves, thom, hadid, FAO, SHoP, and many others, avoided graves & pelli's lectures (though they also had buildings on campus), worked on project teams with MRY, venturi, and have Pei in my blood. UC ain't that special - you gotta go to boston for corb and aalto, chicago for mies; elsewhere for wright (the good, the bad and the ugly), kahn, mies, gropius, cass gilbert, shepley bulfinch et al, and most of the other pantheon of 20th c. white dead men.
Bmore has crabs, john waters, and is the cheapest metro to live in the bos-wash corridor.
I'll echo what archtopus said about Cincinnati... It has a lot of nice assets and could really be a gem of a city if it wasn't so damn dysfunctional.
I could also say the same thing about Philadelphia... It has an incredible inferiority complex from being so close to NYC, and it certainly has its problems, but it also has world-class universities, museums, excellent college radio stations, a good music and art scene, and the cost of living is peanuts compared to NYC. On top of all that, Fairmount Park is absolutely beautiful and it goes on forever. It's a shame most Philly locals don't appreciate how cool the city is; The Philadelphia Inquirer once suggested the city's motto should be changed to "Philadelphia: It's really not as bad as we say it is."
I've only spent brief periods in Pittsburgh, but I generally liked what I saw. Living in pancake-flat Chicago for so long, I have a soft spot for cities with interesting topography. (Or any topography, for that matter...)
i never can figure out how the '3rd', '10th','16th' largest statistics are determined. metro louisville has the '16th largest city' designation on all of its 'welcome to louisville' signs. but the wiki article cited above calls mpls/st paul the 16th largest 'metro area'. all i can figure is that when louisville merged with its surrounding county to become 'metro louisville' we increased in size as a city but actually no longer got to count the formerly-metro areas beyond this county and into the adjoining ones as part of the metro area.
even more remarkable is that we can be - maybe - the 16th largest city in the u.s. and never come up on any of the lists of notable places despite being an absolutely fascinating place. maybe we should be happy about that. we get to just stay like we are: 2006's 'best place to raise a family' by some group or another.
I think the census department determines what a Metropolitian Statistical Area is based on a population density. Actual population of a core city is all over the map. Cities like Houston and Indianapolis are huge because they have annex power and suck in all the surrounding suburbs calling them their own. Meanwhile Minneapolis/St. Paul doesn't have that power and have 1st ring suburbs with nearly identical population density.
I prefer the metro area size perspective because even if the zombies in the suburbs don't eschew the typical leanings of the average archinecter, they do contribute to the general economy of the area. That in turn attracts many of the civic things us archinecters appreciate.
As for Louisville, aren't you getting an OMA building? If I recall it looks like a dreadful beast, but hey, I think most star-architects are overrated.
[Prince-Ramus was recently quoted in the paper as saying that they were a firm different from most architecture firms because they were interested in the pragmatic aspects of actually getting the project built, down in the trenches so to speak. Ironic given that they are the design architects only and others will be preparing cds for them and doing construction admin. Even more interesting: because JPR has allowed himself to be called 'The Architect' in some newspaper articles, rumor has it the ky state board may be after him because he's not registered in u.s. i don't know the truth of this.]
treekiller, like I said I'm not all that impressed by so much signature work, but I've done a good bit of traveling through co-op, AIAS and personal trips and haven't seen any other campus that looks as drunk as UC. MIT is the only one I've seen that comes close. All those buildings I listed (except for Pelli and Hadid downtown) are within a half-mile square.
I'll toast to the 'drunk campus' ideal... don't know of any other places (maybe wellesley?) that can subscribe to inebriated masterplanning. that 1/2 mile distance is a common size of campuses, so finding lots of 'named' buildings is typical in that proximity. I'm not trying to pick a fight over DAAP's greatness - that's already been established ;-)
Why do people from Minneapolis always feel the need to big up their city? Have you ever noticed how much Minnesotans brag about their hometown and how awesome it is? Is it rooted in an urban equivalent of short man's complex, or is Minneapolis really that cool?
(FTR, I'm from Minneapolis and I think it's great, just like every other Minnesotan I've ever met...going to watch the Vikings now)
i am not from minnesota. but i tell you i find the city much more accessible and less intimidating than other cities, it has the culture [although small], it has the music [small], it has the art [small], it has the food [small], it has public transport [small, but less of a PITA], it has the architecture [again small, but growing], it has the ability to allow one to get the fuck out of dodge in an instant, and getting to the airport is cake.
i think in the rest of what's left of my life i can have a much more enjoyable experience trying to investigate/tour/learn about this area than most places i have been.
but then again, the people here are short and very white.
although it's not my hometown, i'l send out props to burlington, VT.
depending on what your line of work is, or what size office you want to work in, it can be pretty confining place, but it sure is a pretty little town. i lived in and around there for about 8-9 years before moving out to SF Bay Area...
UVM up on the hill, Lake Champlain at the bottom, gorgeous mountains all around. it's just 1 1/2hr to montreal which is also an awesome city, and three hours to Boston.
That being said though, I'd probably move to Montreal before going back to Burlington...
I'll second Philadelphia. My little brother has been living in Philly for the last 8 years or so, which has given me a chance to get to know the place, and I think it is fantastic in many, many ways. First off, Philly is dirt cheap. My brother recently bought an amazing brick row house in a cool S. Philly neighborhood for $125,000. That's hard to beat in any city. Philly has outstanding museums: The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a top notch general collection, Eastern State Penitentary is an architect's dream museum, the Mutter Museum is strangest and best decorated museum I've ever visited and the Rodin Museum is extraordinary. Plus all the Colonial/America historic sites such as the Liberty Bell and Besty Ross' house. The City wide special! If you've never had the pleasure, the Citywide special is a Yuengling Draft and a shot of Jim Beam for $3. Almost every bar in the city honors it at hat price at all times. More cities should do that. There are of course fantastic buildings, especially colonial era ones just spilling out of the gutters in Philly. The Italian Market has some of the best Italian food I've ever had outside of Philly, and again the prices are very reasonable. The Italian Market also has hard to find imported cheeses etc. Philly is also a fun part town. People there know how to get crazy and have a good time without the pretension problem we have in NYC. There are several great universities as well. Oh, the BEST thing about Philly is the pretzel factory. It open at 1 am, when the bars close, and sells giant hot pretzels right out of the oven with kosher salt, 4 for a dollar.
sammyboy - I think most NATIVE Minnesotans do all the big-up talking about the Twin Cities. As a non-native that's been here a few years now I've found to like it here more than any other place I've lived, thus me giving the town props.
Do conceed many Minnesotans have lived here their whole lives and are very sheltered and ignorant of the remainder of the country or world. Similar to New Yorker's being ignorant about the part of the country between NYC and LA they call fly-over.
Most Under-rated N. American Cities
Another thread's random tangent got me thinking about the N. American cities that are often forgotten. Sure, we are always singing the praises of places like NYC, Boston, Chicago, Vancouver, Portland, LA, etc. All great cities in their own unique ways, but what about those places that get less publicity but are great as well?
Mine: My adopted hometown by virtue of living here longer than anywhere else, Minneapolis-St Paul.
As the 16th largest American metro we are often over shadowed by the nearly identical sized 15th largest, Seattle-Tacoma. The design community here is quite strong with plenty of local talent plus a very healthy supply of imported star-architect talent. We are also the best place to sleep, something architects never get enough of. Tying into that, Minnesota is the healthiest state. Not bad for the biggest metro on the Mississippi. Shall I go on?
Your turn now...
, redux?
i still stand by louisville for the same reasons i stated back then.
not necessarily the best place to practice architecture, but...
Twin Cities certainly rock, but toss'm up for Iowa City, the party on the prarrie.
aqura: You might also add a very talented TV New Network at Kare!
Every year they pull down their share of awards for broadcast journalism.
Atlanta can be pretty sweet if you know where to look, or it can be the most boring city in North America.
i concur with minneapolissss'sss awesomeness
i actually think it gets a very strong amount of respect
largely cause there are lots of northerners in here... and lots of north midwesterners who are all bout places like chicago milwaukee minneapolis
as they should be
northern midwesterners
northern midwesterners
northern midwesterners
How about the most overrated:
SAN FRANCISCO
I'm going to take a moment to talk about Cooperstown, New York.
Cooperstown is a pretty amazing place, and a potential example of why "benevolent dictatorship" might be the best choice of government.
Cooperstown is a small town, the county seat, beautifully sited on Lake Oswego, has a lovely little historic main street, and is just the general Currier and Ives portrait of small town charms. It is also home to the Baseball Hall of Fame, of course, which keeps the tourist-based economy of Cooperstown forever strong and ensures that the every summer will bring lots of people from all of the country into its borders.
But Cooperstown is also home of The Clark Foundation. The Foundation owns virtually all of the property around Cooperstown. It has, I'm not sure by what means, prevented all "big box" and cookie-cutter-builder-home development in Otsego County, or at least within the city limits, which is a huge feat in itself. However, it has also opened up all of its owned property for local recreational use, meaning the town is surrounded by miles and miles of land for hiking, biking, snowshoeing, canoeing, you name it - but not hunting, and I believe there are motorized vehicle restrictions.
The Foundation also provides - free - a ton of scholarship money and scholarship research for the graduates of the Cooperstown high school, so the population of the town is largely made up of people who went out in the world, got an education, and came back smarter and in love with their hometown. It is an incredibly liberal and educated populace for a small agricultural community!
I got married in Cooperstown, so it holds a special place in my heart, and I also have a lot of good memories of it as a respite from my downtown Philly lifestyle.
Sorry about the redux, but that was over a year ago. My memory is only good for about 15 minutes. Then I get distracted and fall asleep. Must be a hazard of living in Minneapolis.
before minneapolitans get their heads too big, i'll just note that i lived there for three years:
year 1: liked it, the winter was an exciting 'great white north' adventure.
year 2: hadn't yet found a way to get involved in various aspects of the arts community i had heard so much about, finding everything so established that i couldn't get in. realized that 'minnesota nice' means 'hi, nice to meet you, don't get too close to me.' started to feel the cold seeping in.
year 3: it was freakin' cold in april! cabin fever bigtime. still no real involvement in anything i found interesting. working for a hack architect, which was the best i could find. started to look for a way out.
end of 3 yrs, almost to the day > GOT OUT.
wait, the organisation that ranked minnesota as the healthiest state (for the 4th year in a row) is based in minnesota?
seattle itself is only 600k inhabitants, and when you live in the city, you don't even realize there are 2.6 mil zombies outside.
-we're the most overpriced city, but having lived in copenhagen and london, it's not so bad.
-we're also the fittest city, though ironically we have all that greasy goodness that is dick's and redmill.
-journalistic integrity via the stranger
plus, the arch. scene isn't half bad.
Wait - Chicagos not the healthiest city? I thought beef, cigarettes and booze were the 4 food groups.
I recall landing at the Atlanta Airport and needing to get to Highland North Carolina on a Friday.....Stuck in Traffic for hours and once we were out of the city the people were just plumb scarry.
if your not from the south and staying in atlanta, i would suggest keeping your activities limitied to within the perimeter. I takes skill to survive in the 'burbs of that town. Once you're in the perim and you know where to go though things are pretty sweet.
I always like to give props to Pittsburgh in lists like this. That is one great town.
Ah, evil. That's only 3.
You couldn't under-rate Phoenix if you tried, but Sedona is a very nice town for the nature-minded. Also loved Denver when I was there last spring.
i love the twin cities, been here a month, but i will say this - THEY HAVE THE WORST, THE ABSOLUTE WORST NEWS STATIONS - AND SOOO WHITEBREAD TO BOOT! It really is unwatchable. This is a fairly decent size metro and they talk about the most inane shit, it's like listening to the farm report when i was a kid in indianapolis...uggh.
I vacationed in Guanojuato (central mexico), once..you will find crazy Mimes and wild packs of children and statues of Don Quixote everywhere. It is in the "Midwest of Mexico"...every October, there is an international arts fest ...when I hear about american midwestern cities ( I live in Denver) I immediately shut down with disinterest. I wish our "midwest" had some place like Guanojuato...aaaahhh, crazy mimes.
hey they got a farm report in chicago you just got to be up early or late enough to hear it.
I like tractors- but tree spades are better!
Well, I'm clearly biased, but I'd like to give props to Cincinnati, city of flying pigs, Oprah's favorite ice cream, missed opportunities and the longest continually-elected third political party in the nation. We have a really incredible and mostly undiscovered park system, and, don't laugh, quite possible the best public library system in the country. (Based on casual polling of us arch kids who run off to co-op in cities across the nation.)
While the local architecture scene is somewhat less progressive than other places, if you want signature, we've got it.
Last year, when I was living on the other side of campus, I could say I took all of my classes in an Eisenman, walked through a Hargreaves and a Michael Graves to get there, saw my co-op advisor in a Moore, Ruble, Yudell, paid my bills in a Leers Weinzapfel, worked out in a Morphosis, went to concerts in a Cobb and a Pelli, looked at art in a Hadid and that my dad worked in a Gehry.
I'm personally not all that gaga about the signature stuff, but apparently it's good marketing. . .
I have always wondered how they put in trees like that!!!!!
i had a lunch and learn about those tree mover things. it's really sorta crazy how big of a tree they can move...
oh and i'll have to give props to Williamstown, MA,
3 quality art museums. (1 is truly world class, the Clark Art Institute) the picturesque berkshires in all 4 seasons, and the best wings and beer east of the mississippi (time to start a debate). an ando (supposedly) in the works, 18th century towns. and a great example in cultural revitalization of a town next door (north adams).
Don't miss Bmore: art schools and good housing stock, repurposed industrial waterfronts, low cost of living and zero attitude, unless you bring it yourself ...
Bmore is pretty sweet, although i've never seen the seedy side of that town, but that might make it all the sweeter.
I understand the appeal of the happy valley in western mass as the birthplace of teenage mutant ninja turtles. But I'm still having issues with cinci - not that my time in columbus or the censorship of maplethorp 16 years ago influences my perception of the place...
Archtopus - if you can name a campus (of similar size) that doesn't have the same collection of starchitects then you get 100 garwondler points (and didn't you forget to include venturi?). I'm a little cranky because I didn't sleep well - so don't take this personally.
I've taken classes with eisenman, hargreaves, thom, hadid, FAO, SHoP, and many others, avoided graves & pelli's lectures (though they also had buildings on campus), worked on project teams with MRY, venturi, and have Pei in my blood. UC ain't that special - you gotta go to boston for corb and aalto, chicago for mies; elsewhere for wright (the good, the bad and the ugly), kahn, mies, gropius, cass gilbert, shepley bulfinch et al, and most of the other pantheon of 20th c. white dead men.
Bmore has crabs, john waters, and is the cheapest metro to live in the bos-wash corridor.
I'll echo what archtopus said about Cincinnati... It has a lot of nice assets and could really be a gem of a city if it wasn't so damn dysfunctional.
I could also say the same thing about Philadelphia... It has an incredible inferiority complex from being so close to NYC, and it certainly has its problems, but it also has world-class universities, museums, excellent college radio stations, a good music and art scene, and the cost of living is peanuts compared to NYC. On top of all that, Fairmount Park is absolutely beautiful and it goes on forever. It's a shame most Philly locals don't appreciate how cool the city is; The Philadelphia Inquirer once suggested the city's motto should be changed to "Philadelphia: It's really not as bad as we say it is."
I've only spent brief periods in Pittsburgh, but I generally liked what I saw. Living in pancake-flat Chicago for so long, I have a soft spot for cities with interesting topography. (Or any topography, for that matter...)
i never can figure out how the '3rd', '10th','16th' largest statistics are determined. metro louisville has the '16th largest city' designation on all of its 'welcome to louisville' signs. but the wiki article cited above calls mpls/st paul the 16th largest 'metro area'. all i can figure is that when louisville merged with its surrounding county to become 'metro louisville' we increased in size as a city but actually no longer got to count the formerly-metro areas beyond this county and into the adjoining ones as part of the metro area.
even more remarkable is that we can be - maybe - the 16th largest city in the u.s. and never come up on any of the lists of notable places despite being an absolutely fascinating place. maybe we should be happy about that. we get to just stay like we are: 2006's 'best place to raise a family' by some group or another.
Newark, NJ
I think the census department determines what a Metropolitian Statistical Area is based on a population density. Actual population of a core city is all over the map. Cities like Houston and Indianapolis are huge because they have annex power and suck in all the surrounding suburbs calling them their own. Meanwhile Minneapolis/St. Paul doesn't have that power and have 1st ring suburbs with nearly identical population density.
I prefer the metro area size perspective because even if the zombies in the suburbs don't eschew the typical leanings of the average archinecter, they do contribute to the general economy of the area. That in turn attracts many of the civic things us archinecters appreciate.
As for Louisville, aren't you getting an OMA building? If I recall it looks like a dreadful beast, but hey, I think most star-architects are overrated.
REX, not OMA.
[Prince-Ramus was recently quoted in the paper as saying that they were a firm different from most architecture firms because they were interested in the pragmatic aspects of actually getting the project built, down in the trenches so to speak. Ironic given that they are the design architects only and others will be preparing cds for them and doing construction admin. Even more interesting: because JPR has allowed himself to be called 'The Architect' in some newspaper articles, rumor has it the ky state board may be after him because he's not registered in u.s. i don't know the truth of this.]
treekiller, like I said I'm not all that impressed by so much signature work, but I've done a good bit of traveling through co-op, AIAS and personal trips and haven't seen any other campus that looks as drunk as UC. MIT is the only one I've seen that comes close. All those buildings I listed (except for Pelli and Hadid downtown) are within a half-mile square.
How many campuses look like this?
I'll toast to the 'drunk campus' ideal... don't know of any other places (maybe wellesley?) that can subscribe to inebriated masterplanning. that 1/2 mile distance is a common size of campuses, so finding lots of 'named' buildings is typical in that proximity. I'm not trying to pick a fight over DAAP's greatness - that's already been established ;-)
ive been to cinci once. it seemed a 50/50 mix of starchitecture and burned out slum.
newwark my ass....Paterson...rules! the even have a Sullivan Building...or what is left of a Sullivan Building.
Why do people from Minneapolis always feel the need to big up their city? Have you ever noticed how much Minnesotans brag about their hometown and how awesome it is? Is it rooted in an urban equivalent of short man's complex, or is Minneapolis really that cool?
(FTR, I'm from Minneapolis and I think it's great, just like every other Minnesotan I've ever met...going to watch the Vikings now)
because it rocks! pasley park is better then graceland or neverland ranch.
i am not from minnesota. but i tell you i find the city much more accessible and less intimidating than other cities, it has the culture [although small], it has the music [small], it has the art [small], it has the food [small], it has public transport [small, but less of a PITA], it has the architecture [again small, but growing], it has the ability to allow one to get the fuck out of dodge in an instant, and getting to the airport is cake.
i think in the rest of what's left of my life i can have a much more enjoyable experience trying to investigate/tour/learn about this area than most places i have been.
but then again, the people here are short and very white.
although it's not my hometown, i'l send out props to burlington, VT.
depending on what your line of work is, or what size office you want to work in, it can be pretty confining place, but it sure is a pretty little town. i lived in and around there for about 8-9 years before moving out to SF Bay Area...
UVM up on the hill, Lake Champlain at the bottom, gorgeous mountains all around. it's just 1 1/2hr to montreal which is also an awesome city, and three hours to Boston.
That being said though, I'd probably move to Montreal before going back to Burlington...
Anyone from New Brunswick, NJ?
I'll second Philadelphia. My little brother has been living in Philly for the last 8 years or so, which has given me a chance to get to know the place, and I think it is fantastic in many, many ways. First off, Philly is dirt cheap. My brother recently bought an amazing brick row house in a cool S. Philly neighborhood for $125,000. That's hard to beat in any city. Philly has outstanding museums: The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a top notch general collection, Eastern State Penitentary is an architect's dream museum, the Mutter Museum is strangest and best decorated museum I've ever visited and the Rodin Museum is extraordinary. Plus all the Colonial/America historic sites such as the Liberty Bell and Besty Ross' house. The City wide special! If you've never had the pleasure, the Citywide special is a Yuengling Draft and a shot of Jim Beam for $3. Almost every bar in the city honors it at hat price at all times. More cities should do that. There are of course fantastic buildings, especially colonial era ones just spilling out of the gutters in Philly. The Italian Market has some of the best Italian food I've ever had outside of Philly, and again the prices are very reasonable. The Italian Market also has hard to find imported cheeses etc. Philly is also a fun part town. People there know how to get crazy and have a good time without the pretension problem we have in NYC. There are several great universities as well. Oh, the BEST thing about Philly is the pretzel factory. It open at 1 am, when the bars close, and sells giant hot pretzels right out of the oven with kosher salt, 4 for a dollar.
NASHVILLE.
Phoenix, AZ
Philly really is, in many ways,the coolest city in the country, IMO. Its perpetual underdog status makes it all the more lovable.
Canada. Okay it's not city. But it has lots of cool cities in it.
Okay, Toronto.
Erie wooo...
What about used to be great?
www.forgottendetroit.com
Snooker: Paterson is cool only because of Panchito's on Market St.
sammyboy - I think most NATIVE Minnesotans do all the big-up talking about the Twin Cities. As a non-native that's been here a few years now I've found to like it here more than any other place I've lived, thus me giving the town props.
Do conceed many Minnesotans have lived here their whole lives and are very sheltered and ignorant of the remainder of the country or world. Similar to New Yorker's being ignorant about the part of the country between NYC and LA they call fly-over.
Kudos to Williamstown, MA - new Bill Rawn dance theatre_!
http://www.theotherroom.com/62center/venue_bp_drawings.cfm
and to Iowa City:
http://www.pbase.com/archetype/iowa_city
And my favorites, Quebec and Montreal:
http://www.pbase.com/archetype/canada
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