Your favorite small urban cities in North America? - Page 8

craigs · #**141** Posted **Aug 23, 2020, 8:55 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

on the other hand Muncie looks very vibrant

It's been a few years, but I've never known Muncie to be notably vibrant.

Anyway--here's Anapolis, MD:

source

Centropolis · #**142** Posted **Aug 23, 2020, 10:37 PM**

i once had family in muncie, but have never been. i’ve always had a weird grudge against indiana - it occupies a similar sort of midwestern space to missouri but is smaller and seems less dynamic/wild. i mean indianapolis apparently has its shit together - not cool.

Skintreesnail · #**143** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 6:28 PM**

lots of great small cities, but my favorite is Lancaster PA. the population is only 60k and it manages to provide a pretty vibrant downtown, sort of like a mini Philly. Has an orchestra, art galleries, theatre, public markets, lots of shops/restaurants, university, dense/urban feel. All in the middle of really picturesque countryside. Also easy access to Philly/NYC via amtrak

nice downtown

nice, dense housing stock:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0365...2!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0402...4!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0416...4!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0401...4!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0413...4!8i8192?hl=en

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0401...4!8i8192?hl=en

JManc · #**144** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 7:19 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

From what I can tell observing these towns on google maps , there has been a noticeable , nationwide effort to renovate major historical commercial buildings and commercial rowhouse blocks in small cities downtowns

20 years ago these places looked crappier

They still look bad a few blocks in either direction. My hometown has cleaned up its downtown with developers rehabbing old buildings into lofts but the city is still in rough shape.

dc_denizen · #**145** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 8:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc

They still look bad a few blocks in either direction. My hometown has cleaned up its downtown with developers rehabbing old buildings into lofts but the city is still in rough shape.

well that's whats happened, the significant architecture has been rehabbed, but the woodframe 50s workers homes on the periphery, which really need to be replaced, are lying fallow

iheartthed · #**146** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 8:56 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atlas

Ogden, Utah is my hometown and has a lovely, walkable historic core that was dilapidated for years but has been going through a revival. It's probably the second-best downtown in Utah at this point after Salt Lake City.

If it weren't for the teetotaler culture, I could definitely spend time there with that view.

Maldive · #**147** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 9:53 PM**

[QUOTE=Skintreesnail;9020574]lots of great small cities, but my favorite is Lancaster PA. the population is only 60k and it manages to provide a pretty vibrant downtown, sort of like a mini Philly. Has an orchestra, art galleries, theatre, public markets, lots of shops/restaurants, university, dense/urban feel. All in the middle of really picturesque countryside. Also easy access to Philly/NYC via amtrak

Wow Lancaster is gorgeous... a hidden gem. Especially luv this historic 'scraper'.

edale · #**148** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 11:07 PM**

I visited Lancaster briefly when my sister was looking at colleges. Lafayette University is located there. We had dinner at a little Italian spot downtown, and I remembered thinking "how have I never even heard of this city before." It felt like a pretty big city due to the rowhouses and the downtown area. It did feel depressed and not particularly lively. But the form was impressive for sure.

The airport, however, removes any impression that you're in a big city. I remember it being tiny.

pj3000 · #**149** Posted **Aug 24, 2020, 11:20 PM**

Lancaster is a cool old city. It's really improved the downtown area in the last 20 years or so.

F&M College is there. Lafayette is in Easton in the Lehigh Valley area.

dc_denizen · #**150** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 12:55 AM**

Lancaster, Reading, and York are all similar (and great if you like rowhouses)

Looking again at Wooster OH:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7982...7i16384!8i8192

Wooster has no major educational institutions, but seems to be thriving regardless, no doubt due to heavy concentration of manufacturing and agricultural HQs

Quote:

Wooster is the headquarters of several industrial entities. Buehler Food Markets Inc., Wooster Brush, Seaman Corp., Tricor Industrial, CRW Inc, and Certified Angus Beef have corporate headquarters located in Wooster. Rubbermaid made its corporate headquarters in Wooster until the end of 2003. LuK, the German maker of dual-clutch transmissions has its North America headquarters in Wooster where mainly torque converters are produced. Other large commercial operations in Wooster are Frito-Lay, Akron Brass, United Titanium, Western Reserve Group Insurance Company, Daisy Brands, and Bogner Construction Company.

Wooster is also the world headquarters of the Prentke Romich Company (PRC) which is a member of a consortium of companies that produce assistive technology and augmentative communication devices.[17]

Atlas · #**151** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 2:52 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed

If it weren't for the teetotaler culture, I could definitely spend time there with that view.

Ogden and Salt Lake (and Park City) are actually the least-LDS cities in Utah, so they actually have pretty good (and growing) social drinking cultures and good breweries. Ogden grew up as a railroad town, so its downtown has always been more diverse than the state as a whole.

I can't say the same for places like Logan, Provo, and St. George, but it's slowly changing in those areas too. Recently, Provo *gasp* legalized breweries.

CaliNative · #**152** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 3:40 AM**

Anybody been there? How does it stack up as a nice small city? Twain liked it enough to summer there for years.

CaliNative · #**153** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 3:51 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Anybody been there? How does it stack up as a nice small city? Twain liked it enough to summer there for years.

Just looked at a YouTube drone flight over Elmyra. Sleepy looking. Downtown seems to have a lot of parking lots and vacant lots, so I guess not. Some of the neighborhoods look nice. I guess no Ithaca though.

CaliNative · #**154** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 3:57 AM**

Still looking for ideal upstate NY towns more undiscovered than Ithaca with property bargains. Saratoga? Plattsburg?? Lockport??? Olean?????? Utica?????????????? Antwerp?????????????????????? Cassius Coolidge, the artist known for paintings of dogs playing poker, lived in Antwerp, so there is that.

Also, a couple of PA towns. State College & Punxatawney. But I learned a while ago that "Groundhog Day" wasn't actually filmed in Punx, so that kind of shocked me. It must be fun place on G.D. though. Might run into Ned.

CaliNative · #**155** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 4:34 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by edale

I visited Lancaster briefly when my sister was looking at colleges. Lafayette University is located there. We had dinner at a little Italian spot downtown, and I remembered thinking "how have I never even heard of this city before." It felt like a pretty big city due to the rowhouses and the downtown area. It did feel depressed and not particularly lively. But the form was impressive for sure.

The airport, however, removes any impression that you're in a big city. I remember it being tiny.

Do any Amish live in town, or are they out on the farms? Maybe just lapsed Amish. Lancaster must be like Vegas for the Amish. What happens in Lancaster stays in Lancaster.

Six Corners · #**156** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 5:59 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Springfield, Mo

https://www.google.com/maps/@37.2089...7i16384!8i8192

Omaha

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.2565...7i16384!8i8192

Thesis: NE/MO/KS/IA small cities seem better maintained and more thriving than IN/MI/OH/IL small cities (likely due to less prevalent racial conflict legacy...white flight was sort of desultory)

Pound for pound, NE/MO/KS/IA also seems to have TX beat.

Texas small towns are shockingly non-vibrant (Lubbock, Midland, Odessa).

Here's downtown Lubbock - not impressed

https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5844...7i16384!8i8192

compare to Lincoln, NE

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8136...7i16384!8i8192

What gives, why does Nebraska and Kansas look more lively than TX?

I'll concur with your thesis. I think the reasons why vary. Part of the reason may be that smaller cities in NE/IA/MO/KS don't really exist in the shadows of larger cities that they must compete with (Missouri may be the exception). Thus they are the ones attracting regional business rather than losing it to a larger city up the road.

Omaha, to be fair, is far above the 150,000 population threshold given by OP and the other small cities you explored with its ~950,000 person metro. Being the terminus for the transcontinental railroad helped lure industry back in the day. While much of that was tied to agriculture - the city had the world's largest stockyards for awhile - it has somehow managed to diversify over the years into mainly white collar industries like insurance, banking, telecommunications, and engineering. What's left of the ag industry is largely front office stuff for supplemental industries like grain trading and transportation companies. Manufacturing industries that dominated the eastern midwest didn't spread into the upper plains much.

Lincoln's vibrancy is helped by the fact that, similar to Austin and Madison, it is both the state capital and a college town. Lincoln's been doing a lot recently to increase its urban footprint. Within the past 10-years it has added about five blocks to its downtown, transforming what was a large field between railroads:

https://goo.gl/maps/Tz16pDqtj5unwk3s5

...into a bunch of mixed-use midrises:

https://goo.gl/maps/fa6S3Qj2hzm6T96s8

Ames is an interesting case in that its Campustown neighborhood next to Iowa State University is more densely populated and vibrant than its downtown. Downtown has more of its historic building stock intact than Campustown and the architecture isn't cheap-looking, but few buildings downtown are taller than two stories. Campustown on the other hand, has many mid-rises: https://goo.gl/maps/DCRBjzoWnkHnAuEK9 Of course it's all college kids in Campustown.

BnaBreaker · #**157** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 7:36 AM**

One of my favorite small cities of all is Traverse City, MI... off the beaten path, but not too far... incredible dining scene, vibrant downtown right on the bay, big enough to not feel like just a 'charming small town,' close to stunning natural scenery, excellent wineries... what's not to love?

Have a look around:

https://goo.gl/maps/mNR8yZCZCUqMBU8a9

Crawford · #**158** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 10:29 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Still looking for ideal upstate NY towns more undiscovered than Ithaca with property bargains. Saratoga? Plattsburg?? Lockport??? Olean?????? Utica?????????????? Antwerp?????????????????????? Cassius Coolidge, the artist known for paintings of dogs playing poker, lived in Antwerp, so there is that.

Saratoga definitely isn't undiscovered, and will more expensive than Ithaca. Price is generally a function of proximity to NYC.

Scenic, affordable, non-depressed towns near Ithaca: Oneonta, Corning, Watkins Glen, Cortland, Hamilton, Aurora, Seneca Falls, Geneva, Auburn.

dc_denizen · #**159** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 10:45 AM**

Watertown and Binghamton looks far more intact, renovated and vibrant than Utica.

eschaton · #**160** Posted **Aug 25, 2020, 12:29 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Do any Amish live in town, or are they out on the farms? Maybe just lapsed Amish. Lancaster must be like Vegas for the Amish. What happens in Lancaster stays in Lancaster.

These days Lancaster is about half Latino - mostly Puerto Rican, with some Dominicans as well. Mixture of first-generation immigrants and migrants from NYC.