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Originally Posted by DZH22
Lowell Massachusetts - Dense mill city with rivers and canals, lots of residential conversions in the huge old textile factories
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Lowell is probably my favorite of the mid-sized non-metro Mass cities.
Such a nice downtown, both in terms of density and layout. I feel like really only Lowell and New Bedford have turned themselves around, while Worcerster, Springfield, Brockton, etc continue to struggle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DZH22
Scranton Pennsylvania - Denser and more expansive than expected, beautiful old architecture, Dunder Mifflin
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While I love most small PA cities, I don't like Scranton (or the Wyoming Valley in general) all that much. For some reason rowhouses never made it that far up in PA,
so you have blocks that look like this as soon as you get out of the urban core.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DZH22
Hartford Connecticut - Strong skyline and park system, Traveler's Tower and State House among the best in their classes
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As a former Connecticut resident I couldn't disagree more with this. Hartford has made some strides, but it's honestly one of the worst cities in the country, largely due to mid-20th century urban renewal. They almost totally obliterated the historic urban core in order to build a bunch of office towers for suburbanites, ringed the whole goddamn thing with highways, and then there's a "no man's land" of largely parking lots and institutional buildings surrounding even that. The outer neighborhoods have basically no vitality either, with the northern ones poor and black, and the southern ones poor and Latino. The West End is still a little economically and racially mixed, but it's at the outer fringe of the city and
the main commercial strip looks like this.
If Hartford ever comes back, it's got to be the neighborhood of Frog Hollow. There's still
a mostly intact business district and
some cool old walkups. No hint of a turnaround yet though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DZH22
New Haven Connecticut - Dense, walkable, awesome pizza, feels like a standalone Cambridge (Yale vs Harvard)
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Now this I agree with. New Haven, unlike most CT cities, mostly avoided the wrecking ball during the urban renewal era, and the downtown/Yale area plus East Rock and Wooster Square (home to
my favorite urban block in Connecticut) form a pretty coherent urban core. The city has only gotten better since I moved away too - I think downtown has two grocery stores now.