The New "Tell Us About Your City" Thread

[katiuska]

Because we haven't done one in a while. and it's been brewing.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1997-2007): We moved here when my dad took a job at one of the plants. Cedar Rapids is pretty much a huge suburb with an industrial sector, having three currently operating food manufactoring plants (Quaker Oats, General Mills, and ADM). Officially calling itself the City of Five Seasons, it used to be a joke back when there were five plants that the seasons corresponded to whichever one was currently stinking up the place, because the smell really does permeate the whole area (ADM being by far the worst offender). Other than that, it's pleasant, if not very interesting.


New York, New YorK (2007-2009): Oh, New York.

The city, especially Manhattan, is full of outsiders who came to New York thinking it would be cool and exciting.

I was not one of those people. I didn't really have any dream of living there, I just ended up there in much the same way that one finds oneself in Vegas. We had a complex relationship: on the one hand, it gave me an endless string of things to be pissed off about, but on the other hand, it gave me an endless string of things to be pissed off about. It's dirty, cluttered, full of assholes, and expensive, which I think killed me more than anything--this is a place which clearly delineates between the haves and the have-nots. It's also pretentious, somehow managing to be too trendy and too backwards at the same time; it's like it's so absorbed in its own New Yorkness that it fails to notice that the world has been moving on in the meantime.

Then again, it's New York. It's got a culture you won't find anywhere else, and it was great to have everything come to you for once. Also: cheap, delicious Indian food. (As an aside: I recommend going to midtown at least once, but residents tend to avoid it if they can help it. One trip around Times Square will teach you why.) Well, whatever. Every experience is of value, and whatever I may say against New York, it is certainly an experience.


Atlanta, Georgia (2009-2010): Sadly, I've never really formed an impression of the place. Actually, I live/lived out north in the boonies, around the area Deliverance took place. Fortunately, I have yet to encounter any rapist hicks by the river banks. Most of the area has tried to overcome that image, which probably did reflect an amount of truth about what people where like there several decades ago.


Iowa City, Iowa (2010- ): And here I am, back in, Iowa, for a myriad of reasons, all embarrassing. If my 14-year-old self knew that I'd eventually live in New York, only to return to Iowa, she'd devote herself to finding out how to punch future me through time for being so lame. And it is lame. But I could do worse. Iowa City has a couple points of interest, being: A) the setting for Bloom Country, b) the origin of No Shame Theater. It was one of No Shame's early members that took his Artie: The Strongest Man in the World act to The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Colorado Springs, CO: Can't say much about the "scene" as it were, but the weather was tolerable once you got used to it changing on a whim, it's got some nice scenery, and I managed to grow up without knifing anyone from boredom.

Phoenix, AZ: Hotter than hell and just as full of assholes if the papers are anything to go by. At least the campus provides a relative bastion of sanity and air conditioning.

[bluestarultor]

Weston, WI:
It's sort of small, but it's mashed together with several other municipalities, so together they make a pretty satisfying area. There's no big attractions, but we have a small art museum, a couple small water parks, UW - Marathon County (which is one of the most difficult schools in the state and EASILY the hardest community college to the point Madison takes transfers no questions asked and most students take it up), and Northcentral Technical College. You could live there pretty comfortably your whole life if you can manage to find a job at one of the hospitals or as a teacher, but sadly, jobs are pretty scarce unless you're flipping burgers, working checkout, or operating a small business.


Green Bay, WI:
It's more of a "real" city than the Wausau area, but I haven't seen much of it yet. There's Bay Beach as a small amusement park, a modest museum, the Packers if you have that kind of money, UWGB (of course), another Wisconsin Technical College of some sort, and probably some other stuff that I've never been to.

[katiuska]

My friend from the Bay Area lived in Oakland near the end of his stay, just so he'd be really ready to move.

Originally Posted by Shyria Dracnoir

Phoenix, AZ: Hotter than hell and just as full of assholes if the papers are anything to go by. At least the campus provides a relative bastion of sanity and air conditioning.

The one time I visited Phoenix, I sort of liked it against all reason. It helped that it was unseasonably cool, so it was 70 degrees and beautiful the whole time.

I'm told that it's generally like this like 2 days out of the year.

[Melfice]

Oldenzaal, Overijssel, Netherlands:

One of the few Hanseatic cities that was not located by a large body of water (be it sea or river) due to it being a subsidiary city of Deventer, Oldenzaal received it's city rights 761 years ago, in 1249. This makes Oldenzaal the 45th city in the Netherlands to receive it's full city rights. Not very impressive on it's own, what's amazing is that Oldenzaal beat Amsterdam to it by a good 51 years.

Oldenzaal isn't a very big city, housing around 31.000 people.
There's really not a lot more I could tell you.

Oh, right. Oldenzaal had the first skatepark in the Netherlands. Impressive, yeah?

[Viridis]

Lafayette, LA: Nice restaurants and festivals. College town, mostly.

Ethel, LA: A hole. If it appears on your map drive around it instead of through it.

[DarkDrgon]

Ranch Santa Margarita, CA- a little town in southern Orange County. you can see my old house on occasion if you watch those god awful housewife shows. Boring town filled with boring people, but close to the beach.

Manalapan, NJ- a suburb that's about as far from Manhattan as you can get but still reasonably commute. our claims to fame are that we are on MTV a lot, first on High School stories for a class prank, and now because It's the town that the Situation is from.

yeah, I live in boring places. Gonna be in queens next year though, so there's always that.

[Wigmund]

Fayetteville, AR (1990-2004/2008-present): lovely town populated by academic liberals, retired hippies and spillover from the University of Arkansas. Nestled on the edge of the Boston Mountains (part of the Ozarks), the scenery is lovely - especially during fall when the leaves change color. Third largest city in the state (behind Little Rock and Fort Smith) and largest city in the Northwest Arkansas Metro Area. I've lived here since I was 6 (well, Fayetteville and one of its bedroom communities, Farmington).


Rogers, AR (2004-2008): Another large city in the Northwest Arkansas Metro area, lived there when I worked for JB Hunt, the trucking company, and Consumer Testing Labs doing product testing on clothing for Walmart. I hated living there: highly conservative and an obvious social segregation existed between the rich, poor whites and Hispanics living there.

[Fifthfiend]

The Bay Area in 12 words or less: San Francisco owns, Oakland is a shithole, Walnut Creek is a mall.

[Nique]

Portland, Oregon

Pretty much everything good about Seattle you can get a reasonable facsimile of in Portland with 45% less douchiness. Good coffee places (but still way too many Starbucks), Good and occasionally great local food, music scene, Kumuricon (V. Seattle’s vastly superior Sakura-Con). Portland is divided into 5 pretty diverse sectors. There’s the 4 quadrants - NW, SW, NE and SE Portland, then what used to be the city of ‘St. John’s’ is now North Portland.

North Portland is mainly residential so there’s not much to do aside from some good places to eat - tons of coffee places pop up all the time, a really good theatre pub (part of a great local chain) or buffalo wings, or just some greasy spoons, that sort of thing. South West and South East are mainly commercial /downtown area, so there’s lots of shopping and theatres like the Schnitz. One place you need to stop by is Powell’s ‘City of Books’ Bookstore and basically you can’t not come out of there transformed into a huge book nerd.

North West Portland is the worst. Here you have the pretentiously named ‘Pearl District’. It is essentially a place for the affluent hipsters or yuppie on the go. Ok, well, actually there are some neat places there but it is very trendy and it bugs me except for we have, like, 13 gelato places within a 4 block radius.

Some stuff I like to do:

Food
Saburos
The Original Hot Cake House
McMenimins


Arts/Theatre
Arlene Schnitz
Portland Arts Museum

Scienceing!
Oregon Zoo
OMSI

Scenic
Japanese gardens
Rose Garden at Washington Park
Pittock Mansion

People Watching
Ride the Max
Pioneer Courthouse Square