The Woodlands, TX.

Oil tycoon George Mitchell set it up in the 1970s when The Woodlands was a long way from Houston. He established a city with a conference center, hotels, office parks, retail malls, schools, large distribution centers, golf courses, and residential housing (moderately priced to expensive and large).

115,000 people and there are 151 parks. There are about ~450,000 in the county (Montgomery). Additionally, there is zoning requiring natural vegetation so it doesn't look like a strip mall like every other city in the US (makes it a PITA when you're a new resident because you can't see businesses).

Very conservative and very tough on crime. Criminals have accidentally crossed the county line and said "Oh shit!" to the arresting officer when they found out they were no longer in Harris (Houston) County.

If you're visiting, they're all pretty nice and they all have good areas and bad areas. If you're looking for a place to live, most of them are blue shitholes.

I visited Detroit a few times recently, and it was a huge surprise for me. It has terrible areas and some of the most obvious transitions from stinking rich to filthy poor I've ever seen, but as a visitor my experience was great. I think I could have entertained myself for months there.

Second The Woodlands and surrounding areas.

As far as Houston goes, there are really nice parts, and many that aren't so nice. It is really enormous.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
The wife and I were impressed with Boston, at least the north end. Very nice. I'm sure there are some shitty areas though

There are some seriously shit areas. Ironically, most of them are the neighborhoods that are advertised on billboards in the airport terminals as places you should visit.

Seattle... from about 1960 - 1980

Today
Lewiston, Idaho
Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho
Standpoint, Idaho
Kalispell, Montana
Big Fork, Montana

Silent

I've lived in or near:

Providence, RI
Lewiston-Auburn, ME
Boston, MA
Philadelphia, PA
Schweinfurt, FRD
Augsburg, FRD
Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Tampa, FL
Orlando, FL

All have nice bits and all have nasty bits. The key is how those bits overlap. For example, Boston's core areas of the Seaport, Business District, North End, the Common, Esplanade, Copley, Newberry, Cleveland Circle, etc., are all pretty far from the nasty bits. Which means you are safe and clean morning, noon and night. The nasty bits don't overlap with the nice bits at all.

Philadelphia, on the other hand, has nasty and nice that overlap pretty uncomfortably.

Nasty in Portland, Maine would pass for nice in a lot of other cities.

Nasty in Miami is damned near a war zone.

It's all where you visit, where you stay, and how you get around.

quote:

Schweinfurt, FRD
Augsburg, FRD

^^^^^^^^^^^^
What is FRD?

I believe ArtieS was going for Federal Republic of Deutschland (Germany). But he's mixing and matching his English and German abbreviations.

In English, it's "FRG": Federal Republic of Germany. (FRG was the formal 3-letter country code for West Germany initially, and now Germany as a whole.)

In German, it's "BRD": Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

Colorado Springs used to be nice but it’s getting more like Denver every year.

quote:

Originally posted by Silent:

Today

Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho
Sandpoint, Idaho
Kalispell, Montana
Big Fork, Montana

Stay from these areas!!! They are shitholes. Full of racist assholes and conservative Trumpians.

Truthfully, though, Sandpoint is a lost cause, and the others will likely soon follow. Sandpoint used to be a great little old logging town...a great place to be, removed from the rest of the effed up world. Then, like many other great places, it was discovered...and ruined. The locals are fighting it tooth and nail, but it is a losing battle.

There are a lot of cities in this thread I never heard of.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
I believe ArtieS was going for Federal Republic of Deutschland (Germany). But he's mixing and matching his English and German abbreviations.

In English, it's "FRG": Federal Republic of Germany. (FRG was the formal 3-letter country code for West Germany initially, and now Germany as a whole.)

In German, it's "BRD": Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

Yes. Including bad memory for the proper acronym.

quote:

Originally posted by Krazeehorse:

Madtown is liberal as all get out but I've never had a bad experience while visiting my son there.

I hesitated to list it for that reason, but every time I’ve been there I’ve thought it could be a great place to live.

quote:

I hesitated to list it for that reason, but every time I’ve been there I’ve thought it could be a great place to live.

^^^^^^^^^^
It is if you can deal with the cold. Wisconsin during the time I lived there was live and let live.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

It's not just the liberal controlled cities though, it's the country as a whole. We have lost our moral foundation and it is just more evident in larger congregations (that, and of course, liberal policies in those cities). Used to be, the worst that might happen is you'd get beat up and they'd take your money. Now? Some punk will walk up, put a bullet in your head, take what he wants, and walk away like it's any other day.

We're circling the drain, and unless and until we right ourselves, it'll only get worse. Cities first, then everywhere else.

Sad but true.

Back in the day (having visited a number of places for work), my top two cities would have been Charleston, SC and San Diego. San Antonio, #3.

St. George / Washington County area in Southern Utah. The heat keeps the rift raft out.

well, I think it depends on what you think of as being nice, or what you consider to be the things that make it nice

for example, Washington, DC

I consider it to be nice in the context of museums, architecture and other venues

but I'd never live there for all the gold on the planet - being a democrat stronghold with the corresponding cesspool of politicians and staffers

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:

quote:

Originally posted by Silent:

Today

Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho
Sandpoint, Idaho
Kalispell, Montana
Big Fork, Montana

Stay from these areas!!! They are shitholes. Full of racist assholes and conservative Trumpians.

Truthfully, though, Sandpoint is a lost cause, and the others will likely soon follow. Sandpoint used to be a great little old logging town...a great place to be, removed from the rest of the effed up world. Then, like many other great places, it was discovered...and ruined. The locals are fighting it tooth and nail, but it is a losing battle.

What you say,I terms of how it used to be, is sad but true. As you probably know, Sandpoint has always been a bit of a counter-cultural outpost in North Idaho. David Sawyer, a practicing Buddhist was mayor of the town in the late 1990’s. We left the area a bit south of Sandpoint over a year ago because we could see the writing on the wall. However, compared to other cities that I’ve lived in (due to work): Portland, Beaverton, and Spokane its a paradise. This is probably unfair on my part but it sure seems to me that most anyplace that has the scent of being a “resort town” will eventually be ruined by costal urbanites. Thus the reason why CDA did not make my list.

Silent

The place I ended up in, Prescott and Prescott Valley, is a very nice area.

Soon after getting here, we started shopping at Costco. Just after getting out of the parking lot, we went through an intersection. As I was halfway through the intersection, I noticed a car on the cross traffic that had a stop sign had to stop as I was already in the intersection. At the stop light, the car came up beside us with their window down and was waving. I rolled down my window and they said smiling, "Did you know you blew past a stop sign?"

"I did?"

"Yes."

I said, "Okay, sorry about that." And we went our ways.

I circled back to confirm it was a four-way intersection. I was in the middle lane and didn't see the stop sign on the corner. My wife said they were nice to let us know. I said, "If this was in California, they wouldn't have been waving all five fingers at us, just one."

Another time, a big pick up was following us. Then he came up beside us and, at the traffic stop, the guy with tattooed arms honked his horn and rolled down his window. I rolled mine down too and he said, "Your gas cap is hanging loose."

My wife's measure is that she hasn't seen a fight at Walmart yet.