What is your favorite small town? and why…

[Wes Arola, RLA]

Personally I love San Luis Obispo, Bend Oregon, Boulder Colorado. They have a variety of attractions close by with outdoor activities year round and great downtowns.

 

Any suggestions or ‘likes’ for other small towns with the same characteristics..in the US?

 

What are the characteristics of these small towns and spaces which are a product of landscape architecture, urban design, and planning that we can all take away from them and apply to our work.

[Jon Quackenbush]

Troy, Ny. 

 

The architecture is fantastic, it is very walkable and the cost of living is reasonable.

[Trace One]

Coronado, California. Plus a great library, great bike trails, good city athletic offerings, pools, tennis courts, dog  beaches, and city-sponsored theater, art shows, and music…. And, as the weather-man said last week – how is the weather? “Delightful!”

Could even change my sour-puss new yorker attitude, over time..

drawback- raw sewage spills – 90 million gallons, last rain, and now a spill from Tijuana, unknown size..GACK! Other drawback – on the list for inundation by sea-rise from global warming..

[Boilerplater]

I drove through Tijuana after a heavy rain once.  Really disgusting.  The highway was flooding with water that was foamy and reeked of sewage.  I realized that water would be draining to the ocean, just ~15 miles south of Coronado.  That is the cost in having such a huge disparity in labor costs over the border.  No money for proper infrastructure.  A lot of the homes there are not connected to municipal sewers. I don’t know how they keep the masses from major social unrest.

[Boilerplater]

Look up the book “Gritty Cities” and see the chapter on Troy.  The authors realized the virtues of the town some 30 years ago.

[Trace One]

there is a plan that the bush administration set back significantly, for a joint sewage treatment plant on the border at Tijuana..It’s still moving ahead, and will happen eventually..But the first spill, 90 million gallons – that is San Diego letting that stuff loose – that is america, guys, spilling that stuff in the good old Pacific..

but sewage treatment is a government program, after all, and we really don’t want government doing anything for us anymore, anyway..

[Jason T. Radice]

Like most of NY, nice small towns left to die. With Troy, it’s too bad there ain’t much there, and its not the best part of town (I used to live in the Capital District) At least you got a Dinosaur BBQ now. I have to go to NYC for the closest one to me.

[Jon Quackenbush]

Depends on your perspective i suppose.  There are some good places to congregate, there are some decent restaurants (and Dino!), and they have the best regional farmers market in Ny, bar none.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Yeah, there are gems all over the mid-west. Real American towns full of real American people.

I don’t talk about the good ones out west, because as soon as you talk about them, people go there and ruin it… small towns are great because they are small.

[Christopher DeWolfe Keller]

They are only left to die if we leave them to die. Where do you live/work/shop?

[David Kornmeyer]

Think Troy is Bad come to Utica! where I am from haha I love Keene Valley best small town/area!!

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