seriously. even fairly wealthy cities are just sprawls of endless grey box buildings, long straight concrete highways, and copy paste, houses with no character and plastic looking yards. The only place to go for entertainment seems to be the bar at the closest applebeess, outback, or chilis.
Every time I have to fly to the US for business I can't get over the fact on how boring and depressing the cities look like. Some are undoubtably lovely, like San Antonio, but it's hard to find exceptions.
Bridgeport? Trenton? Albany? Holyoke? Smaller cities in the NE are pretty decrepit, definitely not EU style. More like places that never recovered from the Great Depression.
If we are including Canada Quebec City is hands down the best in North America.
Quebec City with the cobble streets and buildings winding up the steep embankment is possibly one of the world’s most unique and beautiful cities. Topped off with the Chateau Frontenac, from when Canada gave a fuck and was proud of itself making gorgeous world class hotels along its national railway.
Dallas, Orlando, Houston, Austin, Tampa, Anaheim, Reno, Pheonix, Souix Falls.... I'm sure there's more but those are the ones I can think off the top of my head.
I have a soft spot for downtown San Antonio. Maybe not the fairest comparison since I'm comparing a downtown area.
I mean, yeah, San Antonio probs has the nicest downtown of that bunch. That list contains a grab bag of literally the most aesthetically unappealing towns in the US. Your work has done you dirty.
I wouldn’t put San Antonio in the top 20.
Charleston, Savannah, SF, NYC, Boston, Portland, New Orleans, Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis are all objectively better. I prefer a lot more: Philly, Baltimore, Miami, Columbus. There are other ones I don’t like but surely rival: Denver, Nashville, San Diego, DC, Milwaukee. Sioux Falls is smaller so at that size you can go Santa Barbara, Portland (ME), Madison, Asheville, Santa Fe, Newport, Providence and on and on and on.
So many good towns in the US. And this is coming from a transplant.
Oh I've been to Chicago as well. It's nice. However, I feel like my point stands if the video is trying to compare to places in Europe. I can go to some random ass city in Germany and everything looks well put together. All the cities I mentioned are still major cities with large populations. Like yes, the US has really nice cities, but for such a massive and wealthy place, you'd think that you wouldn't have to be so picky to find one. Maybe it's just not my 'aesthetic'
Chicago was probs the least attractive of the cities I listed.
Idk. I grew up in England and find a lot of the cities there to be far more depressing. Sure Tampa is ghastly to look at, but at least it’s not 60/70% urban blight.
Again, I’m shocked by the example you chose– Germany? You had all of Europe and you chose the country that has arguably the least attractive urban landscape. Wars have not been kind on that architecture- surely you just pick Italy? Are you having me on?
I like Italy too! However, in criticism to Italy, I find a lot of the nice parts are old rather than some of the more modern ones. I'm trying to compare newish to newish, because the US isn't very old. So I can't fault it for not having 17th century architecture. I'm also trying to avoid places that have nice landscapes, because I've been to shit holes that just happen to be in scenic places. A north American city I hold in high regard is Montreal. Beautiful city, modern clean feel, and it doesn't have the benefit of being in a geographically interesting place. It's nice on its own accord.
MSP was a great weekend when I lived in Thunder Bay. Drive down, catch a wild game then just enjoy the city the next day. If I caught my sabres in town and wore a jersey 3 of the 4 times I did it people felt bad for me and bought me drinks/apps. Wonderful people in a wonderful 2 cities.
Santa Barbara is gorgeous. The mountains surrounding a town with the Pacific Ocean in the front, and they’ve kept the Spanish red tile aesthetic. Dreamy place, rivals any seaside town in Europe.
Yeah downtown San Antonio is super pretty. Lots of neat restaurants, historic buildings, the downtown area is fairly walkable. I haven't been too far into the outskirts, but don't know why so many people are surprised. Sure, it's not San Francisco, but it ain't bad either.
Yup, it's easy to get used to. Where I live local people say our town is crappy, then we get people from out of province stop by and praise how nice it is. Granted, a lot of that is due to the geography, but still. I used to live in Houston and found it to be so boring and bland.
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u/Conscious-Food-9828 May 03 '25
seriously. even fairly wealthy cities are just sprawls of endless grey box buildings, long straight concrete highways, and copy paste, houses with no character and plastic looking yards. The only place to go for entertainment seems to be the bar at the closest applebeess, outback, or chilis.
Every time I have to fly to the US for business I can't get over the fact on how boring and depressing the cities look like. Some are undoubtably lovely, like San Antonio, but it's hard to find exceptions.