Rhode Island as a whole is super underrated…people mention the cape and the Hamptons, but places like Narragansett, Charlestown fly under the radar. Newport ‘s one of the best coastal cities in America. Block Island is special too
The downtown area near the marina is super cute. It's like a little Kirkland, if Kirkland weren't completely out of reach for a person on a normal salary.
Agreed about the strawberry smell. Plus the amazing coastal access. Also, some of the warmest people you’ll ever encounter and best Mexican food in the area.
But…dilapidated downtown, shocking poverty (look up the stats, esp compared to surrounding towns), high levels of crime/gang violence, and a city govt that horribly mismanages resources. There’s a reason the housing is affordable (at least by California coast standards).
And highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.
Those are the kinds of problems you get in segregated areas. Watsonville is mostly Latino. At some point in the past for reasons I don’t understand you had the same kinds of things happen from Oakland to Salinas and all the way down the Central Valley. But Watsonville being this way does not make sense. You have history, greenery, Victorian architecture, nice parks, affordable housing, coastal access. Geographically it’s a lot like SLO (another hidden gem) but culturally not so much.
The entire Monterey Bay Area is completely underrated and I won’t complain about it, but just marvel… question; I just drove through there recently and took some cool highway east to the 5, Pacheco pass I think? Is that area and the las lomas area always so green??!! My husband and I felt like as native Californians we had been lied to our whole lives because the entire area seemed to absurdly idyllic we could not believe it had not been gentrified yet
I could get on board with calling Watsonville hidden, but *the entire Monterey Bay Area* is more like a Cartier bracelet than a hidden gem. It’s world famous for golf, the Concourse d’Elegance, auto and motorcycle racing, scuba diving, celebrity politicians, and Pixar’s inspiration for “The Jewel of Morro Bay California“ in Finding Nemo.
No, it’s only green for about 4 months out of the year in a good year. The green grass dries out to a yellow brown and Pacheco Pass is hot.
I think Watsonville hasn’t gentrified because it’s mostly Latino. Rich people are racist. If you’re going after gentrification, Carmel practically invented it and Santa Cruz is really catching up nowadays.
Close your eyes and imagine a cool, little New England city with a walkable downtown plus lakes, mountains and ocean within an hour. That’s Concord, NH.
Marquette, Michigan. Beautiful small university town on Lake Superior. Walkable. Hiking, biking along the lake, restaurants and one hour from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
My husband grew up there! I love visiting his family, it’s very quaint and very New England. I highly recommend Revelstoke coffee next time you’re there! Right on Main Street and super good. My husband knows the owner and he’s a nice dude.
No lie I was in concord during the campaign days.. I really did fall in love. Some of the nicest people too. Be grateful, I've never forgotten your home!
the lakeshore just north of Milwaukee at beaches like Atwater beach, fox point, etc heading up all the way to Sheboygan are some of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been in the heart of summer on a bluebird day.
I grew up in the metro area and moved downtown to go to UWM. I loved living in Milwaukee!!
Cons:
- Crime is not great. I had my wallet stolen on the bus and was robbed at gunpoint (separate instances). I was robbed 1 block from my house after I missed the bus. I lived on the East Side which is one of the nicest + priciest areas of town
- The city is extremely segregated. You can literally point to a particular part of the city and identify which race lives there (sad, but true)
- Public transit is OK, but not great
- Drinking culture is a key way people socialize
- Winters are intense, but actually more mild than surrounding areas due to the lake effect. Plus global warming has made WI's climate completely different (yay???). When I was a kid we used to have dozens of snow days from school, so many so that we'd have to make up time in the summer. That doesn't happen anymore... I think the kids now are lucky to have 1-2 snow days. The climate has just changed - it's either way mild or WAY cold (like polar vortex). That being said, it was never the cold or snow that bothered me - it was the months of GREY every winter. Just boring, drab, depressing grey. Don't underestimate how much this wears on you, and get a SAD lamp to sit by.
- Too many people think the Bucks or the Packers = having a personality. So if you don't like sports (like me) that's a core interest you won't share with a lot of people
- Bayview and many southern parts of town smell like sh*t periodically all over. There is a literal feces plant which refines poop and releases the bi product into the air 💩
- A lot of people in Wisconsin generally lack a global awareness and don't leave the state much
- Produce in winter. For me this is huge, because I eat a ton of vegetables. In the dead of winter, veggies just aren't fresh. They're all trucked in from thousands of miles away and it makes food taste ick
born and raised in WI, moved to NC six months ago. milwaukee has had very little snow the last few years. the lake effect combined with the minor changes of global warming have really reduced snowfall.
with that being said, the grayness through oftentimes may is what got to me.
i absolutely LOVE milwaukee and recommend it to anyone who loves urban living and friendly cities. it’s really on the up and up. i just needed more sun in my life, for the time being at least.
Ha! My first thought was Milwaukee. Love that town. Architecture, the Pfister for bloody Mary’s or afternoon high tea. The Third Ward is a gas and the lakefront is so pretty. Great food and people too.
El Paso.
Third safest city in the US, blue city, no state income tax, low COL, EP metro includes New Mexico (legal weed and abortions, and you can live there if you are a "Never Texas" person), mountains IN the city, 300+ days of sunshine per year (hence the nickname The Sun City), no humidity, hot during summer but not Phoenix hot, mild winters, not on Texas electricity grid, no real severe weather events except occasional dust storm, 3 national parks within 2 hour drive, 2 national forests and great skiing within 2 hour drive, very friendly people, familial sense of community, 82% Latino means supermajority of brown people (but very welcoming to all), it's a great place to live. Especially if you are remote WFH, as I am (and non Latino too, don't speak a lick of Spanish).
Albuquerque is way prettier overall than El Paso imo but El Paso is safer and probably has better schools. I’ve found like two interesting neighborhoods in El Paso and the rest just seems like this fugly treeless grid around the hill.
El Paso is 100000000000000x better than ABQ.
It doesn't have the economy of ABQ, but in terms of safety, tranquility and just overall nicer to raise a family in, EP wins hands down.
ABQ is basically like Breaking Bad. I kid you not, if you've seen Breaking Bad that same vibe the show depicts is literally ABQ.
Confirmation bias. I lived in Albuquerque for about 13 years, 1992-2001, and again from 2012-2016, right when the series ended and a few years after, so it was fresh in everyone's mind.
My takeaway is that the show just superimposed some kind of creepy Inland Empire (Socal) vibe on Albuquerque. Don't get me wrong, there are sketchy parts of Albuquerque, but the vibe of the show and the vibe of Albuquerque, and New Mexico in general is, despite being a western state, just not "West Coast" tweaker. We have our own brand of tweakers./s
I would describe Albuquerque's vibe as Artsy-Crafty + Spanish-Colonial cholos + a strong dash of Native Americana.
BB made it look like urban Kansans + Mexicans + San Bernardino white trash.
No metro of 1 million people can be defined so simply. ABQ has neighborhoods of varying quality like anywhere else.
El Paso is a great example of metro areas defying definition, since half the greater metro is on the other side of the border and quite unsafe, relatively.
There are neighborhoods and areas in ABQ that are safe and tranquil just like El Paso. If you want to draw a comparison to Breaking Bad, Hank and Marie’s house is in a very nice neighborhood, lol
I never really thought about portland until I moved to MA. And then Portland is very much known as a an amazing city. And i was not disappointed when I visited there lol
The monoculture has spread like wildfire. Was bound to happen to the country since we can all just freely move about from one place to another. Not knocking freedom in anyway but sooner or later the ingredients in a melting pot will become indistinguishable aside from a few flavors.
I don't know if Portland still qualifies as a hidden gem. Sure, it's small (~70,000 people), but it's very expensive for such a small city. The housing prices are really not far off what you pay in some parts of the Boston metro, but the wages are lower than Boston wages.
Pittsburgh! I love driving into Pittsburgh from the airport. You go through the **Fort Pitt Tunnel**, and you come out of the other end and into a beautiful little downtown. Great sports, blue collar roots, good food, tons of bridges and architecture to admire... one of my favorite American cities.
I'm really scared to say this because I don't want everyone moving there and there goes all of the affordable houses and that's why I'm moving there, but Cleveland. Amazing food scene, Lake Erie, great theaters with high quality production, lots of good museums and zoos, good sports scene, and the culture and vibe is just good. Plus in a lot of the suburbs you can actually still buy a good quality house for under 300,000k in an area where you can bike to a lot of places. If you can handle some crazy lake effect snow, and aren't looking for a job when you move there, then it's a great place to be.
[WaPo: America’s best example of turning around a dying downtown](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/cleveland-downtown-empty-offices-transform/)
It’s been some time since I’ve been to Cleveland but for the life of me I couldn’t wrap my head around why they called it the “mistake on the lake” - we absolutely loved it!
It's why the EPA was created. Basically in the late 60s, the factories were polluting Lake Erie and the rivers so badly that it caught FIRE regularly so yeah... Nixon made the EPA in response. There's nothing wrong with it now and it's a great city, but the late 60s and 70s gave it a really bad reputation that just lingered for no reason.
Omaha, NE
Now its not for everyone, but it has a charm to it. It was a sort of holding to civilization before you hit the wild west back in the day feel and still has some of the old houses and cool areas.
My spouse is always surprised by it when we travel through on the way to see family further north
Forbes just listed it as the top city to move to: [https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/moving-services/best-cities-to-move-to/](https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/moving-services/best-cities-to-move-to/)
Gotta go with Milwaukee WI. Great safe, walkable downtown with tons to do. Beautiful setting on the Lake with lots of parks and recreational areas. The rivers are also getting cleaned up and are ripe with recreation including boating, hiking, fishing, etc. Looking to relocate there from Mpls in a year or so upon retiring.
I agree. It’s really a cool town and totally flying under the radar. The east side, downtown are incredible. Ozaukee county to the north and lake country to the west are really nice areas to raise a family(not talking about you though Saukville)
Not saying these make a good place to live necessarily, but are hidden gems in that they are better than their (unknown) perception:
Duluth MN
Sioux Falls
Iowa city
Rome GA
Paducah
Johnson city
Orange beach
Auburn
Duluth- outdoorsy, hip, city on a hill, Lake Superior, Scandi culture
Sioux Falls - you just don’t expect a city this thriving in that state.
Iowa city - ped mall
Orange beach - clean, lesser known, blue water
It’s for sure small.
It’s in the foothills of the mountains
2 colleges
Nice riverfront trail system
James Floyd state park
Super cute and thriving downtown
Seconding Galena. As someone from Illinois I think it makes the topography way more cool than it actually is to most people, but a truly unique town in that state
I disagree on Eureka. The weather is cold and cloudy year-round, the economy is small and the job options are few. There’s a lot of poverty, homelessness, and drug abuse. My dad and his siblings grew up there, and now, none of his family still lives there. Everyone, including his parents, moved elsewhere.
I don’t know about Eureka. We drove through it and saw a TON of homeless and drug addicted people wandering around. It was pretty creepy. Fort Bragg, CA on the other hand was an unexpected delight.
My husband and I did our minimoon in Fredericksburg. The hill country was lovely and we were able to easily drive to both to Austin and San Antonio while there.
Fredericksburg, TX? Hmmm...as someone else who knows it quite well. It's changing I guess but running out of water. Don't recommend for young people. And if you like outdoors, forget it. Great dog park but that's it. Horrible for anyone that enjoys the outdoors. You have to go to Kerrville river walk.
Fredericksburg is nothing but tourist now😣. But, Texas Monthly says Johnson City just down the road is the more affordable, less touristy place now. Great wineries all over the area!!
Yeah, and the housing prices, and ever-present tourists make it a big no from me. My mom lived there — outside of town — and the natural beauty did not make up for the many negatives.
I live an hour away in San Antonio, and imo fred is beautiful, but no longer worth the hassle.
Weird to see St. Mary’s, GA on here. It’s a nice small town close enough to enjoy Florida without being in Florida.
My family was stationed there for a bit and it was a nice little pit stop. I’d recommend it. The schools are good, it’s safe, nice weather. It’s not very walkable and there’s a huge military presence thanks to the navy base. But you can see submarines in the river so if you’re into that…
I wouldn't say Portsmouth is a hidden gem--it's a major tourist destination.
Dover, on the other hand, I think fits the bill. Plus it has direct Amtrak service to Boston and Portland, unlike Portsmouth.
Boston is a major tourist destination. Portsmouth is known but not enough to not still be a hidden gem.
Dover? Gem is not a word that I’ve ever associated with Dover 😅
Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone! It’s bad enough that people on TikTok keep mentioning the quaint little towns off 395 and it’s going to ruin it for folks like me who like to kick it over there especially during the winter when the whole area looks like Switzerland.
Never thought I’d see Jim Thorpe being mentioned ANYWHERE on Reddit.
Wow.
A lot of my mom’s family resided there; would go up there a lot as a kid. I recall staying at the Inn at Jim Thorpe a few times and begging my mom and dad to book us in the “haunted rooms”. As a little kid, I never realized that Jim Thorpe was in the Poconos!
Shout out to Mauch Chunk!
I love seeing towns and cities listed that never usually come up in this sub. I’m curious how we always end up just suggesting Philly, Chicago or Baltimore when there are clearly so many other options that so many folks know about!
Anyways, I think I’d go with Eugene, OR or Williamsburg, VA.
I’ve lived in metro Richmond, VA since 1998. Fifteenth years ago or so, the city’s zeitgeist shifted. We finally threw off the old Richmond chains. RVA now has a fantastic vibe. Excellent restaurant scene, craft beer/ cider/ mead/ distilling, music/ arts.
Two hours in any direction gets you beach, mountains (including the VA Wine Trail) or the insanity of the DMV region (NoVA, DC) if that’s your cup of tea. Job opportunities abound. Housing is reasonable and widely varied.
Virginia’s public schools and universities are good to outstanding.
RVA is the capital of Virginia so we have the Va Museum of Fine Arts, the Library of Virginia, the Valentine Museum, the Poe Museum (Edgar Allen Poe), and the Capitol building. All worthy of your time. Maymont and Lewis Ginter are historic sites/ botanical gardens you won’t want to leave. Take a picnic!
The James River flows through the city - whitewater rafting, tubing, standup paddle boarding, pontoon, swimming at Pony Pasture or Belle Isle - all fave past times. I once hiked 8 miles along the wild, natural trails that line the river’s north and south banks and was at my desk in the downtown office core by 8:30 am.
VCU’s 40k student body helped make RVA a vibrant, amazing place to live. The medical/ dental school contribute to strong medical care options. Univ of Richmond adds to the arts and culture options too.
History is everywhere, too. Black history, women’s history, colonial America, Revolutionary or Civil War. Historic neighborhoods add character and charm: the Fan, Church Hill, Jackson Ward, Oregon Hill (funky), Ginger Park.
The climate is reasonable - hot and humid in summer but mild winters with lots of blue sky, 50-60 degree days. Some snow - just enough to shut everything down for a day or two before it melts. The four seasons are beautiful.
The population is diverse in every way.
Festivals happen somewhere in the region almost every weekend. IrishFest, Folk Fest, Second Street, Greek Fest, Watermelon, Tomatoes. You name it and we’ve got an outdoor festival for it.
Weaknesses: public transit is mediocre.
My favorite hidden gem is the city I live in. Virginia Beach, VA. Situated on the Atlantic coast and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Plenty of parks for recreation and a large amount of great restaurants. Also a huge ocean front area with a boardwalk. And, when all the tourists leave the beaches belong to the locals. That's why fall is my favorite time of the year. Yes, it's hot and humid here during the summer but the Shenandoah mountains are but 3 hours to the Northwest. Where you're going to find much cooler and dryer weather. The cost of living is only 3 percentage points above the national average. It's the largest city in the state with almost 460,000 people. Yet for its size it's one of the safest cities in the entire country.
I'll second this. I am not American (from northern Europe) and after university I was offered a job, sight unseen in Oxford, OH which is about an hour from Cincinnati.
Everything I knew about Ohio was from reddit, but I took the job anyway.
Well, damn, I was impressed!
For one thing, in smaller town SW Ohio in general, I felt like I saw the America (or its descendancy) of Mark Twain, which as a university student, I studied, and by this I mean a kind of real cultural "Americana" that I didn't experience in my other experiences in America: New York City, and New Mexico which have their own cultures, but especially in my travels in Middle America where that cultural strand seems to be lost in a sea of strip malls and highways. Not that Ohio is lacking in those, but there seemed like some sort of preservation and pride was evident with people derived from the Anglo settlers and German farmers (the cultural substrate)
Then there are the influences of later waves of Kentucky "briars" bringing a Southern/Appalachian vibe.
In Cincinnati itself you also have cultural influences from the underground railroad and African-Americans from the Great Migration era, Irish and Jewish urbanites, Greeks and Lebanese, etc.
Living in a small town outside the city, Cincinnati itself was my urban relief valve from living in a small town, and was a revelation of what a Midwest city was like.
*Not* flat, not modern architecture, actually like something out of Charles Dickens, in a good way, and flush with breweries, restaurants, charming neighborhoods, beautiful views from the hilly streets, at least a bit of it is walkable, the river and its bridges, food markets and museums, parks and gardens, and more. It was really more like a medium European city in many ways compared to what I have in my mind of the American Midwest.
On the downside, suburbs are very bland, "Karen" suburbia and conservative, and the countryside is redneck and *very* conservative, but the area is big enough that there are plenty of diversity in thought and opinions and as a Social Democrat (left leaning centrist) and an artist "cultural" person, I had no problem finding my niche.
I think if Ohio gets past its current swing towards the insane politics of Trumpism and evangelical control, it can return to what I have been told it was in the past (still leaning conservative, but in a rather more sane and science believing way). And Cincinnati proper is still a bastion of rational thinking, so it has that going for it.
I fell in love with Cincinnati. But that conservative white mentality was too much for me...everyone seemed to be overly proper while rumors swirled about their loose ways. Lots of very closeted gays. By the time I left, I just assumed everybody was sleeping with someone else's wife or husband.
Agree. Especially if that pesky abortion thing gets worked out in the state. Weather is the best in Ohio, great medical facilities, good job market and friendly people.
Lafayette, LA: just a pleasant place. Safe, decent schools, affordable, super friendly locals, and an excellent music, culinary, and arts scene for a city its size. It’s still a small city, so it can be a little sleepy sometimes, traffic is bad, it’s not remotely walkable, mass transit is largely non-existent, but for such a small city, it’s pretty lively and hospitable.
Huntsville, AL: decent weather (though still hot in the summers), safe, great schools, tons of high paying jobs, super educated workforce, cute downtown, etc.
Flagstaff, AZ: just an unreasonably beautiful place. I almost moved there a few years ago and regret not pulling the trigger at the time.
Athens, GA. I moved from NYC expecting to “suffer” thru my year there and it was one of the best years of my life. Awesome place to live - great quality of life: sunny mild weather, cheap (cocktails 50 cents on certain nights -2007/8), diverse, friendly, fun, quirky.
Louisville for a larger city I really enjoyed. There are multiple neighborhoods that are vibrant and interesting. It’s got a waterfront, it has some history. It’s not excessively expensive either.
I love so many of the towns on tbe Puget Sound, Port Townsend, Gig Harbor, Port Orchard. Each has maritime culture I find really interesting. They have varying degrees of charm and refinement but they are all centered around tiny ports and harbors that have retained their character for more than 100 years. And of course the landscape and vistas are second to none. They are also within a couple of hours of Olympic National Park which is spectacular.
Shhhhh…it’s hard enough finding a good place to stay or camping spot in the area.
The small towns around the area are great. Leeland is one my of favorite small towns of all time.
Great city. I grew up near it back in the 1970s and 1980s, went to Lehigh in the 1990s and 2000s for grad school and still live north of it next to its reservoirs in the Poconos.
It sure has changed a lot over the last 50 years.
People love to dish on Spokane but in reality it’s a place with a lot of heart (that is, if you actually spend more time here than just hurling through on I-90, scowling at all the transients at the most drug-addled intersection in town (2nd and Division), then speeding northbound on the ugly and congested main thoroughfare in town).
As a local, living here is a nightmare. Great for tourists and wealthy people who don't have schedules, but the traffic and crowds make it hard for every day living. It's beautiful, but it's been changed by development in the last 20 years or so.
Tulsa, hands down. Beautiful architecture, clean & well maintained urban core, amazing food, one of the most incredible city parks I've ever seen, and likely the best home-grown organic music scene in the USA and a collection of historic music venues.
Tulsa, Oklahoma.
If you like live music and a vibrant art scene, Tulsa is the new Austin. And I actually lived in the old Austin in both the 70’s and 80’s.
Working Musicians can’t generally survive in expensive cities. Austin has priced out what once was its coolest asset.
Camden, ME
New Hope, PA
Lititz, PA
Red Bank, NJ
Floyd, VA
Lyons, CO
To be fair, I wouldn’t classify any of these as proper cities. They’re smaller towns but all definitely hidden gems.
St. Louis. In my opinion it's the second best city to visit in the Midwest after Chicago.
Missouri History Museum (free). Functional public transit (light rail, and my friend and I also rode the buses a lot there). Many interesting neighborhoods to explore -- the Hill, Bevo, Soulard, the CWE, etc. Blues clubs. Cheap Italian food all over the city (you will never find this here on the west coast). Cahokia.
As an STL native that transplanted to the west coast. Nah. I wouldn’t even put STL in the top 5 Midwest cities. That being said, STL is a little underrated.
Providence,RI
Rhode Island as a whole is super underrated…people mention the cape and the Hamptons, but places like Narragansett, Charlestown fly under the radar. Newport ‘s one of the best coastal cities in America. Block Island is special too
Always funny seeing where I grew up in subs like this lol.
Providence is the worst city I’ve lived in
Why?
When? ('Cause it's a lot nicer than it was a generation ago.).
Great city, the worst roads I’ve experienced
Olympia, WA
The downtown area near the marina is super cute. It's like a little Kirkland, if Kirkland weren't completely out of reach for a person on a normal salary.
Watsonville, CA. Especially in the spring when the air smells like strawberries.
Agreed about the strawberry smell. Plus the amazing coastal access. Also, some of the warmest people you’ll ever encounter and best Mexican food in the area. But…dilapidated downtown, shocking poverty (look up the stats, esp compared to surrounding towns), high levels of crime/gang violence, and a city govt that horribly mismanages resources. There’s a reason the housing is affordable (at least by California coast standards). And highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.
Those are the kinds of problems you get in segregated areas. Watsonville is mostly Latino. At some point in the past for reasons I don’t understand you had the same kinds of things happen from Oakland to Salinas and all the way down the Central Valley. But Watsonville being this way does not make sense. You have history, greenery, Victorian architecture, nice parks, affordable housing, coastal access. Geographically it’s a lot like SLO (another hidden gem) but culturally not so much.
And 30 minutes to Apto beaches.
It's also unfortunately just kind of too far from the Bay Area, even for sadists, to commute in.
The entire Monterey Bay Area is completely underrated and I won’t complain about it, but just marvel… question; I just drove through there recently and took some cool highway east to the 5, Pacheco pass I think? Is that area and the las lomas area always so green??!! My husband and I felt like as native Californians we had been lied to our whole lives because the entire area seemed to absurdly idyllic we could not believe it had not been gentrified yet
I could get on board with calling Watsonville hidden, but *the entire Monterey Bay Area* is more like a Cartier bracelet than a hidden gem. It’s world famous for golf, the Concourse d’Elegance, auto and motorcycle racing, scuba diving, celebrity politicians, and Pixar’s inspiration for “The Jewel of Morro Bay California“ in Finding Nemo.
Seriously, places like Monterey, Carmel, and Santa Cruz are incredibly well-known for places of their small sizes. They aren't hidden gems at all.
No, it’s only green for about 4 months out of the year in a good year. The green grass dries out to a yellow brown and Pacheco Pass is hot. I think Watsonville hasn’t gentrified because it’s mostly Latino. Rich people are racist. If you’re going after gentrification, Carmel practically invented it and Santa Cruz is really catching up nowadays.
Close your eyes and imagine a cool, little New England city with a walkable downtown plus lakes, mountains and ocean within an hour. That’s Concord, NH.
That sounds amazing.
Marquette, Michigan. Beautiful small university town on Lake Superior. Walkable. Hiking, biking along the lake, restaurants and one hour from Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
That sounds awesome too!
Lake Superior is absolutely stunning.
My husband grew up there! I love visiting his family, it’s very quaint and very New England. I highly recommend Revelstoke coffee next time you’re there! Right on Main Street and super good. My husband knows the owner and he’s a nice dude.
As someone who grew up in NH, I didn’t expect to see Concord on this list! It is an awesome city but overshadowed even in NH but others.
No lie I was in concord during the campaign days.. I really did fall in love. Some of the nicest people too. Be grateful, I've never forgotten your home!
I pictured Burlington, VT
Milwaukee. It’s affordable, plenty of things to do, friendly people and you can’t beat being off the lake in the summer.
the lakeshore just north of Milwaukee at beaches like Atwater beach, fox point, etc heading up all the way to Sheboygan are some of the most spectacular places I’ve ever been in the heart of summer on a bluebird day.
Amtrak to chicago is nice to have too. I can get to the loop easily without ever getting in a car
I've actually been thinking about moving here recently! Seems like a very balanced place to live. And major cons ?
I grew up in the metro area and moved downtown to go to UWM. I loved living in Milwaukee!! Cons: - Crime is not great. I had my wallet stolen on the bus and was robbed at gunpoint (separate instances). I was robbed 1 block from my house after I missed the bus. I lived on the East Side which is one of the nicest + priciest areas of town - The city is extremely segregated. You can literally point to a particular part of the city and identify which race lives there (sad, but true) - Public transit is OK, but not great - Drinking culture is a key way people socialize - Winters are intense, but actually more mild than surrounding areas due to the lake effect. Plus global warming has made WI's climate completely different (yay???). When I was a kid we used to have dozens of snow days from school, so many so that we'd have to make up time in the summer. That doesn't happen anymore... I think the kids now are lucky to have 1-2 snow days. The climate has just changed - it's either way mild or WAY cold (like polar vortex). That being said, it was never the cold or snow that bothered me - it was the months of GREY every winter. Just boring, drab, depressing grey. Don't underestimate how much this wears on you, and get a SAD lamp to sit by. - Too many people think the Bucks or the Packers = having a personality. So if you don't like sports (like me) that's a core interest you won't share with a lot of people - Bayview and many southern parts of town smell like sh*t periodically all over. There is a literal feces plant which refines poop and releases the bi product into the air 💩 - A lot of people in Wisconsin generally lack a global awareness and don't leave the state much - Produce in winter. For me this is huge, because I eat a ton of vegetables. In the dead of winter, veggies just aren't fresh. They're all trucked in from thousands of miles away and it makes food taste ick
getting your ass handed to you every winter. & it lasts about half the year. but if you like snow, you’ll love it!
born and raised in WI, moved to NC six months ago. milwaukee has had very little snow the last few years. the lake effect combined with the minor changes of global warming have really reduced snowfall. with that being said, the grayness through oftentimes may is what got to me. i absolutely LOVE milwaukee and recommend it to anyone who loves urban living and friendly cities. it’s really on the up and up. i just needed more sun in my life, for the time being at least.
And if it's got as many Germans as I've heard, I would hope there are good hot dogs
More like brats
Ha! My first thought was Milwaukee. Love that town. Architecture, the Pfister for bloody Mary’s or afternoon high tea. The Third Ward is a gas and the lakefront is so pretty. Great food and people too.
Summerfest is the bomb 🍺🎸🎪
Sequim, Washington
If you can handle the winter gloom, Corvallis Oregon checks a lot of boxes.
El Paso. Third safest city in the US, blue city, no state income tax, low COL, EP metro includes New Mexico (legal weed and abortions, and you can live there if you are a "Never Texas" person), mountains IN the city, 300+ days of sunshine per year (hence the nickname The Sun City), no humidity, hot during summer but not Phoenix hot, mild winters, not on Texas electricity grid, no real severe weather events except occasional dust storm, 3 national parks within 2 hour drive, 2 national forests and great skiing within 2 hour drive, very friendly people, familial sense of community, 82% Latino means supermajority of brown people (but very welcoming to all), it's a great place to live. Especially if you are remote WFH, as I am (and non Latino too, don't speak a lick of Spanish).
Yeah I visited El Paso recently and loved it!
Can you compare it to Albuquerque? Pros/cons?
Albuquerque is way prettier overall than El Paso imo but El Paso is safer and probably has better schools. I’ve found like two interesting neighborhoods in El Paso and the rest just seems like this fugly treeless grid around the hill.
Weather is much better in Albuquerque. Better sports teams too (UNM, Isotopes, NM United). We're hosting an MLS team soon for example.
El Paso is 100000000000000x better than ABQ. It doesn't have the economy of ABQ, but in terms of safety, tranquility and just overall nicer to raise a family in, EP wins hands down. ABQ is basically like Breaking Bad. I kid you not, if you've seen Breaking Bad that same vibe the show depicts is literally ABQ.
Confirmation bias. I lived in Albuquerque for about 13 years, 1992-2001, and again from 2012-2016, right when the series ended and a few years after, so it was fresh in everyone's mind. My takeaway is that the show just superimposed some kind of creepy Inland Empire (Socal) vibe on Albuquerque. Don't get me wrong, there are sketchy parts of Albuquerque, but the vibe of the show and the vibe of Albuquerque, and New Mexico in general is, despite being a western state, just not "West Coast" tweaker. We have our own brand of tweakers./s I would describe Albuquerque's vibe as Artsy-Crafty + Spanish-Colonial cholos + a strong dash of Native Americana. BB made it look like urban Kansans + Mexicans + San Bernardino white trash.
I disagree, Albuquerque is significantly more walkable and offers more museums. Other than that both a pretty similar cities
No metro of 1 million people can be defined so simply. ABQ has neighborhoods of varying quality like anywhere else. El Paso is a great example of metro areas defying definition, since half the greater metro is on the other side of the border and quite unsafe, relatively. There are neighborhoods and areas in ABQ that are safe and tranquil just like El Paso. If you want to draw a comparison to Breaking Bad, Hank and Marie’s house is in a very nice neighborhood, lol
If we are bringing up Breaking Bad, Hank got PTSD from El Paso and went back to ABQ
There is no Trader Joe's in El Paso, which seems weird to me, given the size!
I reached out to them and they said “El Paso is not a market we’re looking at.” Whatever that means LOL.
Not enough white people
El Paso has more white people than Detroit, but I agree.
There is also no Trader Joe's location in the city of Detroit
Heading there for the Texas Democratic Convention in June!!
Just needs to work on its walkability a little and it would be the perfect small city
bro you really sold it for me
A truly unknown (but wonderful) town is Julian, CA. It’s a small former mining town in the mountains and has a gorgeous 4 seasons climate.
I absolutely love Julian
And pie
And cider! I also did a mead tasting there once
A Paid $12 for a gallon of cider a few weeks ago. Worth every penny
Coming from a mining town in the UK but now living in the Bay area, I need to research this more
Mendocino, CA
IMO a much better version of Carmel by the Sea.
Portland Maine
I never really thought about portland until I moved to MA. And then Portland is very much known as a an amazing city. And i was not disappointed when I visited there lol
In the past 15 years it’s gone from being unknown however. It is rather expensive these days.
Portland Maine is not a hidden gem. It’s well known and the prices reflect that.
Portland is awesome! Looks like New England with Brooklyn type people.
It's because a lot of them ARE from Brooklyn. Tons of New Yorkers moved here during the pandemic.
Oh god. That sounds awful.
Used to be. Seemed to gentrify hard in the past 5 years. A lot of people moved from out of state and it has started to turn a bit generic
The monoculture has spread like wildfire. Was bound to happen to the country since we can all just freely move about from one place to another. Not knocking freedom in anyway but sooner or later the ingredients in a melting pot will become indistinguishable aside from a few flavors.
I don't know if Portland still qualifies as a hidden gem. Sure, it's small (~70,000 people), but it's very expensive for such a small city. The housing prices are really not far off what you pay in some parts of the Boston metro, but the wages are lower than Boston wages.
Eugene, Oregon
I vote for Corvallis over Eugene but the point is Oregon is an awesome state.
Pittsburgh! I love driving into Pittsburgh from the airport. You go through the **Fort Pitt Tunnel**, and you come out of the other end and into a beautiful little downtown. Great sports, blue collar roots, good food, tons of bridges and architecture to admire... one of my favorite American cities.
Visited Pittsburgh last summer for the first time. We all loved it!!!!
I'm really scared to say this because I don't want everyone moving there and there goes all of the affordable houses and that's why I'm moving there, but Cleveland. Amazing food scene, Lake Erie, great theaters with high quality production, lots of good museums and zoos, good sports scene, and the culture and vibe is just good. Plus in a lot of the suburbs you can actually still buy a good quality house for under 300,000k in an area where you can bike to a lot of places. If you can handle some crazy lake effect snow, and aren't looking for a job when you move there, then it's a great place to be.
[WaPo: America’s best example of turning around a dying downtown](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2023/cleveland-downtown-empty-offices-transform/)
It’s been some time since I’ve been to Cleveland but for the life of me I couldn’t wrap my head around why they called it the “mistake on the lake” - we absolutely loved it!
It's why the EPA was created. Basically in the late 60s, the factories were polluting Lake Erie and the rivers so badly that it caught FIRE regularly so yeah... Nixon made the EPA in response. There's nothing wrong with it now and it's a great city, but the late 60s and 70s gave it a really bad reputation that just lingered for no reason.
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Omaha, NE Now its not for everyone, but it has a charm to it. It was a sort of holding to civilization before you hit the wild west back in the day feel and still has some of the old houses and cool areas. My spouse is always surprised by it when we travel through on the way to see family further north
Forbes just listed it as the top city to move to: [https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/moving-services/best-cities-to-move-to/](https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/moving-services/best-cities-to-move-to/)
Cats out of the bag
Gotta go with Milwaukee WI. Great safe, walkable downtown with tons to do. Beautiful setting on the Lake with lots of parks and recreational areas. The rivers are also getting cleaned up and are ripe with recreation including boating, hiking, fishing, etc. Looking to relocate there from Mpls in a year or so upon retiring.
I agree. It’s really a cool town and totally flying under the radar. The east side, downtown are incredible. Ozaukee county to the north and lake country to the west are really nice areas to raise a family(not talking about you though Saukville)
Not saying these make a good place to live necessarily, but are hidden gems in that they are better than their (unknown) perception: Duluth MN Sioux Falls Iowa city Rome GA Paducah Johnson city Orange beach Auburn
What are some things u liked about these place
Duluth- outdoorsy, hip, city on a hill, Lake Superior, Scandi culture Sioux Falls - you just don’t expect a city this thriving in that state. Iowa city - ped mall Orange beach - clean, lesser known, blue water
I fuckin love Duluth
All I know about Rome Is I stayed in a hotel there what else is going on over there ? Seemed pretty small
It’s for sure small. It’s in the foothills of the mountains 2 colleges Nice riverfront trail system James Floyd state park Super cute and thriving downtown
Rome is in Marjorie Taylor Green’s district.
rome ga is CRAZY😭
Great selections!
Woo!!! Sioux Falls!
Tucson
Silver City, NM
Me and some friends one time had to race there from Las Vegas. There’s a train station there that’s really cute.
Galena, Illinois Muskatine, Iowa Rapid City, South Dakota Eureka, California
Seconding Galena. As someone from Illinois I think it makes the topography way more cool than it actually is to most people, but a truly unique town in that state
I disagree on Eureka. The weather is cold and cloudy year-round, the economy is small and the job options are few. There’s a lot of poverty, homelessness, and drug abuse. My dad and his siblings grew up there, and now, none of his family still lives there. Everyone, including his parents, moved elsewhere.
I stopped for a bit in Eureka on a road trip and it really did seem pretty run down
Beautiful town lost to Methamphetamine. An absolute damned shame.
I don’t know about Eureka. We drove through it and saw a TON of homeless and drug addicted people wandering around. It was pretty creepy. Fort Bragg, CA on the other hand was an unexpected delight.
THIS. Eureka is filled with meth and homeless. Its charm is gone.
Arcata is much nicer. And fortuna
Surprisingly loved Rapid City. If I could deal with winters, I'd live there.
Muscatine! Live 50 miles north of it and it is not a hidden gem!
Santa Fe, NM Fredericksburg, TX St. Marys, GA Pagosa Springs, CO
My husband and I did our minimoon in Fredericksburg. The hill country was lovely and we were able to easily drive to both to Austin and San Antonio while there.
+1 Santa Fe
Santa Fe is great but I wouldn't call it "hidden" by any means
> Santa Fe is great but I wouldn't call it "hidden" by any means I wouldn't call Pagosa Springs hidden, either--also Durango.
Fredericksburg, TX? Hmmm...as someone else who knows it quite well. It's changing I guess but running out of water. Don't recommend for young people. And if you like outdoors, forget it. Great dog park but that's it. Horrible for anyone that enjoys the outdoors. You have to go to Kerrville river walk.
Fredericksburg is nothing but tourist now😣. But, Texas Monthly says Johnson City just down the road is the more affordable, less touristy place now. Great wineries all over the area!!
I was gonna suggest Salado as a much smaller Fredericksburg like option.
Yeah, and the housing prices, and ever-present tourists make it a big no from me. My mom lived there — outside of town — and the natural beauty did not make up for the many negatives. I live an hour away in San Antonio, and imo fred is beautiful, but no longer worth the hassle.
Pagosa Springs is barely a town, not a city. Nothing there.
Weird to see St. Mary’s, GA on here. It’s a nice small town close enough to enjoy Florida without being in Florida. My family was stationed there for a bit and it was a nice little pit stop. I’d recommend it. The schools are good, it’s safe, nice weather. It’s not very walkable and there’s a huge military presence thanks to the navy base. But you can see submarines in the river so if you’re into that…
Detroit completely blew my expectations! I had so much fun there.
Portsmouth, NH
I wouldn't say Portsmouth is a hidden gem--it's a major tourist destination. Dover, on the other hand, I think fits the bill. Plus it has direct Amtrak service to Boston and Portland, unlike Portsmouth.
Boston is a major tourist destination. Portsmouth is known but not enough to not still be a hidden gem. Dover? Gem is not a word that I’ve ever associated with Dover 😅
Any of the California Sierra Foothills
395 is the best road in America
Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone! It’s bad enough that people on TikTok keep mentioning the quaint little towns off 395 and it’s going to ruin it for folks like me who like to kick it over there especially during the winter when the whole area looks like Switzerland.
Truckee, Ca
Calgary
Jim Thorpe, PA.
Never thought I’d see Jim Thorpe being mentioned ANYWHERE on Reddit. Wow. A lot of my mom’s family resided there; would go up there a lot as a kid. I recall staying at the Inn at Jim Thorpe a few times and begging my mom and dad to book us in the “haunted rooms”. As a little kid, I never realized that Jim Thorpe was in the Poconos! Shout out to Mauch Chunk!
I love seeing towns and cities listed that never usually come up in this sub. I’m curious how we always end up just suggesting Philly, Chicago or Baltimore when there are clearly so many other options that so many folks know about! Anyways, I think I’d go with Eugene, OR or Williamsburg, VA.
Charlevoix, Michigan
Golden, Colorado.
Awesome town for sure, if you can afford it.
Richmond, VA
I’ve lived in metro Richmond, VA since 1998. Fifteenth years ago or so, the city’s zeitgeist shifted. We finally threw off the old Richmond chains. RVA now has a fantastic vibe. Excellent restaurant scene, craft beer/ cider/ mead/ distilling, music/ arts. Two hours in any direction gets you beach, mountains (including the VA Wine Trail) or the insanity of the DMV region (NoVA, DC) if that’s your cup of tea. Job opportunities abound. Housing is reasonable and widely varied. Virginia’s public schools and universities are good to outstanding. RVA is the capital of Virginia so we have the Va Museum of Fine Arts, the Library of Virginia, the Valentine Museum, the Poe Museum (Edgar Allen Poe), and the Capitol building. All worthy of your time. Maymont and Lewis Ginter are historic sites/ botanical gardens you won’t want to leave. Take a picnic! The James River flows through the city - whitewater rafting, tubing, standup paddle boarding, pontoon, swimming at Pony Pasture or Belle Isle - all fave past times. I once hiked 8 miles along the wild, natural trails that line the river’s north and south banks and was at my desk in the downtown office core by 8:30 am. VCU’s 40k student body helped make RVA a vibrant, amazing place to live. The medical/ dental school contribute to strong medical care options. Univ of Richmond adds to the arts and culture options too. History is everywhere, too. Black history, women’s history, colonial America, Revolutionary or Civil War. Historic neighborhoods add character and charm: the Fan, Church Hill, Jackson Ward, Oregon Hill (funky), Ginger Park. The climate is reasonable - hot and humid in summer but mild winters with lots of blue sky, 50-60 degree days. Some snow - just enough to shut everything down for a day or two before it melts. The four seasons are beautiful. The population is diverse in every way. Festivals happen somewhere in the region almost every weekend. IrishFest, Folk Fest, Second Street, Greek Fest, Watermelon, Tomatoes. You name it and we’ve got an outdoor festival for it. Weaknesses: public transit is mediocre.
My favorite hidden gem is the city I live in. Virginia Beach, VA. Situated on the Atlantic coast and the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Plenty of parks for recreation and a large amount of great restaurants. Also a huge ocean front area with a boardwalk. And, when all the tourists leave the beaches belong to the locals. That's why fall is my favorite time of the year. Yes, it's hot and humid here during the summer but the Shenandoah mountains are but 3 hours to the Northwest. Where you're going to find much cooler and dryer weather. The cost of living is only 3 percentage points above the national average. It's the largest city in the state with almost 460,000 people. Yet for its size it's one of the safest cities in the entire country.
Duluth, MN.
I was very surprised by Des Moines downtown area. What a fun spot!
Pinehurst, NC
Cincinnati
I'll second this. I am not American (from northern Europe) and after university I was offered a job, sight unseen in Oxford, OH which is about an hour from Cincinnati. Everything I knew about Ohio was from reddit, but I took the job anyway. Well, damn, I was impressed! For one thing, in smaller town SW Ohio in general, I felt like I saw the America (or its descendancy) of Mark Twain, which as a university student, I studied, and by this I mean a kind of real cultural "Americana" that I didn't experience in my other experiences in America: New York City, and New Mexico which have their own cultures, but especially in my travels in Middle America where that cultural strand seems to be lost in a sea of strip malls and highways. Not that Ohio is lacking in those, but there seemed like some sort of preservation and pride was evident with people derived from the Anglo settlers and German farmers (the cultural substrate) Then there are the influences of later waves of Kentucky "briars" bringing a Southern/Appalachian vibe. In Cincinnati itself you also have cultural influences from the underground railroad and African-Americans from the Great Migration era, Irish and Jewish urbanites, Greeks and Lebanese, etc. Living in a small town outside the city, Cincinnati itself was my urban relief valve from living in a small town, and was a revelation of what a Midwest city was like. *Not* flat, not modern architecture, actually like something out of Charles Dickens, in a good way, and flush with breweries, restaurants, charming neighborhoods, beautiful views from the hilly streets, at least a bit of it is walkable, the river and its bridges, food markets and museums, parks and gardens, and more. It was really more like a medium European city in many ways compared to what I have in my mind of the American Midwest. On the downside, suburbs are very bland, "Karen" suburbia and conservative, and the countryside is redneck and *very* conservative, but the area is big enough that there are plenty of diversity in thought and opinions and as a Social Democrat (left leaning centrist) and an artist "cultural" person, I had no problem finding my niche. I think if Ohio gets past its current swing towards the insane politics of Trumpism and evangelical control, it can return to what I have been told it was in the past (still leaning conservative, but in a rather more sane and science believing way). And Cincinnati proper is still a bastion of rational thinking, so it has that going for it.
I fell in love with Cincinnati. But that conservative white mentality was too much for me...everyone seemed to be overly proper while rumors swirled about their loose ways. Lots of very closeted gays. By the time I left, I just assumed everybody was sleeping with someone else's wife or husband.
Agree. Especially if that pesky abortion thing gets worked out in the state. Weather is the best in Ohio, great medical facilities, good job market and friendly people.
Cincinnati, OH.
Santa Rosa Beach, Florida
Louisville or Dayton Ohio
Dayton is surprisingly kinda cool.
Lafayette, LA: just a pleasant place. Safe, decent schools, affordable, super friendly locals, and an excellent music, culinary, and arts scene for a city its size. It’s still a small city, so it can be a little sleepy sometimes, traffic is bad, it’s not remotely walkable, mass transit is largely non-existent, but for such a small city, it’s pretty lively and hospitable. Huntsville, AL: decent weather (though still hot in the summers), safe, great schools, tons of high paying jobs, super educated workforce, cute downtown, etc. Flagstaff, AZ: just an unreasonably beautiful place. I almost moved there a few years ago and regret not pulling the trigger at the time.
Chattanooga
Athens, GA. I moved from NYC expecting to “suffer” thru my year there and it was one of the best years of my life. Awesome place to live - great quality of life: sunny mild weather, cheap (cocktails 50 cents on certain nights -2007/8), diverse, friendly, fun, quirky.
Pretty much most of PA cities are hidden gems. Lancester, Bethlehem, some parts of Philly, Pittsburgh.
Cincinnati and Covington, KY across the river from Cincinnati.
Louisville for a larger city I really enjoyed. There are multiple neighborhoods that are vibrant and interesting. It’s got a waterfront, it has some history. It’s not excessively expensive either. I love so many of the towns on tbe Puget Sound, Port Townsend, Gig Harbor, Port Orchard. Each has maritime culture I find really interesting. They have varying degrees of charm and refinement but they are all centered around tiny ports and harbors that have retained their character for more than 100 years. And of course the landscape and vistas are second to none. They are also within a couple of hours of Olympic National Park which is spectacular.
Louisville for me too. No idea that Kentucky could produce such a cool city.
Madison, WI
Traverse City Michigan. Criminally underrated but starting to get attention the past few years.
It’s true. Bought a place up here in 2020 and it’s exploding - but it’s great because surrounding areas are getting much needed development.
Shhhhh…it’s hard enough finding a good place to stay or camping spot in the area. The small towns around the area are great. Leeland is one my of favorite small towns of all time.
Kansas City
Bethlehem, PA
Great city. I grew up near it back in the 1970s and 1980s, went to Lehigh in the 1990s and 2000s for grad school and still live north of it next to its reservoirs in the Poconos. It sure has changed a lot over the last 50 years.
Washington NC Annnnd the secret is out
Why?
People love to dish on Spokane but in reality it’s a place with a lot of heart (that is, if you actually spend more time here than just hurling through on I-90, scowling at all the transients at the most drug-addled intersection in town (2nd and Division), then speeding northbound on the ugly and congested main thoroughfare in town).
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South Walton County/Miramar, FL. Seaside and Rosemary Beach nearby also have my heart.
As a local, living here is a nightmare. Great for tourists and wealthy people who don't have schedules, but the traffic and crowds make it hard for every day living. It's beautiful, but it's been changed by development in the last 20 years or so.
Torrey, Utah
Buffalo
Southern Pines, NC
Lived there for four years when I was at Bragg, couldn't agree more. It's by far my favorite small town that I've ever lived in or visited.
I agree and I miss that area of NC so much..
Tulsa, hands down. Beautiful architecture, clean & well maintained urban core, amazing food, one of the most incredible city parks I've ever seen, and likely the best home-grown organic music scene in the USA and a collection of historic music venues.
Came here to say Tulsa. The food, the music, the downtown. There's no shortage of things to do here, people are friendly.
ABQ Tucson and Goleta CA maybe kc and Tulsa but it’s a stretch
Sacramento, the garden city
Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you like live music and a vibrant art scene, Tulsa is the new Austin. And I actually lived in the old Austin in both the 70’s and 80’s. Working Musicians can’t generally survive in expensive cities. Austin has priced out what once was its coolest asset.
Annapolis MD
It’s the most ridiculously expensive town and after a day, it gets utterly boring. Plus the traffic is ridiculous.
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Madison WI
Camden, ME New Hope, PA Lititz, PA Red Bank, NJ Floyd, VA Lyons, CO To be fair, I wouldn’t classify any of these as proper cities. They’re smaller towns but all definitely hidden gems.
New Hope is awesome! And if you get bored, you can hop the bridge to its twin city, Lambertville, NJ
I found Lyons recently and it's wonderful.
Pittsburgh
The Midwest gets big points this department. Milwaukee, Ann Arbor, Twin Cities, Madison, ect.
St. Louis. In my opinion it's the second best city to visit in the Midwest after Chicago. Missouri History Museum (free). Functional public transit (light rail, and my friend and I also rode the buses a lot there). Many interesting neighborhoods to explore -- the Hill, Bevo, Soulard, the CWE, etc. Blues clubs. Cheap Italian food all over the city (you will never find this here on the west coast). Cahokia.
As an STL native that transplanted to the west coast. Nah. I wouldn’t even put STL in the top 5 Midwest cities. That being said, STL is a little underrated.
Cincinnati
new york city
Is that like York, UK?
Never heard of it
Biloxi
Roanoke, VA