Waco, TX ~ 120,000
Timbuktu, Mali ~ 30,000
Any other good/fun examples?
Can we declare a “winner” for best ratio of population-to-notoriety?
PS: If you have to explain the cause of notoriety to more than a handful of people, then it’s probably a bad example.
Hollywwood.
Half the joint is dirt poor, last I heard.
Vatican City has around 500 citizens. (Plus around 300-400 non-citizen residents).
Hershey, Pennsylvania – 12,771 people, and the community doesn’t even officially exist
Luckenbach, Texas – 3 people
East St Louis, IL pop: 31,542
Green Bay. Amazing they still have an NFL team (although I think that’s a good thing).
What is notorious about these two?
Deadwood South Dakota population 1,380
Cicero has notoriety (more or less solely, I should admit, within the U.S.) for having a heavy amount of political corruption, including the heavy influence of organized crime.
Dodge City, KS ~ 25,000
Governor Quinn explained Cicero.
East St Louis sort-of exemplifies crime, urban decay, and general shithole-ness, at least to a lot of us midwesterners.
Ditto West Palm Beach, FL, which, in my childhood, was the epitome of rich cities in the U.S. (or at least, that was the impression formed in my mind through various sources).
I nominate:
Lake Buena Vista, FL. Home of one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, and every bit of 16 people.
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho isn’t very large and has a reputation acquired from having been close to the Aryan Nations headquarters (they were actually in a suburb of Coeur d’Alene).
Roswell, NM. Population just over 45,000 and a pretty dingy place over all.
Colorado Springs, Colorado is the home of many of the religious right organizations. I’d say they have a very strong influence all over the United States.