Denver, Colorado.
Unfortunately I can’t tell you anything about it. Everybody who lives in Denver recently got a memo telling us not to tell any more people about it becuase they all seem to move here, buy a big ass SUV they have no idea how to drive, and crowd up the roads so we can’t get anywhere anymore 
Pearl River, NY.
Honest.
Used to be called Muddy Creek, up until the early 19th century. Then some freshwater pearls were found in the muddy creek that runs through town, and the selectmen or whoever decided that Pearl River sounded more classy-ass than Muddy Creek.
Located in Rockland County, just up the Palisades Interstate Parkway from Le Pomme Grande. It’s just north of New Jersey. My house is within walking distance of Montvale, NJ.
It’s not a really big town, dunno the population. It’s not really a town or village, strictly speaking. It’s a hamlet, one of the biggest ones around. I have no idea what the distinction is.
It’s a bedroom community, of course, like all the NYC burbs. Lotsa NYPD and NYFD live here. Big Irish population, for some reason. Our St. Patrick’s Day Parade is famous throughout the county, and sometimes we get pretty famous dignitaries to be Grand Marshall.
Mostly small independent businesses in the center of town, although there’s a Domino’s Pizza in town. It was a baby-boomer community when I was growing up in the '60s and '70s. Sorta went into a downturn for awhile in the '80s, with fewer young families. But there’s a resurgence now, with people discovering that it’s a good place to raise a brood.
Rochester, MN, population 70,745
Voted the #1 city to live in by some magazine, I can’t remember which.
The Mayo Clinic is located here.
The mayor is Chuck Canfield.
It’s a very boring town. We have no local specialties.
Aside from the Clinic, there’s just nothing interesting around here.
sigh
Fort Worth, Texas - “Where the West Begins!”, also known as “Cowtown”
TOPOGRAPHY: Located on the rolling prairie of north-central Texas
POPULATION: 500,000 in the city; 1.4 million in the county
MAYOR: Kenneth Barr
WEATHER: Hot and sometimes humid in Summer. Mild in Winter with an occasional snow or ice storm. Nice temperate weather in Spring and Fall.
BUSINESS: American Airlines headquarters, Bell Helicopter headquarters, Radio Shack/Tandy Corp. headquarters, Burlington Northern Santa Fe headquarters. Other big employers include Lockheed Martin, Nokia, various government agencies, schools and universities
COMMERCE: Most major chain stores are represented
BUSINESSES I WOULD OFFER TAX BREAKS TO IF I WAS ON THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: any major high tech company
HISTORY: Settled in 1849 as an Army post to protect settlers from Indian attacks. It was the last major stop on the Chisholm Trail, and became home to cattle drovers and outlaws. (The famous photograph of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and the rest of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang was made here.)
ATTRACTIONS IN FORT WORTH: The Stockyards National Historic District, Billy Bob’s Texas (“World’s Largest Honky Tonk”), Fort Worth Herd daily cattle drive, Sundance Square, Bass Performance Hall, Water Gardens, Tarrant County Courthouse, National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, , Kimbell Art Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Botanic Garden, Fort Worth Zoo, Texas Motor Speedway
ATTRACTIONS IN THE AREA: Six Flags Over Texas, The Ballpark in Arlington (Home of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club), some stuff over in Dallas
LOCAL FOODS: It wouldn’t be Texas without great Mexican food! The best is Joe T. Garcia’s in the Stockyards. Oh, and of course, Chicken Fried Steak.
For more information, click here.
Well, currently I live in Alexandria, VA, but I’ve only been here a month and a half, and can’t speak authoritatively on it. And being an Army brat, I don’t really have a “hometown,” so I’ll just use the town I did most of my growing up in:
PERRY, OHIO
Located approximately 38 miles east of Cleveland, on the Lake Erie shore.
TOPOGRAPHY: Mostly flat farmland, with some small ridges farther from the lake.
POPULATION: (1996 Census) Including Perry Township, Perry Village and North Perry Village, 7,528. Within a 20-mile radius, there are about 250,000.
MAYOR: I have no idea now. When I last lived there, it was Lawrence Logan, a Republican, who was also the history teacher at Perry Junior High School.
WEATHER: Very rainy in the spring; hot and humid thanks to the lake in summer; cool and crisp, sometimes rainy, in the fall; and icy/snowy in the winter, with less snowfall closer to the lakeshore, and more farther south due to “Lake Effect” snow. The part of the country south of Perry, and running into Geauga county, is referred to as the “snow belt.”
BUSINESS: Perry is the nursery capital of Ohio, with fruit and vegetable crops a major source of income. The Perry Nuclear Power Plant, operated by FirstEnergy Corp., is also located in Perry.
COMMERCE: Very little. An IGA grocery store on Rte. 20 on the western end of town, various nurseries. No major chain stores or fast-food franchises. All of that is located in larger Madison to the east and Painesville and Mentor to the west.
BUSINESSES I WOULD OFFER TAX BREAKS TO IF I WAS ON THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: None. There’s no demand for it in Perry. Besides, the nuke plant got a tax abatement on prime lakefront property in Perry for nearly 30 years, robbing the town of lots of money that could have been used at the time to improve the schools.
HISTORY: There was once a major KKK chapter in North Perry.
ATTRACTIONS: Errrr . . . the ways out of town?
LOCAL FOODS: Pal’s Patio, at the end of Ohio St. at Rte. 20, serves the best chili dogs I have ever tasted, bar none.
Eagle Grove, Iowa, three stop lights (one of them totally unnecessary)
About 4,500 people – a gas explosion in 1973 destroyed a few downtown buildings, and several people were killed, including the son of a former Iowa governor. That’s why there are some newer one-story structures on main street, rather than the usual two-story ones so common in small towns.
If you drive in after dark, from a few miles out, you’ll think you’re coming to a city. It’s just the lights on the grain elevators.
Nothing’s open after 10 except the bars, and the only one with decent food closes their kitchen at 10.
Population: 32,000
To find Dracut on the Massachusetts map follow the Northern border from west to east, the first curve is Dracut. Actually the curve is the Merrimack River (famed of Thoureaus journal, and the namesake of one of the first ironclad battleships). Dracut was founded in 1701, then sold a portion of the town to Lowell, MA in 1824.
Dracut’s claims to fame… hmm… We had the most revolutionary war soldiers per capita in any of the colonies. ummm… Jack Kerouac mentions us in a few of his novels, he is from neighboring Lowell. Scott Grimes(he was on party of five and Mystery Alaska), is from here. Thats about it.
Govt. Standard new england…Board of Selectmen. Two year elections yada yada
Food… the Bootmill Sandwich… breakfast sandwich on a bagel or muffin or toast. sausage, ham or bacon or all three, with scrambled eggs cheese and homfries. all piled up, greasy. good… its great.
attractions. lakeview amusement park. but that closed about 40 years ago…
Santa Clarita, California.
Elevation about, population 190,000
It’s actually pretty nice here-lots of trees, hills- we are in a small valley. About 40 miles north of L.A. Bedroom community. Pretty well planned.
Still has a small town feel in the part of town I’m in. They are building fast! here so I’m sure that will be gone soon. The size has doubled in the last 15 years. We have a western feel in the older parts of town, William S. Hart lived here, he acutally donated his homestead to the city and now its a really big cool park. It even has buffalo. Tox Mix and a lot of the old time screen cowboys hung their hats here.
The newer parts of town are just mass tract homes, though.
We were voted 4th safest city over 100,000 by the FBI. 6 years ago we were first in the ratings. A really good place to raise kids as far as So. Ca. goes.
BUT-it was 102F here today!!!
This is a long post because i wrote the town’s history here, since I happened to have a paper with it in front of me
Marina, California
Elev. 40 feet above sea level
Pop. 17,000 (roughly)
Ecology: Basically native Californian dune plants meet coastal Chapparal. Oak woodland on the newly acquired parts of town. Soil is basically sand, sand, sand (town sits upon old sand dunes, which results in a hilly topography for the city).
Weather: Summer is usually cool and foggy. Spring and fall are the best times (sunny and usually we get short heat waves then). Winter is rainy and cold. Sometimes frosty in the mornings.
Parks: The only notable parks are the state beach, and Locke Paddon park. The state beach has restored dunes, with a nice boardwalk. The beach isn’t very safe, but nice to go to to watch the sun set, or if the whales are migrating, you can see them spout offshore. Locke Paddon Park is a large pond with a trail running around it. The future city library will be built near it.
Recreation: Basically, the only major recreation here is hang-gliding, because of the constant wind off of the ocean (because of the wind, my town had a “wind festival” recently).
Schools; There are quite a few schools (three within a mile of my house). Cal State Monterey Bay opened in 1995, and sits on the boundary between Marina and Seaside.
Stores; Most of the businesses here are small businesses. Quite a few are owned by the Korean residents here. Quite a few Korean markets. Though, we do have a wondrous Asian market with nearly every Asian food product you can think of (it has a lot of regulars from other towns in the area, because of the wide selection). We also have a good German Deli (the owner makes sausage from hand, and will butcher venison for the hunters here, free of charge,IIRC).
It’s basically a bedroom community with absolutely no industry whatsoever. They didn’t realize that the army base nearby wouldnt be here forever (we have no town square, it kind of developed in segments).
History: Originally the land the city sits on was owned by two men, David Jacks, and James Bardin. Before 1885, the land was inhabited only by jackrabbits and rattlesnakes (undeveloped, the original chapparal and dune plants were still here). In 1886, John Armstrong bought 2,800 acres for farming, and called it “Armstrong Ranch” (which still sits undeveloped, but is scheduled to be). The land there was used for potato farming until 1930. 400 acres near the sea were bought by the San Francisco Sand company in 1906 to supply sand for rebuilding San Francisco after the great quake.
In 1930, Mr. Locke-Paddon, a real estate agent from San Francisco bought 1,500 acres of land for subdividing. He had to do a lot of persuading to get the San Rafael bank to loan him $1,000 in order to do so. What helped him was the fact that the Southern Pacific Railroad needed to lay track through the land here (the tracks still exist). So, he guaraunteed that the Southern Pacific Railroad would get at least 30 passengers a year, and they set up a stop called “milepost 117”.
Soon, he was able to get San Francisco residents to move down here, and sold them 5 acre parcels at $75 dollars an acre. Soon shacks popped up all over the land Locke-Paddon bought.
Soon the area became known as “Bardin”, then “Locke-Paddon Colonies”, and then “Paddonville”. But, Locke-Paddon didnt like thae name much so he renamed the town “Marina”. For a while the town was unincorporated, and was administered by the county and the sherrif department. Then in 1975, the town was finally incorporated.
The town also became an alternate area for Army personnel to live, if they didn’t want to live in the barracks on base, or in housing on base. So, we have lots of Military families here. That’s also part of the reason the city is so diverse in it’s ethnic makeup.
And there you have it, the history of Marina, about the only interesting thing about it.:).
Doh! Oops, that should be “1913”, not 1930
Lot’s of buckeyes here
Eaton, Oh 45320
pop. 6,000 - 10,000
Home of the All famous Pork Festival. We have a pork queen every year.
Located 30 mile west of Dayton 10 miles south of I-70.
Our exit on 70 is home of the most drug busts per year. We just had 6 people in this town busted. Couple of them for selling barrels (5000 pills) of ectasy.
Attractions (other than the pork festival) The Preble County Fair, Fort St. Clair, hang out at a bar or the gas station.
Businesses Mostly corn, hogs, soybeans, there are 5 or 6 factories, lots of fast food joints. Most commute to work.
Don’t know who the mayor is. Nobody really cares. There is no support for the town except for 3 or 4 families that have been here for ages.
Weather is hot in the summer, cold in the winter.
great place to live but I wouldn’t want to visit
I love Vancouver, Victoria is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen, and the summer vacations that I spent in the Shuswaps were some of the best of my life. But I wouldn’t live anywhere else than where I am now. It’s not a town or even a village, just a small lakefront community on the northernmost tip of Columbia Lake, about 10 km south of Fairmont Hot Springs. Truly heaven on earth.
I’m actually a native San Franciscan, but I did most of my growing up (and presently still live) north of the City in…
…Petaluma, California.
Topography: About 35 miles north of San Francisco and 20 miles west of the Pacific in southern Sonoma County, Petaluma has lots of golden rolling hills that are increasingly becoming green with newly planted vineyards, as the borders of the Wine Country move to the south and west. Most of the trees are evergreens, especially oaks, pines, and redwoods, and the hills on the outskirts of town in every direction remain untouched (except by the cows).
Population: 53,000, I think.
Mayor: No idea. The board of supervisors are a bunch of idiots, though. Anyway, the politics of the area are kind of conservative by Bay Area standards, which is still awfully liberal by national standards. The very large majority of registered voters are Democrats, of this I am certain.
History: Nothing earthshattering. Petaluma came into existence with the Gold Rush, as it lies on a river (actually a slough) that runs into the SF Bay, making it a good point to ship stuff down to the City. It was incorporated in 1851, I believe. The egg incubator was invented here, creating a gigantic egg and chicken industry. For many years, Petaluma was the egg capital of the world, and a number of buildings still standing (and now used for other purposes) still bear hatchery signs. In more recent years, there has been a major influx of people from San Fran (including my family), who were looking for reasonable housing prices, a nice, safe little city in which to raise their kids, etc., etc. At 35 miles, it’s still commutable, and thousands of people have moved here in the last 15 years.
Stuff to do: uhhh…not much. I like to joke that Petaluma is a nice place to live, but you wouldn’t want to visit. We have about a zillion antique stores here. A cute downtown area. Petaluma was miraculously untouched by the great quake of 1906 (the epicenter is only about 20 miles away) and many buildings are 150 years old, and lots of movies and commercials have been filmed here, the most prominent of which is probably American Graffiti. There really aren’t any local attractions, although we’re near lots of nice stuff, like the ocean, the wine country, etc., the pretty scenery that Northern California is known for.
Wait, wait, wait. 5 MILLION taverns? No effing way. Unless you were exaggerating, in which case, carry on.
Baltimore, MD
The place where there are 23 Democratic mayoral candidates, and 3 Republicans. About it’s only redeeming quality (ok ok, I actually kinda like the place otherwise).
Adopted home town: Oslo, Norway. (Well, actually, a suburb of Oslo, but you’ve never heard of it.)
TOPOGRAPHY: This is the flat part of Norway, which means if you’re riding a bike downhill and the brakes give out, you won’t break the sound barrier. On the other hand, there are still some places where the road authorities have put in stairs where a sidewalk would normally be. So it’s only flat relatively speaking.
POPULATION: passed 500,000 last year. If you mean Greater Oslo, and use the most generous definition for that, the population is approaching 2 million, or about half the country.
WEATHER: Two seasons, Rain and Slush. Sometimes we get real summer or real winter days, just often enough to make us think we have other seasons than Rain and Slush.
MAYOR: Oh dear. Per somebody. Conservative. Oslo city politics are characterized by close elections, shaky coalitions, and much ado about nothing.
BUSINESS: Most of the manufacturing industry that used to be Oslo’s claim to fame has left, and Oslo’s harbor is also dying. Drammen is a busier port. Never heard of Drammen, right? And the oil industry, at least the dirt-under-nails production sector, is centered in Stavanger. So Oslo’s business picture is increasingly dominated by white-collar and service industries. Since this is both the capital and largest city, most businesses in the country have at least a token office here. The usual stuff associated with having the national government around, as well, and of course city government stuff.
COMMERCE: Nothing particularly spectacular, I guess, though we do have something of an oddity in the modern world: a thriving downtown commercial district.
HISTORY: Stole the honor of being the capital from Bergen (which in turn stole it from Trondheim) centuries ago, and has since seen the usual scheming and intrigue that goes along with that. Several bad city fires. Renamed Christiania after a megalomaniac Danish king, then re-renamed Oslo in this century. Hosted the Winter Olympics in '52. Incredibly fast growth in the '50s and '60s, leading to the construction of “satellite towns”, planned suburbs, with all the usual associated problems.
ATTRACTIONS: Frogner Park with Gustav Vigeland’s fantastic sculptures. Holmenkollen ski jump. Karl Johansgate, the main street of the downtown commercial district and Oslo’s heart. Norwegian Folk Museum. Viking Ship Museum. Fantastic natural surroundings, forest all around the city and several nearly untouched islands in the Oslofjord.
LOCAL FOOD: You think I’m going to say lutefisk, don’t you? Nope. Oslo has many things to answer for, but lutefisk is not one of them. But I can’t think of anything that distinguishes traditional Oslo cooking from traditional Norwegian cooking. Certainly the most varied collection of restaurants, cafes, and fast food dives in the country.
Spooje, the former Buckeye, checks in.
Los Angeles California, or more specificly, the beautiful San Fernando Valley.
TOPOGRAPHY: It’s a valley.
POPULATION: way, way too many. In L.A., about 3.5 million. In the Valley, a little over a million.
WEATHER: hot and sunny. We pray for rain and wind. Always 10 degrees hotter than downtown L.A. and usually 20 degrees hotter than Santa Monica. Both are 20 minutes to 2 hours away, depending on the time of day.
MAYOR: His Honor, Richard Riordan, who promised the democrats an additional 4 million dollars to hold their convention here. His reason, to 'increase the national visibilty of L.A. Putz.
BUSINESS: Movies, drugs and insurance fraud.
ATTRACTIONS: 6 flags Magic Mountain, Disneyland, all the major TV studios, Universal Studios Theme Park, the Brea tar pits, live theatre, Hollywood, beaches, babes and gang violence. All within driving distance and almost none of it in the valley.
There is movement for the Valley to become it’s own city, leaving Los Angeles behind. There is also a movement to indict the entire Los Angeles School district.
Spiny Norman, currently displaced Dane, attempts to describe Hamburg, Germany:
TOPOGRAPHY: Placed on the river Elbe, ca. 100 km inland from the North Sea. The terrain is flat, even from a Dane’s perspective. Canals all over the place and lots of trees - pretty, actually. Of course, like most major German cities, there are few buildings more than 50 years old.
POPULATION: 1.7 million, 85% German. In other words, lots of expats like yours truly. Traffic is a nightmare, parking is living hell. OTOH: excellent public transport, bicycling on the sidewalks is encouraged, but gets you nowhere. Bicycling in the streets is technically legal but recommended only for people with steady nerves and fast reactions.
I’ve dropped owning a car for the reasons mentioned.
WEATHER: Hmmm. To quote a colleague: “Hamburg has the same amount of rain as the rest of Germany, it’s just distributed more evenly” - in other words, ISO-standard North European grey overcast weather most of the time.
MAYOR: No idea. Hamburg is a state under the Bundesrepublik, meaning that we have a Senate etc. as well as a mayor - but I haven’t had the time for local politics.
BUSINESS: Hamburg is very much a merchant city - the stock exchange is in the same building as the town hall/Senate, which ought to tell you something about the priorities here. Big harbour, shipyards, trading, trading, trading - and for some reason, a high concentration of Internet companies. Airbus fuselages are assembled here, BTW.
ATTRACTIONS: Germany’s highest average income, about 100 consulates (that’s a lot), pretty canals, plenty of parks etc. A couple of old churches, an excellent art museum, two decent opera houses.
Reeperbahn is probably the closest you’ll ever get to a “decent” red-light district - nice pubs, trendy discos, strip joints and ladies of negotiable affection, all side-by-side. The locals will certainly try to get your money, but generally speaking only in legal ways - in other words, it’s a low-crime area, strangely enough. I’ve never felt so safe walking the streets in the wee hours.
I guess you can tell that I like it here ? Not that I’m staying for ever, but for a couple of years, this is definitely OK.
S. Norman
Lakeland, Florida
POPULATION: Approximately 175,000
TOPOGRAPHY: Flat (hey, this is Florida). Although, per the Chamber of Commerce report, we are 216 feet above sea level, one of the highest spots in peninsular Florida
WEATHER: Hot (Hey, this is Florida). Per the Chamber of Commerce report, average annual temp. of 72 degrees, with an average rainfall of 50 inches per year.
MAYOR: “Buddy” Fletcher
BUSINESSES: Corporate headquarters for Publix Super Markets, Inc. (with 600+ supermarkets in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama), Watkins Motor Lines, GEICO Insurance and Discount Auto Parts.
ATTRACTIONS: There are no “attractions” in Lakeland, although we are about 25 minutes from Disney World (Orlando), 30 minutes from Busch Gardens (Tampa) and about 45 minutes to the west coast beach.
CLAIMS TO FAME: World’s largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture (Florida Southern College campus), Spring Training home for the Detroit Tigers, Childhood home of TV reporter Forrest Sawyer, golfer Lee Janzen, NASCAR driver Joe Nemechek, and Susan Sarandon’s mother lives here; also George Jones and Tammy Wynette lived here when they were married.
Well, now that I’m thoroughly depressed reviewing this, might as well submit it
Born–Brooklyn NY
Grew up-East Brunswick, NJ
really icky snobby stuck up town , very dense in population, noted for excellent public school system.
now live in GLASSBORO, NJ
where i go to college–it’s hicksville here, and everyone has a funny accent