In reference to the other thread for the doper looking for an uneventful place to retire what is the polar opposite? What is the most exciting, something’s always happening place to live in the US? Extremes of weather and anything else are fine.
Where can you live in the US that’s always on the edge, fabulous highs and crashing lows. Where is excitement city in the 50 states?
It seems obvious to me that it would be NYC, Manhattan in particular.
Manhattan, if course, what came to my mind as well.
But, does The City That Never Sleeps get really weird weather?
I know it gets snow and sometimes a hurricane will make its way of there, but volcanoes, serious earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, forest fires and landslides don’t seem to happen that often.
Is the OP asking where the most DANGEROUS place to live in the USA vis-a-vis weather and environment?
Not necessarily, bit I do wonder if danger is always correlated with excitement. I can see daily life in a run down dystopia like Detroit being pretty boring until someone tries to assault or mug you.
Exciting weather and dangerous weather aren’t always the same thing. Has anybody ever been excited by an extreme heat wave?
I suppose it would depend on what excites you.
One winter in the mid-to-late 90s (sorry, not sure the exact year) I remember getting so much snow in Manhattan that I walked down 7th Avenue from 23rd St. to 14 St. in the middle of the road at 8 am. That may not be a big deal for other cities that are used to heavy snowfall, but it was extremely strange for NYC.
The only good thing about extreme heat waves is you usually get a great thunderstorm as a payoff.
I think I remember seeing pictures of this. I just googled it and I think it was ‘Blizzard of 1996’. cite
It is in reverse chronological order.
OK, so does the word ‘exciting’ include increased probability of sudden and premature death?
There are several places that might qualify quite well (tip-o-the-hat to astro) just because of the local pockets of anarchy.
astro, is that what you meant?
Was the OP asking about “weather events?”
Chapel Hill, NC. University town, several Writers in Residence. Almost equi-distance between the Smokeys and the ocean. Baseball glove-sized oak leaves crunching in the Fall, mountain laurel blooming in the Spring. Snow, swimming pool weather and inspiration. Bazinga!
No I’m not asking about weather, I’m asking about a place where the action is always hopping, there’s no let down, it’s always moving. Danger maybe, action always. There’s an electricity in the air.
I would thing given the 24/7 reputation of Las Vegas it would be at least as exciting as NYC, but no one has mentioned it.
My understanding is that Las Vegas is 24/7 nonstop fun for the tourists, but for most of the regular folks who live there, it’s pretty normal and fairly suburban.
New York City is America’s only truly 24 hour city. LA has some exciting parts, but they are pretty heavily diluted by all of the parts that are pretty boring and residential.
Maybe some of the worst inner cities are exciting in that “shit could go down at any moment” kind of way.
Vegas baby!
Actually LA in my experience.
New Orleans?
Greenwich Village in Manhattan. As long as one can be assured of not running into Ross Geller of Friends fame. Westwood Village in Los Angeles seems like it would be great. Oh, wait, I lived there four years when I went to college back in the early 80s. It was great. Don’t know about still. Waikiki in Honolulu, Hawaii is terrific. The Marina District in San Francisco.
That is a good answer and maybe the winner if you narrow it down to the French Quarter in particular. It is open 24/7 365 with non-stop partying, quite dangerous on some of the side streets, and you always have the possibility of a Katrina sized storm destroying everything you know and love.
The people that live their tend to be colorful to batshit insane and they really live the lifestyle whether their thing is gay gangbangs or voodoo. It has the urban density of Manhattan when you count the tourists and at least the level of debauchery as Las Vegas without all the corporate sanitization.
A bonus for these purposes is that it is shockingly and oppressively hot during the summer because of the humidity and easily beats the places in the West on the discomfort scale. You can’t walk a quarter of a mile outside during the summer without being soaked in sweat. You also get rain deluges that start and stop suddenly almost every day and cause moderate to severe flooding until the city’s pump system can move the water back up to sea level. Violent thunderstorms can form at any time.
The good news is that it is surprisingly affordable to live there.
Chicago might be an interesting candidate. It covers a lot of bases.
The biggest argument against Chicago is that it really only has weather and gambling over NYC.
Actually there have been tornadoes in Brooklyn fairly regularly. Not big ones but…
That fits my timeline, Gagundathar. Thanks for digging it up. The picture from 2006 gives an idea of what I saw, but that’s a cross street. It was even more bizarre on main thoroughfare like 7th Ave.