Everything

It's right on the water and friends have boats. It's an easy bike ride to some beautiful beaches. Mountains and woods are very close. We're surrounded by farm country and get tons of fresh produce in season. And yet I'm in a civilised town with good restaurants, an indie bookstore, an indie record store. music venues with live music 7 nights a week, art openings, and high levels of community activity. It's beautiful. It's safe. The seasons are distinct. There are a number of events and festivals year-round. I could happily stay here forever and ever, though my career will probably not allow that.

The Lake and the River. That it's clean and rarely ever hot. That the neighborhoods have names and still manage to be somewhat different (even with the Starbucks/Caribou/Intelligentsia gangsigns everywhere). That you can get food--of all kinds (not just Leona's thank god)--delivered until well after midnight. That I never ever ever ever have to drive (except when the firm forces me to handle court in the collar county). That I could spend $800 on a handbag, but no-one really notices if I haven't. That the Opera routinely gets Dessay, Flemming, and Hampson and that the clubs get the Prids, Shivaree and the Chemical Brothers but that the Springsteens and Justin Timberlakes of the world still come through town regularly. That I could walk everywhere I ever needed to be, that everything I want to do is within five miles of my house, but that it's not hard to get to my parents (in the burbs) or my friends (way up north in the 5400s or way west in the 4200s). That my family has been here since the turn of the last century. That when people visit me, they understand why I could actually keep listing reasons until the cows come home.

I love this city (NYC) for it's accessibility. I honestly don't know of any other city where you can go anywhere at anytime.

As much as I detest the MTA and it's practices, I have to admit that if I'm willing to expect an extensive delay, that at LEAST I can get there if I had to.

One other thing about NYC..

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC..and culture!!!

I like that I can walk to work and for most things I need. Including Chipotle, which is magical. I don't like that it's not NYC.

I left my power chord at the office last night

I'm sure Stynxno could have sent you a few Ramones mp3s to slake your desire for some righteous power chords.

I love lamp.

The climate: warm, but not hellishly hot.

The food: whenever I leave, I go into southern-cooking withdrawals in less than a week.

The music scene: so incredibly diverse, esp. if you include the music coming from Athens, just up the road.

The natural features: the ocean is not too far away, the mountains are even closer. There are amazing granite outcrops to hike and climb right here in town, plus lakes, rivers, pine forests... everybody in Georgia is less than an hour from a state park.

The melting pot: this is a city that people move to when they want to build a new life, whether they're coming from a nearby state, or a country on the other side of the world. I live around Koreans, Chinese, Russians, Indians, Mexicans, and a surprising number of Romanians. I love being able to visit a Romanian butcher shop, a Chinese bakery, and a southern cooking restaurant, all in the same neighborhood.

(I also love the sort of "misfit" quality to the people here... Atlanta's history as a transportation hub means it has always drawn everything from ambitious business types to down-and-out artists and creative types. We respect our weirdoes.)

Other things: our cool old neighborhoods (the ones that have withstood redevelopment, anyway), the amazing park system, the high number of art and music festivals (from highbrow to proudly lowbrow), the proximity to OTHER great cities. My long family history here is just sort of a bonus.

Things I love about [name of small UK city redacted] - it's big enough to have amenities but small enough to walk to most of them. It's cheap enough that I can afford to live in the centre (unlike London!). It is easy for me to get to several international airports, London and Birmingham are easily reachable by train, and friends in the south and north can call in on their way north/south. It's got a multiracial population but there are no 'ghettos' and no racial tension to speak of. Musical opportunities for me.

Things I used to love about London: much the same as the things you all love about NYC - always something new and unfamiliar, long walks with interesting sights, Turkish food shops 3 minutes from my house, world-class culture, drunken Tube rides :)

1. I live in a nice neighborhood and I can walk or bike to work, and with 3 drivers in my family, we can get by with one car.

2. An hour from the ocean, an hour from the ski slopes.

3. Government is fairly transparent and honest here, and the current mayor knows me by name. A lot of school and government admin types are openly gay and lesbian and no one really bats an eye.

4. SOME good music comes through, and Portland is 2 hours away, for that.

5. All of a sudden, I live in the middle of some first-class wine country.

6. There is going to be a Stumptown Coffee place opening up here(!!)

and danf's no. 1, as well - we can get by fine with one car (between two, and any future kids).

According to the 2000 US Census, zipcode 60626 was the most diverse in the nation with over 79 different ancestries reported. All of Queens reported 65. I've moved a couple blocks south since then, but the area still kicks every kind of ass.

the sea, the sea, the sea, the sea (did I mention the sea?) oh and the people I live with. Otherwise this small UK white-bread town has NOTHING going for it.

eamon: is it really? I thought I was in the most diverse Chicago hood (only because I'm in Boys Town and that tends to bring out the diversity). You're so far North, I feel like a total bumpkin when I get to those parts of the City. You'll note, my "way" north falls short of 60626.

The Bay Area is liberal enough that I can actually stand the people. I mean, I'm still a people-hating person generally, but it would be so much worse outside this little bubble here. If I actually had to work for someone who voted for W that would really be intolerable to me. Here, people drive Priuses and go to war protests. I'm not being holier-than-anyone about it. It's not like Bay Area people are these paragons of progressiveness. They're still ugly Americans who drive cars everywhere. But if I had to save mankind I'd much rather start with this than something else.

The climate in Toronto is colder than Florida, but much milder than the other "cold" places I've lived (the northeast US, eastern ontario, etc). There is also a lot of nature pockets when you get tired of concrete - like the Toronto Islands.

There are so many neat little neighborhoods that you'll suddenly discover, each with their own personality and mood. It's a great "say yes" town, in that, if someone asks me "hey, want to go to ______ (show/restaurant/event)" and I say yes, I always end up having a good time and meeting new people. There are lots of large-scale group participation type events, both official and impromptu.

Everything is so close, and living here has encouraged me to walk more and explore everything around. My culinary horizons have broadened a huge amount (and I was already a 'try almost anything' kind of person). People here also seem a lot more invested in their communities and the way the city is run.

I know my neighbors and they know me. I have a yard and I can see the river from it. I can walk to all the stuff the little town has to offer -- food, post office, butcher, thrift store, coffee shop -- and yet it's close enough for me to go to the airport to skip town. It's safe, it's lovely, it's nestled in a valley and at night you can see a million stars from the front steps. I am convinced Autumn right here is the best Autumn in the whole wide world.

What do I love: the beach, the weather, the foliage, the warmth, the birds, and the casualness of it all. Like Miko's place there is always something going on. There is a fair amount of culture if you look for it.

My section of the world is beautiful. I truly love it but it's changing so fast, as many places like this do. It used to be a slow town. You used to be able to get to places fast. Nowadays a ton of people live here and it's hellacious at times. Not as bad as some places and certainly not as bad as the nearest city, Orlando, but bad. I wonder to myself: Who are these people? Where did they come from? Why are they here? Where do they work? I'm not against people moving in to my town, but I wish it would slow down. It's becoming unfamiliar. Too many subdivisions are being built on old farms that I grew up knowing. Every subdivision used to be an orange grove or a sod farm or a cow pasture, or worse -- piney woods or palm groves or swamp. Well, it's all swamp.

The mountains and the fact that I can be in fairly deep woods in 15 minutes and really deep woods in 45. It's so beautiful here that it takes my breath away every single day and that means a lot to me. The quirkiness: the hippies, the freaks and the deeply strange call this place home, which means that I don't stick out or even register all that high on the Freak O Meter in Asheville and that's a wonderful feeling. I love the live music scene, the galleries, the FIVE microbreweries in this town of 70,000, the many artists and the great health food stores, which all manage to coexist in what is still, underneath, a small sleepy Southern town.

That said, there are a lot of things I also don't like at all, and those are pretty much all connected to overdevelopment, gentrification and crazy growth - sometimes I feel like I'm just watching my beloved town die and that soon there will be nothing left of the Asheville that I know and love and that's heartbreaking and it makes me angry, horribly angry.

1. The weather - I love that we only have a few really hot days in the Summer. There's enough snow to be pretty but not a nuisance (most years). There are four seasons. (Texas and California had two - hot and less hot.)

2. The environment - farms in minutes, mountains in half an hour, the beach in an hour.

3. Cities - about an hour to Vancouver and two hours to Seattle. Abbotsford has just about everything I want on a daily basis except for a book store (there is a good used book store).

4. Government - socialist-liberal politics. Yay for gay marriage! Yay for socialised health care!

5. Melting pot - BC in general is a good one, but I wish my town were more of one. There are quite a few East Indians (mostly Sikhs), some Natives, a few Chinese but it's overwhelmingly white.

I love that I can walk to nearly everything. I also love that I can leave whenever I want, because I like the town, but not the state, I'm in.

Crush: Yep, Rogers Park is the melting pot. I've moved a little farther west, but when I was at Clark & Devon, we counted 26 different cuisines within walking distance, plus at least one restaurant from every state in Mexico. Boystown may be sexually diverse, but it's still mostly white.


I like Chicago for its diversity, but also its weather (yes, I like seasons, even extreme ones), its culture and its food. I could do without the political corruption.

The quiet. The solitude. The darkness at night, with the amazing starscapes that brings. The fact that I can't see another building from almost anywhere on the property (though I can see a few lights at night). The beaches, swimming in the ocean, the deer (as long as they stay the hell on *that* side of the fence), the eagles, the...other non-eagle birds (I'm working on that). As with mgl, this is a place where the weird and those who don't play well with others move, so I can just be myself, like it or fuck off, and most people respect that. The pace, which is sooo much slower than I was used to: buying a couple of groceries usually involves at least three conversations, and since everyone has to chat with the cashier/store owner, don't expect to get through in a hurry. The sense of community--people wave as they drive by each other, most people know who you are or at least recognize you as a local, there are lots of fun volunteer opportunities, and people cheerfully help each other out. At the same time, you have to be pretty self-reliant, which has been good for me. The climate--not too hot in the summer (and if it is, there are a bazillion beautiful beaches to go to), not too cold in the winter, with maybe a couple of snows a year. It's a nice walk to the store & the pub, and I can always count on a ride back. If it's raining (or even if it's not), I'll usually be offered a ride there, too, if I want.

The way dozens of people gather at one park at dusk to watch the summer sunsets over the ocean.

I love that it's an 8 minute walk to work. My town is small enough to be personal, but has a lot of amenities, a lot of arts activity, and diverse population as well as diverse restaurants. Mountains, ocean, lakes, rivers; it's very beautiful here.

5 minutes to the beach, and young, sleepy Yankee couples that get up at dawn, and put all their wedding finery on, again, to have those silly/romantic portraits made, on the beach at sunrise. $1 draft nights at local bars. People ask to pet my worthless dog, all the time, just because I tie a red kerchief around his neck. Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donut franchises. Not to mention Sonic, Krystal, Waffle House and every other non-California cult fast food franchise from which great American literature emanates. Ethnic diners that make egg creams. Sun ditzy, slightly tipsy beach tramps. The Fishing Bridge. A lighthouse intentionally half-buried by the Navy (yep, just half-buried). $0.85 bus fares. Flat landscape is great for walking, and biking. Low taxes. "Shall-issue" and "Stand Your Ground." It's a pro football, minor league baseball town. We're the last stop, every year, on the Blue Angels tour, before they return home ('cause this place used to be their home). We have some good medical facilities. Active boat market, and plenty of places to boat. Good flying weather, 275+ days a year.

1) Multiculturalism - particularly as it effects my stomach. Name a cuisine, and there's a restaurant for it. I live in an area full of Vietnamese and West-African restaurants, which works just fine for me (except when being indecisive).

2) As John Birmigham once said: "It's not so much that it's easy to open a little bar in Melbourne, so much as it's difficult not to". A while back I had to organise a night out for a mate who's from here, but has moved to Tasmania to live. To give him the full Melbourne experience we went to a bar in the centre of the CBD which is just a vacant lot with two shipping containers carted in and converted to a bar and a loo-block. It's like any empty space above a certain size will, if left alone, sprout a little bar.

3) Live music. Since I were a lad, the scene has taken a few hits (the influx of pokies, particularly), but there's still more live music than you could possibly keep up with.

3) Trams (cliche, but hey...)

Melbourne is one of my all-time favorite cities. I wish I could talk my wife into making the flight.

What a great question. Thanks, TPS.

I love the way the air smells here, cedar and eucalyptus with lots of other things mixed in. I love the way people are generally polite and good-natured and optimistic, even though it's because they're naïve enough to think that being smart makes them the alpha monkeys of the universe. I love the food: it's fresh, picked this morning, and all kinds of delicious. Everything grows here, which reminds me: CLIMATE BEST BY GOVERNMENT TEST.

It's gorgeous here. People come from all over, literally, to walk or bike these hills... and some people make the trip down the spine every year. The sunsets are amazing... it's quiet and there's not much traffic (because there's barely room to drive a car!).

It is and has been since Elgar's time, a haven for musicians and artists. I've never been to a small town that had more good musicians than this one. The next nearest city, Worcester, seems to suffer from a dearth of good music by comparison.

I love that I can go out any time on any day and do pretty much whatever I want. I love that pretty much all shops are open seven full days a week.
I love that, no matter where you go in this city, you are never far from the beach.
I love that, no matter where you go in this city, you are never far from the mountains and their rainforests.
I love that you can go anywhere and not have to dress up too much but that, if you do dress up, people don't even blink.
I love that there are sheltered places you can take your kids to swim and fish in safety and comfort, but that you can travel for 15 minutes and there are deserted beaches with wild surf where you can look in either direction and not see another human being.

I hate that so many people have come to live here. Fuck off, people, you're ruining my paradise!

For me, it's the mountains.
And the quality of the light.
People complain about the weather, but I'd rather be wet than cold.
I love those times when it's dusk, the wind is blowing and the clouds are scooting across the sky and I have Scott Walker's "The Sleepwalker's Woman" on as I crest a hill.
I love that you can find your niche (if you're lucky) and leave it when you like.
I love all the smart folks I interact with. My cool coworkers, my friends. The artsy types who paint, do video, DJ and play in bands and don't take themselves too seriously.