What do YOU like about the city you live in? [pics encouraged]

[Badger]

So, cities are often discussed on these forums, and yes this is another city thread, but it's also somewhat of a hobby/activities thread. I'd like to stress this is not a which city has the best [fill in the blank] thread.

Simply put, what do you enjoy about your city? It doesn't need to be the number #1 city in the world for whatever it is that you enjoy about your city, but your city should foster some sort of environment for it. So this thread isn't exactly just list your hobbies either.

Take my city, Austin, for example. It's got a great live music scene that it's known for and if someone asked about Austin, I'd tell them about it, but it's not something I'd miss terribly if I moved.

Things I do love about Austin:

Bull Creek Dog Park
This is without a doubt my favorite place in Austin. This picture of my Chocolate Lab giving chase fails to show the awesome layout of this park. There's hiking trails in the woods, a creek that runs through the park with a waterfall at the bend, a large open field up top and lots of friendly dogs and people.

Rock Climbing
Yeah, obviously not the best in the US, but there's a lot of good places to climb, some of them right in the city. Also, there's a pretty decent climbing community. There are a couple indoor gyms that I really like too. Here's a pic of me climbing a 5.10 out at Reimer's Ranch:


Cycling
Austin's a pretty damn good city for biking. Although it's not a very bike friendly city, you can usually get where you want to without too much trouble. There's a ton of great routes once you get outside the city. There are hills to the West and flats to the East. It can also be done practicaly year round. And it's a fairly popular sport. Thanks Lance! (He lives here in case you didn't know).


Food
OK, so yeah, there's a ton of cities that have great food. In particular what I love about Austin is the Tex-Mex. There's a decent chance that you're going to get free chips and Salsa when you're dining in Austin. On top of the great Tex-Mex there's also fantastic BBQ. In addition to those two things it's got about everything you could possibly want. Some of my favorites are Shady Grove, Chuy's, The County Line, Thai Passion, Tan My, and this landmark as a hangover favorite:

The owner has the best hand shake in town.

Other things I love about Austin:
Austin City Limits Music Festival
Lots of access to water to play on/in
It's a cool college town
Austin Energy (Community-owned public electric utility company)
Alamo Drafthouse- Unique dinner and a movie theater.

I'll probably come back with more, but this should kick things off.

So share what you love about the city you live in. What makes it a great place for you? If you think it's an awful place why the hell do you live there?

We've had a decent amount of posting about what makes certain cities great. I'd like to hear what EDF is taking advantage of in it's hometowns.

[J.Brown]

Austin is a great city and you made a ton of good points about it.

i live in a college town and am putting in my vote that they are the best places to live in the u.s. unless you have to live in a major metropolitan area.

seriously whether it is madison, columbus, boulder, my hometown of missoula or any other university town it is usually the premier or one of the premier places to live in its state.

i will try and post pics when i am on my desktop and give a full account of my towns great qualities. i almost think the major cities should be excluded because we could never run out of great things to do in sf, la, or the nyc.

later. J.

[Badger]

Bumping because this thread has some still potential I think.

I'm somewhat interested in what the 30+ crowd has to say about living in a college town, even though that's a small demographic here.

Anyone else really like where they live?

[AMT]

[Badger]

Good point, but I could use some further explanation.

[pokah5]

[darnold305]

Chicago

[Anycall]

schwartz's






smoked meat here is good, i mean really good. this place plus zillion other places also located on st-laurent street.

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

[DarkForceRising]

It is a shame that I couldn't find better pics, but Grand Rapids' Heritage Hill District is really beautiful.

The Hill area had become increasingly dilapidated over the years, but in the mid 80's the city offered low-interest loans to those who wanted to restore those weathered properties to their former glory. Between people taking advantage of said offer, and the resurgence of the downtown area, there are now miles of spectacular neighborhoods- one street after another- from downtown to the affluent East Grand Rapids area.