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To me it feels like an exclamation point. Both literally and figuratively! Though as south main develops it is becoming more of an exclamation point sitting above an upside down V.
I think most people are aware that Louisville is much bigger than Greenville. Considerably bigger during the heyday of downtown development and walkable neighborhood commercial districts. Your point is???
One interesting thing about Greenville is that it really has no historical significance (on a national scale ) like many of the other cities being discussed. KC, Louisville, Charleston, etc were all significantly larger, well known, and more "important" cities while Greenville has only very recently become known at all. Greenville is becoming more of a city, but it's downtown footprint is still very small compared to its metro area. Greenville' s start as a collection of mill villages did not necessitate itself to have a large or well developed urban downtown as many of the mills had their own small downtowns. Downtown Greenville as you know it today has some roots back in the roaring 20s, but has mostly been intentionally created since the 70s. In that regard, Greenville is a baby city, but it is close to jumping categories for size and importance. The latest numbers show something like this:
City: 67,000 (but just 28 square miles)
Urban: 400k
County: 510k
Metro: 900k
CSA: 1.4 MM
BTW, downtown has been mainly main street, but that is rapidly changing. Parallel streets are quickly being developed, with several big projects just starting that will greatly expand the DT footprint; County Square Redo, Wade Hampton/ East North/Stone project, projects surrounding Heritage Green, and the new Unity Park and associated development that will singlehandedly change the look and feel of DT are a few.
I love Greenville but if you look closely you can see the small city bones. Notice how only two of the historic commercial buildings on Main st are more than two stories. The infill has come in beside and behind them and really bulked up downtown but the soul of a small city is still there. And that's a good thing.
Another vote for Frederick Md here. Amazing downtown commercial, beautiful residences (mostly townhomes) just steps away, and the most amazing urban linear park.
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Originally Posted by Chicago60614
College towns usually make out good in this respect.
A few of my favorites around here - Madison, Ann Arbor and Iowa City.
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Originally Posted by MarketStEl
To that list I add Lawrence, Kan.
And I'll add:
Athens, GA
Charlottesville, VA
Northampton, MA
Morgantown, WV
Santa Barbara, CA
Eugene, OR
Missoula, MT
Fayetteville, AR
Tallahassee, FL
Chapel Hill, NC
Ithaca, NY
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Was just in Charleston and Savannah.
These have to be, BY FAR, the two best small cities in America.
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Originally Posted by MarketStEl
If they're not the two best, they're certainly in the top five, but they're mid-sized, not small.
Lancaster, Harrisburg, Portland ME - those are small cities that are also metropolitan centers like Charleston and Savannah. (Actually, I'm not certain how much of a metropolitan center Savannah is. I haven't been there since the 1960s, but ISTR that back then, it had very few suburbs to speak of, compared to Charleston, which had several.)
100,000 is the cutoff point between small and mid-sized. Both Charleston and Savannah have populations above it.
If the size of Charleston and Savannah is a bone of contention, I might suggest their "little sisters": Beaufort, SC and Wilmington, NC. They're both great small cities.
I’d add Corning NY, population 11,000. Has its own orchestra(Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes), has a couple of pretty big museums(Rockwell Museum and Corning Museum of Glass), has an acclaimed Downtown(Market Street/the Gaffer District), has wineries nearby and is home to a Fortune 500 company.
I’d add Corning NY, population 11,000. Has its own orchestra(Orchestra of the Southern Finger Lakes), has a couple of pretty big museums(Rockwell Museum and Corning Museum of Glass), has an acclaimed Downtown(Market Street/the Gaffer District), has wineries nearby and is home to a Fortune 500 company.
Also Lawrence, Kansas is also on my list for small cities. Also cities between 50k-100k MSA I like to call micro-cities. Anything below that population I consider a town.
It's the one thing we do right here Now if they could just bulldoze the old casinos downtown and get rid of the beggars and druggies that surround it, this would be paradise
I would put Bend, OR on this list too for sure. Absolutely beautiful
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Now if they could just bulldoze the old casinos downtown and get rid of the beggars and druggies that surround it, this would be paradise 
