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What do you guys think are the most forgotten major cities in North America? As in, ones that are frequently overlooked, overshadowed by a more famous neighbor, or little known outside of their region?
My vote goes to St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite being older than and nearly as large as its more famous twin (Minneapolis), St. Paul is almost completely unheard of outside of the Upper Midwest. If it is mentioned at all, it is always as "Minneapolis-St. Paul." It is a really beautiful, vibrant, and interesting city in it's own right, being home to many museums, businesses, great historic architecture, many universities and colleges, multitudinous entertainment options, and a pro hockey team. Despite being so close in proximity, it is a very different city than Minneapolis, and has a totally different "vibe." STP really does seem like an independent city, you'd never know Minneapolis was next door.
It calls it "boring", but what it means is least discussed. Still many of the cities they list are rather new suburbs rather than cities.
Thinking on my own, and looking up a bit, large North American cities that I think get relatively little attention include
Birmingham, Alabama
Boise, Idaho
Cartago, Costa Rica
Columbus, Ohio
Corpus Christi, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas (Overshadowed by Dallas, but maybe justly so as I don't live there)
Indianapolis, Indiana
Knoxville, Tennessee
Leon, Nicaragua
Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky
Quebec City, Quebec
Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic - It has like a million people, but I'd never heard of it and I'm a Geography minor.
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Maybe not, I just like the name and it is bigger than I thought)
Torreon, Mexico - Ninth largest city in Mexico, but I'm not sure I'd heard of it and its Wikipedia article is a mite shabby.
Corpus
Tulsa
Columbus
Grand Rapids
Springfield
Knoxville
Chatanooga(...doubt I spelled that right)
Tacoma
Winston-Salem
Greensboro
Allentown
Scranton
...and my favorite, Niagara!!!! Very few people realize that it's a fairly large city with a nice skyline. Especially in America, where all you see are images of the falls itself...there's not much of an association with the actual city on an international level, that's for sure:
I am not saying that any of these are bad places. These are just the cities that I never seem to here/see celebrated in the media, etc. Thus, I see them as forgotten.
Memphis
Wichita
Topeka
Milwaukee
Lubbock
Birmingham
Syracuse
Allentown
Jackson
Montgomery
Dayton
Akron
Binghamton
Fresno
Grand Rapids
Saginaw
Toledo
Erie
Gary (this was was REALLY forgotten)
Buffalo and Rochester seem to fly under the radar. I hear that they're actually nice cities.
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