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Old 02-10-2018, 08:51 AM
 
Location: Philadelphia
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What cities have the most unique and interesting topography!

My Top 3

San Francisco
Pittsburgh
Seattle
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Old 02-10-2018, 09:24 AM
 
Location: Buffalo, NY
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New York City. Only 17% of the population lives on the mainland (Bronx), and the rest are on islands.
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Old 02-10-2018, 09:31 AM
 
Location: St Simons Island, GA
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Miami is another 'City of Islands'; a lot of the metro is built on fill. Fort Lauderdale as well.
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Old 02-10-2018, 09:34 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rowhomecity View Post
What cities have the most unique and interesting topography!

My Top 3

San Francisco
Pittsburgh
Seattle
Before I even opened this thread those were the same three I immediately thought of.

Maybe LAs mix of hills and coast would come next. Especially the Sanata Monica/Venice Beach area.

After that I gets a little tougher. You have costal cities like Bos, NYC, Miami that have lots of water and islands everywhere. Mountain towns like Ashville, Boulder.

Portland/SD arent isnt as impressive as the big three. But they have interesting surrounding areas.
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Old 02-10-2018, 09:40 AM
 
Location: Philadelphia
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jpdivola View Post
Before I even opened this thread those were the same three I immediately thought of.

Maybe LAs mix of hills and coast would come next. Especially the Sanata Monica/Venice Beach area.

After that I gets a little tougher. You have costal cities like Bos, NYC, Miami that have lots of water and islands everywhere. Mountain towns like Ashville, Boulder.

Portland/SD arent isnt as impressive as the big three. But they have interesting surrounding areas.

Yea fun fact
:

Pittsburgh has more bridges than any city in the world AND has the steepest street of any city in the world!!
*Pittsburgh has more bridges than Venice, Italy


And I agree; I was going to add Boston to the list, but then I refrained. Although the coastal towns can be interesting, but the flatness takes away a bit. IMO. That is why I think Seattle is a CLEAR top 3, as well as San Fran.
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Old 02-10-2018, 10:16 AM
 
Location: On the Great South Bay
9,098 posts, read 13,113,729 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rowhomecity View Post
What cities have the most unique and interesting topography!

My Top 3

San Francisco
Pittsburgh
Seattle
Quote:
Originally Posted by RocketSci View Post
New York City. Only 17% of the population lives on the mainland (Bronx), and the rest are on islands.
My top two would be San Francisco followed by New York City. I am not sure about third, possibly Pittsburgh (I honestly do not know enough about Seattle).

San Francisco is a no brainer. A very hilly and rocky peninsula surrounded by water.

New York City is a bit more complicated. Its not just that the bulk of the population lives on islands like RocketSci says. That btw makes it interesting but also extremely complicated in real life.

New York City is actually the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. This is why the rocky coast of New England actually starts in New York City. Called the Manhattan Prong, a division of the Reading Prong of the New England Uplands, hills branch off the Appalachians where they go south through Westchester County into the Bronx, Manhattan and cross under New York Bay and surface again on Staten Island where they reach over 400 feet high.

Also on Staten Island is the beginning of the Palisades which later famously appear along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. And Brooklyn and Queens were made by glaciers during the Ice Age so they have glacial moraines (hills) and outwash plains. Staten Island also has some glacial hills.
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Old 02-12-2018, 06:43 AM
 
Location: North of Birmingham, AL
839 posts, read 808,785 times
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Salt Lake City has a breathtaking setting to me, with the lake and the Wasatch Range emerging dramatically immediately east of the city. Let's not forget Honolulu! In my region, Chattanooga has a really neat topography with the Tennessee River winding its way through the area and many steep ridges and hills.
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Old 02-12-2018, 07:02 AM
 
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Syracuse, NY has small scale topographic oddities, within city limits there is a lake, salt marsh (filled in), glacial valley, bedrock hills, drumlins, and drumlins on bedrock hills.
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Old 02-12-2018, 07:05 AM
 
Location: Sweet Home Chicago!
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I'd add Phoenix. Seeing homes built into and on top of rocky cliffs was interesting.
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Old 02-12-2018, 07:15 AM
 
Location: Philadelphia
2,539 posts, read 2,268,989 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flamadiddle View Post
I'd add Phoenix. Seeing homes built into and on top of rocky cliffs was interesting.
Where is this occurring within Phoenix?

In AZ I would place Sedona as the most topographically rich place.


Phoenix from my experiences, as I have been several times, is nothing more than flat dessert. There are some mountains on the edges of the valley, but largely they are more scenic in nature and do not actually affect the built environment in any meaningful way.
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