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Altho I live in Albuquerque now, there are a couple of places I likes when I lived in the northwest. Notice they are inland where its not so wet! Thus the reason Im in NM now. These are all college/university towns, which I think are a necessity when creating that nice little fun downtown.
Ashland, OR a bit wet, but not as bad as say Eugene (also a nice city) Ashland is 20-25K. Home to the Shakespeare Festival each summer. Many outdoor theatres that put on live plays. I recommend sitting back a few rows, however, to avoid getting spit on! Ashland has many old Victorian homes of all sizes and most have been remodeled now. The place just keeps upgrading and has gotten rather pricey tho. Fun place. Jacksonville nearby is also the little Victorian mecca. Both are just outside Medford.
Pullman, Washington/Moscow, Idaho has an interesting set up. University of Idaho and Washington State are within 10 miles of each other. Lots of sports rivalry there. Both towns are cute. Cold son-of-gun in the winter tho. But the summer on the Palouse is so nice. Very agricultural area and the smell in summer is just delightful! I think its barley. ???
Bend, OR is nice, but over 40K and growing. Kinda pricey as well now. Has that dry, somewhat high desert climate. (yes.....high desert in Oregon I said!) The wet part is on the other side of the Cascades.
Anywho, here in New Mexico of course it would be Santa Fe, but who can afford that?? More of a cowboy and indian take on "nice downtown" anyway. Albuquerque has its fun areas (around the university of course), but I think were way over the 40K limit.
By the way, I agree with Walnut Creek,Ca. They have done an incredible job making a new downtown seem old and settled. You just have to come up the with the 500K+ for a home there, and its all yours.
Notice how the the trend is for all these fun little towns to become kitch and pricey. Laters, C
"Notice how the the trend is for all these fun little towns to become kitch and pricey." <<<<Astute observation, NURSEYDUDE. It is truly a shame how Americans have thrown away hundreds of these places in the last 50 years, all in the name of "progress". Now, only the rich can afford to live there, whereas formerly people of all income levels thrived in places like this. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til its gone?
For me, the mark of a 'true' downtown, is one that behave like it downtowns did pre-50's (when Americans started hating cities). Our, behaves like cities in other countries. There, cities are where the majority of people shop, people live and steward street-life and contemporary architecture is favored. Though in America, there are anomalys- cities and towns that have true downtowns:
Most cities in the West Coast, including LA, which has a very vibrant market distracts within its downtown.
Good examples of CA towns include- Santa Monica, Culver City, Palo Alto, Oceanside, Pasadena
Other American towns- Eugene, OR, Ann Arbor, Ferndale, and Royal Oak, MI, Madison, WI
Faux downtowns, that unfortunatly, act more like museums rather than functioning, vibrant centers inclued: Frederick, MD, Richmond, VA, and Naperville, IL
Oceanside doesn't really have a downtown. San Diego's is as good as it gets and has the best weather to boot. We don't need no stinkin' skyways!
My town, Louisville, Colorado, pop. 20,000 has a nice little downtown, but it is mostly restaurants, coffee shops, boutiques, and the like. The library is downtown, which does bring people in. In years past, when it was much smaller, it had a hardware store, a funeral home, and other stores.
The key to reviving a downtown successfully is to not only attract people to live downtown but also to attract a wide variety of people to your downtown core. If people live downtown they'll patronize adjacent businesses, helping to boost their bottom lines, and entrepreneurs will open up new businesses to help latch onto that foot traffic when they identify unmet demands from these residents. However, if you attract only "yuppies" downtown, then you'll end up with a city replete with coffee houses, art galleries, ethnic restaurants, Starbuck's, etc. with very little in the way of character, soul, or, more importantly, utility. On the other hand, if you have a downtown with a plethora of low-income housing projects all over the periphery, then you're bound to see a proliferation of pawn shops, dollar stores, fast-food places, cash advance places, tattoo parlors, and other "low-class" types of establishments that tend to project an unsightly image to visitors and suburbanites. However, if you can attract middle-class, low-income, AND yuppies to your downtown, then you can see a healthy blend of businesses that will all work to complement one another.
For as much as I love my native Scranton, PA, I'm sad to see that all of the hundreds of lofts/apartments/condos under development in our core are geared towards high-earning younger professionals and empty-nesters. I hope to settle into one of these new lofts in 2010, but I don't want to live in an 18-hour city that becomes noted for being nothing short of pretentious. Scranton has too much soul and charm to permit it to fall by the wayside in favor of catering to our now-apparent NY/NJ transplant influx. The poor are being squeezed out of downtown. One housing project was closed quite a while ago because it wasn't up to code, and it has yet to be either brought up to code or torn down, meaning that those of lower-incomes who had sought downtown living are now scattered all over town. Two other low-income housing projects also face the potential of being displaced to make way for our major new medical school. Everyone in "power" in Scranton is licking their chops to picture us rising to become the next Ithaca, Boulder, or Newport, but that's not what MOST of the townspeople envision for their posterity. Scranton has traditionally been a blue-collar city that is only just now transitioning to having more of a strong white-collar presence. History oozes out of every block. Why compromise that in favor of being "trendy?"
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These are all college/university towns, which I think are a necessity when creating that nice little fun downtown. 
paradise vs. parking lot
Now, only the rich can afford to live there, whereas formerly people of all income levels thrived in places like this. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til its gone? 
Oceanside??
