Under-rated cities for arts, entertaining areas and interesting neighborhoods? (schools, college)

[Katarina Witt]

The meat packers left in the 60s.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by AmericanUrbanite

Omaha and just about all Midwestern cities barring Chicago are bland for that matter.

If a city doesn't appeal to me (a 25 year old, cultured gay yuppie) then a city is bland.

I never said I liked Omaha. I said it has a decent arts scene. And what makes a person "cultured"? It seems like a "cutured" person would know where to find culture, and not dismiss a place for being in the midwest.

[GreggB]

Originally Posted by pittnurse70

Have you ever been there? It sounds like not. You apparently have no beef (no pun intended) with the midwest, since you live in Wisconsin part of the year. I don't get it.

Ihave No Beef (no pun intended) w/ Omaha/Council Bluffs. I have actually been to Omaha 6 or 7 times(I lived in Rapid City S.D. for 3 yrs). Saw the zoo in Omaha, did a little "drag racing" on Dodge St. Your reference to "Meat Packing", is what I found somewhat humorous. That phrase can refer to several things, YES????

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by AmericanUrbanite

You all do it all the time.

99% of the forumers here dismiss cities for not being "liberal" and for being too sprawling/Sun-Belt like. Why cant I dismiss a city for being in a cold-weather region? Seems like hypocrisy to me.

You don't have to like it, but that doesn't make it bland. I don't particularly like Omaha. It does have a fairly decent arts scene, however.

Gregg, I have no idea what you're talking about. I probably don't want to know either. This forum sat dormant for over two months w/o anyone bringing up whatever it is you're talking about. Whatever. I've been to Omaha (called "Oh My God" by some) many times as I have extended family there. I have actually gone to some of the museums.

[MB2]

I attended the arts festival in Fort Lauderdale several times, and each and every year it became bigger and better. A lot of local artists show off their arts, crafts, sculptures, paintings etc. Open music festival.....and a steal to buy local oil paintings from unknown artists. (Very, very good in quality and talent, I might add!!)
It's just so much fun, the weather usually without a cloud in the sky....just very relaxing.
But, of course, are there other things of interest and things to do there as well.....

[Urban Boys]

Regarding Buffalo, My parther and I are looking to relocate to the either Allentown or Elmwood area we are currently looking a property to purchase. There is a new Boom there new housing is been build along the lake very expensive condos but beside that we have spend one year just looking at property and there are some great deal to be had for example you can still by a 4bedroom fixer upper for about 30k in a nice working class family area and that higher end you can by a home for 200k and up something you can no find for example in San Francisco. They are also builiding artist works spaces for rents as little as 250.00 dollars a month. So if you are looking for a nice place with beautifull architecture buffalo is a good one.

[LVGAZ]

HAs anyone visited Boise IDaho lately? 3 distinct trendy neighborhoods right down town - interesting city - we just visited this summer......

[TweetieMarie]

Originally Posted by friendnc

Charlotte, NC. New arrivals here are surprised at how much there is to do here. NoDa arts district is a really nice, funky area. The performing arts venues uptown are beautiful. Great streetcar neighborhoods with huge oaks drapped across the streets. Lots of outdoor recreation; U.S. National Whitewater Center, Lake Norman, Lake Wylie, Crowders Mnt. SP, Two stunning nature preserves (one 850+ acres, the other 1100 acres), parks/greenways.

Your post here made me want to know more about Charlotte! I had noticed in the past when looking up different concerts I'd like to go to, that it IS a popular stop for renowned artists. My dad lives in NC & I've wondered about going through there just to see what it's like. After exploring Charlotte's home page (one of the nicest city home page sites of seen & packed with info), and looking up some other information about Charlotte, I definitely will! Thanks

[Phil75230]

Memphis, TN has a lot of surprisingly artsy areas (Midtown- especially Overton Square and Cooper-Young Neighborhoods. The Univ of Memphis Campus has a fairly large hipster contingent)

Jackson, Miss's progressive/arts community has really come in the past five years. The local alternative newspaper proved vital to bringing a lot of 60s era race murders to justice. Also, there's a small but vibrant musical community there - particularly rap and hip-hop thanks to it having the highest % of African Americans of any US metro area.

Both areas are still pretty cheap compared to other artsy areas too.

[houstoner]

Houston! This city loves the arts, from folk art, like the Flower Man's house, to fine art at one of its many outstanding museums! In addition to the facts you've probably heard around here (one of only five cities in the U.S. to have permanent professional performing arts companies in each of the four disciplines -- theater, ballet, symphony, opera -- represented), Houston has vibrant dance, visual art, independent theater (Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre, Mildred's Umbrella, the notorious IBP), and local music scenes. Probably because it has 500 arts organizations, 300 galleries, and 12,000 visual and performing artists living in the region! The literary community here is also pretty close-knit, nurtured through partnerships between the creative writing program at the University of Houston (one of the best in the country) and arts organizations like Inprint, Writers in the Schools, and Voices Breaking Boundaries. We also have quite a few festivals yearly, for film there's the upcoming Aurora Picture Show's tenth annual Extremely Shorts festival, ending with a Backyard Karaoke Picnic, and the fortieth annual WorldFest Independent Film Festival (their website says, "Before there was Sundance or SXSW, before there was Toronto or Tribeca, there was WorldFest! The festival that gave first honors to Spielberg, Lucas, Ang Lee, Ridley Scott, David Lynch, The Coen Brothers, Brian De Palma and Atom Egoyan!").

As far as neighborhoods, there is the Montrose, Rice Village, River Oaks and other Inner Loop neighborhoods noted for their residential architecture, but the Heights is one of my favorites. West 19th Street in the Heights is a cute strip of shops bustling with activity, especially on First Saturday, every first Saturday of the month. There are vintage clothing shops, cafes, antiques, and cute little boutiques all the way from Yale to Shepherd. The largest concentration of working, noted artists in Texas live here in the Heights, supposedly the third largest concentration in the U.S. Many artists volunteer their time and talent to the non-profit community working with inner-city kids to give free or heavily discounted painting or music lessons, like, for example at MECA. Some of these kids go on to HSPVA, Houston's acclaimed High School for Performing and Visual Arts. According to Wikipedia, it's the second most widely known such school in the nation, after New York's "Fame School," but only among artists and aspiring artists, it seems, because it's yet another thing Houston doesn't get props for. MECA is located in Old Sixth Ward, another neat neighborhood. It boasts Texas's second largest concentration of Victorian architecture outside of Galveston and was voted Best Hidden Neighborhood by the Houston Press in 2006. Houston is a great place to be a starving artist because the cost of living is so low and there's a lot of opportunity here.

I could go on, talking about all the music and arts programs at our various schools and universities, spoken word at bars and cafes, arts orgs like FotoFest and Project Row Houses, plus art collectives like Aerosol Warfare and Knitta Please, and the blues and jazz music history here, oh, and of course, our homegrown rappers, but I'll stop now! Houston? Underrated? You bet!