Best Medium Sized Big City Feel Cities under 500k (America, people, Chicago)

[ISpeakTruth330]

What are your favorite medium sized cities with big city feel? A few of mine are...

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (Very dense core, bridges tunnels.
Chattanooga Tennessee (Dense wakable downtown for a city it's size. One of the most underrated cities in America, overshadowed by Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville.)
Richmond Virginia ( Dense vibrant walkable downtown dense row house neighborhood.
Des Moines Iowa.

[annie_himself]

Chattanooga isn't overshadowed. Tons of people travel there.

[Othello Is Here]

Originally Posted by ISpeakTruth330

What are your favorite medium sized cities with big city feel? A few of mine are...

Pittsburgh Pennsylvania (Very dense core, bridges tunnels.
Chattanooga Tennessee (Dense wakable downtown for a city it's size. One of the most underrated cities in America, overshadowed by Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville.)
Richmond Virginia ( Dense vibrant walkable downtown dense row house neighborhood.
Des Moines Iowa.

Savannah and Charelston

[mhays25]

Pittsburgh feels big because it is pretty big, with over 2,000,000 in its metro. Population within city limits isn't very indicative of anything. In Pittsburgh's case that's what, 1/7 of the local population?

[Freefall18]

Madison is pretty cool.

[sav858]

Honolulu. Tons of high rises, dense, very vibrant, relatively high transit usage, lots of amenities, etc...

[ClemVegas]

Nooga doesn't get overshadowed by Knoxville, I believe it gets a lot more tourism than Knoxville does.

If you liked Nooga, you are likely to really like Greenville SC.



Frederick MD also has a 'walkable' downtown.

[ckhthankgod]

A lot of older cities under the population criteria will fit in this regard.

[SPonteKC]

If you just mean city proper population, not the metro, it's hard to beat St Louis, New Orleans or Milwaukee for big city "feel". Cleveland is pretty competitive, though it's built environment is not as old-school urban as those other 3.

Richmond doesn't feel much like a big city, though it is a very cool and underratedly urban small city, are Savannah and Providence.

[Serious Conversation]

Des Moines has almost a little Chicago feel in its downtown. Greenville is an extremely nice downtown (nicer than DSM IMO) but is less corporate/stuffy.