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I know I'm going to be accused of homerism for my No. 1 choice, but I think it highly defensible:
1. Kansas City (Mo.) Don't take it from me - take it from French novelist and biographer Andre Maurois, who wrote the following in his journal in 1947:
The streets he refers to in that passage are the city's famed boulevards, a green lattice that follows the terrain rather than the surveyor's grid and knits the city together so well that its freeways seem superfluous. (Congestion indices have shown that the city has the least traffic congestion of any large city in not only the U.S. but the Western Hemisphere.) The city's boulevards and the spectacular parks they lead to were one of the crowning achievements of crusading Kansas City Star founder William Rockhill Nelson, who also (along with schoolteacher Mary Atkins) endowed what is quite possibly the finest art museum located in a city of less than 1,000,000, and maybe even better than a few of those in those larger cities. Besides being much greener than just about all of its Midwestern peers and many on the coasts as well, the city also punches above its weight on a number of fronts, including nightlife, arts and culture generally, and food (not just barbecue).
2. San Francisco. There is no more spectacularly situated city in the United States. Its many hills offer some fabulous vistas, the one from the Coit Tower atop Telegraph Hill perhaps the best known, and there's nothing like walking in one direction on the Golden Gate Bridge, then turning around while the fog lifts as you travel in the other direction. In terms of appearance, it strikes me as the most Mediterranean of American cities (once you subtract all the skyscrapers in the downtown). Its weather, however, borders on the strange (Mark Twain once said "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," and I don't think he was too far off the mark). And the effect of all this wonderfulness is to produce a citizenry that is astonishingly smug and self-satisfied, which is why, if I had to live on the West Coast, I'd rather live in...
3. Seattle. I hadn't seen a city as green as my forever hometown until I laid eyes on this one. If Chicago is the "urbs in horto" (the "city in a garden"), then Seattle is the "urbs in sylvania" (the "city in the woods"). Mount Rainier makes a spectacular backdrop for the city skyline, though you have to be in just the right locations for it to work, and it has some pretty good hills of its own. And its residents strike me as much more down-to-earth than San Franciscans are, which for me makes all the difference.
4. Boston. The Charles River Basin and adjacent Back Bay neighborhood together comprise one of the most attractive core cityscapes in the country, and when viewed from the Cambridge bank of the Charles, they make a great foreground for the two tallest skyscrapers (in the Back Bay) and the cluster of towers downtown. Boston is also blessed with a chain of green - the "Emerald Necklace" of parkways that form a ring around much of the core city - and it also has islands in Boston Harbor that offer both a respite from and a great view of the bustling city center.
5. Washington, D.C. There's nothing in the country that rivals its monumental core along the National Mall, one of the best civic improvement projects of the City Beautiful era, and its residential districts - even the ones close to the city center - are unusually bosky. Once again, this city also has some notable linear parks, most notably Rock Creek, though they aren't as thoroughly knit into the city fabric as they are in KC or Boston. No matter: those diagonal avenues Pierre L'Enfant put into the city plan to frustrate advancing armies (fat lot of good they did in the War of 1812) and the resulting traffic circles where they meet mean that this city is chock full of impressive vistas, including many that do not terminate as Pennsylvania Avenue's does. 'Tis a pity the city is populated mainly by insufferable Official Washingtonians.
6. Pittsburgh. Yes, Pittsburgh, the only rival I've yet run across to San Francisco for the title of most spectacularly situated city in the United States. No approach to a major American downtown rivals the one to Pittsburgh from the south on I-279: You disappear into the side of a hill and emerge on the other with the Golden Triangle laid out right in front of you, point end first, on the other end of a bridge. Like San Francisco and Seattle, hills define this city too, and the disappearance of the steel mills means you can actually see things from them now. Unfortunately, the disappearance of the steel mills means that some of what you see in Pittsburgh is vast swaths of empty territory along the two rivers that meet there to form the Ohio. I know the city now falls below the population threshold the OP set forth, but that's also due to the departure of the steel mills, so I'm including it anyway; besides, even though its surrounding region remains seriously depressed, the city itself is on the mend.
7. Chicago. Unrivaled for urban beaches, which stretch for several miles to the north and south of the Loop. The view along Lake Michigan, especially from the Loop north, is perhaps the most "American" of any large city, dominated as it is by skyscrapers and apartment towers. (Yes, New York's collection of these is even bigger, but there's not as much for them to play against.) It has several attractive tree-lined parkways, one of which lies to the south of the Loop. There is a marked contrast between the North Side and South Side when it comes to streetscapes - the University of Chicago campus, former 1893 World's Fair midway to its south, and residential district to its immediate north are islands in an otherwise bleak cityscape save for that parkway I mentioned. I hope the powers that be work on this.
8. Toronto. The city's come a long way since its City Hall was built in 1965; its two curved towers were deliberately made different heights because there were no taller buildings in the city at the time. They're now dwarfed by newer skyscrapers, with the CN Tower serving as an exclamation point. Its lakefront seems to me less well sculpted than Chicago's, though, and it only has one green ribbon that I saw in the form of the Don Valley Parkway.
9. Philadelphia. Again, a city that has made some significant strides on the skyline front. But those skyscrapers rest atop a foundation of some of the most elegant and gracious residential streets in any American city's downtown (and there are lots of these: only New York and Chicago have more people living in its downtown than Philadelphia has). Society Hill, the urban renewal project that didn't just flatten an entire neighborhood, oozes 18th- and 19th-century charm, and Old City to its north has that SoHo-ish industrial-chic ambience down cold. However: Even though it's home to one of the nation's largest urban parks and the best urban wilderness in the United States, its tree cover is sorely lacking, and as a result, many of the city streets outside the core have a severe, barren appearance.
10. New Orleans. No Spanish moss, but it doesn't need any; it has loads of that languid Southern charm without it. Its French accent makes it stand out from every other large city in the country, not only in the French Quarter but in the Garden District as well. Its wide avenues (St. Charles, Carrollton, Elysian Fields, Canal Street...) may not be linear parks, but they're landscaped as if they were. I understand, though, that Hurricane Katrina laid some of its hardscrabble inner-city neighborhoods low. I wonder how their rebuilding has changed them - for the better, I hope.
I'd include Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., among the top 10 if they were large enough, but they're not. I'd like to visit Cincinnati someday; until then, I'll wait to pass judgment on it, but I suspect it merits honorable mention, as would Louisville, Ky.
Astute observers might notice one element that I pay particular attention to in assessing the relative beauty of cities. What is it?
I like this list a lot.However Id swap Boston and Seattle ... Savannah and New Orleans. And I would omit Philadelphia from this list. Your input on Kansas City is ver insightful... never been now I want to!
Washington, DC - Tons of history. Beautifully laid out. Everything works so well visually. Lovely Potomac River. Monuments. Green. One of my favorite cities anywhere in terms of its beauty.
Tampa, FL - Love the tropical feel. Some of my favorite beaches in America are in the Tampa Bay area. Love the ocean/bays/rivers. Palm trees. White sand. Warm water. Skyline and bridges. Ahhhh!
Charlotte, NC - Very clean and green. Sunny. U.S. National Whitewater Center is an outdoor lover's Disney World. Underrated skyline. Gorgeous, majestic oak-lined neighborhoods. Lush parks and greenways.
Pittsburgh, PA - The skyline as the back drop of the 3-rivers area is so beautiful. Hills in the background. I have a very special place in my heart for PIT. Very underrated city, IMO.
Boston, MA - Love the historic architecture. Bridges. Harbor. Charles River. Some of the most interesting neighborhoods in America.
Chicago, IL - Unlike the bad press CHI gets, very beautiful and clean. Great architecture and lakefront.
Minneapolis, MN - Much like Charlotte in how clean and green the city is. Great parks/lakes/greenways.
Denver, CO - Great downtown park. Skyline with a Rocky Mountain backdrop that's hard to beat. Very sunny.
San Francisco, CA - Skyline with the bay, Golden Gate Bridge, and hills says it all.
Seattle, WA - Lush greenery. Bays, harbors, and mountains. Nice skyline too.
My smaller cities list would be: Charleston SC, Asheville, NC, Savannah GA, Chattanooga TN, Charlottesville VA, Burlington VT, Madison WI, Santa Fe NM, Spokane WA, Monterrey CA
Fantastic thread! Very interesting reading everyone's picks. A little comical seeing a few posters wetting themselves over the picks others made that didn't match theirs, lol. The price of being "right". Relax, it's all subjective anyway, lol. Great thread nonetheless.
My top cities for beauty should be really among the top 25 cities for beauty because most are large urban cities, when there are many small and midsize towns that are often more beautiful than the big cities. So I will pick ten of the major cities only.
1. San Francisco bay ( including Oakland and San Jose ), the hills, the bay scenery, Golden gate bridge, the beaches, architecture. In San Jose, the many lovely neighborhoods, Palm trees and sunny weather. A region of over 7 million people, but spread out over beautiful scenery.
2. San Diego. California's 2nd largest city is 125 south of Los Angeles, but much more laid back. The perfect temperate city. Sunny sky's, beautiful neighborhoods, and beaches, and known for attractive women. Has hills, and desert tropical plant life. Beautiful downtown area.
3. Seattle, another west coast city. light rain, but during the summer it's often clear weather. But like San Francisco, it's the lovely scenery of lakes, the bay ( Puget Sound ) the hills, the skyline and Mountain scenery. Also the heavy tree cover.
4. Portland, Ore...much like Seattle has the hills, and mountain scenery. Heavy tree covered neighborhoods. Low crime. Beautiful skyline, located in beautiful river valley. Outdoor scenery in beautiful western Oregon.
5. Denver..Is where the high plains meet the Mountains. The mountains can be seen anywhere in Denver looking west. Denver is a city with shady streets, beautiful architecture of its skyline, and many beautiful neighborhoods. One of America's fastest growing cities, which means many new homes, condo's and many are developed on Mountain hillsides with great scenery. Denver get's hot in the summer with mostly sunny sky's. Average summer high temps 85-105 degrees.
6.Miami....very Tropical scenery. Beautiful downtown area with development going on everywhere. Beautiful beaches, women, restaurants, and luxury neiborhoods, especially in suburban areas. City has become a mecca for the rich.
7.Los Angeles....well it has everything, from some of the finest beaches in America, to finish neighborhoods. Few cities can match LA in specific beauty found in certain areas from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills. The metro area spreads into the desert 60 miles east.
8. Chattanooga, Tn...metro are with about 600,000. Spread across the southern Appalachian mountain region is often called the scenic city of the south. Rivers, mountains, musuems and one of the best aquriam in the nation. Becoming a top tourist destination city
9. Charlotte, NC...is booming. New development everywhere. Over 2.5 million is metro area today. City is in a forest. Many lovely neighborhoods.
10. Chicago...my home town. Has many old neighborhoods , but also lots of new development. Chicago is a mecca for architecture, restaurants, musuems, and beaches. yes lake Michigan beaches in Chicago can rival Miami, Los Angeles or even Rio de Janeiro on hot summer days. The skyline is world class. Despite crime in certain areas, Chicago is a world class city with great beauty.
Though not all of these are on my list, I can go with any of these, given that there are a good number of attractive cities in the U.S. All of these are worthy. Great choices and discriptions!!!
I don't think it's 4000 feet tall, and honestly more like a big part within the city, but Mount Royal(how it translates to from French to English) was pretty cool in Montreal. I like how so many of the neighborhoods of Montreal, surround that park. And that you can see the top of Mount Royal, from nearby neighborhoods that surround it. Never been to Vancouver or Seattle, so I can't comment on those 2 cities. But I hope to visit both, someday!
There are 3 main mountains that loom over Vancouver, with the 2 famous peaks, The Lions popping up in the background.
The tallest is the West Lion at 1,646 m (5,400 ft), and the East Lion at 1,606 m (5,269 ft).
Seymour mountain is 1,449 m ( 4,754 ft ), Grouse Mountain at 1,231 m ( 4,039 ft ) and Cypress Mountain being 900 m ( 2,952 ft ).
By comparison Mount Royal is 233 m ( 764 ft ). A hill really by Vancouver standards
I love big cities with beautiful panoramic views. Of those these are my favorites.
1. New York City
2. San Francisco
3. Los Angeles.
4. Chicago
5. Seattle
6. Miami
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