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Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,743 posts, read 23,798,187 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eddie gein
As for Sedona, AZ. I can't figure out how in the world it could be considered a "suburb".
Yeah agreed, Sedona falls into weekend getaway terms as far as Phoenix is concerned. I don't see a commuting pattern on I-17 though all of those mountain passes, albeit a very beautiful drive though. Sedona is more linked with Flagstaff and northern AZ than Phoenix.
Without succumbing to the Levittown story, how about Anaheim? I'm not sure about the charming part, though..
Fullerton just to the north has much more charm than Anaheim, with an older destination downtown, architecture from many decades, colleges, and local history. Like much of North Orange County, alot of its growth happened post WWII, with the coming of Hughes Aircraft and Disneyland.
Other OC towns with personality/charm would be Orange, Laguna Beach, and San Juan Capistrano. So many CD posters see OC as bland, but the towns within the county have their own interesting history before the boom after WWII.
Fullerton just to the north has much more charm than Anaheim, with an older destination downtown, architecture from many decades, colleges, and local history. Like much of North Orange County, alot of its growth happened post WWII, with the coming of Hughes Aircraft and Disneyland.
Other OC towns with personality/charm would be Orange, Laguna Beach, and San Juan Capistrano. So many CD posters see OC as bland, but the towns within the county have their own interesting history before the boom after WWII.
I'll agree that most of South Orange County is very new and has very little history. Irvine has even less history, as before the university it was virtually uninhabited outisde of the El Toro base (now razed and redeveloped), and Old Town Irvine (a single street of 41 people), and eh, a dozen or so houses sprinkled across a 65 sq. mile area.
But still, I think that even Irvine does have its unique personality, charm, and character. You don't need to have history to have charm or character. As a very contemporary, fast-paced, edge city, Irvine has its own character. It's actually the largest single masterplanned development in the U.S. and Canada. Sure, Levittown came first. But Irvine was the first masterplanned development to introduce the revolutionary idea of neighborhoods as themed, self-contained "villages." Irvine is unique that it was created out of nothing, purposely built for the university. Other college towns existed as railroad/farming towns before the university came.
Irvine's also got that "Garden City" character--an inordinate amount of the land is set aside as parks, trails, and wilderness. Mountains surround the city. Irvine's a mecca for mountain biking and hiking. I'd say it is one of the most outdoorsy U.S. cities of its size or bigger. It's at least as outdoorsy as Portland.
It has the largest and best concentration of Chinese food in Orange County, probably for Korean, too. The sheer amount of high tech, finance, and biomedical business, the amount of corporate hq's and big offices in Irvine give it a very big city, cosmopolitan feel for a suburb. It's a small taste of the world-class, corporate, hustle and bustle of a world city like Singapore, plopped right into a suburb.
Now in no way am I saying Irvine is as exciting as Manhattan, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, etc. But for a city of its size, it definitely pulls much more than its weight.
Winter Park, FL - Suburb of Orlando
Coral Gables, FL - Suburb of Miami
St. Petersburg, FL - Satellite city of Tampa
St. Augustine, FL - Far-out Suburb of Jacksonville, FL (and the most charm IMO as well as history)
Winter Park, FL - Suburb of Orlando
Coral Gables, FL - Suburb of Miami
St. Petersburg, FL - Satellite city of Tampa
St. Augustine, FL - Far-out Suburb of Jacksonville, FL (and the most charm IMO as well as history)
Here's a fun St. Augustine factoid for you:
The English composer Frederick Delius lived in St. Johns County, near St. Augustine, on the St. Johns River. He stayed there Spring 1884 to Autumn 1885. There he managed an orange grove. He later incorporated the landscape, weather, and spirituals of his African American farmhands into one of his most famous musical works, the Florida Suite. The house he lived in is now on the campus of Jacksonville University.
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