What was the best decade to be living in your city?

[tmac9wr]

Prob the 1780s. Wood teeth, tri-corner hats, cobblestone streets, minimal sprawl. Yes the 1780s in Boston were a hell of a time to be alive.

[CelticGermanicPride]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

Right now is the best time to be living in the Washington, D.C. area compared to any time in the last 40 years. Maybe that's why it has become such a hot destination for transplants from other places.

Not that DC was really that bad in the past. There were always nice parts to the city. But still, in the 90s it definitely had a reputation for crime, "murder capital" and such, that made it somewhat embarrassing to admit you were from D.C. But not anymore.

i still get that all the time. one kid said to me while i was visiting family in ny "doesn't dc have like the highest crime rate in the world?"

lol "the world?"

[censusdata]

Lexington Kentucky
Totally depends on what you prefer. Before 1950 Lexington has a small college town (albeit one of the first "cities" west of the Appalachians and thus with a great history of "firsts") surrounded by horse farms. Since then it has become an important regional city of 300,000; with a greater commuting area of 700,000 residents. It has lots more shopping today but the traffic is much worse and crime is even becoming an issue in the past 5 years. All corridors btw Lex and the surrounding small towns used to be 2 lane roads lined with trees and rock fences, today most are sprawling with cookie cutter shopping centers and McManions.

[Ben Around]

I'm thinking the 1950s, when most big cities were at their peak population, the city school systems were stellar, most freeways were just lines on maps, street life abounded not just downtown, but in neighborhoods all over town, urban "renewal" had not yet taken so many architectural gems, the populace was much more economically diverse than it is today, downtown had everything you'd need, and getting there was easy on convenient mass transportation.