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Which American city is so evocative, has such a local feel that is so pervassive you can’t help by looking at a photo to say, “this has to be ____”. And you’d be correct.
To answer, you have to imagine 10 photos of the city were chosen at random and you had to tell what cuty they were. All ten photos have this in common:
* no landmark or known spot is shown
* nothing in the distance, background can be known or a give away
* photos taken all over the city
* types of buildings (homes, stores, offices, hotels, schools, etc.) form a diverse list.
FOR THE POLE, I made no attempt to include all cities (an impossibility), but I tried for a xix of highly urban, large, historical cities that have a certain “feel”, a certain “look”.
And keep in mind you would have to look at Riverdale, St. George, or Astoria and say “that’s New York” or Encino or East LA or San Pedro and recognize LA. Or the farthest point from the Strip being Vegas. Or a point in Miami with not a drop of water in sight. Or the edges of DC,along the MD line with no govt building to be found, but still “this must be Washington”
San Francisco style housing and hilly nature of the streets would be dead end giveaway for me. To be honest, if it isn't one of the USA's iconic cities, it probably won't get any votes.
Boston: The architecture and lack of a street grid with the hills near downtown.
NYC: The vibrant street life, subways, diversity, and brownstones.
Philly: The narrow streets full of rowhomes (This would be the more likely answer over Baltimore since both look similar, and I did not vote Baltimore for that reason.)
Miami: The tropical vibe and the heavy Caribbean Latin presence.
New Orleans: Nowhere else probably in the world looks like New Orleans.
Las Vegas: The architecture of tract homes is not all too different from Phoenix, but I think if you caught sight of a casino away from the Strip, you'd know it was Vegas.
SF: The architecture + hills.
LA: If you saw the 1920s era Spanish-style homes of more central neighborhoods, they look way different than the tract homes in that style in suburbia. Combined with the proliferation of luxury vehicles in the nice areas, diversity of restaurants, and images of the heavily Latino immigrant neighborhoods I think someone could figure out it was LA. (I did not vote SD because I think people would confuse SD for LA).
Honolulu: The demographics are very different from any other major US city. Only other city with a tropical vibe in the US is Miami, but its demographics are basically opposite so I think you'd realize the difference.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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For style of homes block after block consistent throughout the city I'd say San Francisco and New Orleans. A much smaller city, but the adobe code of housing and the vernacular of building style that exists in Santa Fe, NM is very easy to identify, much more so than Albuquerque. Some of the row home styles in Baltimore be it restored or abandoned make many city blocks there easily identifiable and New York City for the shear magnitude of infrastructure throughout the five boroughs.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jessemh431
Las Vegas: The architecture of tract homes is not all too different from Phoenix, but I think if you caught sight of a casino away from the Strip, you'd know it was Vegas.
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I could easily spot a random home shown in the Phoenix area due to the type of desert vegetation (saguaros, palo verde trees).
I could easily spot a random home shown in the Phoenix area due to the type of desert vegetation (saguaros, palo verde trees).
But could the average American? I highly doubt it. I personally couldn't. But I'd spot a non-Strip casino and know it was LV. There are casinos off the strip and combine those with the desert landscape and you'd know. Phoenix would be more challenging for people who can't differentiate the desert landscape.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jessemh431
But could the average American? I highly doubt it. I personally couldn't. But I'd spot a non-Strip casino and know it was LV. There are casinos off the strip and combine those with the desert landscape and you'd know. Phoenix would be more challenging for people who can't differentiate the desert landscape.
Probably similar in a sense to someone in the Southwest that would have difficulty differentiating a random city block in Philadelphia or Boston that wasn't familiar with the different nuances of building styles between Northeastern cities.
Voted New Orleans, Vegas, SF, and Honolulu. There are other cities on the list that look distinct or have a distinct dialect, but to me these are the ones where the city's unique culture pervades everything.
New Orleans and NYC for me. There's a density to NYC that's just different than other cities on it's level. New Orleans, as others have said, looks like nowhere else.
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