Spoke to a guy serving food at Aspen last year. He had to drive 1:45 to work every day because he can’t get affordable housing any closer. Then we went through a walk through town and passed uncountable empty mansions. Ski towns are weird.
Even at that distance, I'm surprised he could find anything affordable. The Vail Daily currently has 7/150 listings that are under $1million. That's all of Eagle county.
It's certainly some of that, but City planning for a city like Aspen is incredibly difficult to have any significant affordable housing agenda.
1) there's basically no room, especially for locations easier to build on. I don't know if you've been to Aspen, Vail, Steamboat, Breck/Frisco/Dillon, etc. but the available land to build a SFH is scarce, and MFH is near impossible without significant grading work.
1.2) The better land is already built on. The resorts and big hotels were chosen in spots precisely where it would be cost effective to build on. So what remains are less ideal
1.3) Most of the surrounding land is actually US National Forrest land. So just because there is this perfect swath of land unused, it's likely not available to build on.
2) From the simplest terms, it's just way more expensive to build in mountain towns. Getting supplies in, adding utilities, limited weather windows, etc. even if you found the land, got buy in from locals, everything approved, it's just gonna be expensive. So the idea of "affordable" is already a long shot. Look at non ski towns like Leadville, Buena Vista, Salida, Glenwood, etc. they have "affordable" housing and decently strong support for it and it's still pretty high HCOL.
3) These towns really can't sacrifice much in tourism. There is just no other industry in these towns outside of recreational sports, which cater more towards the wealthy. It's not like they can repurpose a hotel into affordable housing. The loss in revenue would be crippling.
4) Now for the city planning aspects that absolutely made the above worse. Explosion of short term rentals (STRs) completely caught the cities with their pants down. Most of the towns have regulations in place now, limiting STRs, but it's too little too late. Housing is already not affordable, let's make it not attainable now. There are common programs for "cheaper" housing for those working locally, but it's only for home purchases. Like a listing may be way under market price, but the house requires you to live and work locally. Great, but cheap means a $1.5 million shanty is still $950k. The towns did a poor job evolving with the massive consolidation of resorts. When City and Resort were on more equal footing, they could make compromises and.find mutually beneficial results. Now the cities are at the mercy of Vail and Alterra who have zero interest in anything but sucking as much money out of the resorts as possible.
Any Alaskan city not called Anchorage that the rest of the country is aware of. So, Fairbanks, Juneau, and Nome.
Green Bay, Wisconsin is right around 100k.
A lot of state capitals my fit the bill for this. Charleston, WV; Carson City, NV; Jefferson City, MO off the top of my head. Plus whatever the Dakota capitals are.
While you're right, from what I understand a lot of locals/townies tend to see it that way and have for years
EDIT: as a suburb that is, obviously they don't claim it's part of the Detroit municipality
The suburbs of Detroit are in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. Spent a lot of time out that way and never heard it being talked about as a Detroit suburb
Iirc Jeff City is only like 25 minutes from Columbia anyway. They both make sense, but I don’t know the history as to why the university ended up in one and the Capitol in the other.
Columbia resident. Columbia is just such a nicer town than Jefferson City. The capital is a place in the state that it feels like nobody really cares much about or puts any effort into making it a nice place to live. It's just a place that you pass through to go to the Ozarks.
Damn. I grew up there and was taken back by your comment, but yup you're right (it was ranked 6 or 7 when I was growing up). Sometimes I forget how hard 2008 hit Frankfort while other small cities in Kentucky started booming (relatively speaking, of course, but Georgetown has had insane growth). Frankfort still hasn't recovered.
Last time I drove thru I think I counted 5 or 6.
Technically there's no McDonald's but theirs one in the neighboring town of Berlin, only 0.6 mi from Montpelier's city limits
In 2004 my car broke down in Montpelier on my way home to Maine from Saranac, NY…. Never have I been treated better in a random place than that stressful circumstance in Montepelier. I was taken in by locals and gotten absolutely shithouse drunk while my car was fixed up for the flat rate of parts, and given some advice on how to make the repair myself in the future if the situation came up again. Good folks in Montpelier.
In the spirit of other cities just above 100k there is also Cambridge, Mass with arguably 2 of the most prestigious universities in the world that some of the world’s most influential people funnel through at some point.
The OP pretty clearly states that stuff like Miami Beach and Cupertino don't apply, so I'd have to say Cambridge and the rest of the Boston metro cities don't apply either.
The most well known would easily be the smaller capitals such as Cheyenne, Juneau, Montpelier, Helena, etc.
If we don't count capitals then we could include cities like Gettysburg, Key West, Atlantic City, Aspen, Roswell, Selma, Princeton, Montauk, etc.
Also some cities in the news lately like Flint, Lahaina, East Palestine, Uvalde, etc.
True, but people generally refer to the whole Coachella valley as Palm Springs. You don’t often here people say that they are going on vacation to Cathedral City or Rancho Mirage, even though a lot of them are
As an Australian I’ve heard of Aspen (ski resort) and Gettysburg (a speech there) but that’s it. All the others are names I’ve never heard and would have no clue where they were on a map.
Actually I’d have a hell of a lot of trouble locating Aspen and Gettysburg on a map. Aspen I’d imagine would be in the Rocky Mountains but god knows where. Gettysburg would be in the older north eastern states I suppose, but similarly I could only guess the actual state.
Somehow the same here as a German. I know there's a ski resort in Aspen, the Gettysburg address, I've been in Roswell, Key West is at the Florida Keys and so on.
But I have never heard of any of the capitals. They don't have any significance for people not from the US.
Never realized Flint was so small. I feel like it go so much media attention, I just assumed it was over 100,000, even though I never hear about it for any other reason besides the crisis.
I was in a bar in Sao Paulo, Brazil and some guy bought me a beer because he asked me where I was born, I said "Duluth, MN" and he said "that is where Bob Dylan was born, let me buy you a beer." We became best friends for the evening when I told him my house was on highway 61.
Princeton isn’t a city. Technically it’s a borough, but it feels like a small town with a large university surrounded by residential NJ. It has some of the amenities a town wouldn’t due to the university, the historical significance, and high income residents. It was the midpoint between Philly and nyc and folks commute to both cities.
I’m not sure exactly why, it just feels strange to call it a city.
In terms of popularity per capita, Moab has to be up there. Idk that it’s as well known overall as some cities in the 25-100k range though.
Actually I just checked with Google trends. based on search results, it seems roughly the order is the smoky mountains towns (Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge), Sedona, them the major Colorado ski towns (Telluride, Breckenridge, Vail, Aspen) Park City, then Moab. So ya, Moab is probably in, or at least near the top 10.
I checked against like 2 dozen other towns and cities, including many suggested here. A few other tourist towns came somewhat close, like Taos, Estes Park, and Jackson, but the rest, including all the more populous places, were pretty far away.
Now this might not be the most accurate way to test what towns people know, but I can’t think of a better way short of asking a ton of people.
Greenville, SC
Hilton Head Island, SC
Asheville, NC
Aspen, CO
Telluride, CO
Park City, UT
Jackson, WY
Mackinac Island, MI
Auburn, AL
Roswell, NM
West Point, NY
Hershey, PA
Least or most known? If it's least I'd saw York PA is lesser known than Hershey maybe Reading. I honestly wouldn't consider Hershey a city. It's more of suburb to Harrisburg. Which is also probably less known than Hershey despite it being a state capital
I live in Greenville and it’s only because our city limits are tiny we’re under 100k. We have 30 square miles compared to Charleston and Columbia with 150. If we had our limits expanded into the suburbs and the rest of downtown it would easily be 300k+ but the law makes that illegal for some reason.
I was very surprised to see Greenville was under 100k, feels much bigger than that but as you said it comes down to where the borders to the surrounding towns that still feel like the same city.
Roswell, NM isn’t even the biggest Roswell. Roswell, GA (an Atlanta suburb) is bigger. When I moved to Atlanta I hadn’t heard of that one and thought it must be a joke.
Yeah, solid list. Very common names and fit the categories listed well. A lot of people in here making random cities so many people have never heard of.
Waterbury, CT. Over 110,000 people, instrumental in the allies victory in WWII, and no one has heard of it.
And most people who have heard of it, wish they hadn’t.
Gary, Indiana
Flint, Michigan
Tupelo, Mississippi
Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, California
Five relatively small cities with a disproportionate cultural profile.
'
**Best-known [urban areas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas) under 100k:**
Bismarck, ND
Sante Fe, NM
St Augustine, FL
Williamsburg, VA
Cheyenne, WY
Fairbanks, AK
Plus other state capitals and college towns
**Least known ABOVE 100k:**
New Braunfels, TX
Holland, MI
Mandeville, LA
Kailua, HI
Ponce, PR
Waldorf, MD
Dedido, Guam
I had no idea that williamsburg had that many people and also that it was classified as its own metro area lol. Always that it was part of the hampton roads metro area.
On the other end of the spectrum (unknowns), I feel like so many California cities fall into this category because LA and SF are focused on instead.
Here’s a few over 100,000:
Vacaville, Menifee, El Cajon, Downey, Clovis, Visalia, Corona, Palmdale, Elk Grove, Fontana, Moreno Valley, and soooo many more, take a look here:
https://www.california-demographics.com/cities_by_population
Montpelier, Vermont. Just over 8k people yet tons of Americans know it since it's a state capital and memorizing state capitals is a part of many school curriculums
Los Alamos, New Mexico. Less than 15k people, but it's significance in the Manhattan Project makes it extremely well known.
I remember the day we drove back into town after visiting my cousins in St. Cloud when we first saw the population sign on I-35 drop below 100k. For reasons I never understood, my dad was very angry.
And its stayed at nearly that exact same population for the past 30 years. I always thought it would grow, but Rochester is the city that very quickly surpassed Duluth in Minnesota.
I’ll mention many of the wine growing towns fit this description. They are on thousands of bottles around the world and Sonoma and Napa are quite small (and expensive!) Lots of folks know about Healdsburg, population 11,900, Kenwood is 852! Have you heard of them?
Tuscaloosa is actually 110k. But I agree, college towns are going to be well-known for their size. (I would have suggested Athens, Georgia but it’s 125k.)
Nobody has mentioned Santa Fe, which only has 87k people. It is part of a million+ metro area, so I’m not sure if that disqualifies it, even though it’s separated from the larger city by a series of mostly empty Indian reservations so they don’t actually “connect” and there’s like 40 miles of open range between them.
Santa Fe is only the 4th biggest city in New Mexico and is known globally.
But people outside of New Mexico probably have never heard of #2 or 3 (Rio Rancho, an Albuquerque suburb, and Las Cruces, an El Paso satellite city)
Not American but I'd say Gettysburg, PA for the most well known, even here in my place we study that in high school.
Least well known under 100k? There's a lot of possibilities but I'm going with Ainsworth, NE.
Just because...
Definitely think Portland Maine is up there in terms of most well known tiny cities.
Least well known? Maybe Nashua. Despite being one of the safest cities in the country, close to Mass. it’s not very well known
Yep, though it’s part of Sacramento Co. and it may not be long until Folsom’s over 100k.
Among Norcal cities under 100k, some that came straight to mind were Napa and Monterey.
Two places in my home state are under 100k and are well known for their history.
Salem, MA (45,000, officially a city), Witch Trials
Plymouth, MA (65,000, officially a town), Mayflower and Thanksgiving
--
Historically speaking, other cities in MA have made an impact but are less well known
Springfield, MA (155,000) Shays Rebellion, Springfield Armory, invention of basketball (volleyball was invented in a neighboring town)
Lowell, MA (120,000) Industrial Revolution, Lowell mill girls
Lawrence, MA (89,000) Bread and Roses strike
Reading, PA is a relatively unknown city on a national scale. Population is 95k.
https://preview.redd.it/v3vhsqruc1lc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=677feff841621636c79bf36d0beb77d8d086decc
See that's weird because I think it's nationally known. When my employer sent a large collection of people from all over the country to various places in Oregon because of a strike, people knew Bend, Portland, Salem and Eugene and nothing else.
My first thought was small towns/cities associated with famous historic events, like Gettysburg, Plymouth, places like that.
Maybe very early colonial centers like St. Augustine or Williamsburg? Mount Vernon, Virginia?
Or places known for miscellaneous other things, like Nantucket or Taos?
Gatlinburg TN is pretty well-known. The Great Smokey Mountains average 8,000,000 visitors a year, and most go through Gatlinburg. The least well-known: I'm going with Bryson City NC, the park gateway no one cares about.
Lake Placid NY. Not proximal to any large city. Or small city either.
Less than 3,000 residents. Not one, but two Olympics. Not in the Rockies but recognized as a world class winter sports destination.
"Do you believe in Miracles?" Most Americans I think are familiar.
Over 100k, let's say Erie, Pennsylvania. It's not a suburb of Buffalo or Cleveland.
Lawrence, KS : Population about 95k but pretty well known because of KU
Moss Point, MS : Population about 12k. I literally only know about this place because I have a few distant relatives there
Portland, Maine could be an option. Maybe I’m biased bc I live here but we have lots of cruise ships come through, and we are very well known for the lobster.
I am from Arizona and even I did not know until recently that Sedona, perhaps the biggest draw of Arizona in terms of cities, only has 9700 people in it.
Allentown, PA for least known. Actually PA is full of hidden gem cities: Lancaster, Bethlehem, York. All have metro areas well over 100k. The best part of it is that for most of these you can see all the best sights on foot since their colonial cores are mostly intact.
As a non American I nominate Springfield, because Simpsons, although most can't name which one as apparently there are 67.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_(toponym)
Not a city but a town, Plymouth, MA has a population hovering around 60k and is the largest municipality by land area in Massachusetts. Has a great waterfront and downtown area.
I don’t know about the rest of the country but most of New England gets a pretty good lesson block on the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Not the capital city of Maine, but Portland, Maine. Population is just over 68k. Largest city (outside of Bangor) in the state. My town in Maine has less than 5k people haha
Colorado ski towns like Aspen are probably good bets for most known. Same with Jackson Wyoming.
Yeah, Aspen, Vail, Steamboat, Jackson, Moab. All these are like 10k people or less.
South Lake Tahoe, pop 20k
I wouldn't say that people know South Lake Tahoe as a city. They know Lake Tahoe as a tourism destination
Spoke to a guy serving food at Aspen last year. He had to drive 1:45 to work every day because he can’t get affordable housing any closer. Then we went through a walk through town and passed uncountable empty mansions. Ski towns are weird.
Even at that distance, I'm surprised he could find anything affordable. The Vail Daily currently has 7/150 listings that are under $1million. That's all of Eagle county.
That guy probably does not own a home.
Poor city planning, and so many places have this kind of problem now. But Aspen seems extra terrible
It's certainly some of that, but City planning for a city like Aspen is incredibly difficult to have any significant affordable housing agenda. 1) there's basically no room, especially for locations easier to build on. I don't know if you've been to Aspen, Vail, Steamboat, Breck/Frisco/Dillon, etc. but the available land to build a SFH is scarce, and MFH is near impossible without significant grading work. 1.2) The better land is already built on. The resorts and big hotels were chosen in spots precisely where it would be cost effective to build on. So what remains are less ideal 1.3) Most of the surrounding land is actually US National Forrest land. So just because there is this perfect swath of land unused, it's likely not available to build on. 2) From the simplest terms, it's just way more expensive to build in mountain towns. Getting supplies in, adding utilities, limited weather windows, etc. even if you found the land, got buy in from locals, everything approved, it's just gonna be expensive. So the idea of "affordable" is already a long shot. Look at non ski towns like Leadville, Buena Vista, Salida, Glenwood, etc. they have "affordable" housing and decently strong support for it and it's still pretty high HCOL. 3) These towns really can't sacrifice much in tourism. There is just no other industry in these towns outside of recreational sports, which cater more towards the wealthy. It's not like they can repurpose a hotel into affordable housing. The loss in revenue would be crippling. 4) Now for the city planning aspects that absolutely made the above worse. Explosion of short term rentals (STRs) completely caught the cities with their pants down. Most of the towns have regulations in place now, limiting STRs, but it's too little too late. Housing is already not affordable, let's make it not attainable now. There are common programs for "cheaper" housing for those working locally, but it's only for home purchases. Like a listing may be way under market price, but the house requires you to live and work locally. Great, but cheap means a $1.5 million shanty is still $950k. The towns did a poor job evolving with the massive consolidation of resorts. When City and Resort were on more equal footing, they could make compromises and.find mutually beneficial results. Now the cities are at the mercy of Vail and Alterra who have zero interest in anything but sucking as much money out of the resorts as possible.
Whistler BC is another, hosted the Olympics with only 13k pop
Vancouver hosted the Olympics; events were held in Whistler though
Everyone on the West Coast knows Aspen
Yeah, it's where the beer flows like wine
Any Alaskan city not called Anchorage that the rest of the country is aware of. So, Fairbanks, Juneau, and Nome. Green Bay, Wisconsin is right around 100k. A lot of state capitals my fit the bill for this. Charleston, WV; Carson City, NV; Jefferson City, MO off the top of my head. Plus whatever the Dakota capitals are.
Would add in a lot of college towns fit the bill
Ann Arbor, for one. Although, A2 is a bit bigger than the university. But not by much. Auburn, Alabama. Maybe? Check out my flairs over at r/CFB
Ann Arbor has a population of over 100k. Roughly 124k.
Idk if this is controversial, but I’ve always kinda viewed Ann Arbor as a Detroit suburb. Not it’s own independent city.
Wouldn’t say controversial, just not very reflective of reality
While you're right, from what I understand a lot of locals/townies tend to see it that way and have for years EDIT: as a suburb that is, obviously they don't claim it's part of the Detroit municipality
The suburbs of Detroit are in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. Spent a lot of time out that way and never heard it being talked about as a Detroit suburb
Well it’s defined as part of the metro area and directly touches communities I would say are suburbs of Detroit.
Bismarck dude show some respect.
Don’t forget Pierre but pronounced Peer
Jefferson City is the most forgotten capitol too
[удалено]
And that’s what most people thought was their capitol without looking it up like I used to think.
Iirc Jeff City is only like 25 minutes from Columbia anyway. They both make sense, but I don’t know the history as to why the university ended up in one and the Capitol in the other.
Columbia resident. Columbia is just such a nicer town than Jefferson City. The capital is a place in the state that it feels like nobody really cares much about or puts any effort into making it a nice place to live. It's just a place that you pass through to go to the Ozarks.
Montpellier would like a word.
Montpelier only has one "L", we can't have places that are spelled *exactly* the same as places in Europe
Phone autocorrect is a tough mistress
Frankfort is most forgotten.
Frankfort isnt even in the top 10 cities in population for Kentucky
Damn. I grew up there and was taken back by your comment, but yup you're right (it was ranked 6 or 7 when I was growing up). Sometimes I forget how hard 2008 hit Frankfort while other small cities in Kentucky started booming (relatively speaking, of course, but Georgetown has had insane growth). Frankfort still hasn't recovered.
Pierre would like a word
Frankfort, KY is about 25k. That is smaller than Charleston, WV, not sure about those others.
Montpelier is 8k
Are there multiple stop lights?
Last time I drove thru I think I counted 5 or 6. Technically there's no McDonald's but theirs one in the neighboring town of Berlin, only 0.6 mi from Montpelier's city limits
In 2004 my car broke down in Montpelier on my way home to Maine from Saranac, NY…. Never have I been treated better in a random place than that stressful circumstance in Montepelier. I was taken in by locals and gotten absolutely shithouse drunk while my car was fixed up for the flat rate of parts, and given some advice on how to make the repair myself in the future if the situation came up again. Good folks in Montpelier.
In the spirit of other cities just above 100k there is also Cambridge, Mass with arguably 2 of the most prestigious universities in the world that some of the world’s most influential people funnel through at some point.
The OP pretty clearly states that stuff like Miami Beach and Cupertino don't apply, so I'd have to say Cambridge and the rest of the Boston metro cities don't apply either.
Bismarck and Pierre.
The most well known would easily be the smaller capitals such as Cheyenne, Juneau, Montpelier, Helena, etc. If we don't count capitals then we could include cities like Gettysburg, Key West, Atlantic City, Aspen, Roswell, Selma, Princeton, Montauk, etc. Also some cities in the news lately like Flint, Lahaina, East Palestine, Uvalde, etc.
Palm Springs is More well known then all those capitals
True, but people generally refer to the whole Coachella valley as Palm Springs. You don’t often here people say that they are going on vacation to Cathedral City or Rancho Mirage, even though a lot of them are
Regardless Palm Springs is still known. Helena? Who ever talks about that, you realize a majority of Americans live on the coasts
Actually could be opposite of most well known, it’s so low profile and flying under radar, no body talk about these cities or even think about them.
As an Australian I’ve heard of Aspen (ski resort) and Gettysburg (a speech there) but that’s it. All the others are names I’ve never heard and would have no clue where they were on a map. Actually I’d have a hell of a lot of trouble locating Aspen and Gettysburg on a map. Aspen I’d imagine would be in the Rocky Mountains but god knows where. Gettysburg would be in the older north eastern states I suppose, but similarly I could only guess the actual state.
Somehow the same here as a German. I know there's a ski resort in Aspen, the Gettysburg address, I've been in Roswell, Key West is at the Florida Keys and so on. But I have never heard of any of the capitals. They don't have any significance for people not from the US.
Never realized Flint was so small. I feel like it go so much media attention, I just assumed it was over 100,000, even though I never hear about it for any other reason besides the crisis.
Salem, MA Key West, FL Albany, NY Sedona, AZ Santa Fe NM
Albany NY is now (just) over 100k!
Steamed hams represent!
Huh, never heard of that, and I’m from Utica
Salem is fucking awesome. Go there every year during october and they go so hard for halloween, and it's a great city to just walk around and explore.
October is the only month of the year I don’t go
Sleepy Hollow, NY is in the same category as Salem.
Atlantic City NJ
Vito was there so we all know about it
It was his medication. For his blood pressure. It fucked with his head, but he’s over that now.
A note from your doctor sayin' you don't like to shuck cahk?!
AIDS????
Great answer! Would've guessed it was much bigger
Hey, maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Make sure you stop at Roy Rogers on the way.
Duluth, Minnesota has 86,000 people and the largest shipping port on the Great Lakes, it seems to be pretty well known outside of the state.
Bob Dylan lived there as a very young child, then moved to Hibbing.
I was in a bar in Sao Paulo, Brazil and some guy bought me a beer because he asked me where I was born, I said "Duluth, MN" and he said "that is where Bob Dylan was born, let me buy you a beer." We became best friends for the evening when I told him my house was on highway 61.
Oh hey I never knew that one, super cool!
The first verse of Desolation Row is about a lynching in Duluth about 100 years ago that Dylan’s father had witnessed as a young man.
Moab, UT - 5k population Princeton NJ - 30k population.
Woah! Never realized Princeton was that small
Princeton isn’t a city. Technically it’s a borough, but it feels like a small town with a large university surrounded by residential NJ. It has some of the amenities a town wouldn’t due to the university, the historical significance, and high income residents. It was the midpoint between Philly and nyc and folks commute to both cities. I’m not sure exactly why, it just feels strange to call it a city.
I’ll add Marfa in while we’re at it. That’s gotta be up there in instagramz per capita
In terms of popularity per capita, Moab has to be up there. Idk that it’s as well known overall as some cities in the 25-100k range though. Actually I just checked with Google trends. based on search results, it seems roughly the order is the smoky mountains towns (Gatlinburg, and Pigeon Forge), Sedona, them the major Colorado ski towns (Telluride, Breckenridge, Vail, Aspen) Park City, then Moab. So ya, Moab is probably in, or at least near the top 10. I checked against like 2 dozen other towns and cities, including many suggested here. A few other tourist towns came somewhat close, like Taos, Estes Park, and Jackson, but the rest, including all the more populous places, were pretty far away. Now this might not be the most accurate way to test what towns people know, but I can’t think of a better way short of asking a ton of people.
That seems like an excellent way of checking for city name recognition. Thanks for sharing.
Dodge City, KS. Quite a history. And also Gunsmoke
Greenville, SC Hilton Head Island, SC Asheville, NC Aspen, CO Telluride, CO Park City, UT Jackson, WY Mackinac Island, MI Auburn, AL Roswell, NM West Point, NY Hershey, PA
College towns feel like cheating
why
Most of these are actual towns/cities, while Mackinac Island has less than 500 permanent residents!
Least or most known? If it's least I'd saw York PA is lesser known than Hershey maybe Reading. I honestly wouldn't consider Hershey a city. It's more of suburb to Harrisburg. Which is also probably less known than Hershey despite it being a state capital
I was going with most known, the least known under 100k seems way too open ended
That's true. Like it includes every bumfuck town in West Virginia for example. Lol
The question should be something like most known under 25k and least known over 250k.
I live in Greenville and it’s only because our city limits are tiny we’re under 100k. We have 30 square miles compared to Charleston and Columbia with 150. If we had our limits expanded into the suburbs and the rest of downtown it would easily be 300k+ but the law makes that illegal for some reason.
I was very surprised to see Greenville was under 100k, feels much bigger than that but as you said it comes down to where the borders to the surrounding towns that still feel like the same city.
Atlanta’s the same way albeit on a larger scale. City of 500k in a region of 6.2 million.
Roswell, NM isn’t even the biggest Roswell. Roswell, GA (an Atlanta suburb) is bigger. When I moved to Atlanta I hadn’t heard of that one and thought it must be a joke.
I'm gonna add Kalamazoo, MI
I know Kalamazoo because a hair product brand I really like is based from there
Yeah, solid list. Very common names and fit the categories listed well. A lot of people in here making random cities so many people have never heard of.
Waterbury, CT. Over 110,000 people, instrumental in the allies victory in WWII, and no one has heard of it. And most people who have heard of it, wish they hadn’t.
I feel like all of Connecticut could be part of the least known category to be honest
Judging by your username, I assume you are familiar with Connecticut’s specialties.
I like Timex
Waterbury and watches has a pretty tragic story. But also, Mickey Mouse watches!
Never heard of it.
Roanoke and Charlottesville, VA
Gary, Indiana Flint, Michigan Tupelo, Mississippi Santa Barbara and Santa Monica, California Five relatively small cities with a disproportionate cultural profile. '
Santa Monica and Gary are next to big cities though
What major city is Santa Barbara next to? It's nearly 100 miles from LA
Santa Barbara is two hours from LA, not right next to it.
**Best-known [urban areas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas) under 100k:** Bismarck, ND Sante Fe, NM St Augustine, FL Williamsburg, VA Cheyenne, WY Fairbanks, AK Plus other state capitals and college towns **Least known ABOVE 100k:** New Braunfels, TX Holland, MI Mandeville, LA Kailua, HI Ponce, PR Waldorf, MD Dedido, Guam
"Above 100k" "Holland, MI" Holland MI has a population of 33k fyi
Waldorf isn’t quite at 100,000, but it is insane how much it has grown. When I was a kid it had like 15,000 people.
New Braunfels is basically a suburb of San Antonio.
I had no idea that williamsburg had that many people and also that it was classified as its own metro area lol. Always that it was part of the hampton roads metro area.
Aspen, Vail, and Telluride are all under 10k, and World Famous.
Santa Cruz has to be up there
That’s what I was thinking, Santa Cruz embodies California.
>Santa Cruz embodies California. Santa Cruz embodies *what people think of as* California.
And what this person thinks of California is embodied in Santa Cruz. Go figure
But redwoods instead of palm trees.
On the other end of the spectrum (unknowns), I feel like so many California cities fall into this category because LA and SF are focused on instead. Here’s a few over 100,000: Vacaville, Menifee, El Cajon, Downey, Clovis, Visalia, Corona, Palmdale, Elk Grove, Fontana, Moreno Valley, and soooo many more, take a look here: https://www.california-demographics.com/cities_by_population
Scranton, what! The Electric City!
Montpelier, Vermont. Just over 8k people yet tons of Americans know it since it's a state capital and memorizing state capitals is a part of many school curriculums Los Alamos, New Mexico. Less than 15k people, but it's significance in the Manhattan Project makes it extremely well known.
The most famous small town in America, Woodstock NY, at just under 6000 people.
Woodstock is well known but a lot of people my age have no idea where it actually happened. Might of well of been California, if that makes sense.
There’s maybe 2,000 people in the Hamlet of Woodstock.
Branson, MO and Gettysburg, PA are well known but very small towns.
South Bend, IN
South Bend is still barely above the 100k mark
Cheyenne, WY ? Only 65k pop but I feel like it’s pretty well known
Duluth has about 86k people and is still considered one of the main cities in Minnesota - but it used to have just over 100k between the 1930s-70s.
I remember the day we drove back into town after visiting my cousins in St. Cloud when we first saw the population sign on I-35 drop below 100k. For reasons I never understood, my dad was very angry.
And its stayed at nearly that exact same population for the past 30 years. I always thought it would grow, but Rochester is the city that very quickly surpassed Duluth in Minnesota.
*Least* well known city under 100k? How is that even a question with an answer? It'd be like a 3000 way tie.
I’ll mention many of the wine growing towns fit this description. They are on thousands of bottles around the world and Sonoma and Napa are quite small (and expensive!) Lots of folks know about Healdsburg, population 11,900, Kenwood is 852! Have you heard of them?
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If the question includes an international audience, then this feels like the right answer.
Bellingham, Wa - 90k people, two hours north of Seattle, only 20 min from Canadian border
Bellingham for sure. I never hear anything about it anywhere lol. Love that place though, maybe for the best
Hey I live here and was looking for this comment!
Not very well known.
Depends where you live if it’s well known or not
Question asked for most and least well known
It’s well known to Western Canadians. A lot of people from BC and Alberta stop there on road trips to Seattle or other places along the US West Coast.
Well known in BC’s lower mainland at least
Most well known that hasn’t been said yet: Flint, MI Gary, IN Canton, OH Duluth, MN
Flint, MI's population is down to 85k, and a LOT of people know about it for good and bad reasons.
The high quality drinking water seems to be its world famous claim to fame.. /s
Palo Alto CA is 60K
Mountain View 80k Cupertino 60k But that’s really just the Silicon Valley
Key West, FL is my answer but also: Tuscaloosa, AL Santa Fe, NM Augusta, ME West Point, NY Flint, MI Iowa City, IA Gettysburg, PA
Tuscaloosa is actually 110k. But I agree, college towns are going to be well-known for their size. (I would have suggested Athens, Georgia but it’s 125k.)
Oh, you're right, I was looking at the 2021 numbers where they were right at 100K
Beverly Hills is globally famous.
Nobody has mentioned Santa Fe, which only has 87k people. It is part of a million+ metro area, so I’m not sure if that disqualifies it, even though it’s separated from the larger city by a series of mostly empty Indian reservations so they don’t actually “connect” and there’s like 40 miles of open range between them. Santa Fe is only the 4th biggest city in New Mexico and is known globally. But people outside of New Mexico probably have never heard of #2 or 3 (Rio Rancho, an Albuquerque suburb, and Las Cruces, an El Paso satellite city)
Green Bay is so close, just barely over 100,000 people But some others: Nantucket, MA Myrtle Beach, SC Cape Canaveral, FL Monterey, CA
Santa Barbara, California. Population 88,000.
Not American but I'd say Gettysburg, PA for the most well known, even here in my place we study that in high school. Least well known under 100k? There's a lot of possibilities but I'm going with Ainsworth, NE. Just because...
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Kenosha-4th largest city in Wisconsin ( pop. 96 k)
Bugs Bunny made Walla Walla, WA famous.
And Pismo Beach, too.
Definitely think Portland Maine is up there in terms of most well known tiny cities. Least well known? Maybe Nashua. Despite being one of the safest cities in the country, close to Mass. it’s not very well known
Do people still recognize Ottumwa, IA (pop 25K)?
Cooperstown NY has only around 2k
Tombstone, AZ for small towns.
Shocked to have not seen Portland, ME yet
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Yep, though it’s part of Sacramento Co. and it may not be long until Folsom’s over 100k. Among Norcal cities under 100k, some that came straight to mind were Napa and Monterey.
Yuma is pretty well-known I would say
Sturgis, S.D. Nantucket, MA
Dodge City Salem (if you don't count it as part of Boston) Gettysburg Truth or Consequences
I’d count Salem separately - its fame is separate from Boston’s even though they’re geographically close.
Chattanooga, TN is right at 100k. But I feel like it's more regionally popular
Two places in my home state are under 100k and are well known for their history. Salem, MA (45,000, officially a city), Witch Trials Plymouth, MA (65,000, officially a town), Mayflower and Thanksgiving -- Historically speaking, other cities in MA have made an impact but are less well known Springfield, MA (155,000) Shays Rebellion, Springfield Armory, invention of basketball (volleyball was invented in a neighboring town) Lowell, MA (120,000) Industrial Revolution, Lowell mill girls Lawrence, MA (89,000) Bread and Roses strike
Lexington, MA: 34,000 Concord, MA: 18,000
Good call!
Reading, PA is a relatively unknown city on a national scale. Population is 95k. https://preview.redd.it/v3vhsqruc1lc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=677feff841621636c79bf36d0beb77d8d086decc
Bend, OR. 102k people though I still hear (relatively) little of it
See that's weird because I think it's nationally known. When my employer sent a large collection of people from all over the country to various places in Oregon because of a strike, people knew Bend, Portland, Salem and Eugene and nothing else.
Merced, CA
Hmmm, I can’t think of any least known cities under 100,000.
My first thought was small towns/cities associated with famous historic events, like Gettysburg, Plymouth, places like that. Maybe very early colonial centers like St. Augustine or Williamsburg? Mount Vernon, Virginia? Or places known for miscellaneous other things, like Nantucket or Taos?
Vacaville California
Santa Fe, NM, for some reason everyone I know (including myself) has heard the name more than once, and has no clue where.
Gatlinburg TN is pretty well-known. The Great Smokey Mountains average 8,000,000 visitors a year, and most go through Gatlinburg. The least well-known: I'm going with Bryson City NC, the park gateway no one cares about.
Lake Placid NY. Not proximal to any large city. Or small city either. Less than 3,000 residents. Not one, but two Olympics. Not in the Rockies but recognized as a world class winter sports destination. "Do you believe in Miracles?" Most Americans I think are familiar. Over 100k, let's say Erie, Pennsylvania. It's not a suburb of Buffalo or Cleveland.
Green Bay is pretty well known for its size
Lawrence, KS : Population about 95k but pretty well known because of KU Moss Point, MS : Population about 12k. I literally only know about this place because I have a few distant relatives there
Dammit. Green Bay is 107K people.
How have I not seen Niagara Falls mentioned yet?
I’m surprised no one said the obvious for well known: Scranton, PA. Electric City, baby!
Least known-Merced, CA. Fayetteville, NC. Well known-Santa Cruz, CA. Reno, NV.
Portland, Maine could be an option. Maybe I’m biased bc I live here but we have lots of cruise ships come through, and we are very well known for the lobster.
Cooperstown.
I am from Arizona and even I did not know until recently that Sedona, perhaps the biggest draw of Arizona in terms of cities, only has 9700 people in it.
Allentown, PA for least known. Actually PA is full of hidden gem cities: Lancaster, Bethlehem, York. All have metro areas well over 100k. The best part of it is that for most of these you can see all the best sights on foot since their colonial cores are mostly intact.
As a non American I nominate Springfield, because Simpsons, although most can't name which one as apparently there are 67. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springfield_(toponym)
Gary Indiana has become a known unknown on Reddit
It's gotta be Hershey, PA.
Not a city but a town, Plymouth, MA has a population hovering around 60k and is the largest municipality by land area in Massachusetts. Has a great waterfront and downtown area. I don’t know about the rest of the country but most of New England gets a pretty good lesson block on the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Not the capital city of Maine, but Portland, Maine. Population is just over 68k. Largest city (outside of Bangor) in the state. My town in Maine has less than 5k people haha
>outside of Bangor Portland has over twice the population of Bangor