I'm just talking about if natural beauty is out aside and we're just talking about things made by people (man made foliage is fine). Architecture, streets, lights, parks, etc.

I think my answer would have to be a pretty standard one. Savannah. The lights shining through the Spanish moss and the 1800s buildings is really something special.

Parts of Palm Springs is also up there for me. The older parts of Boston, and parts of Manhattan.

What comes to mind for you?


26 comments

  1. DC is pretty great with all the monuments and it feels wide open in a way that some other cities don’t. It feels like a giant park! I wish I’d have visited when the cherries are blossoming though. The Wharf is also a cool vibe along the waterfront.

    For places I haven’t been, I’d nominate Pittsburgh. Watching videos of people driving into it is just stunning. There’s nothing, nothing, and then all of a sudden there’s a giant city. Talk about a dramatic entrance. I really, really need to visit!

  4. Homer choice: Baltimore, even though I drive into the city often, I take different routes for different reasons, and there’s almost always a great view and a reminder of something historic.

    Non-home choice: San Francisco, Philadelphia or Chicago.

  6. Chicago.

    The parks and tree lined streets within a pretty dense city are amazing. Grant and Millenium park rival Central Park in NYC.

    I also know you said no nature but the manmade city on the lakeshore is freakin beautiful.

    If you go to Chicago take the architural tour. It sounds touristy but even native Chicagoans do it. You get to cruise the river and get a great history lesson from professional docents.

  8. 100% agree on Savannah! It’s absolutely gorgeous. When I went there I never wanted to leave lol

  11. Chicago. Because it burned down in the 1870s they rebuilt it with city planning in mind and alley ways. The whole city sits above and below a river and a mile from a freshwater lake ‘ocean’. The whole lakeshore is a giant park system.

  13. Gotta go with Pittsburgh, unless the rivers funneling the core into a triangle are too much nature.

  14. I reject the premise of the question. You can’t talk about the aesthetics of a city without making reference to its environment. It could be the quality of light in a city – a place like Miami is more colorful than Cleveland because its lower latitude means more intense sunlight. You can’t separate the streetscapes of San Francisco from the hills they’re built on.

    Anyway, my favorite architecture in the country is New Orleans. But it works in part because it’s designed in conjunction with its environment: the colors and details tie in with the light and native fauna, and its location below sea level provides a certain je ne sais quoi (as is the case with all places below sea level).

  16. There is some really surprisingly nice old architecture in downtown Houston, for a city that often gets a bad rap for its aesthetics, like old Art Deco and Gilded-Age stuff that’s been renovated and maintained. Check out the Hotel Icon and the Gulf Building. Also some of the older suburban streets are like tunnels under the canopies of huge live-oak trees and that’s a green tunnel effect I always love.

    Dallas is really nice if you like the modern, urban look. The view of the skyline at night is a lot of fun. They do a nice job of tracing the buildings in lights. There’s a view that makes for some awesome urban photography from the top of the Northpark Mall parking garage where you can see the skyline and the traffic on I-45 stretching out like a glowing river underneath it.

    Austin has some really lovely spots with long rolling hills. UT has some really nice buildings too. I went to a wedding at a church in the Hill Country outside Austin and watching the sunset over the hills was just beautiful. 

    San Francisco was also always a beautiful city to look at. 

  17. Perhaps I haven’t been to the most beautiful city yet, but I went to San Diego recently and I was impressed, especially how the city looked from the bay in the morning

  18. Honestly. New York City

    There are parks *everywhere* and so many beautiful buildings. I have visited twice and when people say that it is the greatest city in the world I think they might be right. There are definitely less desirable parts of the city that I as a tourist never saw but I feel like that is probably true of every city

  21. Seattle!! 😍

    It has a cute skyline, surrounded by water and mountains on all sides. Mt Rainier looms over the city from 2 hours away with its snow capped glaciers. It’s almost always green save for August when the grass turns brown from the sun. The air is fresh and light as compared to other cities that feel heavy, polluted, or hot. It’s usually never too hot or too cold. It does drizzle a lot in winter but otherwise it’s more spotty with the rain and July through September are always essentially sunny. The people are generally “introverted” but also very nice.

    I guess half of it is that it’s surrounded by beautiful nature so… maybe that missed the mark on the assignment lol

    San Francisco is also beautiful imho and I think Chicago has a banging skyline but I always feel like I’m gonna die in that traffic

  22. Santa Barbara for me. I love the white stucco Spanish style homes, and the “hidden” patios of State Street. The proliferation of bouganvillea all over the walls and buildings. The mountains of Montecito behind Santa Barbara and the Pacific Ocean on it’s other side.

  24. San Francisco! My home city. It has amazing huge parks, beautiful Victorian houses, and nice hills to get amazing views of the bay.

  25. Tampa . The views from the river or Bayfront back at the city at night with colored lights everywhere is gorgeous…

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