Hiro11

I've lived in Boston, DC, NYC, various places in Colorado, and now Chicago. Most of my family now lives in Florida and Nashville and I go to both somewhat frequently. I can tell you that it's very easy to distinguish all of these places on sight. Also, the cultures are extremely diverse. For example: New York is nothing at all like Nashville culturally.

kimilseung

I particularly liked the electric cables in the third one, placed according to the rule of thirds to balance the horizon at the bottom.

Ethelred_the_Unready

Last year, I drove up through Virginia, Pennsylvania, east through New York (state) and into Connecticut and Massachusetts. It was a spectacular drive, although southern PA is a little flat, industrial and boring.

I get your point about it looking the same in some places, but this is a massive country. If the UK weren't so old and densely populated, the scenery wouldn't look too different either. Part of the charm of the British countryside is the ancient man made factor. Much of the US is still undeveloped wild forest that has probably not been touched for centuries.

I can knock the US for many things, but scenery certainly isn't one of them. I've seen some spectacular stuff here, though not so much in FL.

If you want something that looks a little like the rolling hills, fields and woodland of the English countryside, I recommend Virginia. Get off the main interstate and drive from Richmond to Lynchburg / Roanoke and find the Blue Ridge Parkway:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_Parkway

Fantastic drive. I even enjoyed it with a howling cat in the car.

fakey

Yeah granted- again a very selective sample of some of the most iconic and distinctive places in the entire country. Not looking to persuade anybody here & everyones welcome to disagree. My opinion is different than yours. Imho you could take someone & drop them in 90% of the towns in the area I quoted or in fact the heartland in general & I would challenge anybody to distinguish them on sight. Its all pretty homogeneous. To say Nashville is culturally different to NY is so obvious as to be practically meaningless. Yes, you are right though, it is easy to distinguish Florida from Colorado.

fakey

You go 500 miles east of London & youre in Berlin. Another 500 youre in Moscow.

You go 500 miles from NYC youre in Ohio. Another 500 youre in Iowa.
Its a big country. A lot of it all looks the same.

And some of it is very nice.

Bob

Definitely over shot the mark to make a polar opposite and not very valid point...

He did have a point. There are many towns that are characterless and look much the same with stripmalls and not much character for miles around.

New England is not all that typical of the bog standard little town.

Ethelred_the_Unready

The UK and Europe in general are much older. You get a vast array of architecture, quaint villages, ancient rolling farmland. If you stripped all of that out, I bet it wouldn't seem like it varied as much.

HumphreyC

Me neither - please don't take this the wrong way. Hard to make a point on the internets without sounding like you are berating someone.

Well Santa Fe definitely is. Montpelier VT sorta qualifies as touristy but is really a government/former mill town and a is bit rough round the edges. If you take the state house out of the equation there are a lot of New England cities like it. The field in Illinois is not a tourist attraction. The Hudson valley is but it is massive and looks like that along its extent so it's a tourist attraction in the same way the Appalachians are for example.

Yeah the real problem is sprawl - the anywhere USA effect. Places that are newer in the states and the outskirts of most older places have this auto-centric crap around it that looks identical whatever area of the country you are in. I'll go with that. The midwest I have been told is pretty dull.

fakey

Pretty big 'if' imho

kimilseung

but that is the way it is.

If a lion had three heads and bits of a goat it would be a Chimera.

fakey

Ive been all over the midwest

It is dull.

Agree with your point about the internet/ making a point/ berating people/

Id like to think of it as 'intellectually rigorous' eh ha ha- and if you dont mind, then I dont mind

Glad youre not berating me though mate

HumphreyC

I was hoping to beat you into a bloody pulp with my photos ripped off from other people's sites..

HumphreyC

True - not going to pretend that there aren't crappy Levittown developments or never ending roads of sprawl in America that depress the hell out of you. However it's also important to make the point there are great places in and amongst that - not to mention great differences in the landscape, architecture, outlook etc.. I would probably feel differently if I lived in Southern Illinois though.

fakey

Bring it on mate. Give it your best shot

CAdreaming

er i really like them and someone has taken the time to post them
blimey you lot are a cynical load arn't you!!

I love living in US - if I didnt I wouldnt be here - go on shoot me down in feathers why dont you!

I live in an amazing place on the PNW coast - but also appreciate the urban sprawl that is LA, NY etc