The 10 Most Underrated Towns in America

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6. Spokane, Washington
Seattle’s smaller country cousin, undeservedly overlooked for years, now attracting refugees from California and the Puget Sound region • Many classic neighborhoods offer shaded streets and down-to-earth prices on great old homes • A chain of parks, many laid out by the legendary Olmsted brothers, are scattered throughout the city • The centerpiece of the Olmsteds’ 1913 plan, Riverfront Park, was finally reclaimed from abandoned rail and industrial facilities as the site of Spokane’s Expo ’74 • Now the park provides both a green sanctuary and dramatic views of the swift-running Spokane River right in the heart of the city • Downtown is a historic treasure with 80 blocks of mostly intact early-20th-century buildings • Strong local tax incentives for historic preservation are widely used • Sprawl to the east is a serious and growing problem, but there is earnest discussion of building a light rail line to link destinations there with downtown Spokane • There’s easy access to the great outdoors all around for world-class skiing, kayaking, hiking, fishing, and pleasure boating.

7. Chicago
The quintessential American city full of robust neighborhoods, rich ethnic diversity, and the best cheap restaurants in the nation • Elevated trains, rumbling poetically above the streets, and a great commuter-rail network make car ownership optional • The site of the notorious and now partially demolished Cabrini-Green housing project abuts newly middle-class neighborhoods moving west from the prosperous lakefront • Loft housing, although it was invented in New York, has really found its home here as conversion of older buildings and construction of new ones struggle to keep up with demand in many revitalized sections of the city • The South Loop, once an industrial no-man’s-land, is now a hot spot and home to mayor Richard Daley, who understands that little things make a big difference in urban life • Daley has planted tens of thousands of trees, installed a rooftop garden above city hall, and promotes key livability improvements like traffic calming • Miles and miles of lakefront parks are the city’s number one warm-weather hangout.

8. Cincinnati
This old town has a surprisingly big-city feel, reflecting its 19th-century origins as one of America’s preeminent metropolitan centers • A classy new riverfront park shows off the mighty Ohio River • A magnificent bridge built by John Augustus Roebling, who later designed the Brooklyn Bridge, crosses from downtown into the well-preserved German colony of Covington, Kentucky • They’ve sunk a freeway below ground to better connect the downtown streets with the "Banks," a new mixed-use neighborhood that features housing, a ballpark, football stadium, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center museum, and other entertainment offerings • Mount Adams, high atop the river bluffs, is a charming village within a city • Over-the-Rhine, a Lower East Side–style neighborhood, is seeing some hipster redevelopment without major displacement (yet) of low-income residents.

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