Where exactly were you born, and what was/is interesting about living there?

[Adam Griffin]

Not necessarily the exact physical location where you emerged into the world, but where did your family live when you were born? I'm not asking for addresses or anything, but this is a maps forum, after all...

People have often joked about how I'm more of a Tennessean than a standard Deep South Georgian, but I don't think people really get how close to TN I grew up. Furthermore, the proximity to multiple states was something that I've often considered in regards to how people who aren't close to other states are impacted economically and otherwise. Being 3 minutes from TN and no more than 90 minutes from 3 different states was always something that seemingly came in handy in a wide variety of instances.

Pretty much anything that was unavailable in GA was available in TN or AL and vice-versa, or at least there would be a clear advantage in availability, price, terms, etc: especially for anything white trash. For the longest, Tennesseans came to GA to buy lottery tickets and Georgians went to TN to buy fireworks, because each was only available in their respective states. There are still fireworks stores (mostly seasonal) that are within 1-2 minutes' drive of GA along every somewhat respectable highway crossing into TN & AL. If you were in the mood to stock up on cigarettes, then it made sense to drive to AL, where for a long time they seemed to cost about half of what they did in bordering states.

[Intell]

Yellow line is Nepalese-Indian border. I lived in India, though I'm much more 'Nepalese' than I am 'Indian', as I would go north up the border to see my friends, and some of my relatives.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

As a Yankee, it always bothered me that UT-Chattanooga played in a different sports conference than the other Tennessee teams, so I really appreciate you sharing the geographic knowledge/awareness on that!

I was born in New Brunswick hospital and lived in Edison, NJ, a town that is now just 11.7% Republican. I guess the most interesting geographic note would be that in 1900, the small town of Metuchen was carved out of it, and Edison continues to completely engulf it, one of two towns in Middlesex County to completely surround another another (Monroe also engulfs the more historic boro of Jamesburg).

New Jersey actually has a ton of intriguing carve-up stories on account of the distance between original settlements I suppose.

[Crumpets]

I was born in Seattle, but my family lived in the town of Federal Way at the time (the smaller red circle on the bottom). For the vast majority of my life, however, I have lived in Seattle proper.



There's really not all that much interesting about Federal Way, except that it's growing really quickly. When we lived there, it was kind of out in the sticks, but is now part of basically a continual urban sprawl between Seattle and Tacoma.

Seattle has a lot of great things about it. I may be a bit biased, but it's a thoroughly beautiful city. Few places in the world have sandy beaches, cragged coastline, huge mountains all around the city, and three 10,000+ ft. volcanoes visible from most of the city. We also are also built on a series of very steep hills, meaning pretty much no matter where you are in the city, you have a view. Our skyline is pretty magnificent for a city of our size, as well, and it's one of the few in the US where people regularly commute by ferry.

It's a diverse city, but also a pretty well-integrated city compared to other cities of its size. My neighborhood is wonderfully mixed and working-class families who just moved to the country can live on the same block as a multi-million dollar mansion. The combination of our café-and-bookshop culture with all of the cultures that have come to town with the tech boom gives Seattle a great cosmopolitan feel. It's not the kind of place where you will be judged by who your family is or whether you're "new money," "old money," or no money, as long as you are fun to be around.

Plus, like a lot of places in the Northwest, there's a lot of just weird and quirky stuff always going on. We have some great street side performers, music festivals, and just cultural goings-on. The Vancouver-Seattle-Portland stretch is really not quite like any other place I've ever visited.

[Adam Griffin]

As a Yankee, it always bothered me that UT-Chattanooga played in a different sports conference than the other Tennessee teams, so I really appreciate you sharing the geographic knowledge/awareness on that!

Another fun bit of trivia: to my knowledge, UTC is the only out-of-state college (barring those that offer majors for which there is no public college in GA that offers it) that is eligible for the Georgia HOPE Scholarship. A short while after this became the case, UTC began offering in-state tuition rates for at least some Georgians (I'm not sure if it was only for those who lived in the broader Chattanooga metro or for all Georgians).

[dead0man]

Alton IL (just north of St.Louis MO)

Known for being the birth place of the tallest human on record and Miles Davis.  It's the "Most Haunted Town in America".  It was the location of the last Lincoln/Douglas debate.  Was in the finals for the location of the new state capital.  Has a local mythological creature, the Piasa Bird.

[/]

Pretty sure I was born in New Brunswick and grew up in Bridgewater

[Torie]

I was born in Los Angeles, and grew up there. The main thing that was interesting was that my Dad was in the record industry, so I got to meet interesting folks, and hear interesting stories, and watch recording sessions, and get free albums.

[DC Al Fine]

Fun story. My parents moved to Toronto shortly after marrying and didn't understand the idea of ethnic neighbourhoods which resulted in me spending the first bit of my life in Little Italy

[Cranberry]

A small village called "Rietz", inhabitants around 2'000. It is surrounded by beautiful mountains reaching up to just under 3'000 metres (9'850 feet), and lies on the slope of a mountain just next to the big main valley running through Tyrol, the Austrian state I live in. Because the mountains are so near and high (the summit of the moutain Rietz is located next to is under half a kilometre away from my house) the sun is in the winter not potent enough to rise above the mountains, thus imbedding the village into an eternal shade and darkness from mid-November to early February.

What else is there to say? I can reach two foreign countries within one hour, and two more within two and a half. The area is for Austrian purposes considered as quite rural, but I'm no more than five hours away from a reasonable sized town (15'000 inhabitants) and twenty minutes from the state's capital city, Innsbruck, with 120'000 people. Many, many people come to my area to make holidays in the mountains (far more than there are people living there - my district (=county) has 50'000 people, but about four million overnight stays per winter).

[TDAS04]

Iowa City, Iowa.

The area is kind of flat and humid, but otherwise, it's a great place.  Iowa City is a quintessential progressive college town in the Midwest.  It's consistently rated as one of the artsiest and most literate places in the country.

Two fun facts about the University of Iowa:
*In 1970, it became the first state university to recognize a LGBT union.
*In 1855, it became the first public university in the nation to admit men and women on an equal basis.

[Mr. Illini]

I was born in Lake Forest, Illinois.

Fun fact about it is that it is featured in The Great Gatsby when it is said that Gatsby's polo ponies were bred in Lake Forest.

Most interesting thing about it politically I suppose would be the polarization between it and its neighbor Highland Park, Illinois. Both are very wealthy members of Chicago's North Shore, but Lake Forest votes staunchly for Republicans and Highland Park votes staunchly for Democrats. This is because Lake Forest has Christian/WASP roots while Highland Park has Jewish roots. It's one of the more stark examples of where you could cross from a 70% Romney precinct into a 70% Obama precinct and not notice any differences.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Fairmont WV

The interesting thing about Fairmont is that it's in BFE and even to this day, almost no one has heard of it.

[The Dowager Mod]

[RINO Tom]

Born in Peoria, IL.  Peoria is always ranked as one of the most segregated cities in the United States, as it has a very nice, recently revamped downtown (with a very nice riverfront area/complex) and a university campus (Bradley) not far from a lot of really bad neighborhoods.  This is just the downtown, of course.  The surrounding areas are growing quite fast.

There are several interesting things about Peoria, but I'll only name a few.  I'm sure many have heard "Will it play in Peoria?" but doubt many know that this actually references Peoria's once-upon-a-time great theatre scene (rather than Peoria being a good product testing area).  Richard Pryor is also from Peoria, and he includes it in much of his stand-up comedy.  Peoria was a thriving town in the Roaring Twenties and was kind of "a place to be" until the recession in the 1970s set the community WAY back.  It really didn't recover until the mid-1990s, and it has really been on its way back up since then.  It will probably take 10-15 more years of re-growth to shed some of its unwarranted reputation, IMO.  It also used to be the "Whiskey Capital of the US."

[Green Line]

Born in Peoria, IL.  Peoria is always ranked as one of the most segregated cities in the United States, as it has a very nice, recently revamped downtown (with a very nice riverfront area/complex) and a university campus (Bradley) not far from a lot of really bad neighborhoods.  This is just the downtown, of course.  The surrounding areas are growing quite fast.

There are several interesting things about Peoria, but I'll only name a few.  I'm sure many have heard "Will it play in Peoria?" but doubt many know that this actually references Peoria's once-upon-a-time great theatre scene (rather than Peoria being a good product testing area).  Richard Pryor is also from Peoria, and he includes it in much of his stand-up comedy.  Peoria was a thriving town in the Roaring Twenties and was kind of "a place to be" until the recession in the 1970s set the community WAY back.  It really didn't recover until the mid-1990s, and it has really been on its way back up since then.  It will probably take 10-15 more years of re-growth to shed some of its unwarranted reputation, IMO.  It also used to be the "Whiskey Capital of the US."

I remember going down to Peoria every fall for cross country meets and thinking that it was a pretty damn dreary place, but maybe now as an older fellow (<21) I would be able to appreciate it more. My friends tell my Bradley is a fun place to party!

[RINO Tom]

I remember going down to Peoria every fall for cross country meets and thinking that it was a pretty damn dreary place, but maybe now as an older fellow (<21) I would be able to appreciate it more. My friends tell my Bradley is a fun place to party!

Pshh, what's dreary about that??

But seriously, Peoria does have that reputation, and they're working hard to change it.  The lights you see down by the river are where a lot of new businesses have been built.  We moved in 1997, and my parents say they barely recognize a lot of the downtown.  I love Peoria for what it is, and I think I love it even more because I feel you have to do more than a quick drive-through to see what it has to offer.  Catepillar decided to keep its headquarters there and are now planning a massive renovation that will make the skyline look even better:



That should really help Peoria further.  People I know who have lived there/still live there say that the Peoria of 2000 is drastically different from the Peoria of 1990, and the Peoria of 2015 is drastically different from the Peoria of 2000.  It'll take time for the reputation to recover from the slum it was in the '70s, '80s and most of the '90s, but I think it can get there.

Anyway, sorry to hijack your thread, LOL.

[Green Line]

I remember going down to Peoria every fall for cross country meets and thinking that it was a pretty damn dreary place, but maybe now as an older fellow (<21) I would be able to appreciate it more. My friends tell my Bradley is a fun place to party!

Pshh, what's dreary about that??

But seriously, Peoria does have that reputation, and they're working hard to change it.  The lights you see down by the river are where a lot of new businesses have been built.  We moved in 1997, and my parents say they barely recognize a lot of the downtown.  I love Peoria for what it is, and I think I love it even more because I feel you have to do more than a quick drive-through to see what it has to offer.  Catepillar decided to keep its headquarters there and are now planning a massive renovation that will make the skyline look even better:



That should really help Peoria further.  People I know who have lived there/still live there say that the Peoria of 2000 is drastically different from the Peoria of 1990, and the Peoria of 2015 is drastically different from the Peoria of 2000.  It'll take time for the reputation to recover from the slum it was in the '70s, '80s and most of the '90s, but I think it can get there.

Anyway, sorry to hijack your thread, LOL.

I believe it, mid size and small cities have really had a revival in the last 10-15 and I don't see the trend slowing down any time soon. Places like Oak Lawn, on the other hand, are going downhill fast and its sad to see.

If everyone else was as proud of Illinois as you are, we'd all be better off as a state.

[Tender Branson]

I'm using Cranberry's map for my location:



Anyway, you can use Cranberry's text and replace the small town with Zell am See, which is bigger with ca. 10.000 people, but similarly embedded in the mountains - just that I live on the sun side and he lives on the shadow side of the valley.

It's a major tourism area in Austria and ranks in the top-5 (with a couple million overnight stays each year). It's also a magnet for Arab tourists, who are swamping the area in the summer months because they like the rain and snow on the Kitz glacier nearby. In general, it's an awesome place to live.

It looks like this during winter:





... and during summer:

[RI]

A block or two from here:

[AndrewTX]

I was born in Norwalk, CT.  One thing of interest with it, is that it is where Nathan Hale departed before heading to NYC, and being captured.

[Del Tachi]

Tupelo, MS.  Birthplace of Elvis Presley. 

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Valparaiso, Indiana









What's interesting? Nothing, really. It's a quaint little city of 32,000 people (50,000+ if you count all the sudivisions in the unincorporated parts around it), about an hour outside of Chicago. It's the county seat of Porter County, and home to Valparaiso University.

Probably most interesting is how it has changed demographically over the since the 1990s. When my mom arrived there in 1987 and even when I was born there in 1995, it was overwhelmingly a white working class/lower-middle class town, but over the past 20 years it has been transformed into a proper satellite city of Chicago, with many people who went to VU staying there after graduating, making it a proper college town as well.

The downtown area has been completely revamped with parks and new small stores, and much of the housing stock in the city center that dates from the 1850s - 1940s has been fixed up (when my parents bought their first house in 1991 after getting married, it was a cheap, sort of run-down little house built in 1860, but when we drive past it today, it's been completely renovated). Young families are putting down roots, and many diverse families are moving in as well for the well-paying jobs in government, healthcare, and education.

If you're looking for a place close to Chicago, but not with the taxes/crowding/corruption of Illinois or the corruption/pollution/traffic/taxes/crime of Lake County, with a bumpin' downtown area and diverse mix of residents, then Valparaiso is your town. The annual highlight is the Popcorn Festival held in September, where the entire downtown courthouse square area is closed off and people watch a parade, hundreds of food vendors set up camp, concerts are held in the park nearby, and restaurants and stores prop their doors open to customers.

It's very much "Norman Rockwell small town America meets the 21st Century".


MAJOR CAVAET: you have to live in Indiana -_-

[Miles]

Lots of interesting things in New Orleans. One fact about my native neighborhood, Lakeview, was that it got some of the worst flooding of anywhere during Katrina, as its adjacent to one the the canals that buckled. I'm going home next week, and I always like to see the progress that's being made. The last few times, things were looking very good.

[This account no longer in use.]

Salem, Massachusetts. I am often asked if I am a witch. I am not okay with this.