"Quiet" Small Cities With Their Own Skyline

[Silicon Francisco]

Tysons Corner, Va - "Downtown Fairfax County" 18,540

The quintessential edge city, Tysons Corner is the largest suburban business district not just in the Washington area, but in the entire United States. Its 35 million square feet of office space (including nearby Dunn Loring) make it bigger than all but a handful of the country?s biggest downtowns. With two opulent shopping malls it's also the largest and best retail district on the East Coast after Midtown Manhattan.

[OhioTodd]

None of these pics are mine they are just 'borrowed' from the internet:

Evansville Indiana:



Wichita Falls Texas:




Springfield Missouri:


Eugene Oregon:


Kalamazoo Michigan:


Fairbanks Alaska:




Missoula Montana:

[jcraw80]

Clayton, Missouri

[jcraw80]

not mine btw

[BalWash]

Originally Posted by Silicon Francisco

Tysons Corner, Va - "Downtown Fairfax County" 18,540

Tysons Corner truely is a glorified office park whose mall culture make it more of a suburb than a real city. Unlike Chevy Chase, Bethesda, Alexandria and Washington, it has virtually no walkable downtown areas, just malls.
Perhaps we need a seperate thread on suburban skylines for other cities, like Tysons, which are not the principle cities in their respective metro areas.

[Susie]

I love that picture of Kalamazoo above, very nice indeed!

[Skyliner]

I'm surprised my hometown of Greenville, SC was passed over! 2000 census population was at 56,000, but that has increased since. Today, Greenville County is the most populated in the state, with over 400,000 people. The city is the largest in a renoinal metro area with over 1 million people. While this is all true, Greenville is still a young and emerging city with exciting developments happening always.

BTW, George Clooney will be shooting a new film here early next year.

If you would like to see many more great photos of Greenville, click here.

Skyline from Paris Mountain (Photo taken by RestedTraveler, edited by myself with his permission):

Current:


With three of the planned new towers added (not the actual designs, just a reference):


A few of the planned towers:








Random photos from downtown:

[NaptownBoy]

Are those fan palms?

[Skyliner]

You mean the one in this photo? That is a Palmetto, the state tree. We don't have too many of those in the Upstate, being so close to the mountains.

[Avian001]

Sorry. I'm still not buying the idea that suburban skylines are "small quiet cities with their own skylines." To me, that negates the original purpose of this thread, which is to highlight cities that have been often overlooked because they are smaller towns, away from the limelight of larger cities.

Most major suburbs in this country have their own skylines. So what? And those cities wouldn't exist if it weren't for the "parent city." What I'd like to continue to see are the smaller cities that no one really pays attention to.

Thanks to Little Rock, Greeneville, Eugene, Kalamazoo, Missoula, et. al.

No thanks to Tysons Corners, Crystal City, Bellevue, et. al.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Avian001

Sorry. I'm still not buying the idea that suburban skylines are "small quiet cities with their own skylines." To me, that negates the original purpose of this thread, which is to highlight cities that have been often overlooked because they are smaller towns, away from the limelight of larger cities.

Most major suburbs in this country have their own skylines. So what? And those cities wouldn't exist if it weren't for the "parent city." What I'd like to continue to see are the smaller cities that no one really pays attention to.

Thanks to Little Rock, Greeneville, Eugene, Kalamazoo, Missoula, et. al.

No thanks to Tysons Corners, Crystal City, Bellevue, et. al.

I agree.

[Shawn]

Springfield, MA - the largest of the country's many Springfields - has a population of 156,00 and a metro of over 600,000. Downtown Springfield and Downtown Hartford, CT are only 22 miles apart.

[OhioTodd]

all photos from the internet


San Angelo Texas:



Rockford Illinois:





Sioux City Iowa:




Ogden Utah:



Fort Collins Colorado:




Bismarck North Dakota:



Casper Wyoming:





Laughlin Nevada:

[SRG]

Thanks Todd, for that first pic of Sioux City. Exactly the vie from the place my sis just built up there! Oh and that second pic of Bismark is actually Omaha, which clearly does not qualify. Other cities mentioned in this thread that don't qualify:

Naples
Bellevue
Laughlin
Springfield
Little Rock
Tyson's Corner
Clayton
Every other suburb or medium-sized town that's been thrown at us


Talking about TRUE small towns here. Here are some in the Sooner State...

Bartlesville, OK (35,000 people):






Frank Lloyd Wright's only skyscraper, the famous Price Tower






Oklahoma Wesleyan University

Bartlesville actually has a booming economy. It's about 50 miles north of the Tulsa metro's edge, and it draws from the lovely Tulsa area with its 950,000 people. They add thousands of jobs there every year, and there are currently thousands of homes under construction in Bartlesville. Not because it's becoming a suburb, far from it. It's small town appeal is so universal, that Conoco-Philipps workers in Houston are desperate to switch over and leave Houston for Bartlesville. That, and with Tulsa's growing economy, there are some who don't mind a long rural commute to live in a utopian community like Bartlesville.

Muskogee:


View from the River City Mall, an outdoor shopping mall in the heart of downtown.





Muskogee is about the same size as Bartlesville, and it about the same distance from Tulsa in the opposite direction. This skyline was built with oil money, shipping money, cotton money, and banking money. Muskogee used to be a lot more prominent in the Old South days...

Perhaps you've heard the song, "Okie from Muskogee"?

Lawton:



An army town of about 95,000 that is home of the US Army's primary school (Fort Sill, home of Geronimo's tomb). It's also located on the edge of the amazingly beautiful Wichita Mountains, the world's oldest mountain range:










(This is before some were destroyed for some really ugly high-rises)

Enid, OK (50,000 people in far NW part of the state)










Enid was built from oil money and nothing else. Later came a small air force base on the high plain.

Of course, there are a lot more great small towns hidden around Oklahoma's rolling landscape, but hey, that's the ones with skylines.

[OhioTodd]

^Oops! removed the incorrect pic. I think Laughlin kind of qualifies..it is small, in the middle of nowhere, and does have a skyline. Given it is a resort and all, but it really is not a suburb of anything. (but if going by quiet small towns then I guess it would not qualify). Just like other resort areas like South Padre Island, Myrtle Beach, etc. are not really quiet small towns either, even if they have a number of highrises.

That Bartlesville skyline has to be the best for any town under 50,000 population.

[weill]

Roanoke, VA

[SRG]

Roanoke, Virginia. 300,000 people...



City lights look neat from the top of the Mill Mountain Star...

[Jasonhouse]

Originally Posted by cloudrays68

NaptownBoy, So true!

I took a vacation to Sarasota a few years ago. I had never been there before. I was pleasantly
surprised to see this skyline when I got there...


Sarasota (Florida)
Pop. 53,259

Yes, I think that Sarasota pretty much rules all US skylines within cities under 100k in pop.
It's downtown skyline is quite large, and then it has a significant quantity of midrises and
highrises out on the keys, like most any Florida city.




Here is a pano of downtown from almost exactly 4 years ago, meaning that the picture
misses all but the first couple of buildings that went up in the recent downtown building boom.


And a newer one taken from about a 90 degree angle to the one I took...
As these pictures hopefully show, DT Sarasota's skyline is not just a row
of condos along the waterfront. It is actually comprised of several clusters
of buildings which have merged into one skyline in recent years.

Photo taken by: I-275westcoastfl

[NorthernIL Mike]

I couldn't find any picture of downtown Bradenton florida but for under 50K it has one impessive skyline. If anyone has pictures please post em.

[SRG]

Tropical "paradise", Mr. Jasonhouse. I think you missed the thread...

Or is it me? Are we looking for smallbergs in general, or more specifically highly nondescript towns with otherwise surprising skylines?