Here's my list in no particular order:
Seattle: University of Washington - One of the top schools in the country located in one of the best cities in the country. It's safe, there's lots to do, I could go on, but since I live here I'd never stop. UW is amazing in most areas, but shines in Medicine, Business, Computer Science, Biology, Environmental Sciences, and Marine Studies. Seattle is a great place to live, and I've grown up here my whole life. It's a very cutting-edge, young, diverse place with one of the US' best economies right now. Up here we're still wondering why everyone keeps complaining about a recession, no joke. Also, many people say that Vancouver is better than Seattle, but in my experience Vancouver has a huge problem with employment, because they have no industrial base whatsoever, drugs are rampant with heroine addiction being a major problem currently, and the immigrant communities seem to constantly be butting heads with the local government creating a tense social environment. (and just to clarify, I'm a dual Canadian/American citizen, with much of my family living in Vancouver, so my reason for bringing this up is purely to clarify, rather than to badmouth Canada, which is a great country that I love for a myriad of reasons)
Boston: Harvard, MIT, Boston U., Boston College, Tufts University, plus too many more. Beautiful city, too many colleges to name, most of them are pretty amazing schools as well.
New York City: Columbia University, New York University, etc... I wouldn't recommend going to school here because the cost of living in Manhattan is astronomical, but do visit, because it's a one of a kind city that captures people's hearts and imaginations. As cliche as it is to say that, I can't think of another way to describe it.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University, American University, etc... Amazing city, lots to see and do, and is very european in character, due to the absence of skyscrapers. (all buildings must be shorter than the US Capitol) Less dangerous than it used to be, but there aren't any points of interest in the less desirable neighborhoods, so you would have to be looking for trouble to find it.
Some other great cities are Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Santa Barbara (CA), San Diego, Austin (TX), Denver, Chicago, Nashville, Louisville, Providence, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
American cities aren't walkable 'cause of their layout. Way too car-centric, straight streets, predominantly commercialised and business-centric - esp. speaking of their 'downtowns'.
NYC hardly is European. Smaller cities and towns/villages may rather have some European appeal to them, due to their oft more 'organic' structure.
Quebec is the most 'European' city in North America to me.
I completely disagree about the downtown comment. The opposite is true in that American downtowns are at a critical-mass of density, while the suburbs are car-centric. The skyscrapers are actually a direct result of the value of the land they sit on. More people want their offices, and recently, their homes located on that land, so the result is that skyscrapers are built to accommodate the demand for that real estate. Cities like Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia are all geographically limited in their buildable area, so the result is the dramatic skylines each of these cities has. Look to Hong Kong for an even better example. Simple economics of supply and demand, or is that not taught in European schools?
It's simply untrue to say that American cities are not walkable. Outside of the downtowns, this is true, but I have yet to go to the city center of a major city without seeing hundreds of pedestrians walking everywhere. This is true for almost all of America's major cities, bar Las Vegas, which attracts tourists and has a terrible quality of life. Even Los Angeles' downtown is walkable, but the city is spread out into many walkable villages such as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Westwood, Hollywood, Century City, etc... Manhattan is walkable, but due to the sheer amount of people, has spread (incredibly densely) to be so vast in size that walking from end to end would be foolish. It is true that most people commute to work via train, bus, or car, but that is not a qualification for the walkability of a place, because in all countries, urban centers draw the largest, most prestigious employers and thus their employees are spread throughout their respective metro areas.
However, you are right about Quebec, it was built by the French and much of the city is in its original form. However, don't think you can get by here with English, because although everyone speaks it perfectly fine, they resent the fact that most Canadians speak very minimal French, so they refuse to communicate in English.
