Betterment and Praxis

My town (and all the towns around it) are expanding bike infrastructure like mad. I bike to work and I believe in building communities that aren’t car centric, so I’m thrilled to see it happening in real time. And I found a route to my work that’s almost all on protected bike lanes. It makes me happy

The library has a second floor dedicated to more books. There's an elevator. There's even a water fountain instead of a bag of plastic cups by the bathroom sink!!

I'm a NYC native, and I am always struck by the accessibility of cultures we have to offer. Any time I discover a new cuisine or dish I haven't tried, I'm basically guaranteed to find it in this city. There are lots of things I hate about NYC, but I love that we've got so much of the world to offer, with a transit system that can get you there.

My town is so well situated - we're a short distance from beaches, mountains, forests, the whole lot. We had a significant quake ten or so years ago and the rebuild has meant so many new opportunities - for cycling infrastructure, for arts communities, for social infrastructure. We've got a new central library that is gorgeous, and has so many great facilities - sewing machines, laser cutters, 3d printers, a little recording studio, the lot!

All around good vibes… hearing musical performances in the subway and even on buses sometimes, buying a kilo of artisanal ice cream at night just across the street from home, taking a rental bike instead of a bus to exercise a bit when it's not 36 degrees out, taking a friend out to a concert and screaming until we lose our voices, getting recognized every time by the fruit vendor in the corner store, going to events at the local hackerspace… there's a lot :3

I live in a town with a small liberal arts university and a lot of retirement homes. This gives it a really interesting vibe - generally artsy and relaxed. Most of the time, anyway.

My favorite thing the town does is our annual chalk art festival! I don't create art, but I like walking around and seeing what other folks created.

My town has a lot of history that, I think, is pretty cool, especially surrounding our nation's founding fathers and the actions of radical abolitionists

It's not really super recently anymore, but my wife and I moved about 10 months ago and then she has had a series of injuries that made it hard for her to walk since the start of the year, so it's been hard for us to find things we like in in our new city. We're starting to new for new apartments, but apparently it's still a bit early for our move date. I am hoping that we can move out of the quasi industrial area (right by the high way and most of the businesses near by are really b2b and not consumer facing) and into a real neighborhood will help a lot.

I can talk a lot about the things I liked in our old city, though

There's a fish and chip shop that operates between an associated fish market, which means the halibut is always really fresh and high quality, and a pub, which serves local craft beer on tap. It's a little off the highway, you really wouldn't know that it's there unless you had either already heard about it or you were looking for seafood in this particular area, because we're about 30 minutes away from a major metropolitan area and that gets way more hits for restaurant searches than our town. I have never had a bad meal there.

It certainly beats being the town known for a group of sadistic teens colloquially dubbed "the cat killers" for their shooting spree on dozens of pets.

There are three farm stands within cycling distance of my house (I believe one is technically in another town, but that doesn't matter), plus the seasonal farmers' market.

I live in Atlanta, where there are lots of outdoor spaces and trees, parks, sunny weather most of the time, cool variety of foods and neighborhoods, and some fun outdoor parties and festivals, like the Jazz Festival in Piedmont Park that's free to attend and draws a huge crowd.

There's frustrating political stuff at the city and state level (Cop City, for instance), but even so, a lot about Atlanta makes me feel hopeful for Georgia (and therefore for the US)

i live in a sleepy little suburb and it is a truly lovely place to start a family. the local library is well funded (the building is one of the largest libraries in the state!), the public schools are good, there are lots of lovely parks and playgrounds, and every time i leave the house there are people taking pleasant strolls or walking their dogs.

This made me realize I really don't like where I live...

Very rural...people aren't living on top of each other...lots of nature and space.

It's the first city I've lived in that has a substantial cycling network. Recently they've completed so much that I can travel from the north end to the south without sharing the road with vehicles.

I live in a shithole city in the desert with high crime rates (my home has been broken into twice in 4 years (while I was home)) but my favorite thing about it is the natural environment. Very beautiful place. I hope we get more social programs to better the community, but where I live, all of the money goes to like 10 square miles in the city center and everyone else is left to rot in an over-policed, car-centered, 40km sprawl.

Kalamazoo Michigan, the art scene and LGBT+ friendliness. My mail person is queer, half of the library staff are queer, our mayor was a gay man, there's a queer theatre and queer resource center downtown, it's really great!

Sadly we have no set queer bar, though one of them is our unofficial bar but it wouldn't stand up to a proper one.

Oh and of course it's the first and only city I've lived in after moving out, and I went to college here. It's near to my heart. And with Gretchen Whitmer and Jocelyn Bennett killing it, I'm relatively happy hear in the mitten ❤️

I like the library, it has a pretty good board game collection, I've gotten some switch games out from there rather than dropping $60-70 on them, not to mention books, movies, audiobooks, museum discount passes, etc.

Also, it's nice being back in a town with sidewalks, decent low-density roads around, local businesses nearby. A lot of my middle school/high school life was lived on a narrow hilly road with no shoulder that made it hard to get anywhere before I could drive.

Its got a pretty wild music history, especially for a medium sized town