Is there a place for cultural reviews of US regions/cities?

January 13, 2004 10:33 AM

Has anyone found a place on the Internet that describes the culture of different places in the United Staes? (sorry if this is a bit US-centric). Having lived in eight states in my twenty two years, I've found a vast difference in many respects --- i was thinking that a neat project would be to start a web site where people could submit reviews and comments about cities/neighborhoods, etc....especially given how often people move to new, unknown places these days. Thoughts? is there something like this out there? (And i'm not counting something like epinions.com, they're almost always overwhelming positive, and not that helpful)
posted by jare2003 to society & culture (8 comments total)

Someone built exactly that website, I'm sorry I can't remember the name of it. It was linked in the blue...I hope someone else can dredge it up, because as I recall when I first saw it, contributions were kind of sketchy. Hopefully it's beefed up a lot by now.
posted by luser at 10:52 AM on January 13, 2004

It's a great idea. I remember traveling through South Dakota (off the main highways) and each small country town was an ethnic enclave. One town was Dutch. The next Russian. The next Irish. You could often tell by the hints on the roadsides coming into town or just ask the waitress as the local diner. People stick together in isolated communities and create ethnic enclaves, islands of culture. There are thousands like that all over the mid-west. You find the same thing in cities except it is measured in city blocks. In the burbs it is less clear which is why many burbs are lonely alienating places on the one hand, and creators of new culture (not always for the best) on the other.
posted by stbalbach at 11:12 AM on January 13, 2004

This is totally OT, but why are you "sorry if this is a bit US-centric"? It's your question, it's your personal interest, so I don't think there's anything to be sorry about.
posted by 111 at 12:11 PM on January 13, 2004

if you find the site, let me know! If not or it's defunct, I'd be interested in starting such a project. I find the lack of such a thing really surprising...the best i've ever been able to find is something like Forbes's "Top 40 Cities for Singles" or something similarly inane.

There was a great thread on Kuro5hin.org about this very issue a while back.

stbalbach, I agree. Doing it for not only cities, but suburbs and small towns too would be great. Culture or lifestyle varies even among the burbs.
posted by jare2003 at 12:13 PM on January 13, 2004

Here it is. Googling some of the phrases in the K5 thread brought it up for me.

Unfortunately it seems not to have really caught fire. A shame, because it really is a great idea.
posted by luser at 12:54 PM on January 13, 2004

Yeah, it is a shame.

I'd actually been pondering doing a project like this for a while (i have decent web development skills)---Wisdomtree looked okay, but it didn't really have that good of questions, and the way they broke down regions could have been better done. I mean, i'd want to be able to review a metropolitan region, then be able to review suburbs and central cities (and neighborhoods within major cities).

For example, New York City.....SoHo is not Harlem is not Willamsburg is not Astoria. And so on....

Thoughts?
posted by jare2003 at 1:19 PM on January 13, 2004

it's an excellent idea, but you'd have to have a really wide range of responses for each area--otherwise it'll be one-sided.
posted by amberglow at 2:16 PM on January 13, 2004

ePodunk isn't quite what you describe, but it's a start.
posted by Vidiot at 9:03 PM on January 13, 2004