What is the least American city in the US?
Thursday, 13 Mar 2025
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El Paso: Juarez right across the Rio Grande is larger. El paso families drive over the bridge for nice dinners.
Madawaska, ME is one of them. It is one of the few cities in the US that got most of its language and culture from France, rather than the UK/Ireland/Spain/Germany.
In many ways, Miami is more similar to Caribbean or Latin American cities than it is similar to other American cities.
Nice try, ICE.
Santa Fe
i’m gonna give you a hot take and say many coal towns in pennsylvania feel very soviet. for example centralia, cambria county, and the northern/eastern parts of the state.
many orthodox and byzantine churches, people of eastern european heritage, remote locations, surrounded by forest, planned (company) towns, exploited working poor, stagnant culture, rusted remains of former industry
Taos? One of the oldest western cities, founded by Spaniards and Native Americans?
Santa Fe NM
My family used to take road trips to Solvang, CA
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San Juan
San Juan, Puerto Rico
“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland”
— Tennessee Williams
Honolulu
Laredo.
St. Augustine, FL
Leavenworth, WA and Vail, CO look like some kind of Swiss or German mountain towns.
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I think by both culture and aesthetic, looking only at “major” cities, the obvious answers are Honolulu and Santa Fe, and San Juan if you count that. NOLA is close though but is too quintessentially American to really count, and the more you explore the Deep South the more you see its influence everywhere
Albuquerque. I don’t miss the glorification and apathy toward crime, but I do miss the incredible food.
Among smaller cities I’d vote for Burlington VT. It is incredibly homogenous like you don’t see in most American cities, yet with only 50k people it has every restaurant or ethnic grocery store type you can think of.
It’s not near any other cities of size except for Montreal Quebec which is 90 minutes away. Burlington has breathtaking sunsets you can see all over the city. Billboards are illegal statewide so that’s a difference too!
Dededo
The one in Michigan that bans cars – it’s on an island. Banning cars is the most unAmerican thing I can think of (but I am not complaining about it, its just abnormal for here)
Santa Fe NM felt very non-US. The city architecture was adobe and just really beautiful
This begs the question, what’s the most American city?
I’m with Columbus, Ohio or Kansas City, MO/KS
El Paso Texas!
95% Hispanic.
The rest are there because of the military base.
Honolulu for sure. Felt like i was back in japan.
Not aesthetically but culturally, Kiryas Joel, NY.
It’s an Orthodox Jewish enclave where you have no business living if you aren’t Orthodox Jewish. Street signs are in Yiddish. I think the average family size is seven or eight.
Def New Orleans
Recently? Washington DC.
Honolulu doesn’t feel like any American city I’ve been too. I’ve never been to Japan, but it felt like Japan with some America decorations
Helen, GA
Honolulu, New Orleans, or Miami
Miami
Point Roberts WA. Just south of Vancouver, tiny town not connected to the US.
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Leavenworth Washington has an argument. The entire thing was literally built on purpose to look like a German mountain town.
Maybe Honolulu, considering the islander vibe.
Probably Miami.
The old Southern ports don’t feel like any other places in America: New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah