Best Made-Over U.S. Towns Worth a Visit!!!

It’s time to hit the refresh button on a number of American cities long dismissed as drive-through wastelands, fly-over zones or convenient stops to fill a gas tank. While most of us were looking the other way, these five cities gave themselves a make-over – and the results are stunning, certainly enough to justify a second look.

Albuquerque

Called "Albuquirky" by locals and famed for its October balloon festival, this arty, often neglected Route 66/I-40 stop in New Mexico is one of the USA’s oldest cities – and is finally getting noticed by the Santa Fe–bound. Beyond standby attractions (the Einstein doll’s jolting German accent at the National Atomic Museum, the 2.7-mile tram up Sandia Peak, and the state’s best huevos rancheros at always-open Frontier Restaurant), much is changing too. The film industry has recently turned it into a "Toronto of the west," with tax incentives drawing in production teams of films and TV shows like Breaking Bad (the AMC series set here), No Country for Old Men (last year’s Oscar winner for best film) and Men Who Stare at Goats. Another success story in the last 10 years is the revitalized Hispanic neighborhood of Barelas – established in the late 1600s – which now draws visitors for home cooking at Barelas Coffeehouse or traditional folk healing at Ruppe B Drug.

Baltimore

Its long-standing rep as a gritty ugly-duckling waterfront town is changing – despite the crime scenes depicted in HBO’s popular series The Wire. Justifiably known for its crab cakes, "Charm City" is seeing those infamous crime rates fall, while keeping firm hold of its kooky past. Local filmmaker John Waters – the city’s unofficial odd uncle – made the first Hairspray, while the city’s festival Honfest, a sea of outlandish sequin and '50s-era beehive wigs, has recently expanded to fill a June weekend. In recent years, artists and musicians have revived also-ran districts like Hampden, while the main attractions on and off the Inner Harbor waterfront (including Fort Henry, the birthplace of the Star-Spangled Banner, and cobblestone Fells Point neighborhood) can be seen in a day by water taxi. For hikers and bikers, the in-progress Jones Falls Trail, running north of the Amtrak stop at Penn Station, will eventually connect the city center with Mt Washington.

Oakland

For years, the only good news coming out of San Francisco’s scraggly stepsister was its sports championships (the A’s, Warriors and Raiders mopped up in the '70s), but the last 15 years, Oakland has made itself the "Brooklyn of the West" – an arty, confident alternate that refuses to be an afterthought. In the past decade or so, the city cleaned up and repaved its paths on Lake Merritt and, under mayor Jerry Brown’s lead, built condos to house up to 10,000 new residents to the center. The revitalized downtown – home to the recently reopened the historic, Middle East-inspired Fox Theater and a couple good hotel choices steps from the BART link to San Francisco or Berkeley – is an eating destination, along with neighborhoods like Rockridge. Much of the progress is DIY, community-based, with new farmers markets and homegrown restaurateurs tempting San Franciscans for cross-bay meals. The food buzz here will continue next spring with the opening of the Jack London Market, a new six-story market with fresh produce and eateries steps from the water. Bay Area artists, meanwhile, have been escaping San Francisco rent for years, as seen by the three-year-old Oakland Art Murmur, an art crawl of 19 galleries on the first Friday of the month.

Oklahoma City

Set where the state’s eastern green Ozark leftovers open into the wide-open plains of the west, Oklahoma City is justifying the claim that it’s "oh so pretty" from the Bobby Troup song "Route 66." Long the dusty cow town at the point where old Route 66 crisscrosses with I-40, I-44 and I-35, the city has passed a one-penny sales tax to pretty itself up. The change so far has been stunning. Its long-domeless capitol finally got its top, its central river finally has water (and sculler rallies in stylish new boathouses), and its downtown has transformed from a mass exodus scene at 5 p.m. to an after-hours destination. Here you’ll find the NBA’s Thunder playing at the new Ford Center, rooftop cocktails and independent films at the relocated Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and Bricktown’s San Antonio-styled canal passing a minor league ballpark, barbecue restaurants and Flaming Lips Alley, named for the local rock heroes. Those needing something beyond the usual meat-and-potato go for authentic Vietnamese pho (beef noodle soup) or banh mi (sandwiches, filled with tofu or pork) in the in-progress renovation of "Asian District" – centered on old Route 66 at NW 23rd St and Classen Ave.

Pittsburgh

Those who still imagine Pittsburgh under clouds of smoke spewed from steel factories haven’t been in awhile. The city deemed the country’s most livable by The Economist this year and the host of the G-2 Summit in September, has finally shook off the "urgh" of its name. Now its downtown – rimmed with gold bridges crossing two of its three rivers and filled with a stream of excellent street art projects – is a colorful, pedestrian-friendly place, where in summer locals pull up boats to riverfront paths to plop out grills while the (lowly) Pirates play across the Allegheny River at PNC Park. It’s worth walking that way to visit the Andy Warhol Museum, the giant wind-twirling fish on poles outside the Children’s Museum or (especially) the Mattress Factory Museum, an industrial space filled with modern art in the brick lanes of the historic Mexican War Streets neighborhood. Food is a big deal. Locals cross the Monongahela and ride the Duquesne Incline up Mt. Washington to eat fish dinners with big city views; dine in Oakland, the hip neighborhood around Pittsburgh University; or the Strip district north of downtown, not far from dozens of locally owned design and clothing shops in Lawrenceville.