Wiki where you live.

[Belisarius]

This is what I got -

arsaxlokk is a traditional fishing village located in the south-eastern part of Malta, with a population of 3,205 people (Nov 2005).[citation needed] The village’s name comes from marsa, which means "harbor" or "bay" in Arabic, and xlokk[1], which is the local name for the dry sirocco wind that blows from the Sahara; it is pronounced mar-sa-shlok.

Marsaxlokk is the foremost fishing village and, perhaps, the most picturesque seaside locality in Malta. Fishing nets are often spread on the quay to dry in the sun and, quite often, sturdy fishermen can be seen mending these nets. These activities, together with the modest houses by the quayside, lend the place charm and serenity.

Most of Malta's fish supplies are caught by fishermen coming from this port. Swordfish, tuna, and the popular 'lampuki' are caught in abundance between spring and late autumn. On weekdays, the catch is taken to the fish-market in Valletta, but on Sundays fish is retailed by fishermen in the open on the quay.

Fish restaurants have opened to meet the ever-increasing demand. The tourist influx to Marsaxlokk has also attracted many hawkers and souvenir vendors.

Overlooking the northern arm of Marsaxlokk Bay is the hill of Tas-Silġ. This archaeological site contains remains of megalithic temples of the Tarxien phase, with later alterations resembling the Ħaġar Qim model. Bronze Age material was also found scattered around the area.

The site's most important period, however, is considered to be from the end of the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD, with most of the extant structures belonging to the latter part of this span. Again the hill was used as a religious site, this time as a temple dedicated to Astarte/Hera. A number of dedications to both goddesses, or to the one goddess, under both the Phoenician and Greek names, have been found.

The Tas-Silġ site was used again for religious purposes sometime in the 4th century AD, when it was adapted to a new religion, Christianity, and possibly used as a monastery.

The contemporary population of Marsaxlokk is around 4,000. In the past, a great percentage of the population worked as full-time fishermen. The number of working fishermen has decreased, in part because people from other localities have moved to the village.


Marsaxlokk is about 35 minutes from Valletta by public bus. The bay is memorable for the many decorative "eyed" boats, called luzzus. The painted eyes on these luzzus are believed to protect the boats from the evil eye.

It is in this "bay of the sirocco" (Xlokk) that the first Phoenicians landed and set up trading posts on Malta, during the ninth century BC. During the Great Siege, Marsaxlokk harbor was also used as an anchorage by the Turkish fleet.

In recent decades, the village has been the site for wet bulk operations. Malta's new main power station is here. Discharge of petroleum products takes place mainly at the Enemalta discharge installation point at Birżebbuġa. Apart from this, Oil Tanking (Malta) Ltd. operates an independent oil terminal at Marsaxlokk, which has discharge and loading points along the breakwater pier and offers storage, blending, and bunkering facilities.

New shipping trends and the introduction of large, specialised container vessels meant that, for Malta to take advantage of its position at the crossroads of numerous shipping routes, a new facility for container shipping had to be built. The Malta Freeport Terminal, at Marsaxlokk, has developed into a major container terminal in the Mediterranean, equipped with the latest in technology and serving many of the giant operators in the container carrier sector.

I live on Tas silg.

[Mathius]

This is what I got -

I live on Tas silg.

Malta is my favorite place in the world, you lucky sod. You are going to get some very, very dull responses to this thread. My feeble effort:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladywood

For inner city read "rat/hooker/public sector worker infested"

[JP226]

my home town

Tampa is a United States city in Hillsborough County, on the west coast of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County.GR6. The population within the city limits in 2006, according to the City Government was 334,550.[1] it is the third-largest city in Florida, behind Jacksonville and Miami.

Tampa is a part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, most commonly referred to as the "Tampa Bay Area". The four-county area is composed of roughly 2.7 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the third largest in the Southeastern United States. The continuous Tampa Bay urban area reached a rare milestone earlier than expected in April of 2007 by passing the 4 million population mark[2]. The area also gains an unexpected 97,000 people a year since the turn of the century[3], pushing the current population to numbers that were not expected for another decade. It is the largest media market in the state of Florida and twelfth largest DMA Market in the United States

and my college town:

Tallahassee (pronounced [ˌtæləˡhæsiː]) is the capital of the State of Florida and the county seat of Leon County. Tallahassee became the capitol of Florida in 1824. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 156,512,[1] while the Tallahassee metropolitan area is estimated at 255,500.

Tallahassee is the home of Florida State University, a major research university with strengths in both arts and sciences. Other local higher-education institutions include Florida A & M University, a historically-black university, and Tallahassee Community College and Pat Thomas Law Enforcement Academy; Barry University, Embry Riddle and Flagler also have branches in Tallahassee. It is also a regional center for trade and agriculture and is served by Tallahassee Regional Airport. With one of the fastest growing manufacturing and high tech economies in Florida,[2] its major private employers include a General Dynamics Land Systems manufacturing facility (military and combat applications), the headquarters of Talla-Comm (a communications manufacturing firm owned by Tadiran Communications, Ltd., in Israel) and the manufacturing headquarters for Danfoss Turbocor (a manufacturer of oil-free high efficiency compressors).

[Axe-Battler]

you guys aren't really putting up descriptions of where you live on the net are you?

I highly recommend you do not do that.

sorry if you guys are talking about something else and I'm sounding like a reject.

[JP226]

errr, we're putting general city descriptions... Are you worried that I living in an area of 4 million is going to attract unwanted attention?

[Aru]

Vinkovci is a Croatian town in eastern Slavonia, with a population of 32,455 (2001) making it the largest town of the Vukovar-Srijem county. Absolute majority of its citizens are Croats with 88.99% (2001 census).

Vinkovci is located on the bank of the Bosut river, 19 km southwest of Vukovar, 24 km north of Županja and 43 km south of Osijek; elevation 90 m.

And the interesting part is:

The site of Vinkovci (German: Winkowitz, Hungarian: Vinkovce, Latin: Cibalis) was inhabited well before the Roman period The area of the town has been inhabited continually from the Neolithic period. Under the romans the town was known as Colonia Aurelia Cibalae (also Cibalis) and was the birthplace of Roman emperors Valentinian I and Valens. The Roman thermal bath is still preserved as are several other Roman buildings located near the center of today's Vinkovci.

The city and its surroundings were gravely impacted by the Croatian War of Independence. The city was close to the front lines between the Republic of Croatia and the rebel Serbs, but it managed to avoid the fate of Vukovar (in the infamous Battle of Vukovar). The eastern sections of the town were substantially damaged by shelling, and the nearby village of Cerić was almost completely destroyed. The most significant destruction in the center of the city was the city library which burned down to the ground. In December 1995-1996, the Vinkovci rail station served as a rail offloading base for the United States Army's, 1st Armored Division in route to Zupanja to cross the Sava River into Bosnia during Operation Joint Endeavor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinkovci

[RusskiSoldat]

Brighton Beach is a community on Coney Island in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City.

It is bounded by Coney Island at Ocean Parkway to the west, affluent, but non-gated Manhattan Beach at Corbin Place to the east, Gravesend at Neptune Avenue to the north (at the Belt Parkway), and the Atlantic Ocean to the south (at the Riegelmann Boardwalk/beachfront)[1].

Brighton Beach was developed by William A. Engeman as a beach resort in 1868 , and was named in 1878 by Henry C. Murphy and a group of businessmen in a 1878 contest[1] ; the winning name evoked the resort of Brighton, England. The centerpiece of the resort was the large Hotel Brighton (or Brighton Beach Hotel), placed on the beach at what is now the foot of Coney Island Avenue and accessed by the Brooklyn, Flatbush, and Coney Island Railway, later known as the BMT Brighton Line, which opened on July 2, 1878.

Brighton Beach was re-developed as a fairly dense residential community with the final rebuilding of the Brighton Beach railway into a modern rapid transit line of the New York City Subway system c. 1920. The area has a large community of Jewish (and non-Jewish) immigrants who left what was the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s. However, living in the Soviet Union has made them, in many ways, culturally distinct from the Jewish immigrants that moved to the neighborhood decades earlier from Tsarist Russia. The recent influx of Soviet culture has resulted in recent émigrés being more culturally similar to Russians and Ukrainians than to the earlier Jewish immigrants. Some of the newer Jewish emigres are married to Russian or Ukrainian Christians, and non-Jewish surnames abound.[citation needed] Brighton Beach was dubbed "Little Odessa" by the local populace long ago, due to many of its residents having come from Odessa.[citation needed] It is or was reportedly the home of the Russian Mafia in the United States.[citation needed] In 2006, Alec Brook-Krasny was elected to the New York State Assembly, the first elected Soviet-born Jewish politician from Brighton Beach.

Brighton Beach is also home to many other ethnic groups, such as immigrants from Pakistan. On Brighton 7th Street and Neptune Avenue, there is a mosque where Muslims (mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh) pray. There is another mosque located between Brighton 8th Street and Banner Avenue. Brighton Beach is also home to people of Mexican and other Latino descent. There are numerous Polish and Georgian residents, but relatively few Italian-Americans or African-Americans remaining. There are also some Korean markets, but for the most part their owners do not reside in the neighborhood. Notable past residents include talk-show host Larry King and current General Bancorp President Adnan Mohammad.

Brighton Beach is replete with restaurants, food stores, cafes, boutiques, banks, etc. The neighborhood, with an estimated population of 350,000 (mostly from Russia and Ukraine), has a distinctively ethnic feel – akin to Manhattan's Chinatown. The proximity of Brighton Beach to the city's beaches (the street runs parallel to the Coney Island beach area and the Boardwalk) and the fact that the street is located right under the Brighton Beach Avenue subway station, makes it a popular summer weekend destination for thousands of New York City residents.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 The Beach
* 2 Education
* 3 The Fifties
* 4 In Popular Culture
* 5 References
* 6 See also
* 7 External links

[edit] The Beach

The beach at Brighton Beach provides a much cleaner and quieter alternative to nearby Coney Island.[citation needed]

[edit] Education

Brighton Beach, like all of New York City, is served by the New York City Department of Education. Affluent Manhattan Beach, New York is zoned to PS 225 The Eileen E. Zaglin School for grades K-8, as well as PS 100 located on Brighton Beach and West 3rd for grades K-5 and P.S. 253 The Magnet School of Multicultural Humanities.

Nearby high schools include:

* Rachel Carson's School of Coastal Studies
* John Dewey High School
* The Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences
* William E. Grady Vocational High School
* Abraham Lincoln High School

[edit] The Fifties

The early 1950s and onward into the 1960s were years sandwiched between the end of second world war and what was about to become the generation that would grow into Viet Nam veterans and their families. The 1950s brought with it a neighborhood comprised mostly of second generation children, born of concentration camp survivors who had lost their husbands, wives and first born. Everywhere were the signs of the refugees who had fled, with numbers on their forearms, making their home in a small and welcoming town near Coney Island. The generation brought forth a well educated and industrious group of baby boomers, born into freedom and only by their parents memories, would recognize oppression and extreme antisemitism in their own time. These were the years filled with the odd and quirky stores that so embellished the little neighborhood seaside resort. There was the "Forty Thieves" store, so dubbed because their owners were not quite honest nor reliable. Mrs Stahl's, a knish establishment acclaimed as having the best kasha and cherry cheese knishes, as well as Diamond's, a small clothing store owned by Neil Diamond's parents. In addition, was "Irving's Deli" and "New Deal" Chinese cuisine, which were both neighborhood establishments. The summer would bring with it a host of travelling subway riders, determined to find their best bites and delectables that Brighton Beach could provide on their way to the ocean billowing out towards Coney Island.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Brighton Beach

[edit] In Popular Culture

* The Neil Simon play, Brighton Beach Memoirs, which won two Tony awards in 1983, is set against the backdrop of Brighton Beach in 1937.
* In Darren Aronofsky's 2001 movie, Requiem for a Dream, the character Sara Goldfarb (played by Ellen Burstyn) lives in an apartment on Brighton 6th Street.
* In the movie Lord of War, the main character Yuri Orlov lives in Brighton Beach.
* In the songs "Hey Pete" and "Xero Tolerance" by Type O Negative, Brighton Beach is mentioned as the place where Pete is going to kill his cheating girlfriend. The D-train is his means of transportation in these songs.
* The French electronic music group Telepopmusik has a song on their album Angel Milk entitled Brighton Beach.

[edit] References

1. ^ a b Kenneth T. Jackson: The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. P.139-140.

[edit] See also

* There's Good Weather in Deribasovskaya, It's Raining Again in Brighton Beach, a 1992 film

[edit] External links

* Map of Brighton Beach (Google Maps)
* Brighton Beach Neighborhood Association
* Photo gallery

[hide]
v • d • e
Neighborhoods in the New York City Borough of Brooklyn

Barren Island · Bath Beach · Bay Ridge · Bedford · Bedford-Stuyvesant · Bensonhurst · Bergen Beach · Boerum Hill · Borough Park · Brighton Beach · Brooklyn Heights · Brownsville · Bushwick · Cadman Plaza · Canarsie · Carroll Gardens · City Line · Clinton Hill · Cobble Hill · Coney Island · Crown Heights · Cypress Hills · Ditmas Park · Downtown · DUMBO · Dyker Heights · East Flatbush · East New York · East Williamsburg · Fiske Terrace · Flatbush · Flatlands · Fort Greene · Fort Hamilton · Fulton Ferry · Georgetown · Gerritsen Beach · Gowanus · Gravesend · Greenpoint · Homecrest · Kensington · Little Poland · Manhattan Beach · Marine Park · Midwood · Mill Basin · Navy Yard · New Lots · New Utrecht · Ocean Hill · Ocean Parkway · Park Slope · Pigtown · Prospect Heights · Prospect-Lefferts Gardens · Prospect Park South · Red Hook · Seagate · Sheepshead Bay · South Brooklyn · Starrett City · Stuyvesant Heights · Sunset Park · Vinegar Hill · Williamsburg · Windsor Terrace

Community Boards: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 14 · 15 · 16 · 17 · 18

Dmitrovsky Okrug doesn't get its own wiki page, but all of Moscow does.
Too long to quote though.

[the Black Prince]

Milton Keynes [ˌmɪltənˈkiːnz] is a large town in northern Buckinghamshire, in South East England, about 45 miles (75 km) north-west of London, and roughly halfway between London and Birmingham. Milton Keynes was formally designated as a new town on 23 January 1967. Its 34 square miles (88 km²) area incorporated the existing towns of Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony Stratford along with another fifteen villages and farmland in between. It took its name from the existing village of Milton Keynes, a few miles east of the planned city centre. Uniquely for the UK, the urban form uses a 1 km grid for the top level of street hierarchy: the local form of most districts is more conventional.

At the 2001 census the population of the Milton Keynes urban area, also including the town of Newport Pagnell, was 184,506, and that of the wider borough of Milton Keynes, which has been a unitary authority independent of Buckinghamshire since 1997, was 207,063 (compared to a population of around 53,000 for the same area in 1961)

A new city

In the 1960s, the Government decided that a further generation of new towns in the South East was needed to relieve housing congestion in London.

Since the 1950s, overspill housing for several London boroughs had been constructed in Bletchley. Further studies in the 1960s identified north Buckinghamshire as a possible site for a large new town, a new city, encompassing the existing towns of Bletchley, Stony Stratford and Wolverton. The New Town (informally, "New City") was to be the biggest yet, with a target population of 250,000. The designated area was 25,200 acres (102 km²). The name "Milton Keynes" was taken from the existing village of Milton Keynes on the site.

The site was deliberately located equidistant from London, Birmingham, Leicester, Oxford and Cambridge with the intention that it would be self-sustaining and eventually become a major regional centre in its own right. Planning control was taken from elected local authorities and delegated to the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC).

The Corporation's strongly modernist designs featured regularly in the magazines Architectural Design and the Architects' Journal. MKDC was determined to learn from the mistakes made in the earlier New Towns and revisit the Garden City ideals. They set in place the characteristic grid roads that run between districts and the intensive planting, lakes and parkland that are so appreciated today. Central Milton Keynes was not intended to be a traditional town centre but a business and shopping district that supplemented the Local Centres in most of the Grid Squares. This non-hierarchical devolved city plan was a departure from the English New Towns tradition and envisaged a wide range of industry and diversity of housing styles and tenures across the city. The largest and almost the last of the British New Towns, Milton Keynes has stood the test of time far better than most, and has proved flexible and adaptable. The radical grid plan was inspired by the work of Californian urban theorist Melvin M Webber (1921-2006), described by the founding architect of Milton Keynes, Derek Walker, as the city's "father". Webber thought that telecommunications meant that the old idea of a city as a concentric cluster was out of date and that cities which enabled people to travel around them readily would be the thing of the future achieving "community without propinquity" for residents. With both car ownership and ever more emphasis on e-commerce, his ideas, launched in the 1960s, have proved far-sighted, rarely more so than in Milton Keynes

Moving to maturity

The Government wound up MKDC in 1992, transferring control to the Commission for New Towns (CNT) and then finally to English Partnerships, with the planning function returning to local authority control (since 1974 and the Local Government Act 1972, the Milton Keynes Borough Council, which was subsequently made a unitary authority in the 1990s). Most recently, the Government has assigned significant planning control to English Partnerships, charging it with increasing the population beyond to 300,000 by 2030.

The borough applied for formal city status in the 2000 and 2002 competitions, but was not successful.

The area that was to become Milton Keynes encompassed a landscape that has a rich historic legacy. The area to be developed was largely farmland and undeveloped villages, but with evidence of permanent settlement dating back to the Bronze Age. Before construction began, every area was subject to detailed archaeological investigation: doing so has provided a unique insight into the history of a large sample of the landscape of south-central England. There is evidence of Iron Age, Romano-British, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Medieval and Industrial revolution settlements. Collections of oral history covering the 20th century completes a picture that is described in detail at the main article.

When the boundary of Milton Keynes was defined, some 40,000 peoplelived in three towns and seven villages in the "designated area" of 21,833 acre (88.4 km²).

Since the radical plan form and large scale of the New City attracted international attention, early phases of the city include work by celebrated architects, including (Sir) Richard MacCormac, (Lord) Norman Foster, Henning Larsen, Ralph Erskine, John Winter, and Martin Richardson. The Corporation itself attracted talented young architects led by the young and charismatic Derek Walker. Though strongly committed to sleek "Miesian" minimalism inspired by the German/ American architect Mies van der Rohe they also developed a strand of contextualism in advance of the wider adoption of commercial Post-Modernism as an architectural style in the 1980s. In the Miesian tradition were the Pineham Sewage Works, which Derek Walker regarded as his finest achievement, and the Shopping Building designed by Stuart Mosscrop and Christopher Woodward, which is widely regarded[attribution needed] as the finest twentieth century retail building in Britain (due for major redevelopment in 2007, following the failure of attempts to have it protected as a Listed building). The contextual tradition that ran alongside it is best exemplified by the Coproration's infill scheme at Cofferidge Close, Stony Stratford, designed by Wayland Tunley, which carefully inserts into a historic stretch of High Street a modern retail facility, offices and car park. The Development Corporation also led an ambitious Public art programme.

Grid squares

Milton Keynes Development Corporation planned the city's layout according to street hierarchy principles, using a grid pattern of approximately 1 km interval, rather than on the more conventional radial pattern found in older settlements. Major roads within the city run between communities, rather than through them: the major roads are known locally as grid roads and the spaces between them are known as grid squares.[attribution needed] Intervals of 1 km were chosen so that people would always be within walking distance of a bus stop. Consequently each grid square is a semi-autonomous community, making a unique collective of 100 clearly identifiable neighbourhoods within the overall urban environment. The grid squares have a variety of development styles, ranging from conventional urban development and industrial parks to original rural and modern urban and pseudo-rural developments. Most grid squares have Local Centres, intended as local retail hubs and most with community facilities as well. Originally intended under the Master Plan to sit alongside the Grid Roads, the Local Centres were mostly in fact built embedded in the communities and some are becoming unviable as a result of this and pressure from the new hypermarkets.

Roads and cycleways

Roundabout junctions were built at intersections since the grid roads were intended to carry large volumes of traffic: this type of junction is efficient at dealing with these volumes. The major roads are dual carriageway, the others are single carriageway. Along one side of each single-carriageway grid road, there is a (grassed) reservation to permit dualling or additional transport infrastructure at a later date. The edges of each grid square are landscaped and densely planted, some additionally have berms. The purpose of the berms is to reduce traffic noise for adjacent residents but traffic noise can be significant at many locations, even some distance from the grid lanes. Traffic movements are fast, with little congestion since there are many alternative routes to a particular destination.[citation needed] The national speed limit applies on dualled sections of the grid roads (70 mph) and most single carriageway grid roads (60 mph), although some single carriageway speed limits have now been reduced to 40 mph. Consequently the risk to unwary pedestrians and turning traffic is significant, although pedestrians rarely need to cross grid roads at grade, as underpasses exist in several places along each stretch of all of the grid roads. Some pedestrians avoid some of the underpasses through fear or inconvenience, though this is not typical.[citation needed] Monitoring station data shows that pollution is lower than in other settlements of a similar size. This can be partially attributed to the large number of trees, particularly to the fact that trees line grid roads in most places.

There is a separate cycleway network (the "redways") that runs through the grid-squares and sometimes runs alongside the grid-road network. These were designed to segregate slow moving cycle and pedestrian traffic from fast moving motor traffic. In practice, they are mainly used for leisure cycling rather than commuting, mainly because they need to duck under the grid-roads regularly at the underpasses and because they take meandering scenic routes rather than straight lines. Despite what appears to be a desirable facility, rates of cycle commuting in Milton Keynes are well below the national average for urban areas. The detailed article includes a critical appraisal.

Height

The original design guidance for the city declared that "no building [be] taller than the tallest tree". However, the Milton Keynes Partnership, in its expansion plans for Milton Keynes, believes that Central Milton Keynes (and elsewhere) needs "landmark buildings" and has recently lifted the height restriction for the area. As a result, 14-storey buildings are now being built in the town centre. Some of the pedestrian underpasses are being closed in order to 'normalise' the townscape of Central Milton Keynes and the character of the area is set to change under government pressure to increase densities of development.

Linear parks

The flood plains of the Great Ouse and of its tributaries (the Ouzel and some brooks) have been protected as linear parks that run right through the city. The Grand Union Canal is another green route (and demonstrates the level topology of the city - there is just one minor lock in its entire 10 mile route through from Fenny Stratford to the "Iron Trunk" Aqueduct over the Ouse at Wolverton. The Milton Keynes redway system of cycleways and footpaths uses these and other routes. The Park system was designed by landscape architect Peter Youngman, who also developed landscape precepts for the whole city; groups of grid squares were to be planted with different selections of trees and shrubs in order to give them distinct identities. However, the landscaping of parks and of the grid roads was evolved under the leadership of Neil Higson, who from 1977 took over as Chief Landscape Architect and made the original grand but not entirely practical landscape plan more subtle. A policy of creating "settings, strings, beads" for landscape features was introduced: 'settings' for historic villages and landscape features, 'strings' of landscape to make the linear parks hang together and 'beads' of public space where residents might linger. Higson also made the landscaping of the Grid Roads, one of the glories of Milton Keynes, more subtle, with 'windows' cut into the roadside planting so that motorists travelling through had a sense of the major city they were in; early critics had said of Milton Keynes 'there is no there there', as the city could not be seen by the motorist just passing through. The skill and lavish scale of the Grid Road planting makes, now that the trees and shrubs have matured, a dramatic and welcome change from the monotony of many British towns.

"City in the forest"

The original Development Corporation design concept aimed for a "forest city" and its foresters planted millions of trees from its own nursery in Newlands in the following years. As of 2006, the urban area has 20 million trees. Following the winding up of the Development Corporation the lavish landscapes of the Grid Roads and of the major parks were transferred to The Parks Trust, a charity which is independent from the municipal authority and which was intended to resist pressures to build on the parks over time. The Parks Trust is endowed with a portfolio of commercial properties, the income of which pay for the upkeep of the green spaces, a city-wide maintenance model which has attracted international attention.

Culture

The open air National Bowl is a 65,000 capacity venue for large scale concerts. It is situated off the A5 near Furzton.

The 1,400 seat Milton Keynes Theatre (Blonski-Heard) opened in 1999. Its high booking rate allows it to lay claim to the title "Britain's most popular theatre". The theatre has an unusual feature: the ceiling can be lowered closing off the third tier (gallery) to create a more intimate space for smaller scale productions. There are further performance spaces in Bletchley, Leadenhall, Shenley Church End, Stantonbury and Walton Hall.

The municipal (art) gallery (Milton Keynes Gallery, next to the main theatre) hosts various exhibitions.

In Wavendon, on the southeast edge of the city, The Stables provides a venue for jazz, blues, folk, rock, classical, pop and world music. It is closely associated with jazz artists Cleo Laine and John Dankworth. The venue also hosts an annual summer camp for young musicians.

Another music venue is The Pitz Club in the Woughton Centre, Leadenhall. It usually features a mixture of punk, alternative rock, and heavy metal.

There are two museums, the Bletchley Park museum of wartime cryptography, and the Milton Keynes Museum, which includes the Stacey Hill Collection of rural life that existed before the foundation of the new city.

The city also has a literature scene, with groups like Speakeasy meeting regularly and hosting performance events, and the city's only poetry magazine, Monkey Kettle coming out three times a year.

Education

The Open University's headquarters are based in the city, though as this is a distance learning institution, the only students resident on campus are approximately 200 postgraduates. Cranfield University, another postgraduate school, is located just outside the city, in Cranfield, Bedfordshire. Milton Keynes College provides further education to Foundation Degree level.

Milton Keynes Council has identified the lack of a conventional local university as a problem.

Like most of the rest of the UK (though not of Buckinghamshire), the state secondary schools in Milton Keynes use the "Comprehensive System". Results are above the national average, though below that of the rest of Buckinghamshire — but the demography of Milton Keynes is also far closer to the national average than is the latter.

Original towns and villages

The historical settlements have been focal points for the modern development of the new city. Every grid square has historical antecedents, if only in the field names. The more obvious ones are listed below and most have more detailed articles.

Bletchley was first recorded in the 12th century as Blechelai. Its station was a major Victorian junction (the London and North Western Railway with the Oxford-Cambridge Varsity Line), leading to the substantial urban growth in the town in that period. It expanded to absorb the villages of Water Eaton and Fenny Stratford.

Bletchley Park was home to the Government Code and Cypher School during the Second World War. The famous Enigma code was cracked here, and the building housed what was arguably the world's first programmable computer, Colossus. The house is now a museum of war memorabilia, cryptography and computing.

The Benedictine Priory at Bradwell was of major economic importance in this area of north Buckinghamshire before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The routes of the medieval trackways converge on the site from some distance (many of which are now Redways or bridleways). Nowadays, there is only a small medieval chapel and a manor house occupying the site.

New Bradwell, to the north of the medieval Bradwell (Abbey) and just across the canal and the railway to the east of Wolverton, was built specifically for railway workers. It has a working windmill. The level bed of the old tramway from Newport Pagnell to Wolverton ends here and has been converted to a redway, making it a favourite route for cycling.

Great Linford appears in the Domesday Book as Linforde, and features a church to Saint Andrew dating from 1215. Today, the outer buildings of the seventeenth-century manor house form an Arts Centre, and Linford Manor is a prestigious recording studio.

Milton Keynes Village is the original village to which the New City owes its name. The original village is still evident, with a pleasant thatched pub, village hall, church and traditional housing. The area around the village has reverted to its original name of Middleton, as shown on old maps of the 1700s. The oldest surviving domestic building in the area, a fourteenth century manor house, is here.

There has been a market in Stony Stratford since 1194 (by charter of King Richard I). The Rose and Crown Inn at Stratford is reputedly the last place the Princes in the Tower were seen alive.

The manor house of Walton village, Walton Hall, is the headquarters of the Open University and the tiny parish church (deconsecrated) is in its grounds.

The tiny Parish Church (1680) at Willen contains the only unaltered building by the architect and physicist Robert Hooke. Nearby, there is a Buddhist Temple and a Peace Pagoda. The district borders the River Ouzel: there is a large balancing lake here, to capture flash floods before they cause problems down stream on the River Great Ouse. The north basin is a wild-life sanctuary and a favourite of migrating aquatic birds. The south basin is for leisure use, favoured by wind surfers and dinghy sailors. The circuit of the lakes is a favoured "fun run".

The original Wolverton was a medieval settlement just north and west of today's town. The Ridge and Furrow pattern of agriculture can still be seen in the nearby fields and the Saxon (rebuilt in 1819) Church of the Holy Trinity still sits next to the Norman Motte and Bailey site. Modern Wolverton was a 19th century New Town built to house the workers at the Wolverton railway works (which built engines and carriages for the London and North Western Railway).

Notable people

* Milton Keynes is the birthplace of Errol Barnett who is an anchor and reporter for Channel One News in the United States. He lived in Crownhill and attended Holmwood First School and Two Mile Ash Middle School before moving to the U.S..
* The ska punk band Capdown come from and formed in Milton Keynes in 1999
* Clare Nasir, the meteorologist, TV and radio personality, was born in Milton Keynes in 1970.
* Mark Randall, professional footballer for Arsenal.
* James Hildreth, the cricketer who plays for Somerset and has played for England.
* Gordon Moakes, the bassist for the London-based rock band Bloc Party.

[shadepanther]

Ballymena

Ballymena (from the Irish: An Baile Meánach meaning "middle townland") is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland and the seat of Ballymena Borough Council. Ballymena had a population of 28,717 people in the 2001 Census.

The town is built on land given to the Adair family by King Charles I in 1626, on the basis that the town hold two annual fairs and a free Saturday market in perpetuity. The Saturday market still runs and the town hosts Ireland’s largest two day agricultural show at the Ballymena Showgrounds. There are still many historic buildings in the town. The Town Hall was built in 1924 on the site of the old Market House. The Adair Arms Hotel is one of the town’s most notable buildings.

[LSJ]

Smaller city where I am currently

En la rose, je fleuris

"Like a rose, I fluorish"
Its true, plus it was Canada's rose growing capital. I just love this place for the access to the escarpment, moraine, and of course, Toronto.

Affluence

Richmond Hill is a disproportionately upper-middle class to upper-class town, with average family income in Richmond Hill is $100,900, among the highest in Canada. This fact has earned the town the nickname "Rich Man's Hill." Richmond Hill is one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country.

There was a significant influx of wealthy Chinese from Hong Kong in the early and mid-1990s. These Chinese immigrants were worried about the pending handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China and Canada was a preferred location, in part because investment visas were significantly easier to obtain than visas to the United States. Many of these wealthy immigrants chose to settle in Richmond Hill and now people of Chinese ancestry make up of about one-fifth of Richmond Hill's population.

*Many of the wealthy inhabitants live here but work in Toronto or the surrounding region as business men, lawyers, scientists, or doctors.

Racial groups
* 59.6% Caucasian (Including Persians, and a lot of them too, but no Xerxes)
* 21.8% Chinese
* 6.2% Other East, South Asians
* 3.3% West Asian
* 9.1% Other

Religious groups
* 30.2% Roman Catholic
* 19.1% Protestant
* 10.0% other Christian
* 7.8% Muslim
* 7.4% Jewish
* 27.5% none, other

And guess what: its on a hill. That is where the name comes from. And either because of Charles Lennox (Duke of Richmond) or a popular song among settlers (The Lass of Richmond Hill).

[Last Roman]

hometown:

Orono is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 7,538 at the 2000 census.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 64.8 km² (25.0 mi²). 41.6 km² (16.1 mi²) of it is land and 23.2 km² (8.9 mi²) of it (35.75%) is water.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census2 of 2000, there were 7,538 people, 2,766 households, and 2,196 families residing in the city. The population density was 181.0/km² (468.9/mi²). There were 2,909 housing units at an average density of 69.8/km² (181.0/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 97.73% White, 0.27% African American, 0.15% Native American, 0.94% Asian, 0.24% from other races, and 0.68% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.86% of the population.

There were 2,766 households out of which 38.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 71.8% were married couples living together, 5.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.6% were non-families. 15.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.72 and the average family size was 3.06.

In the city the population was spread out with 27.4% under the age of 18, 4.5% from 18 to 24, 26.7% from 25 to 44, 32.5% from 45 to 64, and 9.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females there were 103.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 102.0 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $88,314, and the median income for a family was $101,114. Males had a median income of $61,913 versus $34,964 for females. The per capita income for the city was $65,825. About 0.5% of families and 1.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 1.0% of those under age 18 and 1.6% of those age 65 or over.

college town:

Mankato was founded in February 5-6 1852. Mankato's founders were Parsons King Johnson and Henry Jackson. The city recently celebrated its sesquicentennial. Mankato is the Anglicized form of the Dakota mahkato or "green-blue earth," a reference to the characteristic blue clay deposits in the region, thought to contain copper by early explorers. The city was reputedly intended to have been named Mahkato, but a typographical error by a clerk established the name as Mankato.[1] Interestingly, mankato in the Dakota language means blue skunk.[citation needed]

On December 26, 1862, the largest mass execution in U.S. history occurred in Mankato following the Dakota War of 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota Amerindians were hanged for participation in the uprising; a total of 303 were sentenced to be hanged but President Lincoln pardoned 265 at the urging of Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple. Lincoln's intervention was not popular at the time. Two commemorative statues are located on the site of the hangings (now home to the Blue Earth County Library and Reconciliation Park).

Former Vice President Schuyler Colfax died while traveling in Mankato on January 13, 1885.

[edit] Fictional references

In Laura Ingalls Wilder's book On The Banks of Plum Creek, which is part of the Little House on the Prairie series, Mankato was the "big city" that characters would visit to obtain supplies. Mankato also served as the basis for the "Deep Valley" of Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy-Tacy series of children's books and novels. In Sinclair Lewis' 1920 novel "Main Street", heroine Carol Milford is a former Mankato resident. Lewis describes Mankato as follows: "In its garden-sheltered streets and aisles of elms is white and green New England reborn."

[edit] Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 39.9 km² (15.4 mi²). 39.4 km² (15.2 mi²) of it is land and 0.5 km² (0.2 mi²) of it (1.23%) is water. The Minnesota, Blue Earth and Le Sueur Rivers all flow through or near the city.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 32,427 people (now about 41,000 people), 12,367 households, and 6,059 families residing in the city. The population density was 823.2/km² (2,132.5/mi²). There were 12,759 housing units at an average density of 323.9/km² (839.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 92.55% White, 1.90% African American, 0.34% Native American, 2.81% Asian, 0.10% Pacific Islander, 0.94% from other races, and 1.36% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.22% of the population.

There were 12,367 households out of which 23.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 36.7% were married couples living together, 8.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 51.0% were non-families. 32.2% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.90.

In the city the population was spread out with 16.9% under the age of 18, 32.5% from 18 to 24, 23.9% from 25 to 44, 15.4% from 45 to 64, and 11.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 25 years. For every 100 females there were 96.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $33,956, and the median income for a family was $47,297. Males had a median income of $30,889 versus $22,081 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,652. About 8.5% of families and 19.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.6% of those under age 18 and 11.8% of those age 65 or over.

[edit] Politics

Mankato is located in Minnesota's 1st congressional district, represented by Mankato educator Tim Walz, a Democrat.

[edit] Media

The major daily newspaper in the area is the Mankato Free Press. The only local broadcast television network is KEYC-TV, Channel 12, a CBS affiliate. A FOX station will join KEYC in the Mankato television market in July, 2007.

Local radio stations are:

* KDOG, 96.7 FM
* KEEZ, 99.1 FM
* KMSU, 89.7 FM
* KTOE, 1420 AM
* KXLP, 93.1 FM
* KYSM, 103.5 FM
* KQYK, 95.7 FM
* KFAN, 1230 AM

[edit] Education

The Mankato Area Public Schools are consolidated including the cities of Mankato, North Mankato, Eagle Lake, and Madison Lake. There are nine elementary schools (Franklin, Eagle Lake, Kennedy, Washington, Roosevelt, Jefferson, Monroe, Hoover and Garfield) two middle schools (Dakota Meadows Middle School and Mankato East Junior High) and three high schools (Mankato West High School, Mankato East High School and Mankato Central High School). There is also Loyola Catholic School which is a K-12 Catholic High School with a Good Counsel and Fitzgerald Campus. There are also two charter schools Bridges Elementary and Riverbend Academy High School.

[edit] Academic institutions

* Minnesota State University, Mankato
* Bethany Lutheran College
* Rasmussen College
* South Central College

[edit] Major events

* Minnesota State University, Mankato is home to the Minnesota Vikings summer training camp.
* Minnesota State University, Mankato is home to the Minnesota Timberwolves Fall training camp.
* Annual Ribfest in August.

[edit] Places of interest

* Land of Memories Park along the Blue Earth and Minnesota Rivers, features bike trails, camping, disc golf, and soccer fields.
* The Midwest Wireless Civic Center is an arena in downtown Mankato.
* Minneopa State Park is located west of Mankato.
* The River Hills Mall
* Happy Chef original restaurant and company headquarters. Mankato also is home to the 40 foot Happy Chef statue.

[edit] Notable residents, past and present

* Adrienne Armstrong was a resident in the early 90's while attending Minnesota State University, Mankato, she is married to Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong
* Frederick Russell Burnham, "father of the international scouting movement," born near Mankato on 11 May 1861
* Walter Jackson Bate, Pulitzer Prize winning biographer born in Mankato on 13 May 1918
* Sinclair Lewis, author
* Maud Hart Lovelace, author of the Betsy-Tacy series of books
* Julia Sears, pioneering feminist and suffragette
* Glen Taylor, businessman and owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx basketball teams
* Timothy J. Walz, a Mankato teacher and U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 1st congressional district

[Lusted]

Well who'd have thought it, even my tiny village has a wiki entry:

Glynde is a village and civil parish in the Lewes District of East Sussex, England. It is located two miles (5km) east of Lewes, north of the A27 road, although it was once on the turnpike between Lewes and Eastbourne. The full title of the civil parish is Glynde and Beddingham: both villages are in the same parish.

The Southdown breed of sheep were first bred here. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. Glynde Place is within the village. North of the village is the settlement of Glyndebourne where opera is performed.

Glynde's pub is called the Trevor Arms.

Rail Transport

Glynde railway station is located on the East Coastway Line south of Lewes and north of Berwick.

[Quacky]

Home town, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Wickham

And far more interesting, university city, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge

[LoZz]

Harlington

Population 2,260 (2004)

Transport links

The village is about 1.5 miles from junction 12 of the M1, 7 miles north of Luton, 10 miles south of Bedford and 40 miles NNW of London.

Harlington has a railway station, located in the west of the village. The station was served by Thameslink trains until March 2006, but the company lost the franchise rights and ceased to operate. The organisation First Group took over in April, under the name First Capital Connect. From Harlington station, you can travel north to Flitwick and Bedford, or south to Luton, Luton Airport Parkway, St Albans, London, Gatwick Airport and Brighton.

[edit]
Amenities

Harlington has two pubs, the Carpenters Arms and The Old Sun.[1] There are several churches, including the Church of St Mary the Virgin and Harlington Methodist Church.

[edit]
Schools

The village is home to Harlington Lower and Upper Schools which serve students up to A-level. Many students from the surrounding Luton and Bedfordshire area travel to Harlington for its schools. Harlington Upper School recently became a specialist science college, thanks to funding raised by its Parent-Teacher Association, HUSA.[2]

The village also has Harlington Lower School - a smaller than average school from reception class through to age 9, which received a "Good" rating in its ofsted report of November 2006. As Bedfordshire is a three tier schools system, most children in he middle age bracket spend their middle years at Parkfields in nearby Toddington.

[edit]
Crime

Harlington has low levels of crime, although Harlington Manor Health Farm has had a number of incidents over the last year.

[edit]
History
1086: The Domesday book calls the village Herlingdone[3] and lists Nigel D'Albini as Lord of the Manor; he took over from four Saxon thegns who lost their lands at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066.[4]
1300-1350: The Church of St Mary the Virgin was built, replacing what was probably a wooden church with a thatched roof.[3] The church tower was not added until the fifteenth century.[4]
1349: Over a quarter of the village died of the Black Death.[4]
1660: John Bunyan led an unauthorised religious meeting at a farmhouse near Harlington, for which he was arrested and taken to Harlington House. After being questioned he was imprisoned for twelve years in Bedford county gaol. While serving his sentence he began writing his most famous work, The Pilgrim's Progress.[5]
1859: the first village school was built.[4]
1868: Harlington railway station opened.[4]
1920: Harlington War Memorial dedicated to the memory of 27 Harlington men killed in the First World War.[4]

my home town

Aberystwyth (IPA: [abɛrˈəstwɪθ], South Welsh: [abɛrˈəstɔʏθ]) (in English: Mouth of the Ystwyth) is a historic market town, administrative centre and holiday resort within Ceredigion, Wales. It is often called just "Aber".

In modern times Aberystwyth has become a major Welsh educational centre. The indigenous population is around 12,000, but is swelled by an additional 9,232 (2006) students associated with the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Thus for nine months of the year, Aberystwyth's population is around 21,000 people. The world's first department in international politics was established in Aberystwyth in 1919. It is also the home of the only AMBA accredited MBA programme in Wales.

[edit]
Geography

The town is situated near the confluence of the rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol, about midway down the length of Cardigan Bay. Although the name may seem to suggest otherwise, only the River Rheidol actually passes through the town - the River Ystwyth only just skirts the town, following the reconstruction of the harbour.

Aberystwyth has a pier and a fine seafront which stretches from Constitution Hill at the north end of the Promenade to the mouth of the harbour at the south.

Aberyswyth is an extremely isolated town considering the population denisty of the United Kingdom. The nearest substantial settlements are located at least 1 hour 45 minutes drive away: Swansea, to the south, is 70 miles away; Shrewsbury, in Shropshire, England, to the east, is 75 miles away; and Wrexham, to the north, is approximately 80 miles away. The capital, Cardiff, is over 100 miles away.

[edit]
Brief information

Aberystwyth is a major tourist centre and a cultural link between the north and south of Wales. Constitution Hill is scaled by the Aberystwyth Electric Cliff Railway giving access to fine views and other attractions at the top, while much of the finest scenery in Mid Wales lies within easy reach of the town. This includes the wilderness of the Cambrian Mountains, whose valleys contain forests and meadows which have little changed in centuries. A convenient way of reaching the interior is by the preserved narrow gauge Vale of Rheidol railway.

Although the town is relatively modern, it contains a number of historic buildings, including the remains of the castle and the old buildings of the University College of Wales nearby, which could well be said to be similar aesthetically to that of Hogwarts Castle in the Harry Potter series. The Old College was originally intended to be a hotel, but due to a lack of funds the shell of the building was sold to the university. The new university campus overlooks Aberystwyth from Penglais Hill to the east of the town centre. The terminus for the standard gauge railway is also very impressive being built in 1924 in typical style of the period.

The architecture is a mix of Gothic, Classical Revival and Victorian, and the town is sometimes referred to as "the Oxford of Wales".
Image:Aberystwyth seafront.jpg
The much-photographed seafront

The town is generally regarded as the capital of Mid Wales, and several institutions have regional offices there. Perhaps the most important of the public bodies located in Aberystwyth is the National Library of Wales. The library also incorporates the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales, one of six British regional film archives. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales, which maintains and curates the National Monuments Record of Wales (NMRW), provides the public with information about the built heritage of Wales. Aberystwyth is also the site of the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research.

[DimondLight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binghamton

Pretty boring place I must say, but...

[Romanos]

Who knew my **** town would be on Wikipedia

Alexandria is a town in eastern Ontario, Canada on the Garry River. Alexandria is in the Township of North Glengarry in the County of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. It is located SE of Ottawa, W of Montreal and NW of the highway (Highway 401).


[edit] Geography
Population (2001) 3,369
Location:
Latitude: around 45 (45°) N
Longitude: around 74 (74°) W
Postal codes:K0C 1A0
Elevation: about 50 to 60 m
Dialing code: +1-613
Alexandria has three elementary schools, two high schools (Glengarry District High School and École secondaire Le Relais) and a park located on a lake in the center of the town. There is also a VIA Rail Canada train stop located in the Northeast part of the town, a stopover in the Montreal-Ottawa route.

The community website, Glengarry on the Web has been covering the town, linking the local businesses, community events, and other aspects of the community to the internet.

A new web site endeavor has been launched by BigBear Creations to localize community event information, business information and demographic information about North Glengarry and Alexandria. You can visit Alexandria-Ontario.com to learn more about Glengarry History, Father Alexander MacDonnell's history, local sports information as well as what to look forward to.

The town is also home to a newspaper called The Glengarry News covering general news in the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry county area.

The town has a small private aerodrome just northeast of town where there is a skydiving operation. A fly-in breakfast is held there on the third Sunday in August.

Alexandria was settled in 1794 by forty families who emigrated with Alexander MacLeod and, subsequently, blended with the French culture of the area to the east. The community was originally known as Priest’s Mill in tribute to the grist mill founded by Reverend Alexander Macdonnell and which still stands on the site.

[gunnigolfer]

That's my home town, Kópavogur

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B3pavogur

10% of the population in Iceland live there, still only 30.000

[Gelgoog]

Boise ((pronounced boy-Zee [1]) or (boi-see locally)) is the capital and most populous city of the State of Idaho. Boise was given its name after French-Canadian trappers first explored the area after crossing the arid desert plains. Finding green trees at the site, primarily cottonwoods along the river, they named it boisé (meaning "wooded"). Boise has consequently been given the nickname City of Trees. The original Fort Boise was 40 miles (64 km) west, down the Boise River, near the confluence with the Snake River at the Oregon border. This fort was erected by the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1830s. It was abandoned in the 1850s, but massacres along the Oregon Trail prompted the U.S. Army to re-establish a fort in the area in 1863, during the U.S. Civil War. The new location was selected because it was near the intersection of the Oregon Trail and a major road connecting the Boise Basin (Idaho City) and the Owyhee mining areas, both booming at the time. Idaho City was the largest city in the area, but the new Fort Boise grew rapidly (as a staging area to Idaho City) and Boise was incorporated as a city in 1864. The first capital of Idaho was Lewiston, but Boise replaced it in 1865. As of the 2000 census, Boise's population was 185,787. According to the 2005 Census estimates, the greater Boise area had an estimated population of 193,161.[1] Downtown Boise is at an elevation of 2,704 feet (824 m) above sea level.

Boise is the headquarters for several major companies, such as Washington Group International (successor to Morrison Knudsen), Micron Technology, Albertsons (a major supermarket chain now owned by SuperValu), the J.R. Simplot Company and Hewlett Packard's printer division. Other major industries are headquartered in Boise or have large manufacturing facilities there. High Tech industries are becoming increasingly vital to Boise's economy. State government is one of the city's main employers, as it is the capital city for Idaho and home of Boise State University.

Boise is the county seat of Ada County and the principal city of the Boise metropolitan area, the Treasure Valley.

Boise has grown considerably in recent years and is now comparable in size to other midsize cities at the center of their own metropolitan areas in the United States such as Grand Rapids, Des Moines and Providence.[2]

few other things like it was named the 2nd weather safest place in the usa.

Numbering about 15,000, Boise's Basque community is the largest Basque community in the United States and the third largest in the world outside Argentina and the Basque Country in Spain and France.[6] A large Basque festival known as Jaialdi is held once every five years (next in 2010). Downtown Boise features a vibrant section known as the "Basque Block". Boise's mayor, David H. Bieter, is of Basque descent.

Boise is also a regional hub for jazz and theater. The Gene Harris Jazz Festival is hosted in Boise each spring. The city is also home to a number of museums, including the Boise Art Museum, Idaho Historical Museum, the Basque Museum and Cultural Center, Idaho Black History Museum and the Discovery Center of Idaho. Several theater groups operate in the city, including the Idaho Shakespeare Festival. Boise Little Theatre and the Boise Contemporary Theater among others. On the first Thursday of each month, a gallery stroll is hosted in the city's core business district by the Downtown Boise Association. The city also holds an Egyptian Theatre.

The Morrison-Knudsen Nature Center offers a refreshing stroll with water features and wildlife experiences just east of downtown. It is located adjacent to Municipal Park.[7] It features live fish and wildlife exhibits. There are bridges, viewing areas into the water, bird and butterfly gardens, waterfalls, and a visitor's center (which is free to the public).

In 1896, the Ahavath Beth Israel Temple was completed to serve the Jewish community of Boise. Avavath Beth Israel is the nation's oldest continually-used temple on the western side of the Mississippi.

Boise (along with Valley and Boise Counties) will host the Winter 2009 Special Olympics World Games. More than 2,500 athletes from over 85 countries will participate.[8]

Major attractions


A number of recreational opportunities are available in Boise, including extensive hiking and biking in the foothills to the immediate north of downtown and an extensive urban trail system called the Boise River Greenbelt that runs along the river. The Boise River itself is a common destination for fishing, swimming and rafting.

Bogus Basin Mountain Resort hosts several winter activities, including cross-country and downhill skiing, snowboarding and snow tubing. “Bogus” is just 16 miles (26 km) outside city limits (less than an hour drive from downtown).

Boise State Football

The 2006-07 Boise State Broncos football team went 12-0 in the regular season, earning a bid to the BCS 2007 Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Arizona; only the second time a mid-major conference team had achieved such success. The Broncos capped their undefeated regular season upsetting Big 12 power Oklahoma 43-42 in overtime on New Years Day, 2007. The game was highlighted by an 18-point comeback by Oklahoma in the second half, a combined 22 points scored in the final 1:26, and three trick plays by the Broncos in the final moments of regulation and overtime -- including the improbable yet prevailing "Statue of Liberty" two-point conversion for the victory. The game has been ranked as one of the most memorable bowl games ever.[17]

[Angmar_nite]

Jump to: navigation, search

Upper Manhattan denotes the more northerly region of the New York City Borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary may be defined anywhere between 59th Street and 155th Street. Between these two extremes lies the most common definitions of Upper Manhattan as Manhattan above 96th Street (the southern boundary of Manhattan Valley in the west and Spanish Harlem in the east), 100th Street, that portion of the borough in which the numbered streets are three-digit numbers (e.g. "West 181st Street"), or above Central Park, north of 110th Street. This definition of Upper Manhattan takes in the neighborhoods of Marble Hill, Inwood, Washington Heights, Harlem, and parts of the Upper West Side (Morningside Heights and Manhattan Valley) and Upper East Side (the portion of Spanish Harlem south of 110th Street).

Upper Manhattan could be described as the "non-tourist" section of Manhattan. Until the late 20th century it was less influenced by the gentrification that had taken place in other parts of New York over the previous 30 years. Not only do New York tourist maps not normally acknowledge the outer boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island (and if so, only in the most rudimentary way), but they also regularly neglect Upper Manhattan as well. This is likely due to perceptions that it is less glitzy, less tourist-friendly, less distinctively New York, and more crime-ridden. Even many native New Yorkers tend to treat Upper Manhattan like an outer borough, its distance from Midtown Manhattan and comparatively lower rents leading many to exclude this northern neck from the area New Yorkers call "The City".

The Upper West Side is a relatively affluent neighborhood unlike the other neighborhoods listed above. Its northern end has long been regarded as less notable and often associated with Harlem, though Morningside Heights and Manhattan Valley actually bear little resemblance to Harlem. Manhattan Valley has not quite gentrified, fitting the mold of other Upper Manhattan neighborhoods, but Morningside Heights boasts one of the borough's lowest crime rates, as well as the world-renowned Columbia University.

All of Upper Manhattan is contained in the larger area New Yorkers know as Uptown (above 59th Street.) The Bronx, though not in Manhattan, is often colloquially referred to as "Uptown", especially in the context of hip hop/inner-city culture.

But my real home is:

Marshall Township is a township in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 5,996 at the 2000 census.

[edit] Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 40.4 km² (15.6 mi²), all land. It is part of the North Allegheny School district, along with McCandless Township and the boroughs of Franklin Park and Bradford Woods.

[edit] Demographics

As of the census2 of 2000, there were 5,996 people, 1,944 households, and 1,675 families residing in the township. The population density was 148.4/km² (384.4/mi²). There were 2,018 housing units at an average density of 49.9/km² (129.4/mi²). The racial makeup of the township was 95.90% White, 1.08% African American, 2.22% Asian, 0.07% from other races, and 0.73% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.68% of the population.

There were 1,944 households out of which 51.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 79.4% were married couples living together, 5.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 13.8% were non-families. 11.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.08 and the average family size was 3.37.

In the township the population was spread out with 33.7% under the age of 18, 4.5% from 18 to 24, 28.6% from 25 to 44, 25.6% from 45 to 64, and 7.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 100.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.8 males.

The median income for a household in the township was $102,351, and the median income for a family was $109,376. Males had a median income of $84,871 versus $38,917 for females. The per capita income for the township was $42,856. About 4.7% of families and 5.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.6% of those under age 18 and 6.1% of those age 65 or over.

where I used to live.

[joerd9]

Eichstätt (formerly also Eichstädt or Aichstädt) is a city in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the District of Eichstätt. It is located along the Altmühl River, at 48°53′30″N, 11°11′0″E, and had a population of 13,078 in 2002. It is home to the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, a Catholic university.
St. Willibald founded the Bishopric of Eichstätt on the site of an old Roman station in 741. The city was chartered in 908 and ruled by a prince-bishop until secularization in 1802, and became a part of Bavaria in 1806. Eichstätt was included as part of the Landgraviate of Leuchtenberg, which Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria granted to his son-in-law Eugène de Beauharnais in 1817 and an episcopal see was reestablished in 1821. The town reverted back to Bavaria in 1855. Eichstätt is famous for the quarries of Solnhofen Stone and Jurassic limestone. On the Blumenberg the Berlin specimen of Archaeopteryx was found by Jakob Niemeyer.
Mayor of Eichstätt is Arnulf Neumeyer (SPD).

Please note that I, as an unbaptized individual, am an employee of the mentioned catholic university of Eichstätt. Also, in addition to the 13000 inhabitants there are around 5000 students during the semester. And please note also that Willibald was a comrade of Bonifatius, the apostle of the Germans (for having christianized them).

Finally please note, that a) I could imagine a better place to make a living and b) that the english wiki entry leaves much to be desired.