Chattanooga, Tennessee: America's Favorite Town

Chuck Thompson of Outside Magazine says that Chattanooga is in the middle of a "civic and outdoor renaissance." The Cumberland Plateau and the Sequatchie Valley are two of the attractions cited by the magazine.

Aside from the sporty activities and natural landscape, Chattanooga is affordable and has an "unflashy yet relatively stable and diverse ­local economy."

Chattanoogans interviewed for the article have a number of negative things to say as well, but Thompson writes, "...the best cities are sometimes the ones that haven't quite arrived. They are places where people talk more about momentum and the future and promises yet to be fulfilled than about skyrocketing home values and what a bitch it is to park downtown."