How is your area/city promoted --for visitors, a place to live, etc.

[Crankin]

The greater Boston area does a good job of promoting itself to tourists, mostly due to the natural historical attractions we have. I was in NY recently and saw ads on TV about coming here. I also think the sports teams pull people in, though I don't think we spend on them to the exclusion of cultural stuff. We have great museums, restaurants, and a wide range of outdoor activities.
I get to see a lot of tourists, living in Concord; they are here all year round, with the exception of maybe January and February. The town appreciates them, even if it took a ten year battle to get a public rest room downtown (I lived in a neighboring town when this battle was being fought, thankfully). There's a push now to get tourists to visit west Concord, which is a little more down to earth and has a sizable arts community, alternative health practitioners, a natural foods grocery/pharmacy, and some restaurants.
What I don't see is any promotion to get people to move here. There's a lot of reasons for this, I think. First, we have a large supply of college students who come to the area every year and I think we bank on a lot of them staying. They don't, though, unless they are from the area. Second, housing costs are high here (I still can't believe how low housing prices are in some of the places TE members live), although there really is a pretty wide range of housing choices. We don't have large numbers of huge housing developments and land is scarce for new building. Then, there's the perception of "Taxachusetts," which really went out the window a long time ago. We don't have a sales tax on food or clothing, which is different from a lot of states. And finally, Boston has had a problem attracting professionals from diverse racial/cultural groups because of stuff that happened here 40 years ago. Recently, a very large convention group of African Americans came here after much work on the part of the city. I think the consensus was they were generally surprised at how much things have changed here. However, some places around here are still very "parochial," not just for different cultures, but for anyone who is not a native! Case in point: I was questioned by a co-worker a few years ago, about how I got a low numbered license plate, which indicates you have lived here a long time. There's a good amount of silly prestige associated with this. I was questioned, since the person knew I had moved here from AZ, not knowing I was a native. When I said the plate had been in my family since 1932 and my grandfather willed it to me (yes, this is true) it earned me instant brownie points. Seriously, this is stupid, but it indicates the attitude of a lot of "townies" around here.

[tulip]

Richmond VA will be gearing up for the 2015 World Road Racing championship. I predict that the city will become very bicycle friendly in the next few years, which will go a long way towards attracting new residents and visitors. It's already a big draw for history buffs, for obvious reasons. It also has great architecture, an active recreational river, and is very accessible to most places on the east coast of the US.

Oh, and several universities and a wonderfully low cost of living.

[westtexas]

No one wants to live in my city. You come here to work - there isn't any tourism. West Texas isn't really very... scenic - although the sunsets/rises and night sky are superb (the climate too). Pretty much if you're not a roughneck, a landowner or an engineer working for an oil company, you're here to support the town the oil folks live in so they can work in the fields. It's not really a bad place to live, especially for a homebody like me. And the roads are flat and we have a great LBS!

[Pax]

If Geonz doesn't chime in here you might want to PM her. She's on our city's committee regarding cycling so she could probably share some info about what they've done.

[Trek420]

Currently located in the East Bay actually but the SF Bay area really does not have to do much to attract:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryF9p-nqsWw

[Bike Writer]

As a state our tourism advertising campaign (Pure Michigan) is a real winner and can be found http://www.michigan.org/ at that link. We are the Great Lakes State and have a lot to offer in recreation tourism that is really all seasons not just summer. Fall color tours and hunting play a big role in that tourism as well as downhill and cross country skiing and snowmobiling in the winter. This campaign promotes the state overall, various communities and regions also do a very good job with promoting and branding, others, not so much.

I believe that if you are familiar with my postings you can tell I am a big promoter of Michigan and love living here for all that we have to offer. Michigan is incredibly diverse in it's natural features and resources. Plenty of big cities with their accompanying urban sprawl and miles and miles of untouched shoreline, lakes, rivers and steams that are pristine. I'm bragging about my state, but we do have it all.

[NbyNW]

No one wants to live in my city. You come here to work - there isn't any tourism. West Texas isn't really very... scenic - although the sunsets/rises and night sky are superb (the climate too). Pretty much if you're not a roughneck, a landowner or an engineer working for an oil company, you're here to support the town the oil folks live in so they can work in the fields. It's not really a bad place to live, especially for a homebody like me. And the roads are flat and we have a great LBS!

Sounds a lot like Edmonton, only warmer.

[Kathi]

This discussion is very interesting. I looked up the tourist websites for Cincinnati, Denver and Lakewood. I looked at them from the viewpoint of a tourist looking for things to do in the area that didn't require a car.

The attractions for tourists in Denver and Lakewood consisted of things to do in their downtown areas. Many were within walking distance. B Bikes are also available in downtown Denver. The websites are easy to navigate and promoted attractions within the cities. Denver's website also promoted attractions outside the city including Denver Parks (Red Rocks and the Buffalo Bill museum). The site promoted other state attractions, ie the Mt's and ski areas. Denver's site also talked of it's history and neighborhoods. Lakewood promoted it's parks and golf courses as well as hiking and biking. Both the Lakewood and Denver website were attractive with promotions of upcoming and past events.

Cincinnati's website was more oriented to locals and business. Most of the home page dealt with community concerns such as taxes and garbage. Compared to the Denver and Lakewood site it took me some time to figure out what I'd do if I didn't have a car. There was no promotion of the City of Cincinnati itself, rather, all the activities of the Tri State region. While there seemed to be lots of things to do I had to sort through the non downtown Cincinnati activities to find what I wanted. In the moving to "Cincinnati section" all suburbs were included even though they weren't part of Cincinnati proper and some were not in the county.

While I didn't spend time on every link major events like Taste of Cincinnati, Oktoberfest and River fest weren't even mentioned. I did find promotions of the Reds, Bengals, the Cincinnati Zoo, the Cincinnati Ballet, Nascar races andthe Aquarium in N.Ky. Cincinnati is so much more than this but to an outsider it's not obvious.

I also learned that Denver was rated as the 4Th highest walking city in the country and that Lakewood received the "All American City" award by the National Civic League.

If I had to chose which 3 cities to visit based on the websites, I definitely would chose Denver over Cincinnati, Lakewood second then Cincinnati.

[SadieKate]

Our Anti-Corona ad --

http://www.visitbend.com/Discover-Be..._TV_Commercial