My pick is Des Moines, currently living here. Like, there’s almost nothing worthwhile to see and there are pathetically few skyscrapers. I live in an area where I can get a good picture view of all of the buildings within sight.
And all I can feel is “…there should be more”. The buildings themselves aren’t even that interesting. Des Moines tries to make itself feel big and comparative to other cities, but it just cannot do that.
My other pick is Montpelier in VT, where I have also lived. Everything feels too damn clustered. the neighborhoods are on steep ass hills with awkward traffic markings. There’s almost zero reason to really do anything there and it can easily be missed. Like, you can drive from Barre and through Montpelier before you know you’re on the highway out of Montpelier.
Augusta, Maine. They have one actual city in the state. It isn’t Augusta, it’s Portland. However, Portland wasn’t central enough, so Augusta got the crown. Being centrally located is its only noteworthy feature.
Albany, NY. Surrounded by places like Troy, Saratoga, the Catskills, the ADKs. But it’s just… Albany.
There’s honestly a lot of lame state capitals in the US, Europeans might be surprised. In Europe the national capital of each country is typically the biggest and most cosmopolitan city. This is not the case when it comes to state capitals in the US. Several of the most boring ones (Montpelier, Augusta, Pierre) have already been mentioned, so I’ll just add a few others.
Indubitably Boring
- Frankfort, Kentucky
- Jefferson City, Missouri
- Helena, Montana
- Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Slightly Less Boring (honorable mentions)
- Carson City, Nevada
- Jackson, Mississippi
- Topeka, Kansas
- Olympia, Washington
- Lansing, Michigan
- Salem, Oregon
- Trenton, New Jersey
- Montgomery, Alabama
- Springfield, Illinois
- Tallahassee, Florida
- Concord, New Hampshire
Many US states got their capital chosen because when the territory became a state it happened to be the closest to the centre of population of the state. Jefferson City, MO is a good example of this. The three major population centres at the time were St. Louis, Kansas City and (to a much lesser extent) Joplin. So Jefferson City was right by the centre of population.
Meanwhile, most European capitals (including at the provincial level - think German states or French regions) came to their state by being the capitals and cultural centres of feudal states, which gives them more depth.
I don’t mean any offense to Iowa (this time), but there’s not a huge amount going on there. It exists almost exclusively as an administrative division.
Olympia at least had a good punk/indie/riot-grrrl scene in the 90s, and made its mark on music history that way
Yeah most of the ones in the second list at least had a couple of notable things about them that kept them off the first list. I was hoping people with local experience would chime in if they had reason to dispute my rankings; I’m sure there’s some cool aspects of these cities that I might not be aware of.
Carson City is nearby Lake Tahoe which is pretty awesome. Lansing is actually a decent sized city and has Michigan State University. Topeka is reasonably close to KC, and presumably has some other notable features 😅
Montgomery and Jackson are pretty dire but there’s not really any better cities/options in Alabama or Mississippi, so I gave them an A for effort.
There’s “Keep St Paul boring” bumper stickers so they’re at least trying in this competition.
Pierre, South Dakota. I’m actually from Iowa (I live in Los Angeles now) and my family went on vacation to South Dakota one time. I remember driving to the capital and realizing it was smaller than my hometown in Iowa!
I get that feeling you’re talking about with Des Moines. I used to go on tons of long road trips around the Midwest around age 18, looking for something new. Coming back to visit, Des Moines always feels comically small — I find myself wondering how businesses stay in business with such few customers.
Montpelier is an amazing city! Yes, it’s tiny, but it’s beautiful and easy to walk through (outside of the winter).
Burlington should’ve been the capital.
Possibly? But VT is tiny, its like a twenty minute drive to get down to Montpelier. As a former Burlington resident I never minded that the state legislature infrastructure was a little way down the highway.
Oklahoma City. It’s just a worse version of Dallas.
Hey I used to live in Des Moines! I agree with you. Iowans treat Des Moines like a city. “I have to go into the city today”. No you don’t. You have to go into town. Des Moines is a big town, it’s not a city.
They refuse to believe they’re a city, any time they’re faced with acknowledging they might be becoming a city they do something regressive to it to try to prevent it. Built out not up. Kill all mass transit ideas. Anything diverse happening? Let’s keep that in check. They are a city of 300k that want to run it like a small town. Then the politics, just yuck the people who run it.
There were some fun places, the east side had some good bars, the keg stand in WDM was my stomping ground for a while, but so many people are just happy to have their strip malls and chain restaurants. Oh my god we got a Texas Roadhouse, I remember it made the news when Des Moines got one. God forbid anyone try an actual good local place.
Depending what you want to dive into I can definitely tell you more good and bad
Inevitably Anchorage will be a snore.
