In the August '08 issue:

PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES

The best places to live now: 20 great American towns that have withstood hard times and reinvented themselves as havens of the good life. Why not make a move?

The Columbia portion mentions the downtown restoration/revival, the True/False film festival, The Diaper Factory, The Tiger Hotel renovation, Sycamore restaurant, Shakespeare's Pizza, new city trail system, Capen Park, MKT spur trail/Katy Trail, and the Missouri River.

I spent a few days in Columbia last week while visiting various outstate Missouri locales during vacation. This story was featured in the Columbia Daily Tribune and the Columbia Missourian during my stay there.



The more time I spend in Columbia, the more I realize why it consistently does well in rankings and city-to-city comparisons. We tend to get jaded about these things since St. Louis tends to do either very well or very poorly, and the methodology of these surveys is often suspect. However, I think there's a very high quality of life in Columbia, and it's always nice to see publications that recognize this.



I never find a lack of things to do in Columbia, the downtown area (aka The District) looks great these days with even more significant improvements in store, the parks and recreation system is excellent, and there's a great balance between the urban conveniences Columbia offers and the rural setting that's just minutes away. As much as I love St. Louis, I could very easily see myself living in Columbia someday.

I haven't been back to Columbia since last fall. I had heard that the ugly concrete sidewalk overhangs downtown were going to be removed - has that happened yet?

^ Yes, the ugly concrete overhang canopy things have been removed. It looks a million times better, at least to me.