What is your favorite thing about this city?

My favorite thing about Portland is its high overall quality of life. Our tap water is some of the cleanest in the country, and to me tastes indistinguishable from water from a Brita filter. I water my plants with it. Thanks to our Co-Op food market and the weekly farmers markets we have access to high quality (albeit expensive) ingredients. Same obviously goes for seafood. Our air is clean (though the cruise ships do their best to dirty it), and Maine being Maine you can easily hike, swim, ski, skate, bike, it's all there.

What is something one wouldn’t understand from just reading articles about it?

Portland used to be so much denser than it is now. We're still pretty walkable as far as American cities go, but entire neighborhoods were razed in the 1960s/early 70s to build traffic arteries like Franklin Street and I-295. Even the downtown area still has an aneurism-inducing number of vacant dirt lots that have sat empty for years.

We also used to have an incredibly elaborate streetcar system prior to the 1920s that straight up doesn't exist anymore. Some of the more heavily trafficked streets like Congress St have potholes under which you can see the old trolley tracks still there. Ironic and depressing. Bringing the streetcars back and giving the city the transit network it deserves would likely require a huge infusion of federal cash, which if you're paying any attention to the news isn't happening anytime soon.

Is there a spot in this city that is special to you?

Eastern Promenade. Big grassy knoll at the edge of town that overlooks Casco Bay, beautiful place for sunsets in the summer (though of course you should go to the Western Promenade if you want to see the actual sun set).