The appeal of both places is that they have a wealth of outdoor activities really close by (especially rock climbing).
This is subjective, but I think the rock climbing is better in Chattanooga. Also, people are friendlier and more down to earth in Chatty, its that southern hospitality after all. The Boulderites have a reputation for being snobs and yuppies. Also the cost of living is way cheaper in Chattanooga.
Funny, as a cyclist - Chatanooga was a really exciting prospect for a trip. There's beautiful mountains to ride on, great looking roads, etc... but the locals were awful to deal with when we went. I have had less altercations and negative experiences with people in Chicago than there. Boulder on the other hand was always great for that.
Chatanooga proper seems to have done it's best to be welcoming, but it's the mountains nearby that are the draw, and the folks up there, well.. let's just say I rode by some places with signs that made it very clear non-whites weren't welcome.
I'm not a cyclist but I've heard similar complaints from cyclists about the area. The downtown is getting more bike-friendly with dedicated lanes here and there, but - as you said - the mountains are the real appeal there.
> let's just say I rode by some places with signs that made it very clear non-whites weren't welcome.
I'm extremely curious to know where you saw that. I live in Chattanooga, and I've never seen such a thing.
I am sorry you had such a bad experience with the cycling and can sympathize. I stopped riding on public streets here a couple years back. Not worth my life.
I'm specifically referencing confederate flags and signs that said "Trespassers will be shot, niggers will be shot twice", when riding up in the mountains, on rural but modern paved roads. I could probably dig up specific garmin files from the rides but it was more than one place.
When you live in the South and see yourself as a good person and surround yourself primarily with liberal types, I think it can be easy to miss how pervasive the behavior you associate with "the hicks and rednecks" really is.
Especially if you are a little bit redneck yourself. When you're white and haven't lived anywhere different it's hard to imagine how it would feel to live in the South under other circumstances.
It hurts a little if you love your friends and family and hometown. But the South is a racist place; so is the US, but there's a particular character to and acceptance of it in the South that I think one might accurately describe as "worse."
> What's the difference between a yuppie, a hipster and a millenial?
A "yuppie" is an term of 1980s vintage for "young urban professional", formed directly from the phrase.
A "hipster" is a term of more recent invention, for basically the same thing (a young urban professional).
Both carry some implications of both in-group trendiness and conspicuous consumption though, with the changing character of the times, the "yuppie" has stronger associations with conspicuous consumption and "hipster" with trendiness with less general conspicuous consumption (and perhaps an outward, though often skin deep, rejection of consumerism.)
A millennial is a member of a particular generational cohort, basically the group now between the mid-teens and mid-30s. Modern hipsters/yuppies are probably also millenials, but plenty of millenials are neither.
Age too: yuppies are generally older ("yuppie" was a popular term in the 80s), hipsters are probably in their early 30s, and millennials are in their 20s-early 30s.
They are stereotypes denoting different generational cultures (wikipedia calls it "demographic cohort"). If I made your list chronologically I would put "Generation X" between yuppie and hipster.
Every generation gets a name, huge swaths of commerce depend on it.
It meant "bourgeois bohemian", and referred to the sort of yuppies who shop at Whole Foods and style themselves as hippies. I knew a bunch of people who thought it applied to themselves or their friends in the early 2000s. But I haven't heard it much in five or ten years now.