[beachstartup]

i've lived my whole life in california so monterey, ca. is what popped into my head. wikipedia confirms it's about 28k population. the peninsula area has more though.

after poking around on google maps, most historical towns are quite large now (roanoke, va and plymouth, ma are at least double that size).

bangor, maine is right around 30k. i bet most have at least heard of that town.

most of the famous little towns in the south like savannah, tuscaloosa, galveston are 50-120k+ population. key west is 25k though. with tourists in town i'm guessing it's right near 30k. there's also some really small towns by it that are probably not counted in the city population.

i think you'd be hard pressed to find a more famous 30k population town than key west. i'm willing to bet nearly every adult in the US has heard of the place, and has a pretty good idea in their head what it looks/feels like in terms of population.

[alexbecker]

I've never heard of Bangor, Maine before (despite growing up in the US). But Key West seems like a plausible alternative.