Indianapolis, capital of Indiana, the Hoosier State. Birth place of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in my opinion the best American novelist. Twelfth biggest city in the United States, home to close to 800,000 people (the metro area has something in the range of 2,000,000 residents). A city that has a street named after Michael Schumacher. With its three big races (Indy 500, Formula 1, Brickyard 400) and a 450,000 spectators racing track called the Speedway, Indianapolis dubs as the auto-racing capital of the United States. Place where the Serbian national basketball team in the summer of 2002 defeated the best selection of the US and won the title of the World Champions: an event that has largely been ignored on the North American continent. And so on.

To continue in an a less of a Soviet five-year plan manner, Indianapolis is refreshingly urban and lively. There is a feeling of a large-scale urban renewal process, but thankfully not happening at a blinding pace due to lack of money. The downtown, built mostly in the 1910's, was thoroughly redeveloped following the construction of the Circle City Mall in 1994, with the Canal Walk area being one of the best exercises in urbanism that I have ever seen (sans the gondolas).