7. New York
America's biggest city is rebuilding. In the financial district, One World Trade Center nears completion; the inauguration of the High Line park in the city's old meatpacking district marks New York's most successful urban renewal project in decades; and the city's vaunted financial services district at least limps toward a comeback. Even though Mayor Michael Bloomberg has launched a crusade on New Yorkers' waistlines, New York remains itself: the idiosyncratic, dynamic, cranky capital of American commerce.
Above, pedestrians walk down the newly opened second section of High Line Park on June 7, 2011, in New York.
Spencer Platt/GettyImages
