America’s most beautiful neighbourhoods

When you think of the good life in the American south — mint juleps on the veranda, gingerbread iron detailing, heavy subtropical shade trees — you are thinking of the Garden District around St Charles Avenue, where streetcars still trundle by. A slight elevation has protected these mansions from hurricane devastation for nearly 200 years. (Courtesy Karim Rezk)

Brooklyn Heights, New York City

The storied Brooklyn Bridge, an American beauty itself, sets its eastern granite foot in this neighbourhood, which is made beautiful by brownstones and regal pre-war condos on leafy streets. Generations of literati have flocked to Brooklyn Heights, and more than 600 houses date to before the Civil War. Visitors’ most memorable snapshots of the Manhattan skyline are taken from the bridge’s sunset-soaked waterfront esplanade. (Courtesy Christopher Vernon-Parry/Alamy)

Pacific Heights, San Francisco

For many visitors, San Francisco is synonymous with the Hollywood-ready “Painted Ladies” — by definition a Victorian wood home gussied up with at least three paint colours — and this hilltop neighbourhood has the city’s highest concentration. A walking tour of the privileged district also guarantees gorgeous panoramas of the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the bay. (Courtesy Hemis/Alamy)

The Paseo, Oklahoma City

Once a thriving artists’ colony of 1920s Spanish Revival bungalows, the Paseo, just two miles north of downtown, was plagued by gang warfare and prostitution by mid-century. Artists moved in unfazed, taking advantage of low property values, and brought things back to a state of homey bohemianism — with plenty of eye candy. A testament to its progress, Forbes is to name it one of “America’s most transformed neighbourhoods.” (Courtesy Robert V Archer)

South of Broad in Charleston

Visitors stroll block after block of corniced brick multilevel buildings, graced by canopies of Spanish moss, palm trees and flowering gardens. These 300-year-old merchants’ homes retain a West Indies influence, notable in the south-facing porches designed to catch sea breezes. The secession of the Confederacy was hatched in this neighbourhood’s parlours, and the Civil War’s first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, within sight of the bedroom windows. (Courtesy Nik Wheeler/Alamy)

Source: BBC