Flowers for Niles, MI

Niles wears its history openly — the "City of Four Flags," the only Michigan town to have flown French, British, Spanish, and American colors, with Fort St. Joseph's old ground down by the river and a downtown of brick storefronts along Main Street. That downtown is where a lot of orders go: the shops and offices on Main and Second, the historic homes on the bluff, Riverfront Park where the St. Joseph River bends through the middle of town. The city straddles that river and butts right up against the Indiana border, so a Niles route often stretches south along US-12 toward the South Bend suburbs and back north through Niles Township. It is a walkable, compact core with older neighborhoods radiating out — the sort of place where a driver knows the difference between an East Main address and a Third Street one, and where naming a nearby church or the high school gets a delivery to the right block quickly.

Other Michigan cities.