Flowers for Worcester, MA

They call Worcester the Heart of the Commonwealth because it lands almost exactly in the middle of Massachusetts, and the second-largest city in all of New England has the sprawl to prove it: seven hills, forty-odd square miles, and neighborhoods that each behave like their own small town. The Canal District and Shrewsbury Street draw the restaurant and event orders; Main South and the Clark blocks are dense student territory; the north hills hold WPI, Burncoat, and Greendale; Elm Park, Tatnuck, and the West Side stretch out into single-family streets and the Assumption and Worcester State campuses. Two big hospital systems, UMass Memorial and Saint Vincent, keep get-well and new-baby work steady year-round, while the five colleges spike the campus routes every graduation and move-in weekend. Delivering well here is a matter of respecting the grades and the distances rather than treating it as one flat downtown.

Other Massachusetts cities.