Tennessee Aquarium, Lookout Mountain, the Walnut Street Bridge and America's most celebrated small-city revival
Chattanooga straddles the Tennessee River at the foot of the Appalachians — a compact, walkable city of 200,000 that repeatedly tops 'most liveable' and 'best small city' rankings in the United States. The Tennessee Aquarium (the world's first major freshwater aquarium, now a dual-building complex covering river and ocean ecosystems) anchors the riverfront, while Lookout Mountain's trio of Ruby Falls, Rock City, and the Civil War battlefield overlook the city 10 km south. The Walnut Street Bridge — 521 metres of Victorian iron built in 1891, now a pedestrian spine — is the visual icon of the…
Chattanooga's narrow valley geography — hemmed between Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge — made it one of the most strategically important Civil War battlefields; the Union capture in November 1863 ('the Battle Above the Clouds') opened the corridor for Sherman's March to the Sea. The city's mid-20th-century designation as having the worst air quality of any urban area in America (the federal citation came in 1969) became the shock that drove a landmark environmental and civic turnaround, making Chattanooga one of the most-cited urban revitalisation case studies in the country.