obSCENERY: cities that cheat

It's obscene. The scenery that some US cities can offer. It's almost like they're cheaters: they have been handed a natural setting so great, that they couldn't have screwed it up even if they wanted to. Theirs might not necessary have been the best spot for acity, but it clearly was the most beautiful and magnificent one to mix man and nature. So what are these cities that were so blessed by nature to make them poster children for the concept of "city beautiful". How have they mixed topography and water? And what is it in their natural environment that they mixed with the work of man to end up with something so incredibly special???>