Possible Clues:

• Small rural community
• Joke, for example, Hackney, London's an obscure place
• The owner soon redesigned a dull place to live
• Place with unique way to get around dump?
• Minor place, like Stevenage?
• Uninteresting place, such as Swanage or Weston-super-Mare?
• Whistle stop
• Poor place the owner soon abandoned
• Burg that lacks a stoplight, say
• Hardly a metropolitan center