Also a common name for the city
Madison, Wisconsin. This is for two reasons:
- Madison has an excess of trees and the most psychopathically green grass you've ever seen. It's a shock for natural residents (such as myself) to leave the area. Everything looks quite dull and brown, in comparison.
- The liberal culture of this college town lends itself to a bit of idealism (I don't think that's such a bad thing, myself). It seems a sort of fairy tale land to the rest of Wisconsin. Thus the phrase Twenty square miles surrounded by reality.