Worst cities ever?

I'd have to say Orlando Florida is probably the worst city. Especially in the summer, its hot and humid and there's no where to run. The city of Orange County in Orlando Fl is the worst place to run.

You guys apparently have never been to Honolulu. Talk about bad cities! Gentle trade winds blowing over the Koolau's ALL DAY LONG. My god, don't they ever stop? And in the rain forest up behind Honolulu the Jackass Ginger grows in monstrous groves. Their flower gives off a strong scent that floats on the trades down into Honolulu poluting the air with their fragrant aroma. And HOW would you guys like to have to run on a sandy beach with the ocean waves slapping your feet every few strides. It is so irritating to be running along on dry sand one minute and then up to your knees in water the next.

And the air! You can't even see it! How do I know if there is anything bad in the air if I can't even see it. At least in Chicago or New York I can see what I am breathing.

Worst of all are the choices of places you can run over here. There are a lot of people running along the Kalanianiole Highway out to Hawaii Kai and back, or on the paths of Tantalus, or around Kapiolani Park, or Ala Moana Park, or around Tantalus loop. Get my jist? So many choices! How can you run if you have to make so many choices. And if I DO make a choice I HAVE TO LIKE GREEN cos I am going to see a lot of it. Everything is green. The trees are green, the grass is green, the bushes are green, the valley is green, the mountains are green. My god, don't they have any color here but green?

One final gripe and then I will quit. The food choices here are certainly limited. Papayas Mangos Pineapples Guava what happened to good old Chicago Yuck-Pizza? It is as if the whole island is trying to force healthy lifestyle down your throat.

I hope you guys can feel my pain.

Northwest Run wrote:

Eugene

Boulder

... Whoops wrong thread. Those are in the "our sh-t doesn't stink" cities thread.

Our shit really doesn't stink. We're vegetarians.

I still fail to understand the animosity towards Boulder. And I know a great deal of the running community, which is only a small part of the community as a whole.

Rome was a big letdown. Very dirty and full of tramps with diseases

i wish i could feel it. I've always been kind of a masochist.

I am 42 years old, lived in Fort Worth my entire life, traveled all over the US, been all over Europe, Asia, Canada, Mexico.....I have never heard of Robstown Texas.

Worst 2 experiences in my life:

I got lost in East St Louis at 3am coming home from the casino boat in Alton, I honestly thought I was going to die.

Driving to The Forum in LA thru Compton to see a Stars/Kings game. I was in a Volvo, it was shortly after the Rodney King riots and the Reginald Denney beating...I had recently seen the movie Boys In The Hood.

I think Memphis has to be near the top. It's near the top of the rankings for obesity, is near the top for murder and crime and near the top for illiteracy. It may be in the top three in all of those categories. Fat, violent and dumb. How do you beat that?

You have one of most corrupt governments in the nation (I can't remember how many local politicians have been busted by the FBI in the past three years, but it's high).

Add heat and humidity in the summer (we've had heat indices around 110 degree for two weeks) and the Memphis Grizzlies, The University of Memphis, and well, you basically have a shit hole. Perhaps the worst shit hole in the nation.

hi carumba wrote:

1. Any town on the US/Mexican border (crime, heat, no English spoken for 100 miles)

2. Norton/Wise, VA (360 days of clouds from mine dust, approx. 3 college educated residents)

3. Fresno (crime, heat, crime, traffic, crime)

If you are referring to Norton/Wise as a city, that is really pushing the definition. I think you are slightly underestimating the amount of college educated residents, as it is the home of that fine institution known as The University of Virginia's College at Wise. It is a bit of a pit, though.

Houston

Houston

a little late....but bums poop on the sidewalk in every city...i think i have seen this in Richmond, Toronto, New orleans, New York, and Dc.

I loved Honolulu

Living in the Past wrote:

The following Texas towns, unless you're into church, dove hunting, buffet restaurants, arid landscape, and high school football, in which case you will find all of these towns to be paradise:

Wichita Falls,

Midland,

Odessa,

Abilene,

Amarillo,

Lubbock.

Right on the money! You could throw in Altus, Lawton, Oklahoma City, and Edmond, OK; Wichita, KS; Cheyenne, WY; and Lincoln, NE.

Bump.

Kansas City, KS

Dropout rate is about 50%

Crime ridden

Corrupt politics

dirty, blighted downtown

as recently as 3 years ago this city of 150,000 had no movie theater

yahweh wrote:

Sodom, Gomorah

I have spoken, and smitten.

I think He's right on the money here (He always is). When you lived in Baltimore, if a couple male angels walked into your apartment, would your house be surrounded by a bunch of guys who wanted to rape those angels? If you then offered your daughters as an alternative, would those hordes of men get angry and bust the door down? I'd take the traffic and sprawl of Atlanta, the crime and poverty of Detroit, etc. over Sodom and Gomorrah.

And while we're on the topic of "worst city ever," we haven't even scratched the surface of where or when this city would be. Right now it's probably a refugee-filled hellhole in the 3rd world. In Haiti they've invented a new word to describe the starvation they feel: "clorox," because the pangs of hunger Haitians feel is what they imagine it would feel like if they drank bleach. But some letsrunners would rather live there than in Houston?

And, besides mythical and modern cities, what about historical cities? Urban areas were almost universally cesspools of filth, disease, and crime until about the 18th century. But you'd rather live in some European city suffering from the black plague than in Gary, Indiana? It would be so much better to see half your relatives die than deal with the smog and filth of that industrial city.

Or how about Rome after the collapse of the Empire? Having your home and community ransacked by barbarians who don't even cook their meat would suck, but I guess not as badly as the Lincoln, NE nightlife. It would just be so much better to be starving while mining the greatest architectural achievements the world had ever known for your lean-to in an inescapable feeling of anxiety and worldwide regression than to have to have to live where there are no bars for young people.

asdfvv wrote:

My vote goes to Chicago. Disgusting weather, disgusting people, and to top it off the pizza isn't all that great.

Discuss.

You said it best, Chicago...or better known as SHIT-cago.

End of discussion.

Boston hands down.

Terrible place to run, the people are mostly superficial, transportation is awful and everything is expensive.