It has to be somewhere in the south. Macon is the kind of place no one goes to cause it must be awful.
The red lake indian reservation in MN would be an awful place as well.
Basically the worst places are the locations most impacted by America's two original sins: Slavery and Native People Genocide
OLD SMTC SOB wrote:
Eh.. wrote:Two yrs ago I was in Cleveland for corporate training for two weeks. They gave us an enormous per diem to blow so I went downtown with a group of other people in their mid-20s. We literally spent 2-3 hours a night walking around different parts of the city trying to find something to do. The only thing was Cavs games or a crappy Casino. Really depressing. Also had a terrible time finding places to run where I actually felt safe.
You think its bad now, I lived there way back when Dennis Kucinich was mayor. Worst mayor in history, took the city into bankruptcy. The place was a $hithole in those days, although I did like to go to a bar called the Mad hatter, in the flats section. Disco was king but always hated it. Cleveland is quite a bit nicer, these days, if you can believe that.
I lived in Cleveland for seven llllloooooonnnnnngggg years. Mike White era. In all fairness, Kucinich refused to sell off the city's light company and stood up to Cleveland Trust Company's attempts to accelerate the City's debts. In the long run, Kucinich saved the city @$200 mil by standing up to the banks.
The main reason Cleveland is awful is the weather. It is cold from early October straight through the end of April. There are about six glorious weeks of summer and two weeks of deadly heat and humidity. The city actually has some pluses for people sentenced, err I mean, people who live there. The metro parks are amazing. Rivers in beautiful valleys (the majority do not catch on fire) with deer running all over the place, tons of trails for cycling and running and lots of ball fields and cheap muni golf courses. But you only get about six weeks out of the year when it isn't snowing, raining or just too cold to use the parks. The arts scene is impressive. The Cleveland Orchestra is top five in the US and some argue top five in the world. The art museum is massive and has free admission. The city let a fine ballet company die while they were scrambling to get the Browns to come back to town. There is actually a pretty good micro brew scene lead by Great Lakes Brewery (please send a case of Dortmunder Gold if you are a local).
Otherwise, Cleveland is depressing. The East side still shows the scars of the 1960s Hough riots. The people all have this dark humorlessness that seems to come from the Eastern European heritage. The city tries and tries to get some gentrification moving in areas likeTremont and Ohio City, but these efforts were walloped during the housing crises and it is still pretty rough. There is just an inescapable lower middle class malaise that engulfs the city.
Surely whoever said Columbus was jesting. While it may not be the greatest city in the US, it surely isn't the worst. I know I've traveled through a lot of places that seemed much more miserable! Columbus Metro Parks are great for a start. Good running and cycling scene too. Suburbs mostly affordable.
Phoenix
Its a city but not a community.
Just a place with lots of people from different places.
Go to any pro sports game..
All the fans wearing the opposing teams gear, screaming and yelling against the local teams...THEN
You see them at the store the next day.
The snow birds just come here to steal the sun...
It's not one city, its thousands of cities..
But, its NOT a community.
xcskier66 wrote:
http://www.roadsnacks.net/worst-places-to-live-in-america/It has to be somewhere in the south. Macon is the kind of place no one goes to cause it must be awful.
The red lake indian reservation in MN would be an awful place as well.
Basically the worst places are the locations most impacted by America's two original sins: Slavery and Native People Genocide
I believe the OP specifically mentioned *cities*, but this is the worst place I've ever been, bar none:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Ridge_Indian_Reservationoh please wrote:
Surely whoever said Columbus was jesting. While it may not be the greatest city in the US, it surely isn't the worst. I know I've traveled through a lot of places that seemed much more miserable! Columbus Metro Parks are great for a start. Good running and cycling scene too. Suburbs mostly affordable.
Seriously.
I've visited every corner of the continental US. I've lived in quite a few different states scattered throughout the country.
Of cities larger than 250000, I'd rather live in Columbus, OH than any city found on or near either coast with the possible exception of Seattle.
On the other hand, part of the reason I think I love places like Columbus so much is that the type of people who are listing it don't live there.
Agree with Phoenix. Horrific quality of schools, no money put into education, or for that matter, important social programs. As said, not a real city, but full of transplants who think tans are cool. A suburban hellhole full of pretentious people and some of the worst cultural attractions of any major US city.
NOT TRUE, about recreation/outdoor activities close to Newark and Paterson NJ. Some of the most beautiful running areas in the US in my experience growing up there, just not in the center of these cities. A 20-30 minute drive gets you to some great outdoor places, nestled next to multimillion dollar communities with every amenity known to man.
feldman wrote:
OP guy wrote:Greater than 40,000
Well from personal experience (visiting) Mobile, AL.
Late 40's, been a few places. Visited Mobile last year. Can't imagine why someone would nominate it as the worst. Seems weird. Hate to accuse someone of being unworldly, but.....the thought crosses my mind in this case.
Can't believe no one's mentioned Dayton...
Way to to get the entire story wrong. The change in water supply is due to the Emergency Manager who was an appointee of GOP/Tea Party Gov. Snyder. The EM, because of legislation from Gov. Snyder, can overrule elected city officials and council to make whatever decisions they want to 'cut spending' in an 'economic crisis'. The EM overruled the elected city officials and refused to stop using the Flint River, even though it is unsafe. But hey, it was 'cheaper'.
Camden, NJ is terrible, but I can't imagine why people would "visit" there. They had some great track teams every now and then, though.
Glad to hear no one mention the 'Cuse yet...
I love that idiots put San Francisco, Portland and Colorado Springs on the list of worst city to live in.
Ummm....ok.
Well Camden has that aquarium, which people visit. Plus visitors to Philly stay in cheap motels there
The Thinker 1.0 wrote:
Colorado Springs, CO (To live)
Precious Roy wrote:
Tacoma, WA. This city should be amazing. It is just at the foot of Mt. Ranier. At the bottom of the sound and has a great park with trails for running. But it is sooooo depressing and dirty. The city can never get any momentum because people will just drive to Seattle if they want to have a nice meal or go see a show. Everything in Tacoma is Seattle's sloppy seconds.
It is easy to pick on cities that got a raw deal in the post-industrial revolution era (Camden, Youngstown, Newark, Gary, Flint, Scranton/Wilkes Barre, etc.) but it really isn't their fault that industry built them up and then walked out in a split second.
I don't think the point of the thread is to point out what cities *should* be cooler/nicer than they are (CoSprings, Tacoma). It's really about what cities suck to go to and live in. That's your post-industrial hell holes, who though it's nobodies fault, suck and will take decades to come back around.
Around 40 towns in NJ are tied
Also, to go further, the worst place on earth may be the Molly Pitcher rest stop on the Jersey turn pike, specifically the men's restroom. You are dealing with microbiology in the air and bacteria on everything that could kill a cockroach and knock greenheaded flies out of flight. Disgusting.
East St. Louis, Gary, and Camden seem to be the leading the pack. Having been to all three, I would give the nod to ESL over the others. Gary and Camden seem to have a bit more life in them and each are close to cities (Chicago, Philly) that, while having their own problems, are at least worthy of a visit.
East St. Louis, on the other hand, looks as if it were hit by the zombie apocalypse - huge swaths of empty land, broken up by a few burnt-out buildings. I'm surprised even 25,000 people live there. Plus, real St. Louis is almost as bad. Its population dropped from 800,000 to 300,000 over the past 60 years or so, even though its city limits stayed the same. Truly amazing.
I figured there would be more people listing Detroit.
I've spent some time in Reading, PA. Not up to the Big 3, but pretty rough. Deceptive because it looks so pretty from a distance.
Colorado Springs? Boston? Columbus? Worcester? Omaha? Is this trolling or have the people listing them not traveled anywhere?
Someone mentioned Chesapeake, VA. I grew up in Chesapeake. It's a boring suburb, really more like a county than a city, with its own little "towns" scattered about, not much to do, relatively low crime, nothing special but hardly the worst place in America. Boring is not the same as worst.
Rawlins, WY
Burns, OR
Happy Camp, CA
Lame Deer, MT
Twin Falls, ID
Spartenburg S.C.
Chicago to live. Hands down. End of thread