World's Ugliest Town

Pensacola!!! It's true! Can your town boast of more closed strip malls, stupider city councils, more rampant uncontrolled and pointless greed? P'Cola can't wait to turn itself into a parking lot for Wal-Mart. Pensacola, LA -- That's for "Lower Alabama" -- is most god forsaken fetid sticky swamp of a pit in all of this freaking piss poor state!!
Yeah, I'm a misplanted Urban Yankee in the Deep South and summer is already in full swing here. But hey, in Florida, it's not the heat and humidity, it's the hate and stupidity that get me hopping mad!!

What's your choice for the Ugliest town? I swear, I got ya beat!! Arrrrgh!!!

Real question--my brother collects soda cans, and a standing joke is someday we're going to drive down to Pensacola and buy us some Pensa Cola. Has any such animal ever really existed?

Sorry about your current situation. Raleigh-Durham is consistantly rated one of the best places in the country to live, so maybe you should check us out.

About 40 miles east of the Raliegh-Durham area, past the miles of trailer parks, lies a fetid swamp of gas stations, McDonalds', and housing developments called Wilson, NC. It's been my good fortune to call the area home since I was 2 years old, (for about twenty years). The night life isn't exactly what you'd call ideal. Other than hanging out in the BP station, or that Mecca that we call the WAL*MART supercenter, there's not much. Of course, for those late night munchies, there's always Denny's. Probably half of the population is into some kind of drug or another simply because of boredom. Yes, Wilson is the asshole of NC.

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What a difference a little difference would make. -FUGAZI

Hey egospark,

I'm from LA -lower Alabama- and last time I went to the naval air museum in Pensacola I crossed the Florida state line. Check your map again.

But I do agree with you. Except fo the Blue Angels and the Air Museum there isn't much attraction there.

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"Southerners can never resist a losing cause."
Margaret Mitchell

He was making an observation, i.e. that this part of the Florida peninsula is closely tied to Alabama, at least culturally.

This reminds me of a joke: What is another name for North Dakota? Answer: Baja Manitoba.

In Los Angeles, RTA stands for Rapid Transit Authority. I hereby AUTHORIZE all irate Floridians to take the most RAPID TRANSIT available back to whatever swamp they came from.

The closest thing to euthinasia that we practice in the country is shipping all our old people to Florida.

Semi-city indeed! Almost all of central Florida is based on one of those semi-cities: Anaheim, California!

Oh, no mistaking, I'm hoping to be out of here before hurricane season is in full swing again but I'll most likely suffer through another year.
As I mention in a private email, the city planner of P'Cola built the sewage treatment plant near some black projects in the 60s. The blacks left and the sewage treatment plant is all by itself on beach front property an easy breeze from downtown.
Clear thinking is not a strong suit here. Can't wait for that mental giant Jeb Bush to help foul things up even more.

I say to this, as I would say to any "misplanted Urban Yankee in the Deep South" who sits around and bitches about his surroundings 24-7: Leave. Go. Now ... Florida has no use for you. Go back to whatever infernal northern factory town you were laid off in and start anew ... believe me, there will be four more of you tomorrow.

The ugliest town I ever saw was El Paso, Texas.

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this space for rent

But most of those semi-cities that make up "The Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area" are pretty wretched too.

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this space for rent

Egospark, I feel your pain. I hope you can get out of that hell hole before the next hurricane. Would moving to Tallahassee help? Is Pensacola the setting for the tv show Jag?

However, calling an American city the "world's ugliest town" is rather harsh. I'm sure there are worse places in other countries. Instead, let's narrow the topic to "America's worst cities". Here are some candidates: Birmingham, AL. Rockford, IL. Peoria, IL. Joliet, IL. Gary, IN. Toledo, OH. Cleveland, OH. The Bronx, NY. Most cities in New Jersey (especially Newark, Jersey City). Dover, Del is awfully muggy. Most cities in Michigan (except the capitol--Lansing or E. Lansing?). Michigan has more cloudy days than any other state, 7 out of 10 days, so I think the whole state is gloomy. Most cities in the frozen tundra known as Alaska. Most cities in W. Virginia. I still think of people there as all coming from large families of 7 kids or more, who drop out of high school, like the Waltons. Although, I did enjoy that tv show. Also, Littleton, Col., and Waco, Tx., don't sound too nice. I have heard bad things about Fresno and Modesto, Cal. East L.A. East St. Louis, IL. Allentown, PA, according to Billy Joel's song.

America the beautiful!

Oh my God, Modesto is a TOILET!

===== Hello Papabear
{In Los Angeles, RTA stands for Rapid Transit Authority.}

Yes. And not just there, either. But to me it stands for something different ... anyway it is a shame that LA has no rapid transit its denizens will use, or it wouldn't be such an ecological catastrophe zone.

{I hereby AUTHORIZE all irate Floridians to take the most RAPID TRANSIT available back to whatever swamp they came from.)

A short trip for me, to be sure ... If the "back where you came from" movement really catched on, though, Florida would definitely be blissfully less crowded ... It is starting to get warm though, and all the weaklings who can't hang with the higher temperatures have already left. The Canadians were first to go, as always.

{The closest thing to euthinasia that we practice in the country is shipping all our old people to Florida.)

You left out Dr. Kevorkian and Arizona, but sure ... let us affirm together that saying that Florida is full of old people is like saying that California is full of shallow, flaky, dippy, rich white people.

{Semi-city indeed! Almost all of central Florida is based on one of those semi-cities: Anaheim, California!}

The Orlando area is smaller than you might think ... and with Universal Studios and Sea World and Hard Rock etc. etc. it is no longer the company town it was back in the '60s. Yet still, us locals curse the name of Mr. Disney backwards and forwards for what he did to Florida, and those who let him ghet away with it.
And if you want to call Bellflower or Compton or Tarzana et al. fully-realized cities, go for it.

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Ah, Bill, don't mince words here. If we take for granted that the US is the richest, most powerful nation on Earth -- then there's no excuse for cities that look like they were planned on the back of a brown paper bag.
But the problem that faces many cities in this country is that they are first and foremost designed for cars not people. And once you decide that the auto has the right of way in living and space, you end up with mindless sprawling and parking lots.

Oh my RTA...The number of Floridians here who live enclosed is staggering. If the temp hits 80 degrees they turn the AC on to 65. If it dips down to 68 degrees, then the heater is cranked to 90. I've never seen a bigger bunch of weather wussies than Floridains. All that recycled air has destroyed what little common sense they had.

Hmmm...nobody has written in defense of any of those cities I named. I must have the hit nails right on the head! Of course, I wouldn't expect any resident of those cities to read the StraightDope web page anyway.

Egospark, I'm surprised you can even get internet access in that backwards dump of a city you live in. Thank goodness you can communicate with those of us who live in more advanced cities. By the way, what do you do for a job down there? Have you figured out what city to move to? Or are you going to stay and turn Pensacola around?

I would like to add two more Southern cities to the list: Mobile, AL, near you, Egospark. Memphis, TN, which sits on what is probably the biggeset earthquake fault in the USA, and talk about hot and humid!

If you draw a triangle between Memphis, Birmingham, AL, and the Mobile-Pensacola area, you you have sort of a Bermuda triangle of ignorance. In this area, intelligent life seems to vanish without a trace! Another similar triangle exists in Illinois between Rockford, Peoria, and Joliet. Avoid these triangles! lol

Hmmm...nobody has written in defense of any of those cities I named. I must have the hit nails right on the head! Of course, I wouldn't expect any resident of those cities to read the StraightDope web page anyway.

Give me time, give me time. . .

You mentioned the tiny villages in the Alaskan tundra. Have you ever been? They are wonderful! I wouldn't want to live there, but I certainly wouldn't classify them as one of the worst towns in the country. Not only is it beautiful, there is no traffic or polution or crowds.

I would move to the Alaska bush or a small village in heartbeat. Remember Northern Exposure? (I know, it was filmed in Washington State, but they are very similar). God it is beautiful!

I take a vacation to Alaska twice a year and each time I have to be forced onto the plane to come home. One day I won't.

My vote for the worst towns would be Barstow, California, talk about a freaking hellhole near Death Valley. 110 degrees, dirty, ugly, and full of poverty and crime.

A close second would be Wendover, Nevada. Nothing but a few beat up trailor parks on the Bonneville Salt Flats a million miles away from civilization. U-G-L-Y! They do have a few nice casinos that call my name every few months, but it is still as butt-ass-ugly as you can get.


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>^,,^<
KITTEN

He who walk through airport door sideways going to Bangkok. - Confucius

I second Diane's defense of Alaska! Alaska altogether is drop-dead gorgeous. I spent many, many happy weekends there as a child in Haines - not a city, but a lovely, scenic town with beautiful wood houses, the most amazing mountains and glaciers and big trees everywhere. It's got nice people too - an interesting blend of blue-collar and granola crunchers.

I can't speak to any other cities in the US - I've only been to Alaska and Seattle, and I kinda like Seattle except for the lack of public transit and the shockingly huge freeway system. Pike St. Market makes up for it, though. I'm trying to think of a Canadian city that really sucks - the closest I can come is Medicine Hat, Alberta, because it's got lots of malls, no real scenery and everyone there has an unhealthy attachment to country music and line dancing.

First off Mr. Clinton, I live in Michigan and love it here. (And the capitol is Lansing, a town that while nothing special holds a dear place in my heart...but that's another long story.)

As for worst towns.....

Ever see the movie Independence Day?

Remember the scene where a jillion and one mobile homes and RV's and junkers are crusing thru the desert to the last surviving air base at Area 51 or what ever the super secret site in Nevada is?

Ever wonder where they all came from?

Well....I'll tell you. Halfway between Kingman AZ (famous for being Tim McVeigh's last residence before "visiting" Ok. City) and Laughlin, NV (the old persons Vegas) is a place known as the Golden Valley. My first look at it was at night...and all I could see were the lights of hundreds of residences scattered all over the valley...kind of cheery really. The next day on my return trip...I saw literally thousands of mobile homes and RV's and pick-up containing (I was told) folks that were so paranoid-ily (I made that up...call it poetic license) anti-government that they didn't want to have a permant dwelling in case the Feds declare martial law. Just imagine the most run down looking mobile home park you've ever seen...and spread it over a huge desert valley. Add Death Valley temps to complete the pic.

That's MY vote for worst town.

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Kevin

Pain shared is lessened,
Joy shared increased.
-Spider Robinson

Bill Ah, Mobile actually has a few points in favor. There's a large section of Old South charm, even though (like most cities) the downtown is dead.
If not for the navy base, Pensacola wouldn't exist. There's no reason for it. P'Cola has been having a semi-celebration going on about it's 300 years of existence....
300 years and what is there to show for it? A minor league hockey team and a mall. What a sad sorry place.
Which is not to say it's all doom and gloom here. My neighborhood is fairly attractive as long as we can keep the proles from chopping down all the trees. There's a very nice section along 12 ave and...um...the beaches are nice. Everything else is a paved over sink hole waiting to cave back in.

Talking only about the worst shitholes I've actually been in:

1. Almost anywhere in Mexico. Nice country, love the people there, lots of interesting things to see, great food, etc., but if you're not middle-class or a Yankee tourist the place is a dump.

2. Bayonne, New Jersey. No further comments.

3. East St. Louis, Illinois. Most dangerous place I've ever been to.

4. Cartagena, Spain. Damn. it's ugly.

5. Vallecas, Spain. An awful industrial suburb of Madrid. They put all the nasty crap they didn't want in their nice capital ten miles out of town.

6. The whole state of Oklahoma.

7. Sete, France. You want stinking port cities? This is a port city and it stinks, I'm not sure why, but boy, does it ever smell bad.

8. The road from the airport to Barcelona, Spain. I love Barcelona but its industrial suburbs are disgraceful, and you'll never see a bigger collection of factories that should have been torn down forty years ago anywhere else.

9. Camden, New Jersey.

10. Houston, Texas. That has got to be the most unpleasant major metropolitan area in the whole USA. I will personally kiss the ass of anyone who can say one positive thing about Houston without my successful contradiction.

Hmm... This is the BBQ Pit? Heh heh.

I'll say this! All American towns are ugly! Except for San Francisco, NYC and New Orleans.

NYC is not ugly, but it sure is smelly!

:)

Good thread. In california, most of the towns in the central valley are shit holes. One place you wouldnt want to live is: Tracy, Los Banos (we jokingly refer to it as "the Bathrooms" because its close to Los Baños. I Many of the small farming communities in Salinas Valley are ugly...no wait.....fugly. Like Chualar. Salinas itself has some ugly places, like the crime ridden industrial area of East Salinas. Except, the city is spreading at the edges and has some nice new subdivisions. Some of the ugliest communities are also in Nevada.

Horror! let me rephrase a few things!

: A couple of places you wouldnt want to live :are: Tracy (Big state Jail there, i hear the prisoners radio requests on one of the radio shows i listen to), Los Banos (we jokingly refer to :it as "the Bathrooms" because its close to :"Los Baños"). I Many of the small farming :communities in Salinas Valley are ugly...no :wait.....fugly. Like Chualar.

Horror! let me rephrase a few things!

: A couple of places you wouldnt want to live :are: Tracy (Big state Jail there, i hear the prisoners radio requests on one of the radio shows i listen to), Los Banos (we jokingly refer to :it as "the Bathrooms" because its close to :"Los Baños"). Many of the small farming :communities in Salinas Valley are ugly...no :wait.....fugly. Like Chualar.

Bill,

What's wrong with B'ham, AL? The weather's always nice, it's clean, the people are friendly, and there are plenty of things to do. If it's not a big enough city for you Atlanta is just two hours away.

I would advise that you stay away from Legion Field and the fairground at night though.

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"Southerners can never resist a losing cause."
Margaret Mitchell

1) East St. Louis, Illinois--they didn't have trash pickup from 1981 to 1992, led nation in per capita murders for six straight years
2) Gary, Indiana--Indiana is the 14th most polluting state in the nation and 80% of Indiana’s pollution comes from Gary.
3) Detroit, Michigan—Drive down Jefferson from Grosse Pointe to downtown and you will see 50 year old mansions being used as crack/whore houses right next to a strip mall with a neon Blockbuster video sign, gotta love urban planning


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'Shut your pie hole'-Jbird

I've been to Birmingham and it seemed like a dirty factory town. It is hot and humid, and an unofficial capitol for the "Bubba' good ol ' boys of the south". Nearby Montgomery seemed a lot nicer.

New Orleans has one of the highest crime/murder rates in the nation.

"Except for the killings, Washington D.C. has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." ex-Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Odessa, Texas yet.

The area is flat as a pancake and get this...there are NO TREES in sight...NONE.

In the downtown area, most of the buildings are boarded up or for sale and the chief industry seems to be pawn shops.

Plus at night, the oil refineries step up production and the air stinks of chlorine.



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Tim
"My hovercraft is full of eels."

Odessa sounds awful. Maybe worse than Odessa, Ukraine.

I forgot to mention the earthquake threat in Alaska cities and central California valley cities. Imagine an earthquake during an Alaska winter? If you survive that, then you have to avoid getting mauled by a grizzly bear.

Ugliest town? If any of you Dopers (Straight Dopers? Dopists? Dope-o-philes?) have ever visited Death Valley, you've either driven through, or been relatively close to the ugliest town in America.

Trona, California

Those who've been there, know that you can quite literally SMELL this town miles before you actually see it. The big industry for decades was chemical production, and the plant stinks up the entire valley. No grass grows there, that I could see. This may or may not have anything to do with the chemical stench permeating every pore of every living thing in that godforsaken town. The amenities consist of mostly a gas station and a general store/video store, and it apparently used to be a thriving company town, but now it's a run down, dismal, stinky brown town. I've never seen any town that even comes close to being uglier. As a comparison, I've been through the slums of Oakland, New York, and Chicago - way prettier than Trona.

Those of you who haven't been there - be satisfied that you're not missing anything at all.

Joe G.
Tehachapi, CA

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<Envious of groovier taglines>

Ok.

1) Anecdotal report: Victor, California (from my mom, who had occasion to drive through it once.)

2) The bus ride from Orly Airport to Villejuif metro, on the outskirts of Paris. It seems disgraceful that such an armpit could exist near the City of Lights.

3) Westmount, Quebec. Oh, it's attractive, rich, the houses are nice, there are trees. But gawd, such a cultural wasteland... in 1998, during times of horror, crisis and world change, it seemed as though nobody in the whole damned city could talk about anything other than parking aprons, whatever those are. Everybody owns one of those annoying rat-dogs, and the population runs to snotty kids in private-school uniforms, obnoxious angry-anglo yuppies, and patrician blue-haired ladies. I can't wait to get out of here.

Sammy44 Aw, the last time an intellectual visited Alanta, he had it burned to the ground. But the biggest problem with the South is that it's filled with Southerners.

But on another note, I'm not so sure it's fair picking on a small town which only reason to exist is to supply labor to the poison gas mill. The world is littered with places like Largo, Illinois and Flint Michigan. Depressing, angry places best avoided.
I'm talking about places that you can actually find on a map that should, perhaps with nuclear force, be removed from the map.
And then there are those "other time" places, like most of Florida in the top of the summer when all the tourist are from Georgia. Or Red Lodge, Montana, a pretty little ski town except I was there in August with no snow and the only people in town were old tired hookers and bone thin drunks. Kinda spooky. And the strange land of Murdo, South Dakota during the biker summer months and all those Grannies with wrinkled tattoos and their saging breasts in leather halters. Really spooky.

Catania, Italy! It is just plain physically ugly. The most disgusting Greyhound bus station in America has more aminities than the Catania airport. They say the Mafia owns this city. I can only guess that the Italian Government doesn't want it! It's no wonder that Sicilian imigrants found the slums of NYC to be an improvement.

It's especially a shame because just up the coast, on the other side of Mt. Etna are some of the most beautiful towns in the Mediterainian.

As a true desciple of that greatest of musical groups, I have to remind you all of the line from the EAGLES "Take It Easy"
"...Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see..."

That's the place folks!!! It makes the slums of Marsailles, France look like the height of civilization. The Eagles always were ones for astute observation and tounge-in-cheek humor ... never so keenly as here. Check it out if you have the courage and enough Prozac!

This is a little off-topic, but I don't know of anywhere else to post it. I'm talking about the eeriest town that was ever belched up from the bowels of hell, Todd, NC. It's nestled somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mnts near Boone. A half hour from the nearest paved road, I visited this town just before dusk one fateful evening when I was driving aimlessly checking out the scenery. After driving through evil-looking forests and over mountain streams, I suddenly came to a deserted general store that looked at least 100 years old. There were old houses, a post office, and an ancient looking church in the center of town. There were a few streetlights around, and probably a hundred cars parked here and there, but not a soul to be seen. The parking lot of the church was filled with cars, but inside it was nothing but darkness. I walked into the deserted post office and saw a bundle of newspapers laying in a rack. The dates on the papers were from six months before. I kinda felt like I was inside a Stephen King novel. Since the sun was rapidly decsending below the trees, I got the hell out of there. The devil has a name and that name is Todd.

This is a little off-topic, but I don't know of anywhere else to post it. I'm talking about the eeriest town that was ever belched up from the bowels of hell, Todd, NC. It's nestled somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mnts near Boone. A half hour from the nearest paved road, I visited this town just before dusk one fateful evening when I was driving aimlessly checking out the scenery. After driving through evil-looking forests and over mountain streams, I suddenly came to a deserted general store that looked at least 100 years old. There were old houses, a post office, and an ancient looking church in the center of town. There were a few streetlights around, and probably a hundred cars parked here and there, but not a soul to be seen. The parking lot of the church was filled with cars, but inside it was nothing but darkness. I walked into the deserted post office and saw a bundle of newspapers laying in a rack. The dates on the papers were from six months before. I kinda felt like I was inside a Stephen King novel. Since the sun was rapidly decsending below the trees, I got the hell out of there. The devil has a name and that name is Todd.

Ever see the movie Independence Day?

Remember the scene where a jillion and one mobile homes and RV's and junkers are crusing thru the desert to the last surviving air base at Area 51 or what ever the super secret site in Nevada is?

____________________________

Actually that scene was shot in the salt flats of Utah just east of the nevada border.

[[I've been to Birmingham and it seemed like a dirty factory town. It is hot and humid, and an unofficial capitol for the "Bubba' good ol ' boys of the south".]]Fearless Leader


Look over there, dry ice factory ...


[[ Nearby Montgomery seemed a lot nicer.]]


That's because of the Angel ...

I forgot to mention:

1. Gatlinburg, Tennessee (at least I think it's in Tennessee. It might be in North Carolina. Who cares. It's tourist trap hell)

2. Beaumont, Texas. Ever hear the old Aggie joke? This Aggie has his girlfriend up in his apartment and things are getting real hot and heavy and she says, "Oh, baby, do it to me down there where it's hot and nasty and dirty and smelly."

So he drove her to Beaumont and checked into a motel.

3. Orlando. Who would want to live in Orlando who didn't have to?

4. Great Bend, Kansas. If a tornado hit it, no one would care. (Except for the poor souls who live there).

5. Berkeley, California. Maybe I'm showing my conservative bias here.....

10. Houston, Texas. That has got to be the most unpleasant major
metropolitan area in the whole USA. I will personally kiss the ass of
anyone who can say one positive thing about Houston without my
successful contradiction.

Being from Houston, I would disagree. Unlike Pensacola, Fla. It is a thriving city with a revitalized downtown area with lots of stuff to do. But I respect your opinion, unless you are from Dallas. If so you are just getting caught up in the "which city is better" argument. They both are more like each other than not. THe best thing about Houston is the people. Easygoing, friendly, fun, and not as caught up in the social status game as most other big cities. Its cheaper to live there than Los Angeles, NYC, or Atlanta. The nightlife is good, and there are lots of skaters who like to skate to numerous bars and icehouses. Also, when you are in tall buildings, you see mostly trees. Never mind that they are probably not native to the region.

MY CHOICE FOR WORST CITY:

And maybe this is what you really saw-PASADENA, TX. (a suburb SE of Houston) All of you will love driving down 225 and seeing all the oil refineries and storage wells for miles and miles, and oh that fragrant smell. My dad worked at the Shell plant (okay that's Deer Park, another smelly Houston suburb). Remember Urban Cowbow? Think Pasadena, this is not Houston. I believe the air has a corrosive efect on everything because the houses, although quaint, seem to have chipped and faded paint on them. Same with the cars plus rust.

Me, I live in Southwest Houston, which is prettier and has cooler nightlife (my opinion)

10. Houston, Texas. That has got to be the most unpleasant major
metropolitan area in the whole USA. I will personally kiss the ass of
anyone who can say one positive thing about Houston without my
successful contradiction.

Being from Houston, I would disagree. Unlike Pensacola, Fla. It is a thriving city with a revitalized downtown area with lots of stuff to do. But I respect your opinion, unless you are from Dallas. If so you are just getting caught up in the "which city is better" argument. They both are more like each other than not. THe best thing about Houston is the people. Easygoing, friendly, fun, and not as caught up in the social status game as most other big cities. Its cheaper to live there than Los Angeles, NYC, or Atlanta. The nightlife is good, and there are lots of skaters who like to skate to numerous bars and icehouses. Also, when you are in tall buildings, you see mostly trees. Never mind that they are probably not native to the region.

MY CHOICE FOR WORST CITY:

And maybe this is what you really saw-PASADENA, TX. (a suburb SE of Houston) All of you will love driving down 225 and seeing all the oil refineries and storage wells for miles and miles, and oh that fragrant smell. My dad worked at the Shell plant (okay that's Deer Park, another smelly Houston suburb). Remember Urban Cowbow? Think Pasadena, this is not Houston. I believe the air has a corrosive efect on everything because the houses, although quaint, seem to have chipped and faded paint on them. Same with the cars plus rust.

Me, I live in Southwest Houston, which is prettier and has cooler nightlife (my opinion)

10. Houston, Texas. That has got to be the most unpleasant major
metropolitan area in the whole USA. I will personally kiss the ass of
anyone who can say one positive thing about Houston without my
successful contradiction.

Being from Houston, I would disagree. Unlike Pensacola, Fla. It is a thriving city with a revitalized downtown area with lots of stuff to do. But I respect your opinion, unless you are from Dallas. If so you are just getting caught up in the "which city is better" argument. They both are more like each other than not. THe best thing about Houston is the people. Easygoing, friendly, fun, and not as caught up in the social status game as most other big cities. Its cheaper to live there than Los Angeles, NYC, or Atlanta. The nightlife is good, and there are lots of skaters who like to skate to numerous bars and icehouses. Also, when you are in tall buildings, you see mostly trees. Never mind that they are probably not native to the region.

MY CHOICE FOR WORST CITY:

And maybe this is what you really saw-PASADENA, TX. (a suburb SE of Houston) All of you will love driving down 225 and seeing all the oil refineries and storage wells for miles and miles, and oh that fragrant smell. My dad worked at the Shell plant (okay that's Deer Park, another smelly Houston suburb). Remember Urban Cowbow? Think Pasadena, this is not Houston. I believe the air has a corrosive efect on everything because the houses, although quaint, seem to have chipped and faded paint on them. Same with the cars plus rust.

Me, I live in Southwest Houston, which is prettier and has cooler nightlife (my opinion)

I lived in Rockford Illinois, and agree that the city does not have much to offer. I have asked many people who live there for their opinion of the city. The fact that the answer was nearly the same verbatim was eerie: "It's a great place to raise kids". Hmmmm.

my vote goes to Scenic, SD. It is in the Badlands (hence, the name...the badlands are absolutely gorgeous) but it is truly ugly. Ramshackle trailers covered in plywood patches and fleabit hides from who knows what animal. The one business there is a bar that actually has the sign "no indians or dogs allowed" over the door and the place looks so dirty from the outside one wonders why a native American would even be in the vicinity. The smell is even ugly, if the sight and the vibes weren't enough.

ps...I just moved to the Houston area. The only ugly thing i have seen thus far is the VA building. It is foreboding. Of, course I live far enough away that I don't have to look at that city every day. It sure is big, though!

Dude, I actually did live in Dallas for a couple of years when I was a kid in junior high....didn't like it then, don't like it now. However, it's not a complete and total shithole like Houston is. My grandmother lived near the corner of Hardy and Crosstimbers, if that helps to situate you for my Houston experience. It's a dump. Sorry.

Sorry guys, but Houston is a bloated suburb. Doesn't belong on a list of uglyist city, but its a pity that its such a lagre urban area with no character.

Ugliest cities.

1) Brownsville TX. The entire coastline is one rusted out ship yard. It as close to a mexican slum as you can get without having Montezumas revenge. Flat as a concrete driveway, and not a plant for miles.

2) Danville IL./Gary IN can't really tell 'em apart. Both are beat up nasty garbage dumps. A prison would be an improvenment and would likely have people committing crimes just to live in the nicest part of town.

3) East St. Louis IL. Nuff said.

4) Fargo ND. Tundra. Its nice when it buried in snow. Covers the nasty parts.

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The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw...

Omniscient; BAG

New Delhi, India. Yikes! Dirty, dangerous, and not even a hint of thoughtful city planning. Did I mention dirty? I'm told Calcutta is even worse, but I haven't been there.

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"I think it would be a great idea" Mohandas Ghandi's answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization

10. Houston, Texas. That has got to be the most unpleasant major metropolitan area in the whole USA. I will personally kiss the ass of anyone who can say one positive thing about Houston without my successful contradiction.
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UMM they have great burretos

Although they've been mentioned before, I nominate Camden NJ and Gary IN. Nothing I can write can properly convey the "kill me now" look you see on the faces of the residents of these cities. They are the urban blight poster children.

[joegideon]

And we have a winner! I was thinking about this positively terrible town in SoCal. For 20 miles- outside this burg- the median sparkles wit beer bottle fragments. Not hundreds, but tens of thousands of smashed brown beer bottles... plus the occasional can.
Anyway- I brought up Google and I typed in, 'Trona, CA Ugliest city in US'- just to see if anyone else has had this thought. And it brought me here! I read the blurb... and, yeah- it's a pit. Never seen anything close!
Smelly, hot and slimy, this cannot have too many equals. Hammond, IN? Camden? Terrible places, but kindergarden next to Trona. So that's it. It MUST be it! Trona, CA. Ugliest place in, at least, the United States. So... Joe G. You are a winner!

[Spoons]

Is Trona, CA full of zombies? :D

[Miller]

Nameless zombies, no less.

joegideon, we prefer people not post to threads that have been inactive for more than a month or so. Or, as in this case, eleven years. If you still want to discuss the subject, feel free to start a new thread on the topic.

Welcome to the SDMB. I hope you enjoy your stay here.