Most loathsome city in the universe

[MsRobyn]

First of all, I'll heartily second the guy who nominated York, PA. It's a shithole now, and if Harley-Davidson pulls out like they think they might, it'll be a worse shithole because a lot of well-paying jobs will be gone.

I'll see York and throw in Harrisburg City in for good measure. (I'm talking about the City of Harrisburg, not the surrounding townships that happen to have Harrisburg addresses.) Steve Reed, once Mayor for Life, lost in the primary. This is not a bad thing, because Harrisburg is chronically in debt over silly things like an incinerator it can't get rid of and a Civil War museum in a place that isn't really known for the Civil War. (The Confederate Army was en route to Camp Curtin, near what is now Harrisburg, but they were stopped at Camp Hill before they could cross the Susquehanna.) There have also been a lot of shootings this summer in the Allison Hill neighborhood. Just driving through Allison Hill is depressing because that neighborhood looks worse than Sarajevo at its worst.

Finally, I'd like to add Abilene, Texas to the list. It's a smallish city in the middle of nowhere that has some culture, but little else. It also has three Christian but no public universities. If you want to go anywhere, it's at least an hour's drive through some of the most boring scenery anywhere in America, and I've been through southern Arizona. The overall churchiness of the town gives most of the people a creepy Stepford vibe; they seem a little too friendly, but you're really not sure why or how. The best I can say about Abilene is that the NPR affiliate doesn't play Christian music.

[JoseB]

Beijing is nice. It's actually a lot more peaceful, leafy and relaxed than you'd ever think it'd be.


Well, I am right now in Beijing, where I am staying for a couple of weeks. Lots of interesting stuff, and humongous heaps of culture. Also, the people appear to be nice... However...

The pollution... OH GOD, THE POLLUTION!!! My eyes are read and teary, the air smells of ozone, and there is a permanent brownish all-pervading haze.

That completely ruins the city, in my opinion. Which is a pity. But it ruins it.

[Lord Derfel]

Well, I am right now in Beijing, where I am staying for a couple of weeks. Lots of interesting stuff, and humongous heaps of culture. Also, the people appear to be nice... However...

The pollution... OH GOD, THE POLLUTION!!! My eyes are read and teary, the air smells of ozone, and there is a permanent brownish all-pervading haze.

That completely ruins the city, in my opinion. Which is a pity. But it ruins it.

Especially since the Olympics, in my experience Beijing's pollution is nothing compared to other Chinese cities.

Try Benxi, nestled between the mountains of Liaoning province in probably exactly the wrong place to build a steel mill. Best time to go is in the winter when the steel mill is in full production (where the environmental controls may or may not be working), everyone's burning coal for heat, and the mountains won't let any of the pollution escape. You can see the particulate matter floating in the air and sticking to your skin and clothes.

Chinese steel towns are not happy places.

[xcalibre]

I'm not terribly well traveled in the terrible city department so I did some online fact finding for various lists similar to this one http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-06/worlds-10-dirtiest-cities.

The cities that come up the most frequently seem to be Cherynobl (mostly abandoned), Norilsk, Beirut, and Abidjan, though its likely nobody really ever goes to these places willingly. If you wanted to list some places where a few of us might end up the current winner and temporary bad city is probably Baghdad, though you might want to avoid Mexico City if given the opportunity.

I personally lived in Milan, which is pretty crappy and horribly polluted, but once a year it floods with thousands of female models so it balances out :D

[janeslogin]

Fernley, NV

[Superhal]

Detroit:
Even the dead are leaving Detroit (http://alldownriver.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-17739.html)

[bahimes]

Anyone ever try to live and work in Istanbul?
60 minutes for 10 km ALWAYS.
Noise, pollution.
Culture does not a nice place make.

[St. Anger]

RUNNERS UP:

Beijing, China- Polluted to the point where most denizens have a slight cough, and there are no birds. Think of a polluted, crowded, New York City except with very little nightlife and a repressive government.

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico- Haven't been there in 30 years, but with 1000+ murders a year, how can it NOT be loathsome?

Camden, NJ- Without question, the biggest shithole in America.

And the winner IS:

"The City of" Dunn, North Carolina.

Almost 10 years ago, I picked my poor old recently widowed mother up in Florida to drive her in her Lincoln Town Car back home. While in South Carolina, something went horribly wrong with the car, and we lost our air conditioning in 105 degree weather. By the time we got to Dunn, the car got broken down, and we had it towed to local Ford dealer, who promised up is would be fixed the next day. We checked in at a local Super 8 and hoped for the best.

In the meantime, we ate at a local diner, where the waitresses were nasty to us because I guess they detected "Yankee" accents. Threre were all types of ne'er do-wells situated in the neghborhood we wandered in as well. All my efforts to get a rental car to take back home were thwartded by lack of availability. And the dealer kept jerking us around.

And, being Dunn, North Carolina, of course there was nothing to really nothing to do but sit and wait. They had their Yankees trapped in a modern day Andersonville. About the only saving grace of this dump was the shithole hotel had a semi-chlorinated swimming pool.

My mom was stuck in this shothole, trying to recover from my fathers passing, and I was burning up vacation days, with customers starting to call me cellphone asking where I disappeared to.

Finally, we had enough, and went to the ripoff dealership, and my mother bought a new car for $13,000 just to get the hell out of there.

We went into Dunn with a shit car, got treated like shit, and got ripped off while being treated like dumb Yankees. Fair punishment for a good son grieving his fathers death trying to simply drive his widowed mother back home, right?

If aliens ever invade this planet, and capture me first, the first thing I will tell the little green bastards is to nuke Dunn, North Carolina: The Most Loathsome City in the Universe.

[K.S. Masmacho]

Has Hull, England, been mentioned yet?

Has anyone ever been there?

I have a friend who swears it really is the

worst.

place.

ever.

The running joke there is that it should be spelled with an e.

[salinqmind]

Fulton, NY is a pretty sad place and should get honorable mention. It's near Lake Ontario, but not ON Lake Ontario, which might save it during their month of summer. Otherwise, it's like Barrow, Alaska, but without Barrow's jobs, social scene, or nightlife. Since the Golden Corral went out of business, I swear the church food pantry is the best bet when you want to dine out.

[Gyrate]

Mogadishu?

[Tranquilis]

What? No votes for Camden, NJ?
+1 vote for Camden, NJ.

When I was at the Navy Yard in Philly, crack vials and needles used to wash up on the boat ramp, carried across the river from Camden. And not just a few, either. Major portions of the city looked like someone had dropped a tac-nuke. Recently, the mayor went 'up the river' for various crimes. When I pulled a consulting gig over in Camden, I wouldn't step off the grounds of the hospital, as what was just over the property line was frikin' scary.

[ajdebosco]

I've been to some real horrific cities, but the small towns that don't qualify as "cities I find more deplorable, throughout this corner of the universe.

Jackson, Mississippi hardly qualifies as a city, and is just as creepy as it's Alabama counterpart, Montgomery. Pleased that some others mentioned Columbia, SC, it's only saving grace is its proximity to Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head.

Laughlin, NV is a really crappy joint, kind of like Bakersfield, CA but with five or six casinos. Topeka, KS is still being held hostage by those Westboro Phelps inbred fascists, and ranks in my bottom ten. All American worsts would not be complete without mention of "..one week I spent a month in" Philadelphia, PA. I know it has it's redeeming qualities, like Temple U., but when I visited the Vet for a Phillies game, there were house sized piles of garbage lining the streets. I asked my host if there was a trash workers strike, and he said "no, it's always like this" and they had a holding cell under the stands behind home plate.:eek:

I've been to many foreign lands, but the most disgusting hell-hole outside of the USA has to be Texas.:D Houston is definitely a sweating, diseased armpit of a city, but Crawford, Midland, Waco and El Paso are far worse. I'd rather stroll alone through ESL, Gary, Bayonne, or Tampa than ever go back to Texas.

Overseas, I'd have to rank Khartoum as one of the most forlorn places on our planet. It was like Beirut without the bomb scars. I have to agree with Paul in Qatar's first post: Cairo, Egypt is the worst city in the universe. An earthquake had rocked the region a few weeks before I arrived, so I asked the hotel manager about the possibilities of aftershocks and what precautions were taken. I suppose he was trying to reassure me, but he said not to give it another thought, "buildings fall down all the time around here, even without earthquakes." That should have given me a clue how the next two weeks were going to be, but I'll spare the details.

[kapntoad]

Omelas.

Of course.

Maybe you should just walk away.

[Cisco]

ajdebosco, when was the last time you were in Laughlin? I can believe it sucked a long time ago but it's a nice little mini-Vegas, sans most of the sin, now. Touristy - wouldn't want to live there - but nothing like Bakersfield (which I've said many times would push me to suicide if I were ever stuck living there.)

Did you know most stadiums (and airports, for that matter) have holding cells? That's not unique to Philadelphia.

I'll give you El Paso, TX. There was a dust storm going on last time I was there and even though I'm not religious I was pretty convinced it was the apocalypse.

[Shagnasty]

Detroit:
Even the dead are leaving Detroit (http://alldownriver.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-17739.html)

:eek::eek:

That sounds like something straight out of The Onion except more over the top but real as far as I can tell. I can only imagine what it is to live (or be dead) in Detroit proper these days but I don't really want to know. It is called the "Motor City" for a reason. People there should take that to heart and just drive far, far away and stay there.

[ajdebosco]

ajdebosco, when was the last time you were in Laughlin? I can believe it sucked a long time ago but it's a nice little mini-Vegas, sans most of the sin, now. Touristy - wouldn't want to live there - but nothing like Bakersfield (which I've said many times would push me to suicide if I were ever stuck living there.)

Did you know most stadiums (and airports, for that matter) have holding cells? That's not unique to Philadelphia.


The Vet, though, had that little drunk tank installed in the seventies, making it the first of its kind.

From what I've read, Laughlin has grown considerably since I visited around 1980, but not sure if that's for the better. That part of the Colorado River used to be rather attractive, but Nv and Az have kind of permanently ruined that. Not to mention trying to make Laughlin the family mini-vegas, especially biker families like the Hell's Angels, Outlaws, Mongols.......

[guizot]

There's a problem of definition here. To me, if a city can offer some degree of culture, intellect, arts, something in some neighborhood, then it's not completely loathsome, regardless of what else might be going on. That means that Baltimore, Calcutta, Karachi, and Baghdad can't be on the list, because there is culture in all those places…Yeah. The OP wanted to go beyond poverty and crime.

For me, the most “loathsome city” is all around the U.S.--and not only do a lot of people reading this probably live in it, but it constitutes the vast majority of growth and development in the country now.

I’m talking about the surrounding “environs” of most dots on the map that are big enough to have a city hall and a police force, however small. Those areas that are differentiated by absolutely nothing but their zip code, and if you’re walking down the street of one, you might as well be walking down a street in any other. These are the places whose “main drags” are made up of nothing but 7-11s, Subways, cell phone stores, Radio Shacks and Ralphs, and whose cultural centers are shopping malls—that is, vast parking lots with a core of corporate chain stores in the middle—and for whose population cultural activity must always involve buying something. In these places, if you don’t drive or have a car, you’re not considered a human being, and any public transportation—if there even is any—is so underfunded and infrequent it takes a person an hour and a half and $5 to get to a place to buy a gallon of milk that costs less than that.

Yeah—crime, pollution, poverty are loathsome. But they're inadvertent. There's something really depressing about willful soullessness.

[Balthisar]

I can only imagine what it is to live (or be dead) in Detroit proper these days but I don't really want to know. It is called the "Motor City" for a reason. People there should take that to heart and just drive far, far away and stay there.
I'm the last person that would want to defend Detroit proper (I'm from the suburbs, which is probably different than what most young people consider suburbs these days). I'm currently working in the Mexico City area. Detroit is a paradise in comparison!

[Troy McClure SF]

I’m talking about the surrounding “environs” of most dots on the map that are big enough to have a city hall and a police force, however small. Those areas that are differentiated by absolutely nothing but their zip code, and if you’re walking down the street of one, you might as well be walking down a street in any other....

So, suburbs.

[Cisco]

So, suburbs.

There are entire "cities" made of nothing more than strip malls, Wal Marts, gas stations, and fast food joints these days. I agree that they are unbelievably loathsome.

[paperbackwriter]

Let me put it this way.............my town has things like antique shows, a sailboat race to Bermuda on the off years of the America's Cup, plenty of golf etc
It's very pretencious. To the point where the PUBLIC school was MORE snotty then the local prep school! There are some OK people....and it used to be fun to see Gerhaldo around town back in the 80's and 90's. But overall this area is filled with pretensious prejudicated snots. .
I didn't like growing up in Marion as an "outsider" much either, but to even think it has any business in this thread is to forget that places like Mogadishu and Port-Au-Prince exist.

I can see that there wouldn't be many votes for Mogadishu, given few Dopers probably have direct experience, but is is by all accounts a city that has almost every single negative quality mentioned above plus an ongoing civil war and no effective civil authority. That has to put it into the lead.

[kidneyfailure]

How about Pyongyang?

I very well may be the only person on this board (or maybe not?) who has been to Pyongyang. Man...I don't know if I can even talk about it being a "loathsome city" because it's unlike any other city on this planet. It's like being in different world...and, Christ, I live in China, which I first thought was like a "different world" until I went to DPRK.

Nice to see some people sticking up for Vegas, my hometown. I really disagree with the perception that so many people have of it. It has really cleaned up in the 20 or 30 years and is quite a nice place to live. Actually, the only people who make it into some kind of "evil wrapped in materialism" are all you tourists who flock there looking for the stereotypical "Vegas experience."

[kidneyfailure]

Laughlin, NV is a really crappy joint

Pahrump is far, far worse. It's the absolute asshole of Nevada. Come to think of it, Sandy Valley is even worse than Pahrump.

Think of a polluted, crowded, New York City except with very little nightlife and a repressive government.

Beijing has no nightlife? Give me a break! E even did a "Wild On: Beijing" several years back.

As for the "repressive government," how much (if any) of that did you even experience while traveling there? What's the point of even mentioning that? Beijing is a fine place.

I second the guy who mentioned Benxi. Talk about depressing. They do have a nice water cave, though.

[panache45]

There are entire "cities" made of nothing more than strip malls, Wal Marts, gas stations, and fast food joints these days. I agree that they are unbelievably loathsome.

I've been to teeny-weeny towns that contain nothing but . . . A post office? No. A gas station? No. A store of any kind? No. A tanning salon? Yup. And when you pass through several such towns in a row, none having anything more than a tanning salon, it gets a little creepy.

[Yorikke]

Baltimore (my home town) is a good choice for ciites that size.

For cities under 100K, Porterville, CA meets all the criteria: near tops unemployment, gan troubles, 75-80% hs education or less, near tops in pollution, near tops in gas prices, near tops in auto insurance rates (not just CA, but nationally for all that I think).

ETA - I forgot foreclosure, I think among the top rates in all cf CA, which itself is among the tops in the nation.

I used to live in Woodlake, literally just down the road from Porterville. It's bad, but there are a lot worse places to live. Your facts are pretty true, but I never felt UNSAFE anywhere in the valley like I do in parts of nearly every big city I've lived in. Even in Visalia, the big town (100K) near Porterville, has really rough areas.

Joe

[Yorikke]

Atlantic City, NJ is pretty horrendous. I grew up in Trenton, and AC scared me. Extreme poverty and crime literally right across the street from the big casinos. Ugly and dreary. Blecch!

Joe

[AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet]

didn't like growing up in Marion as an "outsider" much either, but to even think it has any business in this thread is to forget that places like Mogadishu and Port-Au-Prince exist.
*faints* Someone on the board actually is familiar with my town!! Even kids I went to college with (went to a Mass. State College) would be " where the hell is that?"
And yeah.......I think that there's a difference in loathsomeness. You are right....it doesn't compare to major slum poverty at ALL....but I think it would fit right up there with Stepford loathsomeness.

[FordTaurusSHO94]

Probably not the most loathsome, but Pine Bluff, Arkansas, doesn't have much going for it. I've heard about Helena/West Helena, but I've never been.

[Lord Derfel]

Laughlin, NV is a really crappy joint
I second the guy who mentioned Benxi. Talk about depressing. They do have a nice water cave, though.

I did see the water caves when I was there. The ridiculous dioramas in the "dry cave" and the oddball names given to the formations in the "wet cave" was mildly entertaining, but not interesting enough to go out of your way to Benxi, in my opinion.

[mswas]

What's so awful about Newark airport? It's the best airport in the NY metro area.

I definitely can understand why people would hate on Newark the city though.

[mswas]

I have friends that live in Houston and they love it there, but I am going to have to cast my vote for Houston just the same. Take all the dirt, crime, poverty and expense of living in Chicago or New York and put it in 110 degree heat. Then add so much humidity that raindrops appear out of the air when it isn't even raining. It cost more to see a movie in Houston in 2003 than it does to see a movie in Times Sqare in 2009 and it was so hot parts inside of my car melted. One of my friends that lives there pays more for her 1 bedroom apartment than my boyfriend and I pay for our 2 bedroom apartment in Manhattan. I will never go back ever again.

LOL, Chicago is known for being pretty clean, and New York has one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

[smiling bandit]

I'm still confused by the guy who said "Knoxville," apparently on the grounds of having no culture. Given that we've got music festivals, sports teams, the friggin' state university (and a good one in several areas), on top of the Smoky Mountains nearby, and is the regional cultural center, well...

[ianzin]

I once went to Atlanta for a conference. I guess that's the only reason most people ever go there. I arrived a day early. I went to the hotel front desk and said I had a free day, what would they suggest I go and see or do or take a look at? What did visitors to the city usually enjoy?

The desk staff basically shrugged and told me they couldn't think of anything.

[Musicat]

Wasn't it W.C. Fields who, when once asked for a comparison between good and bad, said it was like making love or going to St. Louis, to use two opposite extremes?

[StusBlues]

The desk staff basically shrugged and told me they couldn't think of anything.

That might not be a reflection on Atlanta, though. I've noticed folks in that sort of position becoming progressively dumber over the years. I've got a specific story about looking for a monument in Western Kentucky that no one had heard of...but that's another thread.

[salinqmind]

I've been to teeny-weeny towns that contain nothing but . . . A post office? No. A gas station? No. A store of any kind? No. A tanning salon? Yup. And when you pass through several such towns in a row, none having anything more than a tanning salon, it gets a little creepy.

And the sign always features a picture of a palm tree! (I've noticed also very sad little "beauty salons" and of course the ubiquitous nail palaces - I thought by now, especially with the shit economy, the nail salons would have taken a hit, but they're still around. Like in the low-rent section of Niagara Falls, which is like a big scattered strip mall on the way down. Hardly loathsome , but depressing.)

[AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet]

OMG so totally there on the soulless strip mall communitiees..........and there's always a place where you can get a pedi/manicure or pay to get skin cancer.

[drachillix]

the whole Central Valley of CA

Even Bakersfeild is club med up against places like Jakarta and Juarez. Fresno was undergoing quite the cultural renaisannce before the real estate market tanked, but its coming back pretty quick. As an ex-EMT I have seen some of the nastiest back alleys and dens of hate and villany Fresno has to offer. I would still rather take my chances here over almost any US/Mexico border town and the attendant drug trade that comes with it.

[ruadh]

The cities that come up the most frequently seem to be Cherynobl (mostly abandoned), Norilsk, Beirut, and Abidjan, though its likely nobody really ever goes to these places willingly.

Beirut??? I know a number of people who have gone to Beirut willingly, and quite liked it. It's supposed to be a very nice place, all things considered.

[It's Not Rocket Surgery!]

I've got a specific story about looking for a monument in Western Kentucky that no one had heard of...but that's another thread.

Was it the Jefferson Davis monument (http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/histparks/jd/)?

[Boulter's Canary]

Has Hull, England, been mentioned yet?

Has anyone ever been there?

I have a friend who swears it really is the

worst.

place.

ever.

The running joke there is that it should be spelled with an e.

People thought so in 1900, too.........

The Dalesman's Litany


It's hard when folks can't find the work where they've been bred and born
When I was young I always thought I'd bide 'midst roots and corn
But I've been forced to work in town so here's my litany
From Hull and Halifax and Hell, good Lord deliver me

When I was courting Mary Jane, the old squire he says to me
I've got no rooms for wedded folk, choose whether to go or to stay
I could not give up the girl I loved, so to town I was forced to flee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell, good Lord deliver me

I've worked in Leeds and Huddersfied and I've earned some honest brass
In Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham I've kept my bairns and lass
I've travelled all three Ridings round and once I went to sea
From forges, mills and coaling boats, good Lord deliver me

I've walked at night through Sheffield lanes, 'twas just as being in hell
Where furnaces thrust out tongues of fire and roared like the wind on the fell
I've sammed up coals in Barnsley pits with muck up to my knee
From Barnsley, Sheffield, Rotherham, good Lord deliver me

I've seen fog creep across Leeds bridge as thick as the Bastille soup
I've lived where folks were stowed away like rabbits in a coop
I've seen snow float down Bradford Beck as black as ebony
From Hunslet, Holbeck, Wibsey Stack, good Lord deliver me

But now that all our children have gone, to the country we've come back
There's forty mile of heathery moor 'twixt us and the coalpits' stack
And as I sit by the fire at night, I laugh and shout with glee
From Hull and Halifax and Hell the good Lord delivered me


Written (or collected) by Dr Moorman, President of the Yorkshire Dialect Society about 1900.

[Hippy Hollow]

Is hating on cities in verse a Brit thing?

http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/intuition/Slough.html

(Made more famous in the first epi of The Office)

[Desert Nomad]

I'm not terribly well traveled in the terrible city department so I did some online fact finding for various lists similar to this one http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-06/worlds-10-dirtiest-cities.

The cities that come up the most frequently seem to be Cherynobl (mostly abandoned), Norilsk, Beirut, and Abidjan, though its likely nobody really ever goes to these places willingly. If you wanted to list some places where a few of us might end up the current winner and temporary bad city is probably Baghdad, though you might want to avoid Mexico City if given the opportunity.

I personally lived in Milan, which is pretty crappy and horribly polluted, but once a year it floods with thousands of female models so it balances out :D

I loved Beirut and went there willingly... and hope to go again.

[Desert Nomad]

I very well may be the only person on this board (or maybe not?) who has been to Pyongyang. Man...I don't know if I can even talk about it being a "loathsome city" because it's unlike any other city on this planet. It's like being in different world...and, Christ, I live in China, which I first thought was like a "different world" until I went to DPRK.

Nice to see some people sticking up for Vegas, my hometown. I really disagree with the perception that so many people have of it. It has really cleaned up in the 20 or 30 years and is quite a nice place to live. Actually, the only people who make it into some kind of "evil wrapped in materialism" are all you tourists who flock there looking for the stereotypical "Vegas experience."

Not the only one - I was in Pyongyang last month and loved it. It IS an alternate reality, but it so very fascinating in its own way. When were you there?

[ralph124c]

I once went to Atlanta for a conference. I guess that's the only reason most people ever go there. I arrived a day early. I went to the hotel front desk and said I had a free day, what would they suggest I go and see or do or take a look at? What did visitors to the city usually enjoy?

The desk staff basically shrugged and told me they couldn't think of anything.

Yep, I was in Atlanta once, and the major "attraction" was "Coca-Cola World"! It is basically Coca Cola advertising, which you PAY to see! The end of the visit is where you can taste all the various kinds of coke being peddled around the world-so of thisstuff is really weird (like the grapfruit flavored crap they sell in Asia).
That said, Atlanta (downtown) is hot, boring, and stocked with medicocre, expensive restaurants.
I'd like to nominate Dallas , Texas: there is absolutely nothing to do in the downtown, after 6 PM-no clubs, no restaurants, and no people!

[salinqmind]

That's because the environment the city of Dallas was built in is inhospitable to human life. It's only good for the big buildings they've put up. If you work in them, step outside, and are reminded of how vile the climate is - well, I'd get in my car/on the train/bus - whatever - and hightail it home to my airconditioned home real fast.

[jjimm]

Guangzhuo, China.

Never been anywhere uglier, stinkier, with fewer attractions or sights, or less pleasant people. There's a food market there with live puppies and kittens hung up by their back legs.

Fucking horrible, and I hope I never return.

[maplekiwi]

I live in New Zealand & haven't been overseas since 1984. & like most tourists I went to places that you want to see. So, no real horror stories.

The worst overseas city I have ever heard of is Port Moresby. I've known half a dozen people who went there on well paying contracts. Only one signed up for a second stint.

But I've been emboldened by the website Rubystreak posted. & agree Invercargill is the pits.

We went to the South Island seven years ago. My daughter was entered in a sports tournament in Christchurch. & my sister had lost her mind & moved to Invercargill. I still can't believe we had three & half weeks in the South Island & spent most of one week in Christchurch (& didn't see much other than the sports hall) & a week in Invercargill.

http://www.worst-city.com/Invercargill-New-Zealand-Military-March-Antarctic-winds-winter.htm
That picture is of a Water Tower. its pretty much the only thing to look at. The "town" is flat, dull & full of closed minded people. I would never voluntarily go there again. Adding to the misery, my sister had bought a "do up" that looked like something the Munsters would live in.

That site has spelt Rotorua wrong. While I agree is smell horrible, there are lots of interesting things to do there.

I'm emphasising I don't think Invercargill is as bad as the other horror spots mentioned in this thread. But its the worst place in New Zealand by far.