I hate New Orleans as well. My mid-daughter and family live there. Not really a family friendly place. Her husband is a chef and makes great money. So they stay. She keeps moving further and further out in the burbs.
Hahahahaha! Thanks for the chuckle. Seattle’s economy is the third fastest-growing in the nation. I know some conservatives WISH it would die, but contrary to the Facebook page you used as a cite, it’s alive and kicking. I sure wouldn’t recommend it as the dark underbelly the OP is looking for.
Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles, huh? “We were somewhere around Anaheim on the edge of the suburbs when the drugs began to take hold.”
If the drugs took hold in Anaheim, you might be tempted to visit Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Just Say No! 
Bakersfield, California. Just take my word for it. At least it’s a dry heat.
Mingo Junction, OH. It is the bottom of the well of despair. Assad saw a documentary on it once and said: “I can do better”. He’s still working on it.
The video he’s linking is a “documentary” produced by KOMO, a Sinclair-owned Seattle TV station. It’s little more than Trumpist propaganda about how “liberalism” is to blame for homeless and drug abuse, completely ignoring the fact that Seattle’s runaway economic growth is gentrifying the city to the point that most of the people who work there can’t afford to live there and people who’ve been living there for generations are being priced out of their homes.
It’s only worth watching if you’re of the opinion that the poor need to be punished for not being rich.
Every elected official in Front RoyL, Virginia is under indictment and the sheriff recently shot himself.
Y’all skipped over the bars. Having a Hurricane or two at Pat O’Brien’s, a Bloody meal-in-a-glass at The Erin Rose, a beer and burger at Port of Call, etc, etc. Then hit the VooDoo shops and visit Marie Laveau’s crypt and chalk an “xxx”. Listen to the buskers performing just for you.
Believe me, I didn’t skip the bars.
You must be right because the only people I’ve met who loved New Orleans were there for Mardi Gras, and that’s in February.
Boston can be charming for a visit because it has a flavor all its own, but I’ve never considered it to be in the same league as New York, Chicago, or San Francisco.
At one time two housing projects in New Orleans accounted for around 70% of the city’s murders. They’ve since been razed.
And yet you had time for:
I never knew any of that stuff existed.
Salt Lake City has a surging homelessness problem:
Guess it is also one of the bad city’s in America.
I’ve been to NO 8 times I think. Usually for a week at a time. 2 Mardi Gras when much younger, a wedding, 2 birthday parties and 3 times just to visit. As I said, I like it despite the fact I don’t do well in the heat. My BIL lives there. It helps to find the other places.
Or… if you want to not go super touristy, have a Sazerac or French 75 at Arnaud’s.
Where’d the OP go? Did we scare him off with our terrifying stories about going to the French Quarter in New Orleans and drinking hurricanes?
And you have the FLDS to thank for that. This is what happens to all their, if you will, extra boys. 
My brother and his wife have said that they were more frightened driving down the main street of Anamosa, Iowa at noon on a Saturday than they ever were when they lived in Kansas City, which has its share of areas you don’t want to go at any time and was even worse when they lived there in the early 1990s.
I once had an experience driving through a small town in northern Missouri (don’t remember which one it was) that I will never forget. I had to go to the bathroom and decided to stop at the next town…until I got there and despite it being a pleasant evening, I did not see ONE person outside even though the homes were obviously occupied, and there was just this feeling I had that I should not stop. So, I held it to the NEXT town and had no similar feeling there.
I never understand people concerned with the heat. Plenty of air-conditioning, everywhere. You’re right it’s hot in the summer. Southerners stay indoors during the hottest part of the day.
Humidity is what’s bad.
It’s going to be 18° in SLC in a couple of hours. That sort of thing does wonders for one’s homelessness problem.