Sure, East Orange has its problems and there is eceonomic down-turn, but it was an Upscale spit town in NJ that I though was one of the worst towns in America.
What other town in America is so hard-up for self esteem that they pay their referees to cheat regularly and blatantly for the home-team at all of their HS home games? Why, a town where million dollar McMansions are the norm and G.Bush is always right. The only difference between them and the Jackson Mich Supremecists is that they know enough to only say the ‘N’ word behind closed doors. Take a nice town, fill it with overpaid, self-entitled, out-and-out Evil people and you have Mt. Lakes. The only thing missing is Stephen King (calling Maine…hello Maine…)
PS- Don’t try to drive an ‘American Made’ car in their town. You Will get a ticket. (Only a high-end BMW/Mercedes/Lexus or more expensive is allowed)
I can’t speak with authority about all of the United States, but I was quite glad to leave Niagara Falls, NY, which seemed ready to alternatively burst into flames or be buried by garbage.
OMG OMG OMG I’m just going to assume she had wet-ones with her and that’s what she was doing OMG OMG OMG
It’s sad to see the reviews of Reading; it’s where my parents were from and has certainly gone downhill. And unfortunately it leads to old people like Grandma just assuming it’s because of the “blacks and hispanics”, in some sweeping way.
Oh, and now I have that Gary Indiana song stuck in my head. :smack:
I have too. For me it comes down to this: I was depressed as hell and couldn’t wait to get out of Gary, IN. I was terrified for my life and couldn’t wait to get out of East St. Louis.
Let’s put it this way: there’s a sign roughly every 20 feet guiding you to the Casino Queen Riverboat Casino so you don’t get lost once you exit the highway. Once you arrive there are towers with armed guards protecting the parking lot.
It’s bad when you drive through a town with all the windows rolled up and can still taste the acrid air. I recommend giving Gary a wide berth. My husband insists that when he was a kid, his parents drove through during a particularly nasty time when the visibility was actually reduced somewhat by a pervasive brown haze.
Another anecdotal vote about Gary: I had this friend from Gary who’s just a huge guy. At least 6’7", well over 300 lbs and much of it was muscle (he was a semi-pro show wrestler at one point), built like a gorilla down to the long-looking arms and slightly hunched back, and with a facial expression that when at rest can look like he’s either mildly pissed or contemplating violence. At one point he rubbed his full beard and complained how he didn’t like how it looked, but at least it hid the scar. Puzzled, I say, “What scar?” He replied, “The scar from when some guy tried to slit my throat.” :eek: He lifted his head and sure enough, there was a scar of impressive length immediately below the “seam” of where the jaw meets the neck, just hidden by his beard growth. I was just shocked that anyone would be insane enough to screw with him and not be using a gun, from a decent distance, and that was a big point in me deciding that Gary is just Not A Nice Place.
I think it depends on when you are there (ex. New Orleans during Katrina) but as of right now I have not been to enough citites so I will say any town with little police, high crime rate and low economy.
Gary, Indiana, hands down. That’s what I said last time we had this thread, and I stand by it. Freaking smelters, everyone looks like they’re on crank. shudder
On the other hand, after a year of living in L.A., I can say that while I don’t “hate hate” it, I should have asked for a San Francisco posting. At least I can Metro in to work. Getting on any of the freeways drives up my blood pressure immediately.
If it were “city” in the thread title, I’d gladly nominate where I spent part of my childhood. Even after the nationwide drop in crime rates and a current murder rate that is about 5 or 6 times lower than when I lived there, even though they’ve cleaned up downtown and done tons of stuff to make it a better place, it still comes up as #193 overall out of 200 cities that Forbes ranked for Best/Worst Places to Live.
Its agricultural festival item is asparagus. Have you ever had aspara-berry ice cream? Count yourself lucky. Want to live in an area where more than 1/4 of the population is below the poverty line? Like gangs? When I was a kid, they had them all: black, asian, hispanic, white. Average of almost a murder a day for a city with only about 150,000 people (at the time). A nationally televised school shooting (not mine) that eventually led to some of the stupidest anti-gun laws ever drafted. Three major prisons within an 1.5 hour drive of the place and located in the county with the highest welfare payouts. Whee, we’re having fun now!
Central valley inversion layer makes smog stay down low. Fog that makes driving a real crapshoot 3–4 months of the year on a semi-random basis. I shit you not, you can’t see far enough ahead to drive more than 20 mph safely in the morning during much of the spring and fall-to-winter seasons. Not that most people slow down . . . Don’t let the average stats fool you, summer temperatures of well over 100 degrees for at least 2–3 weeks every year, with daily temps well into the 90s were the norm when I lived there, and are probably worse now.
I hated that festering pustule on the navel of California, and I didn’t even fully realize how shitty of a place it really was until I got out.
One, I have had the experience of staying right outside Gary, IN. In Miller, IN which is basically a suburb. The mailing address for where I stayed used Gary. All I can say is I whole-heartedly agree with everyone else’s assessment of the place. Interesting note, sorta: I watched Michael Jackson get the key to the city there a few years back. Perhaps that says alot about Gary right there?
Second, I live about 20 minutes away from Centralia, PA. It’s a neat place to drive through and see the smoke coming up from the ground. Other than that, the few people who chose to stay there are crazy in my opinion. It smells like burning flesh.
I live a little less than an hour away from Reading. It is a scary place. I also went to college 15 miles away, in Kutztown, PA. tashabot is right about the drug “industry” there. That’s what it’s famous for around here. Although I do love outlet shopping.
However, I live in Schuylkill County. (BTW, thank you for spelling it right, most people don’t.) Here is where the armpits and crotches of America truly reside. The economy sucks, people are constantly relocating, and much of it is falling apart. There is nothing to do here. For anything fun or worthwhile, we must travel to cities such as Allentown, Reading, and, if you’re adventurous, Philly.
Michigan has three holes: Detroit, Flint and Jackson.
I heard on the radio ( so it must be true) that the number #1 state to move from for the last 30 years has been Michigan.
Big freakin’ surprise.
It is a lovely place to live if it weren’t for the economy and lack of any cultural interests. We do have huntin’, snowmobilin’, boatin’, drinkin’ and sports. Five things that don’t interest me at all.
We the Katrina victims were shuttled to other places, Flint and Detroit was one of them. All I could think of was, " And this is an improvement in their lives how?" and " If only a Class Five Hurricane-Tsunami-Asteroid hit Flint and Detroit it could only improve the cities tenfold."
I’m gonna be honest, I looked up how to properly spell Schuylkill. I didn’t live in Reading nearly long enough to know how to spell it properly, only that I hated it because I invariably felt like an ass when I’d say “Scoocle” and be mentally thinking “Schuyl-kill.”
Ahhh, Kutztown. Is there any reason for that place to exist EXCEPT for college? I don’t know anyone who willingly lives there other than for college.
While I won’t argue that Mountain Lakes is a very upscale town populated by wealthy people, my only remark would be that the majority of the homes are not McMansions at all, but are in fact very unique and most from around the turn of the century, many very similiar as the town was orignally a planned community.
*I don’t live in Mountain Lakes, but I live nearby and have driven through on a few occaisons.
Aw, Lubbock ain’t so bad. Sure, it has it’s bad points, but so does any other city. And the past few years have experienced an explosion in city growth: massive construction, population expansion, and all the good stuff that comes along with it. It’s a whole lot better today than it was 15 years ago, when I first got here. Not that I’m saying there’s a cause-effect relationship, but y’know…
