Worst place you've ever been in the U.S.?

[Joe Fields]

Either visiting on vacation, or residing.

Just passing through, I'd have to say east Texas, coming in from Louisiana. The poverty was all encompassing and third worldly.

Worst place I ever lived was Pahrump, Nevada. On the edge of Death Valley, hard to make a living, unless you worked at one of the four houses of ill-repute in town, dusty, windy and very unfriendly.

[pagerbear]

1. Fayetteville, NC

Hot, flat, ugly, overwhelmingly military.

[Joe Fields]

3. Been through parts of N.C. and found them beautiful and charming.

Glad I missed Fayetteville.

[pagerbear]

NC is the motherland for me

...but the Fayetteville area I find quite icky.

[Jamastiene]

200. Agree with you on that. n/t

[Jamastiene]

199. It's a front. RANT about towns in the REAL NC.

They put the pretty flowers and pretty buildings on the main roads for show. If you venture off any of the main highways, you get to see some of the most disgusting, rundown, litter-strewn, crime ridden areas you can imagine. Trust me. I know. I live here.

Here's a tip: If you come to my hometown (Rockingham, NC,) you won't have the option of boycotting Wal-Mart if you need something. While you are there, be prepared to witness tons of shoplifting, con artists asking you for money for fake charities, using names of churches that don't even exist (with Wal-Mart's permission,) and some of the rudest people you can imagine in a small town.

I'm talking about people who won't move the fuck out of the aisles while they talk to their friends. You'll just have to keep going until you reach another crowd of people who are in the way and won't fucking move out of the way and hope you find some path through the hellhole. When you finally find an aisle you think is clear, you'll encounter more people standing around like fucking rightwing fundy redneck zombies at the other end and now you are trapped with them at both ends of the aisle. You have to stand there until someone pretends to be polite and finally moves. That is usually only one person out of the whole group, so you'll only have a tiny area to maneuver through to get through them. And don't forget to say, "Excuse me" and "thank you," because they'll say very loudly how rude YOU are being if you don't. The rest of them will stand there in your way and look at YOU like YOU are the RUDE ONE for daring to interrupt their gossip session. Then you'll get to hear rude comments and insults as you walk away because their gossiping has turned to you now. Be prepared to be called gay, (well, that's not the word they actually use in reality if you know what I mean) among other things. All of this simply because you are NOT one of THEM and you dared to cross their paths and come into their line of vision.

Also, while you are in the store, your car will stand a 50/50 chance of being keyed or broken into. The local police will be about as helpful as an extra rock through the windshield. And, while you are standing there talking to the police, you might want to guard what you bought in the store. People will steal more of your shit while the police are standing right there.

And don't forget to check your windshield wipers, both on the passengers side and the driver's side, before you get in and crank the car, because there will be fliers under the wiper blades telling you to repent now or face the wrath of God. These fliers are usually accompanied with business cards advertising churches complete with Bible verses and color pictures of the preacher and his family. The reason I mention this is that you don't want your car stolen if you leave it running while you go to the passenger side to remove the full page flier on that side.

And don't forget to have a nice day after your visit. I'm so lucky. It's everyday life as usual for me. I've been through some of the worst inner city neighborhoods with the worst reputations and felt SAFER than I do in my own hometown. It IS that bad here.

[Literate Tar Heel]

Fayette-nam

as it's referred to in the local vernacular ... much of eastern N.C. is not appealing ... go a county east of Fayetteville and you end up in lovely Sampson County -- hot, flat, ugly, but replace the military bases with hog farms

[Jamastiene]

197. I despise Fayette-Nam.

I have to go there often to take my aunt to the VA hospital. The air there is bad too. I find myself resisting the urge to use too much windshield wiper fluid, only to realize that I tried that last time I went and it didn't work. It's the air. You can't see through it.

The roads are horrible. You find yourself driving in deep ruts made by the tanks. Heaven forbid you should veer out of those ruts too. Can we say front end alignment after every trip?

All the houses look alike. If that's not bad enough, they are all lined up in a row like they are at attention, only there is nothing to pay attention to.

There is way too much garbage on the side of the roads. I see they don't enforce their littering laws any better than my hometown does.

The place is full of Nazis and places that sell Nazi paraphernalia, tons of them. You can't throw a quarter without hitting two of them.

I hate that place. I told my aunt that as much as I hate Richmond County (Rockingham, NC), Fayetteville is worse.

[benEzra]

350. New Bern is nice,

as is Wilmington and much of the coast.

[jmowreader]

250. Hey! You're not allowed to talk shit about Fayetteville

That's my job. That's because I actually LIVE in this hellhole.

It's crammed with freepers.

It's also crammed with a unique subset of freeperdom: people who will cover their entire car/work truck with Scripture. Needless to say, one of my fondest wet dreams is, if I win the Powerball and move away from this fucking rathole, to go to a car lot the day before I leave, purchase the worst shitbox they have, paint the text of Matthew 7 (which you will NOT find on anyone's car--it says things fundies don't like to hear) on the side of it, and drive down the street playin' Ozzy at full volume until the engine dies...and then leave the car where it came to rest.

It's full of people who love George W. Bush.

The only newspaper you can get delivered to your home in this shithole is the Fayettenam Observer, which I refer to as "the socialist newspaper" because there's one in town. About once every month someone writes to the paper to complain about how liberal it is. In response they make the paper a little more conservative. At this point in time, the paper is about twice as conservative as the Washington Times.

The products available for sale in Fayettenam are a strange mix. There are more places to get a tattoo (15 establishments) than to get an ice-cream cone (14 establishments); if you DO want an ice-cream cone, your choices are Baskin-Robbins, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Cold Stone Creamery and Golden Corral. There are absolutely no locally-owned ice cream parlors here, and they wouldn't survive--only chain restaurants can thrive unless they're selling barbecue or "home cooking." What a fucking joke THAT line is. If I wanted to eat "home cooking," I have my own range. Oh, and we've got six Wal-Marts plus a Sam's Club.

Fayetteville is the reason the state of North Carolina has a law prohibiting the establishment of a church, home or school within 500 feet of a bar, strip club, or other adult-oriented business. Check this shit out: right after the state passed the law that says no bars within 500 feet of churches, a fundie church was running around buying up buildings within 500 feet of bars, establishing churches in those buildings, then claiming the bar had to close based on proximity to the church.

Now, the fundies DID claim a victory a few years back: the Army wanted a big tract of land for the Airborne Museum and the city wanted one fairly close to it for their new police headquarters. However, on the Airborne Museum land were about twenty strip clubs and the police station land contained Rick's, which was quite possibly the most famous strip club in the entire world. These were the very best places to put the new buildings, but every Bible-beater in town proclaimed victory when the buildings were razed. This is the equivalent of Donald Wildmon claiming victory because no one can afford to buy an 8mpg penis extension from Ford.

Oh, and SPEAKING of fundamentalists: we used to have three abortion clinics in town. One closed because it was a firetrap. One closed because the doctor decided to move to Raleigh. The third is still there. We're talking about the second one now: the Bible-pounders bought the building and turned it into a church in which you can grieve over your precious aborted "baby," including having funerals, going through grief counseling and all that. I gotta tell you, if I was a woman who had a tubal pregnancy (there are four treatments for this, and all are abortions) my ass would be standing in front of this place with a huge sign that said "these people lie to you" on it.

Fayettenam wants to "revitalize" downtown into this big tourist attraction that will cause people to rush down here and spend their whole vacation in fucking Fayettenam. Fayetteville is not a place you come to visit. It is a place you come to live. There is a difference. Apparently, about once every 10 years or so the city pays some out-of-towner a couple million to produce a glossy plan on how to get people to come to this shithole on vacation. I'll fuckin' do the same shit for a quarter-million, but what I'll tell 'em isn't what they'll want to hear: "Forget this crazy destination tourism shit, deal with the fact that the only reason anyone wants to stay longer than a day in this hellhole is that you can golf in January here (when I worked in a hotel, one of our busiest times was January to March and it was all golfers from the Northeast and Canada coming to FN to shoot golf while their home clubs were covered in white shit) and work on getting people who stay the night here en route to Orlando to stay another day." You can find things to do for one day in this town. The family can golf in the morning, visit the Airborne Museum after lunch, maybe hit Ranger Joe's for some Army insignia for the kids. My favorite shit: The city has decided its latest marketing scheme is patriotism--they've decided Fayetteville is the most patriotic city in America, easily beating out Lexington, MA; Concord, MA; Boston; Philadelphia; and the other two or three cities in America who host military installations as large as Bragg is. Now how the fuck do you sell patriotism? That's a good question and they have an actual answer. They were discussing things like holding a parade every single day, convincing all the restaurants in Fayetteville to sell hot dogs and apple pie, and giving fake tickets to all the people who drive foreign-made cars. (I am completely responsible for the city dropping THAT plan, when I went to a city council meeting and pointed out that not only do we not have enough police officers to waste their time on this, to give me a fake ticket for parking my Marysville, Ohio-made Honda in the downtown area, the cop would have to get out of his Matamoros, Mexico-made Crown Victoria...besides, what happens if the cop, while in the process of giving out a fake ticket, notices your inspection is two years overdue, there's a bag of weed sitting in the back seat or you've got someone locked in the trunk?)

Oh yeah: the plan before the "patriotism" shit was the "historical tourism" shit. Someone went to Colonial Williamsburg, got the numbers on their tourism industry, and decided we would do just as well. The difference between Colonial Willamsburg and Fayettenam is that Fayetteville, due to its harboring a Confederate Arsenal, was completely razed by General Sherman during his March to the Sea--this place got hit worse than anywhere else because of the arsenal. We GOT no history that predates Sherman's March here, just lots of signs around town "there was a really neat thing here until Sherman burned it to the ground." He even cut the trees down. I think Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" was written about Fayetteville. I am NOT spending three or four thousand dollars to historically tour a place that has no remaining history, nor would anyone else.

Well...actually I lie. We do have one thing left: the Market House. Before Lincoln freed the slaves they had an open-air market on the steps of the Market House. We know that on at least one occasion, slaves were sold at the Market House. Hence the nickname: "Slave Auction House." The black community has tried to have this torn down on a number of occasions and they finally said "screw it." I guess you could come here to see that, but it's 40 feet on a side and there's nothing in it--it's completely open at the bottom.

Stay the fuck away from Fayetteville. It is a place that is bad for you.

[NC_Nurse]

284. Damn!

I knew Fayettenam sucked, but this is EYE-Friggin'opening! Yuch, and I thought it was just the bad air, peep shows, and pawn shops that were repellant!

Come to Chapel Hill, it ain't that bad...still mostly libs and not an eyesore either. We have actual history here too. :)

[amitten]

319. Get. Out.

That is all.

[jmowreader]

324. I'm trying!

I forgot to put down another good one: Fort Bragg-induced wage distortion.

Here's how it works. XYZ Company decides to locate to Fayetteville. XYZ Company knows half of all officers' wives have advanced degrees. XYZ Company puts ad in paper: "Need 25 people with master's degree. Pay $22,500 per year. No benefits." 250 people with master's degrees show up to interview--all officers' wives. Next thing you know ABC Company and DEF Company are also paying $22,500 with no benefits--because the floor has been set.

Unfortunately, GHI Company looks at ABC, DEF and XYZ's payscales and thinks, "Fayetteville must be full of dumb motherfuckers if they can get MBAs for $22,500 per year. We don't want to employ dumb motherfuckers; we'll go somewhere else."

Now you got a brazillion jobs that no one would fill in Raleigh for less than $60,000 per year being filled for $22,500 because of bored officers' wives.

If there's anyone who knows how to trace a coolant leak in an Accord, PLEASE come to Fayetteville and help a brother out!

[amitten]

328. Save up and move without another job.

If you save enough for 3 months living expenses, you can move to another town, get an apartment and do full-time job hunting.

You'll easily find a job with a living wage in that time...and then you can search for a better job. At least you'll be out of hell.

[Jamastiene]

383. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of never having to go back

to Fayetteville. I have to come there to the VA tomorrow. Unless my aunt changes her mind. I hope she decides to reschedule the appointment. Either way I'll just have to go later. I hate the VA worse than the city.

[RumpusCat]

2. Suburbs of Houston, TX

I'm mostly judging the suburbs here--the downtown itself was decent and I appreciate that they were installing a lightrail (I was there like five years ago).

But the suburbs--ye gods! We were staying with a friend who lived about in the middle of the suburb belt and it still took us an hour and a half to hit the city proper! Since I wasn't driving I got to look out the window and watch chain after chain after chain roll by... Applebee's, Chili's, Walmart, Applebee's, Chili's, Walmart... it was like one of those old Hanna Barbera cartoons where the characters are traveling and the same background scrolls by over and over again. Then we convinced our friend to take us to a 'real' Texmex restaurant, one that wasn't a chain, and it took us hours to find one! It's not like I hate chain restarants and stores (not to start up that flamewar again!) but, I mean, it's Texas--should it be hard to find a real texmex restaurant? It was soul-sucking.

One of my traveling companions and I went for a walk around the outer downtown area and it was like the city planners never expected anyone to travel by foot. The sidewalk would disappear or shrink to nothing for blocks!

Another horrible bit was Rice University, where another companion wanted to visit an old school friend. I apologize to any alums but man, what a lame college! We went to a much-lauded tailgate party to find one (1) person drinking a beer and everyone else acting like they were on the cover of a college brochure. What kind of party is that? We tried to strike up conversation about some kind of gay rights issue that was in the news at the time and were met by the blankest of blank stares. I understand that Rice is a religious college but you'd think they'd at least have the conviction to argue with us if they disagreed.

Anyway, that was just my isolated experience, but I can't think of Houston without thinking of endless suburbs and completely sheltered and clueless college students. :evilfrown:

[Bunny]

51. Well, I went to a bar on the campus of Rice University once, and

saw a guy masturbating. So, there's that. :D

[Burma Jones]

80. Rice isn't religious, but it has its share of dimbulb rich kids

I mean, you did say Tailgate Party, you aren't going to find the hipsters there......

Otherwise, I have to agree with you, I lived in Houston for several years, and, outside of Montrose (the "Gay" neighborhood). and perhaps Kemah (grizzled waterfront), the whole place stinks on ice........ Literally stinks - if you're down wind of Pasadena....

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

87. I go to Tailgate parties.

I never went to one in school, but I tailgate for NY Giants games regularly. :shrug:

[Burma Jones]

89. The Meadowlands are different

I used to tailgate there too for Giants Games

Here in DC, the parking lots for Redskins games are all spread out among office buildings with shuttle service and this seriously dampens the tailgating....

[RumpusCat]

115. It wasn't that they weren't hipsters

I just couldn't comprehend the idea of a tailgate party with almost no alcohol! Even the dimbulbiest rich kid jocks would at least have a keg...

[ceile]

120. Rice has very few "jocks"

It's an mainly engineering school that only the rich brains can afford.
That's why they get their ass kicked in every sport-well, except baseball.

[ceile]

109. You got a bad deal on the Rice thing.

Rice is a beautiful campus in one of the oldest neighborhoods in Houston (The Village). The Village is great for drinking (The Gingerman) and eating (Thai, Indian, Mexican). When ever I visit my mom I always take a trip to the Gingerman.

[cmf]

243. You got one thing right about Rice

I'm an alumna and I agree that the kids there are very politically apathetic. I'm not surprised that you were met with blank stares when you brought up a current event. That is considered life "beyond the hedges", aka. it doesn't really matter. It's a weird quirk about Rice. But it just sounds like you stumbled across a bad TG, I attended many crazy parties while I was there. Of course, maybe the students have gotten lamer since I was there.

[catbert836]

4. St. Joseph, MO

I lived there for two years. I prefer not to remember that time. Don't go there, you'll get sucked in.

[xmas74]

8. I'd go w/ a smaller MO town.

I know of a worse one.

[ComerPerro]

346. St Joseph is the biggest small town I've ever seen

[Joe Fields]

14. Lived in KC. most of my life. Never liked St. Joe.

[YankeyMCC]

56. I visited there once

actually a TDY to the nearby Air Force base (Whiteman AFB correct?)

It did seem a little...well quiet :) I remember that's where I tried that peanut butter on a hamburger thing (for the life of me I can never retain the name of that in my memory).

Seems like there's plenty of beautiful landscape around though.

[Duncan Grant]

68. LOL!

Guess where I grew up? :D
Left it over 20 years ago...

[ComerPerro]

345. you're one of the lucky ones. That place is like a disease

and people can't escape

[Fountain79]

131. Wasn't Eminem born there? n/t

[catbert836]

132. I believe so.

That's one way to figure out you shouldn't go to a town- when their favorite son is Eminem.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

5. "Appalachia"

[XemaSab]

163. I thought the Appalachians (at least in North Carolina) were very pretty

and surprisingly chill.

[auntAgonist]

6. Paramus NJ

well, specifically a truckstop there. Filthy dirty, scary, all kinds of drug trafficking, women for hire, nasty place.
That was a few years back though, it might have cleaned up by now.

:hi:

aA

[Joe Fields]

15. Think I've been to that truck stop.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

111. Paramus, NJ isn't bad at all.

I've never been to the truck stop there though. Actually, I didn't even know there was a truck stop there. Maybe they got rid of it.

[cobalt1999]

7. L.A.

Can't imagine wanting to live with the traffic, pollution, housing prices, crowds. To think that valley used to be wild or farms, people actually canoed along the LA river with trees for shade. Just as much poverty too (just pushed into horrible pockets).

[1gobluedem]

9. I agree

I couldn't stand LA when I visited last summer. Overpriced, overcrowded, and phony.

[huskerlaw]

63. Get out of Beverly Hills.

The normal parts of the city aren't the least bit phony. You know, the parts where people who aren't celebrities actually live.

It is overpriced, I'm not going to argue with that, but that's because so many people want to live here. It wouldn't cost so much if living here sucked. Same with the overcrowding. Although, again, that gets better if you get away from tourist traps.

[RagingInMiami]

106. L.A. is one of my favorite U.S. cities

But then again, I'm from Miami so I'm used to traffic, chaos and diversity.

[Zhade]

281. Living here DOES suck. Moved here in '99.

I make a decent living (satellite broadcasting) and STILL barely scrape by, living in a shitty bachelor apartment across the street from Venice High (where that kid was murdered a few weeks back).

It's noisy. It's dirty. It really IS fake, even outside of Beverly Hills. If I meet another "actor/writer/genius" I'll friggin' puke.

I hate L.A. and desire to leave. It's so not worth it, between the lame public transit (DAMN YOU GOODYEAR/DUPONT/GM CABAL!) and the lamer cost of living.

Not a fan of this place any longer. But, glad you don't find it as bad as I do.

[huskerlaw]

294. I'm sorry you hate it

but I completely disagree with your assessment. I don't find it the least bit fake. I live in North Hollywood (in the Valley) and work in downtown. The people I encounter daily are some of the most real and diverse people I've ever been around.

The value of the public transportation really depends on where you live. I take the subway to work every day...works great, saves me tons of time and money. But I purposefully got an apartment within walking distance of the metro line.

The cost of living is high for a reason. Millions of people want to live here. Millions of people wouldn't want to live here if it sucked.

I'm sorry you don't like it, but if you feel that strongly, perhaps you should find a way to move. Or at least move to a different part of town, if possible. I've been told that a person's experience in this city are very dependent upon finding an area they like. The little neighborhoods are so diverse, nearly everyone can find an area they like.

[Stardust]

299. Hi Husker. I, too, live in NoHo and ride the RedLine into downtown

to work. Nice to see someone defend L.A. so nicely. I've been here about a year and a half, and don't think it's nearly as bad as most big US cities. NoHo and points north aren't that pretty, though, IMHO.

Today was simply brilliant. Lucky to live in LACA!

[huskerlaw]

301. Hi neighbor!

I love it here. I honestly don't mind if people don't like LA, as long as they gave it a fair shot.

Today was crazy pretty. My friends and I went to the beach...sooo pretty.

[Name removed]

303. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[huskerlaw]

308. You know what?

I'm sick of you calling me a liar.

Yes, I own a car. I ride the subway TO WORK.

Did you read the rest of the post? I drove to Malibu just yesterday. In fact, I've had a houseguest for the last 6 weeks and I've taken her to see nearly the entire city.

Just because I use public transportation to get to work (most of the time) does NOT mean I never drive.

I've lived here for a year, you visited once and you think you know more about the highway system?

Give me a fucking break. You couldn't navigate it. I'm not the only one who's told you that's your opinion and really nobody else's. Deal with your inadequacies.

[Joe Fields]

317. Kinda hard to get lost on a subway, or a bus.

[huskerlaw]

318. Seriously, would you stop?

I take the subway to work. I drive everywhere else. Why is that so difficult to grasp?

Perhaps people only use one mode of transportation in your little world. You know, the same world where everyone gets lost in LA. However, as you can tell by the other responses to this thread, I'm not the only one who believes that you're wrong.

I would appreciate it if you would quit calling me a liar. Until then, welcome to my ignore list.

[Joe Fields]

331. Question....

How can anyone take your "argument" seriously, when you admitted that you take the subway to work, and that you made sure to find a place to live that is within walking distance to the metro? And you're a lawyer?

There have been a number of people who agree with me on this subject. The rest figure that it's too silly of an argument to even get involved. Everyone knows that L.A. is hard to get around in, and easy to get lost, if you are from out of town. Unless, of course you take the subway and ride the bus.

[kwassa]

351. LA is not hard to get around in

and not easy to get lost in. It has major urban traffic, like any other big city, but Los Angeles is also a giant grid, and it is easy to hop off the freeway if things bog down, and take surface streets, something I often used to do. You only get lost if you can't read a map. Los Angeles also has better signage than any big city I have ever been in.

I drove every day in LA for 17 years. I drove after the Santa Monica Freeway was knocked down by the Northridge earthquake, and I had to take surface streets.

I now live in Maryland, north of DC, where traffic is almost as bad during rush hour. The problem here is that roads are NOT in a grid, but wander all over the place. I don't dare hop off the freeway in many places, because I don't know where I will end up. A north-south road will become an east-west road, and then zip off in some other direction, while the name of the road changes several times for no apparent reason. Roads are not marked that well, and the signage in Washington DC is just awful.

[Joe Fields]

352. The highways are NOT in a grid!

Sure, L.A. is easy, just like any city is easy to get around in, if you've lived there seventeen years.

You know, I wasn't posting this thread for native Angelinos. I began talking about how confusing the highway system in L.A. is for out of towners, just passing through, or visiting for a few days. Maybe you don't realize it, because you live there, but there is a decided LACK of signage on the highways there. I've been to almost every major city in the country, and L.A. scrimps on signs.

Now, maybe, once you are in the area of L.A. that you want to be in, (Anaheim, Sherman Oaks, Marina Del Ray,, etc...) and are OFF the highway, it is easier, because the streets are laid out in a grid, but the highways suck, the traffic is terrible, and the exits can be confusing. Getting to various parts of the city by highway is not easy, if you are a visitor.

[kwassa]

364. Incorrect

If you look at the map, you will see that the freeways in Los Angeles go essentially east-west or north-south, with some angling due to the coastline. That's it.

That is it. They are very logical. There is no lack of signage, they are well-marked. LA does not scrimp on signs, and like I said is far better signed than the DC metro area is.

[Joe Fields]

372. Give it up, man. L.A. is the most fucked up place, besides D.C. to drive

around in. Period, exclamation point. I don't care if you love L.A. That's your business, but quit trying to blow smoke up my ass. I know the city. I havent't read about it in a fairy book. They make movies about how bad the traffic is, and how hard it is to get around. Statistics prove me right.

[kwassa]

377. Sorry, but ....

as many more knowledgeable people in this thread have pointed out that it isn't hard to get around in Los Angeles. You are clearly not familiar with the city.

The traffic can be bad, but the set up of highway and streets is good. And it always pays to look at the map, regardless of where you are.

[Joe Fields]

378. You truly make me laugh.

[kwassa]

381. Whatever

[Zhade]

334. The Valley isn't really L.A.

NT!

[Stardust]

338. Yes it is. In fact many areas are City of LA, not just County of.//

[huskerlaw]

339. Hee hee

fair enough, but I work downtown...is that LA enough for ya? ;)

[Zhade]

340. That is, yes.

:)

[Joe Fields]

16. I'm not much for L.A. Impossible to get around in. Terrible smog.

couldn't enjoy the beaches, because of the crowds.

[huskerlaw]

61. I have to disagree.

It's not impossible to get around in, you just have to know when to avoid the freeways and how to navigate side streets. Just like any other city. Or you have to accept it as a part of life. Other places have snow and humidity. We have traffic (mostly due to our lack of snow and humidity).

The smog is only terrible during certain times of the year. The sky is usually crystal blue in the winter, for example. Often the marine layer is mistaken for smog...or is what's trapping the crappy air and causing the smog. Many, many cities would have smog issues if the city was essentially capped with a dense layer of marine fog.

As for the beaches, you obviously went to the wrong ones. Presumably, you went to the ones you've heard of, which...there's a reason you've heard of them, they're tourist traps. If you ever come back, take a drive into a residential neighborhood and look for partially hidden beach access. Park on the side of the road (beach access that comes with its own parking lot doesn't count). You can have an entirely serene and mostly solitary walk on the beach.

[Joe Fields]

90. I've traveled extensively, been to many cities, and I disagree.

L.A. is more confusing than most to get around. And the drivers suck, compared to drivers in cities like Chicago or San Francisco.

[huskerlaw]

97. Hmm, well

I grew up on a farm in Nebraska and I've lived here for less than a year and never get lost. Other than the fact that the city is built at an angle due to the coastline, I think it's one of the easiest cities to navigate.

I'd also rather take on LA drivers than the ones I used to battle in Omaha.

[Joe Fields]

113. C'mon, I grew up in a big city, been to all the major cities, and you

can't honestly sit there and tell anyone here that L.A. is an easy town to get around in.

If you grow up there, like anywhere else, then of course it's easy.

And I'm not saying that L.A. is a bad city. Millions of people live there. It has a lot going for it. But it's not one of my favorite places. I don't believe it belongs on this list.

[huskerlaw]

122. I can say it.

I live here, true, but I've lived here for just under a year. I grew up in Nebraska, mostly in a small town, but also in Lincoln, which is a city but hardly a large one. I have also traveled a LOT in the United States, so I know what other cities look like.

And yet...I rarely use maps and I haven't ever gotten truly lost. So yes, I can say that it's an easy town to get around in, because well...it is.

[Joe Fields]

124. Wanna put that up to a vote?

I suppose it could be a good fit for you, and you took to it real well. I'm well known in my circle of friends and family as having a great sense of direction, and being one that never gets lost.

L.A. is a mother of a town to get around in.

[huskerlaw]

127. You know,

it's really pretty stupid to argue with someone who lives in a city and drives in it every day.

You were a tourist, you got lost. Deal with it.

[Joe Fields]

129. What's silly, is to argue with someone who laughingly tries to tell

us that L.A. is an easy town to get around in. Numerous freeways, crisscrossing each other, many are four and six lanes wide, bumper to bumper traffic, numerous left lane exits, and last, but not least, a lack of signage.

I may not live there, but I've stayed there numerous times. Try peddling it to someone else.

[huskerlaw]

133. Ok...

I have a friend visiting from Belgium. Her first language is Dutch. English is like, I dunno, language 3 for her. She's finding her way around just fine.

Frankly, I don't know what your problem was...maybe the lack of cows?

[Name removed]

144. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Duppers]

238. not nice!

"maybe the lack of cows" That was a low blow and uncalled for, huskerlaw! I know people living in LA who agree with Joe. You owe him a big apology!!

And here's some facts for you:

Traffic Congestion in U.S. Cities, 2002
Rank Urban area Annual delay per person in hours
1. Los Angeles, Calif. 136
2. San Francisco-Oakland, Calif. 92
3. Washington, DC-Md.-Va. 84
4. Seattle-Everett, Wash. 82
5. Houston, Tex. 75
6. San Jose, Calif. 74
6. Dallas-Fort Worth, Tex. 74
8. New York, N.Y.-Northeastern N.J. 73
9. Atlanta, Ga. 70
10. Miami-Hialeah, Fla. 69

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855647.html

.........

>>
The Washington area had the third-worst traffic congestion in the United States, behind Los Angeles and San Francisco, for the fifth year in a row.
>>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/09/AR2005050900408.html
.........

Worst Cities For Traffic
Robert Malone 02.07.06, 6:00 AM ET

1. Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Calif.

2. San Francisco, Oakland, Calif.

3. Washington, D.C.

4. Atlanta

5. Houston

http://www.forbes.com/logistics/2006/02/06/worst-traffic-nightmares-cx_rm_0207traffic.html

......................

AND for the smog level issue:

>>
Southern California once again had the highest smog levels in the nation. The worst single day — an average of 142 parts per billion — was July 25 at Crestline in the San Bernardino Mountains. The worst single hour, at 175 ppb, was on July 22 in Glendora.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-heatsmog3aug03,1,2599988.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

And from Sierra Club site:
>>
The NOx and VOCs emissions from L.A.'s famous traffic and industry sit there cooking, day after day, building up ever higher levels of ozone as the pollution slowly drifts east. No rain interrupts to wash out the smog.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/report01/carsandtrucks.asp





"To cultivate a garden is to walk with God." -Christian Bovée

[huskerlaw]

240. He called me a liar

I owe him no sort of apology.

As for the cow comment, I'm from Nebraska. I'm not making fun of people who live around cows.

Also, if you read my posts, I was not saying there's no traffic congestion. There is. I was saying it's not hard to NAVIGATE. Which has really nothing to do with the number of cars.

I also never said there was no smog. I'm arguing against people who think you can't breathe the air here because the smog is so bad that you can see it. That's patently false.

[nini]

241. Ahhh... you are a true Angeleno now

Welcome to the club of having to defend the city to people who have been here for a whole day or two and think they know everything about it.

I love the navigation woes *snort*.... Hell, I get lost in a city I'm not familiar with. I don't blame the city, I blame my lack of familiarity.


What about this perfect weather today? AND we can see the mountains!!! Go figure.

:hug:

[huskerlaw]

271. I know!

What can I say, I absolutely LOVE my new city. Yes, it has problems, but complain about real ones at least, for god's sake.

Today was fucking amazing. 80 degrees, not a cloud in the sky...and very, very little smog as well. My friends and I just got back from Malibu, where the cool breeze was blowing and the water was a particularly fabulous shade of blue.

But you know, I don't care if people hate LA. One less moron on the roads. But to hate it based on a complete lie is beyond annoying.

:hug:

[Zhade]

283. What do you do for a living?

That has a lot to do with how much a person likes L.A., I've found.

[huskerlaw]

289. Really?

I don't see how it's relevant other than LA is a far nicer place to live in when you can afford to live in a decent neighborhood. But of course that would be true anywhere.

To answer your question, I'm a law professor.

[nini]

296. I've never heard that

and considering there's just about every profession in the world here, I'm not sure how that applies.


:shrug:

[nini]

298. Don't you mean MELibu?

:D

I don't get up that way much, but it is nice.


yep, it was nice today. I'm glad the heat is gone.


You're a fine addition to our city. I'm glad you came out here.


:hug:

[huskerlaw]

309. Thank you.

I'm glad I came out here too.

(thankfully we managed to avoid Mel.)

:hug:

[Duppers]

242. you're right

My apologies. I've had an easier time navigating in L.A. than in D.C. frankly.

And thank you for clarifying that 'cow' remark for me. Since I love farms, I'm just a little sensitive. :)

I landed in L.A. on a bad smog day and had trouble with my asthma, but all and all, L.A.'s a lot better than many other places in the U.S. In fact, there's so many terrible ones, I cannot make a choice, but folks have listed some good ones here.

I liked this comment about the state of FL: "It was like being in a jungle populated by oversized insects and Jerry Springer guests!"


peace.

[Kerrytravelers]

175. Well, I guess I'd also be silly to argue with.

I've never had any problems getting around LA. And I came from a small suburb in Northern California. I came here to go to college and never went back!

I know LA isn't for everyone, but the whole traffic thing isn't as bad as it may seem.

[taught_me_patience]

258. LA is seriously the easiest city

to get around in. Large boulevards, easy grid pattern, and a simple freeway system. Boston and San Francisco are 100,000 times more difficult to get around in than LA. And the traffic isn't half as bad as other cities i've been to (boston, seattle, houston, honolulu, NYC, SF).

[Joe Fields]

266. Your opinion. Not Mine. I found SF to be much easier.

[nini]

297. probably because it takes 20 minutes to move a block at rush hour

That way it gives you plenty of time to decide if you want to turn or not at the next intersection. :evilgrin:

I was up there once and got caught in the evening traffic and it took almost a half hour to go two blocks. I was amazed - and L.A. is the one with the bad rep? :shrug:

[democracyindanger]

310. SF is a fraction of the size of LA

And having lived in both cities, both are equally a pain in the ass to get around in. LA's edge is that it's so big there are almost always secondary routes. SF is jammed on the tip of a peninsula, and there aren't many choices for main thoroughfares.

'Course if you ride a motorcycle and lane split, both cities are a piece of cake.

[Zhade]

285. I've found the old Angeleno saying to be true...

It takes half an hour to get anywhere, be it across town or across the street.

[Joe Fields]

304. Probably a lot of truth to that. lol

[Zhade]

282. Well, I've lived here since '99, and I agree with the other guy.

You must either 1) travel within a small radius or 2) be gifted with amazing navigation skills.

[huskerlaw]

290. I travel everywhere

Literally. I often go from the Valley to Malibu (and everywhere in between) just to hang at the beach for the evening.

I'm not amazingly talented. It's a grid. It's not rocket science.

[Popol Vuh]

93. LA Born and Raised

And you're right on.

Smog? The marine layer is something I always tell visiting friends too. It traps and gets stained with smog and makes it appear that we have more smog than we do. And its only at certain times of the year. Yeah we do have smog, but not like a lot people think we do.

Traffic? Not a big problem when you know LA.

Poverty? LA has its share of poverty, but some of that is due to other places around the country lacking services to aid poor needy people. So naturally with LA's weather and better aid services, we get a lot of other people's poor.

No where else do you have as much diversity than LA. Besides the cultural diversity, no where else can you all within the same day drive out to a hot desert, and also go snow skiing in the mountains, and also go for a walk or swim at the beach, and visit Disneyland.

No where else is there as much available to do as there is in LA. Beaches, Mountains, Deserts, Disneyland, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Knots Berry Farm, Universal Studios, Hollywood, Hollywood's music scene, Santa Monica Pier, Venice Beach, Cultural Arts centers, A multitude of museums, Long Beach Grandprix, Long Beach Aquarium, The Queen Mary in Long Beach, A short drive to Mexico, A short drive to Las Vegas, etc.

I Love LA Barbara Boxer Land :)

[nini]

239. exactly... there's good an bad.. the good usually outweighs the bad

I'm a life long L.A. native too. Yep, there are plenty of issues here in the city of Angels, but I'd like someone to prove to me it's the only major city that does - seems some folks think L.A. is unique in that respect.

[L A Woman]

251. I concur wholeheartedly!

I love L.A. - even though the housing prices get me down and the traffic is a bitch, it's a small price to pay for the diversity, the excitement, the energy. Not long ago I went the grocery store and I walked down one aisle, people were speaking Russian, the next aisle Spanish, the next aisle German, and it made me smile. Just a small reminder of what a welcoming city this is.

And two more words - ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA!

[Zhade]

286. I've got a Villaraigosa story for you...

He's not as hip to progressivism as he appears, or at least not environmentalism. He showed up where I work (DirecTV in Marina del Rey) for a tour of the facility in, get this --

-- a HUMMER LIMO.

You'd think he'd know better!

[nosillies]

307. Speaking of your mayor...

I was at Asia de Cuba for dinner a few weeks ago, and sat near Antonio. MUY CALIENTE!

I don't live in L.A., but go there for work, and I must say I do love it.

[taught_me_patience]

262. well put

I moved to LA three years ago and love it. I've been on DU defending LA for the last year. Hell, I should change my name to LA dave.


taught.

[Union Label]

178. You can keep that smog trap

I landed there on a flight from San Fransisco in 76' and I was under the impression that they had fog like San Fransisco, but lo and behold when the door was opened I couldn't breath, it was fucking horrible. I will never go back to that place the air was not breathable.

[huskerlaw]

179. Yes because

everything is the same as it was in 1976. We don't have any sort of smog control or emissions standards now...

:eyes:

[Union Label]

208. Believe it or not

But the smog is way worse now than it was then, I have people I talk to that have lived there all their lives and you said you have only been there a little under a year.:eyes:

[huskerlaw]

231. You're

basing your view of a city on what you saw from the airport in 1976 and you're rolling your eyes at ME?

Puh-fucking-leeze.

I don't know what it looked like in 1976, cuz I wasn't even ALIVE then. However, I do know what it's looked like pretty much every day since October 10, 2005 and I assure you that you can very rarely "see" the air (and since you obviously read my previous posts, you surely read the part about the marine layer...), and I've had tons of visitors from the midwest (where smog doesn't exist) and not a damn one of them has complained about air quality. In fact, every last one of them has been pleasantly surprised.

Now if you want to go to a city where you can "see" the air, try Houston.

[nini]

237. That's not true

The smog was at its peak in the mid 70s.

"In 1976, daily smog levels exceeded extremely high levels (stage 1 at .20 parts per million) on 102 days at at least one Los Angeles area monitoring station. Despite sharp population and vehicle growth, Los Angeles ozone levels have fallen sharply. In 1996, the stage 1 ozone standard was exceeded only on 7 days. "
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=65033

Over time improvements have been made and it is NOT as bad as it was back then. So to day it's worse now than it ever was is simply not factual.

Yes, there still is smog like most major cities. But it isn't at its worst.

Oh, I lived here more than a year.. almost 50 so I know what the pattern has been over time.

[YankeyMCC]

57. That's high on my list too

Althought I still can't decide if it was worse than OK City or Shreveport. <shiver>

[huskerlaw]

64. No way is it worse

than Oklahoma or Louisiana. No. Freaking. Way.

:scared:

[YankeyMCC]

70. Well OK and LA

don't have earthquakes :shrug:

But then again maybe you're right :)

[XemaSab]

164. I lived in LA for a while and loved it

It's a nasty town to visit, but if you live there and have a nice place to go home to the urban amenities unfold before you.... There's just always something going on.

[Haole Girl]

261. I love L.A. !

But it takes a whole lot 'o money (now I'll have that song stuck in my head) to live there well.

[Vidar]

10. El paso, TX

[fudge stripe cookays]

11. Kansas.

We drove through there in the middle of the night on a bus ("Dean's Texas Rangers") bound for Iowa.

We stopped at a giant McDonald's, drug store, combo store, truck stop thing in the middle of freaking nowhere. There was nothing else around. Nothing.

The woman behind me in line at McDonald's saw all our Howard Dean shirts and accessories, and said, "Ya'll must not be from around here."

:scared:

[Joe Fields]

17. Nothing like making a stranger feel welcome.

I got a much worse reception in Texas a few years back.

[fishwax]

29. i've nothing but horror stories of kansas

being stuck (or all but stuck) in snowstorms, having car trouble, traveling to football games only to see the team lose on freak plays ... i know we have some great DUers from Kansas and all, but I've got to agree with you about kansas :scared:

Not quite equivalent to the howard dean shirt story, but similar in some respects was our experience in the late 90s as we were traveling from oklahoma to colorado through kansas. About 40 miles into the state we started having car trouble--the engine was missing, sluggish on the hills, stff like that. I thought we got some bad gas because it started shortly after a fill-up, so we pressed on.

Finally, about 20 miles outside of Quinter the car died, and it was several minutes before we could start it again. We limped into Quinter--with the car dying again two or three times along the way--and got a room in a hotel ("Halfway between Kansas City and Denver!" the hotels promotional material explained) until the next day when we could take it to the town's one garage.

Our car was an '84 Honda Accord, and this was in the mid to late 90s, when the Honda Accord had been the best-selling car in the U.S. for several years. But when we pulled into the garage, explained the situation, and asked if he might be able to solve and fix the mystery, he looked me in the eye, confused, and said: "not really--we don't really work much on them foreign cars." (Accords are made in Ohio, fwiw.)

We had no choice but to limp to the next bigger town, where we got much the same response, though they did at least have a suggestion. We tried it, it didn't work, and spent the entire morning and early afternoon driving west on I-70, stalling every twenty or thirty miles.

God as my witness, once we made it to the Colorado border, we didn't have another problem with the car for the rest of the trip or the trip back. A relative we stopped to see in Colorado with a special expertise in Hondas could find no rhyme or reason for our problem and gave us a clean bill of health.

We could reach but one conclusion: our car simply hated Kansas, and so we never took that car through Kansas again.

[fudge stripe cookays]

34. Ohmigod.

I'm so sorry about all the headaches and car trouble, but that has to be one of the funniest car stories I've ever heard. Your car must be a Scorpio!

[fishwax]

40. yeah, definitely one of those stories we could laugh about later

Actually, we were laughing about it as soon as we began to realize that colorado was the solution :rofl:

I hadn't thought about the cars sign before :)

[regnaD kciN]

188. Well, when it comes to cars and Colorado...

Back in summer '79, my ex and I were moving from New England to California, driving cross-country with three cats and a lot of our belongings crammed into a '66 Corvair. (Yeah, up yours, Nader! :spank: ) Well, we had just crossed the Nebraska/Colorado border when one of the rear wheel bearings started making a sound worthy of any low-budget horror film, and we had no choice but to tow it into Sterling, Colorado, where the Chevy dealership was on Main Street, right smack in the middle of the city (?), and the service department had on display the rattles from the rattlesnake that they had had to kill in the dealership the week before. Fortunately, after a couple of days (!), I managed to convince them that the Corvair took the same rear wheel bearings as the Corvette (which they should have been able to find out in about five minutes if they had bothered reading the service manuals), and we were out of there within another day.

During our stay, we wound up at the local Best Western, where we somehow got assigned the only room with that height of '70s sophistication, a waterbed -- much, I'm sure, to the disappointment of the high-school football jocks and their cheerleader girlfriends who were probably that room's regular clientele.

I still don't know if that Corvair chose that moment to break down as a reaction to its proximity to Sterling, or if it had been holding itself together for the previous couple of days to avoid having to be repaired in Nebraska.

[fishwax]

355. d'oh! good story

I still don't know if that Corvair chose that moment to break down as a reaction to its proximity to Sterling, or if it had been holding itself together for the previous couple of days to avoid having to be repaired in Nebraska.

I'm thinking the car was holding out for colorado, though sterling is far from the best CO has to offer :rofl:

:hi:

[Momgonepostal]

139. I had an '84 Accord that did the same thing in Utah

Maybe they are left wing cars? :ROFL:

My car did almost the exact same thing, and the first mechanic I had said the air filter was bad and changed it. A few miles later the car stalled again outside another little town and that mechanic thought it was a gas problem but also said that year Honda had the fuel line routed funny and the so the line got cold and if the gas was cheap, then a chunk of ice could clog the fuel line. I have no idea if that is true, but he put an additive in the gas to burn off the yucky stuff, refilled the tank and rerouted the line. The car ran fine after that. :shrug:

[fishwax]

354. that's interesting

it was a cold night, so maybe that explains the problems we had that night.

Loved that car, though, and never had another problem with it until the day it just gave up the ghost completely ... well, nothing major anyway--the horn fell off, sure, but that was no big deal. And the rearview mirror, yeah, but we got a new one. The visors fell off as well, but that just gave the car character. And once, while we were driving in las vegas, the gear mechanism simply fell apart (it was an automatic)--I had to pull off the road and figure out how to reassemble the thing before we could get it out of drive :rofl:

But all these were trifling things. The engine ran great, and I still miss that car :)

[Momgonepostal]

368. I drove mine until it fell apart completely

And bits and pieces fell off too, just like yours, particularly, the rear bumper and part of the side panelling. Also, some screws kept coming out of the steering wheel, so part of that would fall off.

But you know, even though the paint was peeling and it looked like crap, I still sometimes had people roll down their windows in traffic and ask if it was for sale. Go figure.

I cried when they came to tow it away for the last time. It was in such bad shape I ended up donating it to a local charity that took cars.

[fishwax]

374. I'd buy another in a heartbeat

It's funny, but when we still had that car we would occasionally see other cars of the same year and make, and I'd peak in the windows and every time would see some similar disfunction inside. :) But they ran forever too.

I cried when they came to tow it away for the last time. It was in such bad shape I ended up donating it to a local charity that took cars.

I can totally relate. I got choked up too. Charity refused to take ours, so I gave it to the maintenance guy at our apartment for free. He had a daughter who was about to turn 16 and he thought he and his dad might be able to get it running again. About a year later later we were going to the grocery store and saw our car in the parking lot of a burger king. We could tell it was our car because of a distinctive scar on the rear of the car where the paint had blistered and corroded. Apparently he got it running again, and his daughter worked at the BK, because we saw it again there fairly regularly after that.

It always did my heart glad to drive by it :)

[Momgonepostal]

369. I drove mine until it fell apart completely

And bits and pieces fell off too, just like yours, particularly, the rear bumper and part of the side panelling. Also, some screws kept coming out of the steering wheel, so part of that would fall off.

But you know, even though the paint was peeling and it looked like crap, I still sometimes had people roll down their windows in traffic and ask if it was for sale. Go figure.

I cried when they came to tow it away for the last time. It was in such bad shape I ended up donating it to a local charity that took cars.

[Momgonepostal]

370. I drove mine until it fell apart completely

And bits and pieces fell off too, just like yours, particularly, the rear bumper and part of the side panelling. Also, some screws kept coming out of the steering wheel, so part of that would fall off.

But you know, even though the paint was peeling and it looked like crap, I still sometimes had people roll down their windows in traffic and ask if it was for sale. Go figure.

I cried when they came to tow it away for the last time. It was in such bad shape I ended up donating it to a local charity that took cars.

[OzarkDem]

45. Did you see the giant prairie dog?

We used to drive between Denver & Kansas City a lot, nothing but prairie interrupted occasionally by grain silos.

[fudge stripe cookays]

48. We saw NOTHING.

It was pitch black, we'd been driving for hours through Oklahoma and other places, and there was NO LIGHT. No streetlights, no highway lights, no NOTHING.

We were all bleary-eyed when we got there. The only thing I saw and liked were the cool Adirondack chairs with the sunflowers cut into the back of them. I wanted to grab a few and tie them to the top of the bus to take home for my garden. :D

[OzarkDem]

249. I drove it at night once

after fatigue set in and, as you say, its so dark you can't see anything, I kept thinking I was seeing the tail-lights of another car about 200 yards in front of me. Suddenly, it looked as though the car in front hit its brakes and I hit mine. Hubby woke up and asked what was going on. When I told him, he said "there's no car up there".

All that darkness plays tricks on ya.

[XemaSab]

167. You were one of the TEXANS???

One of y'all stole our flat Howard, dude!

:grr:

[fudge stripe cookays]

358. Ha!

Is THAT where Flat Howard came from? I know he was at HQ for a time, and all my buddies posed with him.

I didn't know he'd been absconded with! On behalf of my fellow Texans, I apologize profusely for Howard's kidnapping.

[XemaSab]

168. You were one of the TEXANS???

One of y'all stole our flat Howard, dude!

:grr:

pissed enough to say it twice :P j/k

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Illinois. Also Flint, MI.

Though most of Southern MI (south of Saginaw) I'm not too fond of, except Ann Arbor, which is fucking cool.

[stanwyck]

96. Wait a minute,

I'm from the prairie land of central Illinois. Lived there until I was 18, left for college, and only go back to visit family.
Let's say it's an acquired taste. The prairie can be very beautiful - in it's own way. I like to think it's very Wyeth-esque. Rather barren and spare. But interesting.
And Chicago is wonderful.
I will admit that it's disheartening to go back to central Illinois. The towns seem very dispirited. The Wal-Marts have depleted the main streets. And there aren't many businesses left.
What's really depressing is to see all the people I grew up with and find out they're rabid Bushies who don't read or have much curiousity about the world.
I feel very estranged from the people I grew up with; and that's sad.

[Rabrrrrrr]

147. Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of the prairie, having grown up

on it in Southern Wisconsin (the very southernest part which is actually prairie). I love Iowa, Nebraksa, the Dakotas, the parts of Indiana that aren't Gary, Kansas, all of it. I love the Prairie, and it is part of me.

I just don't like Illinois. Probably cuz I'm from Wisconsin, and I just have a bad taste for the state.

[stanwyck]

160. We used to go to Wisconsin every summer

and camp out on a lake for two to three weeks. We'd camp in a national forest north of Appleton...out in the middle of nowhere. We had to drive 40 miles to the grocery store. The birch trees were beautiful. We'd get a little rain for a few minutes late every afternoon, just enough to keep everything clean and fresh. And green. The sun would keep shining. We always had lots of black bears in camp. We had to hide our food. And, of course, raccoons and skunks. Wisconsin is a beautiful state. So many lakes. Sigh. I wish I was there now.

[Benfea]

148. Which part of Illinois?

There are three distinct geographical regions of Illinois: Chicago, Chicago suburbs, and cornfield. You can't possibly despise them all.

[Rabrrrrrr]

156. It's not the geography, it's the place.

[swag]

13. Tie between Salt Lake City, Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada.

[ShaniqaPie]

21. Las Vegas

[Joe Fields]

119. I love Las Vegas. But just for a few days at a time.

[scarlet_owl]

18. Houston, TX.

I never want to be there again.

[OzarkDem]

42. Nah, Ft. Worth, TX

full of racist rednecks, hot as hell.

[yellowdogintexas]

219. Hey, we gots libruls here too. And a rocking downtown that

is safe at night, and great museums and a nationally ranked zoo and yeah it is hot as hell. But not as humid or smoggy as houston thank God and not as horrible to get around in as Houston or Dallas and if you drive 15 minutes to the West you are in open country and you can wade in dinosaur foot prints in Glen Rose and we have tons of public art too. Not bad for a city of its size.

I prefer Ft Worth to many other places I have encountered. Unfortunately these days you are going to find some form of racist redneck just about anywhere you go.

Besides we have great Tex Mex food too. I love the diversity in population too, having lived most of my life prior to being here in either mostly WASP places or places with mostly just Anglo and African american populations. We have big Hispanic population, big Vietnamese population and pockets of "other" . It's fun.

[Haole Girl]

253. Though I am offended, I'd have to say

it isn't the most pleasant place in the world. I should know, since I live here. Today it is 102 f ...I can't even step outside without my stomach turning.

[begin_within]

19. Pahrump is now a boom town of sorts. Fireworks, gambling, prostitution are

legal there - the 4 fireworks stores there do huge business in May, June and July

[Joe Fields]

28. I miss the old Mountainview bowling alley there, but not much else.

Used to go to Terrible's Town casino. Lived there for a little over a year, and found the place pretty unfriendly. The school system there absolutely was horrible. I understand that the old sheriff bought a major interest in one of the whore houses.

I liked the valley, and loved driving to Shoshone, and even visiting China Ranch, but day to day life there really sucked.

[begin_within]

31. I couldn't live there. I have also heard that the locals are unfriendly.

[fudge stripe cookays]

37. Oh dear.

I've discovered a cousin's widow (whom I need to contact for my genealogy book) lives there. I've gotten used to calling complete strangers, but now I'm nervous!

[Joe Fields]

39. My brother still lives there. Strange that he likes it there.

Don't care if I never see the place again.

[XemaSab]

170. Have you read "Nye County Brothel Wars?"

That is QUITE THE BOOK. :wow:

[Joe Fields]

209. Haven't heard of it, but I'd bet it's an interesting read.

[XemaSab]

213. It's about this dude who wanted to open another brothel

and met with some local resistance.

From rival brothel owners.

Who burned the place down and tried to kill him and the girls.

[Joe Fields]

225. Wow. Lived there over a year, and never heard that story.

But it doesn't really surprise me.

[AngryAmish]

88. But art Bell moved away!!!!

[Seabiscuit]

20. San Diego

It really, really, really sucks.

Home of Sean Hannity's new "Freedom" hate-fest "concert" and "minutement" crackers.

Please - stay away in droves!

[begin_within]

30. It's also very crowded and expensive (homes $600k, gas $3.49, electricity

is very high, everything is extremely costly here). Seriously, it's a ripoff.

[Flaxbee]

38. what about apartment rentals along the coast?

not on the coast, I know those'd be $$$, but just not inland. Say, Solana Beach area? Small, one-person places? Any idea? Or even downtown...

[begin_within]

47. I think you're lucky to find anything under $1000/mo, but you can find

places around $700-$800/mo if you search long and hard. The only real way is to share a house with other people.

[Seabiscuit]

74. The best location for that is Leucadia.

[Seabiscuit]

75. These days you really need to be a multi-millionaire to move to S.D.

That is, if you want to buy a home anywhere outside of areas like El Cajon, Chula Vista, Escondido, Vista, Imperial Beach, etc.

[begin_within]

104. Even in those areas homes are still in the $500k range! You have to have

two incomes (both spouses must work full-time), with nearly six-figure incomes, and have a hefty down payment saved up, before you can even consider buying a house. If you work for minimum wage or even above it, forget it, you'll never qualify.

[Seabiscuit]

123. Or:

You just have to be a retired multi-millionare, with investment income of $120K+/year.

:evilfrown:

[maveric]

145. Yeah. Its SO fucking terrible here.

:sarcasm:
In spite of all you mentioned,I wouldnt live anywhere else in CA.
I LOVE San Diego!

Gimme a Break!

[Seabiscuit]

161. Aw, you blew my cover...

Wait a minute... with that, *I* just blew my cover.

I love San Diego too, except for the fact that more and more people keep moving here every year.

I was trying to discourage them.

OTOH, if the majority of DU'ers could afford to move here, I'd welcome them. We need more Democrats!

Wouldn't it be nice if we could empty Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido of all the low-life racist white Repukes and move the DU'ers in? ("Song sung blue")

[begin_within]

171. San Diego is a paradise lost... far too many right-wingers, too expensive,

too crowded, long lines everywhere, traffic, noise, crime - but still great weather (most of the time anyway). But in the 1960s and 1970s, when everything was uncrowded and an ordinary middle-class family could buy a house here, it was a type of paradise. Now that it's been "discovered" by the entire world, it's like it was invaded by a vast army of people who want the "good life" and this has almost destroyed what it was they came here for.

[Seabiscuit]

201. I remember S.D. from 1971 - it was almost pristine.

Then again, Broadway was full old Navy style skin flicks from Japan, peep shows and strip clubs and bums everywhere - really seedy. The new Broadway and Gaslamp Quarter area is a huge improvement.

Even 6 years ago the commute traffic on the 5 was almost nonexistent - today it's a headache.

The problem has been lack of planning and uncontrolled growth - decades of city and county giveaways to the developers, who, now that they have created congestion with their rapacious rape of the open lands, have also priced most people out of the home real estate market. I haven't the foggiest idea where all the rich people come from that move in and buy those houses or how so many can afford them.

Fortunately I got in while the getting was still good. And no, I'm not going to leave. The problems here are still nothing compared to L.A. IOW, "almost destroyed", but not quite.

Problems? Yeah. But imagine trying to buy a 2-3 BR "flat" in New York City in a somewhat "safe" area for less than $1M.

[begin_within]

207. There was a group in the 1980s called PLAN, for Prevent Los Angelization

Now, and they had some support, but basically I guess they got bulldozed by the forces of greed. Besides the developers (Corky McVillain and his ilk) I really blame Pete Wilson, Roger Hedgecock and Susan Golding for unnecessarily promoting San Diego so heavily to the rest of the world (at the behest of the developers, I'm sure) and causing so many people to come here. Yes, downtown S.D. was basically one big Navy "liberty" playground back in those days. That tacky "Funland" arcade is still a photo in my memory). I still don't like downtown San Diego very much despite all the new stuff.

[Seabiscuit]

220. I still blame Wilson and Hedgecock for a LOT of things.

I also blame the bought-and-paid for members of the City and County Councils who have done the developers' bidding for decades. Where I live (http://www.hribar.com/carmel-valley.htm), one in particular, Pardee Homes, is the prime "McVillain".

Wilson does his dirty work behind the scenes these days, while Hedgecock's still out there (with his Limpballs wannabee wingnut radio talk-show program) in everyone's face.

[begin_within]

223. Also, to me, that photo of Larry Lucchino shaking hands with Susan

Golding is the crystallization of what's wrong with San Diego - the city government is in bed with corporations and developers, and that was the crowning moment of the whole thing - essentially giving away $400 million of public money to one privately owned company (San Diego Padres).

[Seabiscuit]

235. I'm not up on that story - or Susan Golding. Tell me more.

At first I thought you were talking about Lucky Lucciano. ;)

[begin_within]

245. Susan Golding was the mayor of San Diego from 1992-2000, and in

1998 she came to terms with the San Diego Padres on building a new ballpark for the Padres, even though Qualcomm Stadium is still completely useful as a baseball stadium and is far more centrally located than the location of the new ballpark. Larry Lucchino had been hired by the Padres to make the deal happen with the city - before that he had worked over Baltimore to get the Camden Yards thing built. After the Padres thing, he went on to some other city to score a new stadium for whatever team was there. The new ballpark for San Diego was voted on by the voters of San Diego, and thanks to a massive campaign by the Padres, it won by 59-41 percent, in November 1998. It finally opened in 2004. The campaign for it promised that the city's part of it would be funded exclusively by hotel taxes that were to be built around the new ballpark (but not all of them were built) and they would not touch the general fund. The city went into deep debt for other reasons, including a massive mismanagement of the pension funds, and the city was forced to dip into the general fund to continue paying for the ballpark. Then to make up deficits in the general fund, the sewer fees were raised citywide. So, effectively, they forced the homeowners of the city to pay for the ballpark, even those who voted "No" on it. The city is now well over $1 billion in debt and Time magazine once called it "Enron by the Sea." To me that photo of Golding shaking Lucchino's hand symbolizes corporate welfare better than any other picture I have seen. It was on the front page of the daily newspaper in the summer of 1998, but I can't find that photo online now. (And I'm not surprised at that.)

[Seabiscuit]

256. No wonder. I moved here in 2001.

I was away during her mayorship. That was a major screwup.

I lived here 1971-1973, was gone 28 years, and semi-retired here in 2001.

I think the SD Union's online page deletes controversial stories from its historical front pages periodically. Back in the summer of 2003 I told a right-wingnut uncle of my wife that I'd seen a story in the news about Bush borrowing money from the Social Security trust fund. He called me a liar. The very next day the story was confirmed on the front page of the SD Union. I failed to save it. Last summer I searched for it online and discovered the story had been deleted from signonsandiego's archives.

Politically, this town is f'd up.

[Joe Fields]

226. I was lucky enough to visit S.D. 3 times in the early '70's.

I guess everyone and their brother had the same idea about wanting to move there. From what I hear, it would be a disappointing place to visit nowadays. Especially if your memories of it are from back when I visited.

[Patiod]

229. The people I know there only talk about one thing: Real Estate

Well, some of them talked about surfing in a very esoteric, you're-not-included-in-this sort of way.

I went to a party with a bunch of virologists and academics, and thought they would be interesting people (I'm in the medical field in a peripheral way). Nope - all they talked about was money and real estate and money and real estate and land and houses and real estate and surfing and real estate and land. I have never been so bored in my life, and I talk to people for a LIVING.

There was also the attitude of "what took you so long to move here? Why would you want go home after you've experienced paradise?"

Not the worst place in the US, because it's amazingly beautiful and the climate is great, but but once our eyes were opened to the money obsession, that's all we heard. I'm sure it's the same in certain circles in NY and elsewhere, but this was ridiculous.

[Seabiscuit]

234. That's very depressing. Yes, there are some mindless greedy hogs here.

[Mz Pip]

22. Dallas Airport

Yuck.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[fudge stripe cookays]

49. Hey...

At least it has bars. And you can get to them from the gate.

Ever fly through MAdison, Wisconsin? 1 bar, and the guy didn't even have any Bailey's. I had to show him how to make a Colorado Bulldog, since it was the closest he could get.

[BlueIris]

204. Oh, yeah. The only one (almost) as bad is O'Hare.

O'Hare is the Airport of the Damned. Especially after 10 p.m. But at least O'Hare had decent people in it. A nice lady working at a coffe bar there gave me free coffee. Then the airport shut down, they locked up all the vending machines, and I was stuck there overnight for twelve hours. Terrible.

Still not as horrible as Dallas. I got there and it was just--yuck is right. So icky it was creepy. I could not wait to get out of there.

[City Lights]

23. Living - Phoenix area.

Had the unpleasant experience of living there for 5 years. What were we thinking? I'll NEVER go back, even to visit.

Visiting - I'll go with Pampa, TX. Had a friend who fell in love with someone from there and I visited her. I remember thinking, she must really love this guy to stay here. She's divorced now and living back in the Chicago area.

[RagingInMiami]

107. I have to agree with you there

I spent four years in the Valley, living in Tempe, which is better than the rest of the municipalities. But it was still lame.

[erinlough]

136. I second that

just got back from visiting my son last week.....120 degrees on the 101 and crime, dirt and sand. A totally awful place.

[Aristus]

24. Thermopolis, Wyoming.

A ramshackle hell-hole in the middle of nowhere. Everybody there looked tired and hopeless. This was thirty years ago or so. If it has changed for the better and is now a paradise on the prairie, I apologize. Back when I was there,very, very briefly (thank God), it was awful.

[fishwax]

32. did you visit any of the hot springs?

The world's largest mineral hot springs are there ... as a kid growing up in northern wyoming, we always thought thermopolis was always a cool trip because they had water slides, etc. :)

on edit: a pic ... you may well be right about the hopeless populace, but I think the place has a definite beauty ...

[yellowdogintexas]

218. Thermopolis was fun, we did the hot spring thing and boy did

it feel good!!! In the Free State Bath house, by the way. However, don't know if living there would be fun.maybe if I didn't have to be concerned bout my income. I love Wyoming. . . for visiting.

[Joe Fields]

36. Sounds a lot like Manila, Utah.

I spent three weeks working outside of Manila, near Lonetree, Wyoming. Lived in a godforsaken old motel, which should have been bulldozed long before. That motel and a gas station, and that was it. A very depressing three week stay.

[Arugula Latte]

78. I saw towns like that when we drove through Wyoming.

:scared:

[China_cat]

187. Thermopolis is a thriving, bustling metropolis

when compared to Ten Sleep. (Dirty Sally's, anyone?)

[Patiod]

228. Gillet was like that

The main street and shopping area looked okay, but then we went into a bar (didn't serve food, but we did hear some idiot complaining that the DNA test they did on his ex-wife's kid proved he was the father) and a diner (where the chef was flicking his ashes in a pile ON THE GRILL). We got to listen in on a few conversations, and it sounded like a painful place to live.

[fishwax]

313. gilette is pretty much the armpit of wyoming

they have horrible water too. They were the "rival" school for the town that I grew up in, and now I have nieces that live there, poor things.

[Joe Fields]

353. Rock Springs, Wyo. isn't any better.

[fishwax]

356. My cousin used to threaten her children with rock springs to keep them in

line: behave yourself, or we're moving to rock springs :rofl:

[Joe Fields]

360. OMG! ROFLMAO! I worked outside of Rock Springs, off and on for

an oil drilling company. I know exactly what you mean.

[begin_within]

25. Tie between these two places:

Bombay Beach, California (on the Salton Sea, not on the Pacific coast):



and Gila Bend, Arizona:



Both places are incredibly hot and boring.

[Literate Tar Heel]

26. I can see why it's a tie

they look exactly the same to me ... well, they did until you fixed the photos ... hmm, they still don't look too different though

[begin_within]

41. Sorry, that was my fault, I pasted the same link, it's fixed now.

[Joe Fields]

33. Been through Gila Bend. reminded me of a few other places I've

been to. Think I recognize that old station.

[begin_within]

43. A place like that could have a quaint kind of charm to it, if there were

interesting people there and interesting things or places there - but I saw no interesting people, and the towns one and only saving grace is the Space Age Lodge, one of the few surviving examples of Googie architechture. I guess that breaks the tie.

[Arugula Latte]

79. Oops. Posted wrong place.

[nini]

27. Salton Sea California

Hell on earth

[begin_within]

35. See the picture of Bombay Beach in my post immediately above.

The weird thing is that last year, real estate agents were trying to promote Salton Shores and Salton Sea Beach as new "boomtowns" even though they have been sitting there for decades, almost abandoned. Because houses in San Diego county are so expensive, they were trying to sell the Salton Sea area as the low-cost alternative to San Diego, just a "short drive" (it's actually 2 1/2 hours from the Salton Sea to downtown San Diego). I don't think it really caught on though. The temperatures are actually pretty nice in the winter there, but half of the year it is blazingly hot as you know, and the Sea is polluted and stinks.

[nini]

58. haha

I can't believe someone is trying to sell that place as an alternative to anything other than hell.


I was only there once and will never go back.. ick

[begin_within]

72. Decades ago, the Salton Sea area was predicted to become a "boom town"

as a resort destination, and streets were laid out in Salton Sea Beach and Salton City (on the west shore of the sea) and the streets are still there, but there is only a tiny scattering of run-down houses here and there. Last year it was supposed to become a boom town again due to the high cost of houses in San Diego county, but I don't think it's going to happen, if people visit there anytime between May and October they will see, feel and smell what a hellhole it is. In the winter it is tolerable, much better than freezing temperatures of the northern states, but there's still nothing to do there except dirt biking and ATVing on the sand dunes.

[nini]

73. smell is right.. what is that ? sulfur?

Jesus.. it was hotter than hell. We got in the 'sea' (we were kids) and the bottom of it felt so nasty.

yuk.

You'd spend more in cooling costs than you would buying a house in SD.


Anyone who would fall for that being a boom town is an idiot.

[begin_within]

99. The smell is from a combination of 3 things:

1. The Imperial Valley, surrounding the Salton Sea (mostly at the southern end) is a huge agricultural area, and fertilizers and pesticides wash from those fields into the Salton Sea.

2. The New River, which has at certain times been labeled the most contaminated river in the U.S., flows from Mexico into Imperial county and drains into the Salton Sea. God only knows what is in that water - sewage, waste from the maquiladoras (from U.S. owned corporations - thanks, NAFTA!

3. Dead fish - there have been massive die-offs of fish in the Sea, due to both the increasted salinity of the water and all the chemicals flowing into the Sea.

The combination of those 3 produces the smell there. There is supposedly a plan in the works to "restore" the sea, but it will cost billions of dollars and many years, and I don't think it has been funded yet.

[jobycom]

Post Katrina Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans, LA. All other places in

America are beautiful, in their own way.

[mark414]

71. yeah...i'd have to agree on both fronts

i was just down there back in may and it's STILL completely fucked up

[Throd]

44. South Central Los Angeles

It is not as bad as they say, it is worse.

[leftofthedial]

46. Houston

really, like you, all of East Texas is pretty frigging awful.

[MorningGlow]

50. Elmira, NY

Yeech. Lived there for one whole hellish year. Couldn't get out of there fast enough. The countryside is pretty, but the town is depressed--spiritually as well as economically. Anybody with any get-up-and-go got up and went along with all the industry, years ago.

[AlCzervik]

52. Spring Texas

[JVS]

53. Defiance OH

[terrya]

54. Ft. Worth, Texas

That was a thrill and a half. :eyes:

[Zomby Woof]

55. Salt Lake City and Kansas are tied

SLC is wretched, dirty, overrun with horrible drivers, infested, bleak, smoky, oily, hell on Earth. I would say this even if there were no Mormons.

I will never drive through there again. There is always an alternate.

I will also chime in on Kansas. I-70 hasn't been paved since the Kennedy administration, and the landscape is so dull and repititious, that I am stunned Dorothy left Oz to return. That is why Bob Dole is so sour - just look at the hellhole. Spent the night at a Motel 6 in Topeka. Genuinely the bottom of the barrel. And paying toll to both enter and exit the interstate was adding insult to injury. I could feel a change in the vibe when crossing into eastern Colorado.

[Joe Fields]

60. I've travelled from Kansas into Colorado many times, and....

I've noticed the change in vibe every time. A huge sense of relief.

[AirmensMom]

59. Great Bend, PA.

Dusty, nasty town. Some of the meanest people in the world live there.

[Jara sang]

62. Ohio, flat and very boring.

[underpants]

105. Sounds like a bad blind date

:bounce:

[Joe Fields]

116. That's the worst place you've been?

[Jara sang]

137. Either Ohio or Indiana, It's a toss up.

And I've been EVERYWHERE on the continental US.

[Indy_Dem_Defender]

165. Ding, Ding Ding, We have a Winner!

Indiana, Minus the city of Indianapolis/Marion County. Every other small town in the state treats and looks at outsiders differently either visiting or new residents. Go to small town Indiana and have a Marion county license plate on your vehicle and count the minutes until you have the local police or sheriffs on your tail following you around looking for something to pull you for, I can't imagine having an out of state license plate on your vehicle being any better!

[doc03]

159. SE Ohio has beautiful hill country.

[huskerlaw]

65. Southern Georgia

and Northern Florida. Basically anything along the main interstate between Atlanta and Orlando. Valdosta. Gainsville. All those craptastic little towns in between. BLECH.

I have never, ever wanted to leave an area faster in my life.

[Joe Fields]

66. Don't go to east Texas, then.

Cotton fields and tin roof shacks that go on forever.

[huskerlaw]

67. I have no intention

of ever going to East Texas.

But thanks for the heads-up! :hi:

[Jamastiene]

196. That IS a really boring stretch of highway.

Highway 9 going from close to where I live and Myrtle Beach is also a hideously boring stretch of road, but not nearly as long. Southern Ga. to Fla. definitely worse.

[Southsideirish]

69. Corbin, Kentucky. The worst.

[DemoTex]

76. Leesville, La. ("Diseaseville") 1968: Home of Ft. Polk.

:puke:

[checkmate1947]

198. Tigerland, sand flea,

capitol of the US

[Burma Jones]

77. Tulsa, OK

Like Houston if it were smaller and did not have a decent school like Rice or a neighborhood like Montrose. In short, all the bad things about Houston without any of the positive things Houston has to offer.....

Also, home of Oral Roberts University.......


Of course, I was born in Gary, Indiana - a pretty dumpy place itself......

[Arugula Latte]

81. East Texas, Stockton, Calif., and Los Angeles are on my list. nt

[Uncle Joe]

82. Boot camp in Parris Island South Carolina,

I believe sand fleas are the state bird there. You could only kill them when the Drill Instructor said you could, and all that did was piss them off.

[cobalt1999]

92. you can't kill sand fleas and no-see-ums

You're right, that just makes 'em mad.

I never figured out how something so small you can't even see it, can hurt so damn bad!

[Uncle Joe]

95. Yep, perfect analogy of guerrilla warfare too. n/t

[Jamastiene]

195. For every one you kill, there are

millions more to take their place. Sand fleas are bad up in NC too from where I live (about 125 miles inland) to the coast.

If you smash a sand flea and break any of its body parts off, those body parts will grow a new sand flea. They can jump 150 times their own height. They will jump up and bite you on your face repeatedly if you stand still long enough. They ARE pretty ferocious for their size, but then again most living things in the Carolinas have "little Big Man syndrome." Ferocious, I tell ya.

[Duncan Grant]

83. Pikeville, KY

Bereft and derelict. A place resigned to 'just getting by'.

[yellowdogintexas]

215. have not actually been there, but as a native Kentuckian I would

say you are spot on. Pikeville and Harlan have always had reputations as real blighted placed.

[jpgray]

84. A few places in Nebraska

[huskerlaw]

98. Depending on your list

I probably agree with you.

Ok, nothing in Nebraska is THE worst, but there are definitely parts of it I avoid like the plague.

[begin_within]

102. I wasn't expecting to, but I found most of Omaha to be a pleasant place.

I didn't like the downtown area much, but the rest of Omaha had a soft, tranquil feel to it and there were some pretty places which were uncrowded: the mysterious Hummel Park, the Fontenelle Forest, and a lake on the northern side of town, can't remember the name. I was nowhere near the stockyards, however.

[jpgray]

103. I don't have a big problem with Omaha

It's not great but it's not horrible.

[jonnyblitz]

85. Meridian, MS. quite the culture shock for one from the northeast. nt

[jobycom]

166. Ah, Meridian, home of Charlie Pride, Oil Can Boyd, and Anderson Cooper's

dad, or near there, anyway. Also, the first girl I told I loved.

The northeast was a culture shock for me. :)

[jonnyblitz]

222. I went to a navy school right after boot camp there.

We were forced to wear our uniforms off base and the locals didn't seem to like us much.

[NewWaveChick1981]

86. I've been to a lot of places in the US, but I have to say that rural

Arkansas was my absolute least favorite. That beat out Gary, IN, too! :scared:

[u4ic]

91. Have not travelled in the US

much at all.

Harlem would be my choice. It was quite a shock for an 18 year old from Canada, who'd never seen anything resembling a ghetto before. I felt horrible, that people actually lived there. :-(

[MissHoneychurch]

94. Monroe, LA

flat, nothing there at all. Cockroaches, hot, sweaty ....

[begin_within]

100. Is that in "Cancer Alley" by all the chemical plants?

[MissHoneychurch]

112. I have no idea

but that would explain a lot

[musette_sf]

141. naw, "Cancer Alley"

is down in the River Parishes (between BR and NO). used to drive the route quite frequently.

now when you're talkin' 'bout Monroe -- would that be EAST Monroe or WEST Monroe? I hear there's a difference :shrug:

[MissHoneychurch]

180. There is a difference??????

I didn't notice one :shrug:

[musette_sf]

321. i used to be married to a Webster Parish guy

and i remember that one was a "good" side, and the other was a "bad" side, of town.

not that we went to Monroe much anyway, we spent more time near the Arkansas border.

actually i was hoping that *you* would know :-)

oh well, i can't find anything on a quick Google troll, so so much for that.

[nosillies]

322. It's just West Monroe or Monroe

There's no east. And just plain Monroe is better, IMO. Where in Webster? That's where I'm from!

[musette_sf]

325. yes, you are right,

it was West Monroe being the bad side of town.

ex-H is from Springhill. there was a sister in law from Shongaloo. we went to Minden sometimes. i spent a lot of time in and around Springhill. for awhile, it seemed quaint. i had just moved to Louisiana from New York City several years before, so these were really the first real country people i'd ever known/met. it was an interesting time to be up there. cable TV was just starting to creep in, and i got to watch the culture change from quite localized, to homogenized. styles and music started being more MTV and cable driven. no longer did it take a year or so to filter through to the country any more. it was kind of sad to watch it happen, but it was a good view into the Mallification of America. i can only imagine that the local economy, which was never good after the 60s and maybe 70s, is even more rotten, and the majority of businesses that are succeeding are chain businesses.

i haven't been there since 1984. how's it going, do you know?

[nosillies]

326. God bless you, you did kind of get thrown into a crazy place!

I was born and raised in Minden, and my family is still there. I'll be there next weekend, in fact!

You hit the nail on the head when you guessed that the main businesses really succeeding are chain businesses. Local restaurants still flourish, though, because nobody beats a Southerner's cooking. A local can cook seafood better than Red Lobster can any day!

One major and recent change is the infiltration of Hollywood, no kidding. So many movies are being filmed in Minden, Shreveport, and the surrounding area. Many of my L.A. friends who have gone there for work absolutely love it, and do their best to get jobs on films that will take them back to the area. While the economy may be slower in the very tiny towns, larger places, like Shreveport and Bossier, are booming, and this may be part of the reason.

One thing that hasn't changed, and I doubt ever will, is the niceness of most people in that area. Political differences aside, the poorest person in that area would give a stranger the shirt off his back if necessary. I know the rural south can scare many people off, but people there are very welcoming and friendly, for the most part.

[musette_sf]

327. please tell me that Neta's BBQ is still there!

the. best. ever.

[nosillies]

329. Damn you. I smelled the smell in my mind and now my mouth is watering.

I'll be dreaming of chipped beef sandwiches with a pickle on the side tonight! Yes it's still there -- those kind of good eatin' places will never die!

[MissHoneychurch]

361. I was there only for 3 weeks

and I do believe I was in the "bad" part. :scared:

[Mojambo]

101. Butte, Montana n/t

[martymar64]

348. C'mon, Billings is more of a shithole than Butte

On the other extreme, I really like Missoula.

[Karenca]

108. South Bronx.....

Where I lived for the first 12 years of my life.

I don't know how it is now.

[Joe Fields]

118. Pretty rough place, from stories told to me.

[Karenca]

135. It was nice when I was a kid

but when I went back years later
it was the scariest looking place I've ever seen.

[ceile]

110. Texaco, TX

On the NM border. ugh. Or even better Muleshoe, TX or Clovis, NM.
I love TX, born and raised, but all of our border towns are dumps.

[texas1928]

154. That is Texico.

TSK TSK...


:P

[jrandom421]

114. Killeen, Texas

Only place I hated more than Xuan Loc, Vietnam. At least in Xuan Loc, I could carry my trusty M-79, use it when needed and call in air and artillery strikes for anything bigger. The architecture is depressing, as is the landscape, but what really torqued me the most was the willful, hateful, proud, arrogant ignorance of the majority of the local population.

[ceile]

117. Aren't most military towns like that though?

I live in Austin and have never ventured up there, but I figured the arrogance and ignorance was everywhere because it revolves the base.

[jrandom421]

121. Nope

There are a number of pretty decent communities with large miltary presences. Seattle and Tacoma are great places, in spite of the huge military presence (Bremerton Navy Yard, Ft. Lewis, McChord AFB, Bangor Submarine Base). Ft Devens was actually a fun place, being so close to Boston. The wife and I loved Anchorage AK, (Elmendorf AFB and Ft. Richardson). Lexington and Clarksville KY were okay (Ft. Knox and Ft. Campbell respectively). Ft. Meade was nice, but I can't talk about it. :)

A lot of it has to do with the units based there and their stated mission.

[Joe Fields]

125. But then there are the Fort Riley's and Fort Leonard Wood's of this

country.

[yellowdogintexas]

221. Yo, glad you liked the Ft Campbell area. My old stomping

grounds having grown up just north of Clarksville and just east of Hopkinsville. Hoptown sucks, Clarksville is great. I think that part of KY/Tenn is just beautiful and you gots great caving too.

Ft Knox is actually closer to Louisville than Lexington but of the two I much prefer Lexington. Louisville...ugh.

[TrogL]

126. Detroit

Looked like Beirut.

We were on a concert tour and we had armed guards on the bus soon as we crossed the US/Canada border.

[graywarrior]

128. I got a list:

Marietta, GA
Texas panhandle
Pensacola, FL (entire state of Florida, for that matter)
Myrtle Beach, SC
Biloxi, Miss

I worked in all those places. They hated me. I hated them. I'm sure the locals are nice, however.

[XemaSab]

173. I spent the best summer of my life

in Horry County, SC.

[rhino47]

130. Tyler Texas

Nasty filthy dirty place with nasty filthy people.I hate to say that but that was my experience.

[NNadir]

134. Bakersfield California, and parts of Texas would have to be up there.

[Joe Fields]

138. Ah, Bakersfield. The garden spot of California!

Don't much care for Needles, CA., either.

[AutumnMist]

337. Hey Now

I grew up in Bakersfield. Its a great spot to go to other places. But alas, I would have to agree that it doesn't have much to offer in terms of site seeing. I live in Ohio now and the green hills and open farm land are beautiful to me. Bakersfield has become a land of expensive houses and strip malls. The countryside that I grew up in and rode horses on is long gone. What a shame.

[Quakerfriend]

140. Eugene, TX on the Gulf

I stopped in a small bar there with two friends of mine while making the drive around the Gulf coast. The experience was truly frightening!

The bartender looked like she was about 70, and had only 2 or 3 teeth in her entire mouth- just like a witch out of a sci fi novel. She didn't seem to be able to understand English, at all. Just bizarre. There were several very pregnant women sitting around having beer. A man came up to me crying and telling me the story about how his 'old lady' just totaled his car. Just at about this time his 'old lady' entered and they began an out and out brawl!

For three college kids from the Northeast it was pretty scary. Being 5'2 and only 103lbs., I was thankful that my traveling companions were both males.

[RebelOne]

142. Miami, FL

that I call the "hell hole of the South." I lived there most of my life until I finally wised up and moved up here to the Atlanta area. It's a little piece of heaven compared with Miami.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

158. I run a resort in the Keys. People constantly ask me questions

about Miami since it is an hour away. I tell them they are asking the wrong person because I avoid Miami like the plague. I even schedule my flights out of Ft. Lauderdale, even though it takes longer to drive there.

[MarkDevin]

191. "I run a resort in the Keys."

You lucky mother******! :D

[Joe Fields]

227. Could DUers get special rates?

Simply love the Conch Republic!

[RebelOne]

193. I love the Keys. I used to go down to Key West

at least once a year when I lived in Miami.

[maveric]

143. My hometown. Lawrence MA.

Unemployment in the 30's, heroin capital of New England, burned out tenements, high violent crime rate, just a nasty pit of anger, sadness and despair.
Troy NY is up there too.

[musette_sf]

146. got a list

* agreed on East Texas, pretty sad.
* Sugar Land TX (former resident)
* Conroe TX
* Just about anywhere in and around Dallas
* Mexia TX ("Home Of The Fighting Goats"... and Anna Nicole)
* Wichita Falls TX. Regardless of what Hank Hill thinks.
* Anywhere in "The Golden Triangle"
* Laredo TX. This was back when you could more or less safely go over to Nuevo Laredo.
* Springhill LA
* Hugo OK. At the time the nearest supermarket was in Antlers.
* Newark NJ. Drove through a year ago and it was far far worse than I had remembered.
* Lompoc CA

I'm sure I can come up with a lot more, but these are the ones that stick in my craw like a pork rind.

[nosillies]

257. And to add to Springhill's woes, nothing stinks like a paper mill

Please include the nearby Cotton Valley on your list

[musette_sf]

323. my ex-in-laws had at least several deer heads

from Cotton Valley. (the family included a taxidermist, and a pretty damned good one, too.) opening of deer season is the big deal of the year for all adult and semi-adult males.

yes, that paper mill stench is like no other. ex-H not only was from Springhill, but his work in industrial controls required him to sometimes spend weeks fixing stuff at... paper mills, around the country.

last i heard (many years ago), the paper mill had been shut down but there was still a box plant.

[Sgent]

149. Blythville, AK

Lots of corn, then a steel plant, then more corn.

The whole drive up I-59 in AK from Memphis to Chicago is depressing.

Monroe, LA wouldn't be too far behind (nor would Shreveport).

[ChoralScholar]

269. Wow.

That would be Blytheville, Arkansas (AR)

AK is Alaska.

And I-59 doesn't go anywhere near Memphis or Chicago. It is I-55.

And I'll bet you thought I went to all this trouble just to disagree.. nope... Blythville sucks.

And to the locals, it's Bly-vuhl.

[Sgent]

278. I-55 doesn't go to Chicago (directly)

I-55 goes to St. Louis then Chicago. I-57 goes to Chicago directly -- although both roads are I-55 in AR, I was thinking that I-57/55 split earlier than it does, then confused 59 with 57...

[ChoralScholar]

292. 57 splits at Sikeston

or thereabouts, which is not far north of Blytheville.

[greendog]

150. Just about any small town in southern Arkansas or northern Louisiana

Hot, humid and lots of poverty. Special mention for anyplace in southern California where you can taste the air. x(

[nosillies]

260. I am from a small town in northern LA, and would agree on your points

But I would never want to be from anywhere else. Adverse conditions make for amazing people.

[mainegreen]

151. Baltimore: the bad bits.

No crab cakes in the rough parts. Scary. Real scary.
Good breakfast though at 3am!

[regnaD kciN]

192. Back in the '70s, when I went to college in Annapolis...

...I would say that all of Baltimore was "bad bits," and it would easily top my list for the worst place in America. Although I haven't been back there since, I understand from family members that it has become a really nice place. I would never have believed it thirty years ago.

[Patiod]

230. We were staying at the Loew's in Annapolis, and saw drug dens

from our balcony. My SO has insomnia, so he was out on the balcony smoking, and he said one of the houses in the projects a few yards from the hotel was CENTER for deaing SOMETHING at about 3 in the morning.

Baltimore is like Philadelphia - it's a mixed bag. The good bits are good, but the bad bits are hell. The first time I saw the "slums" of LA, I laughed. Slums? You call those slums? I'll show you some slums! Let me take you to North Philadelphia or parts of Baltimore....

[kwassa]

380. Baltimore is going through a big revival now ...

Housing prices are so reasonable compared to anywhere around it that young professionals are moving into it.

[Joe Fields]

152. Del Rio, Texas

nothing but old junk cars, an abandoned motel, and a pack of dogs.

[spindrifter]

157. But didn't some weird radio guy broadcast from

Del Rio? Maybe Wolfman or maybe some "here, brother, have a snake" reverend?

[jobycom]

169. Above, I said that all places in America have their own charm

You've just reminded me how wrong I can be. The only thing worse than Del Rio is the drive to get there.

[Joe Fields]

211. It's a hole. The only way I know how to describe it.

[mvd]

153. I've been through bad areas of Philly and D.C.

Both areas were quite depressing. There's no way people should have to live like that in a rich country like the U.S.

Northern Ohio was way too flat for me.

[Patiod]

232. I'd have to agree with you. Little kids getting shot

and this whole "no snitchin' " bullsh3t. Not that I don't feel bad for good people being intimidated by gun toting sociopaths into keeping their mouths shut, but there ARE anonymous tiplines and ways to let the police know who KILLED A TODDLER.

I could go on and on, stories about really good people - a Penn State senior who was the first in his family to get to college, a mom of 3 who was the wife of someone stationed in Iraq, small boys, little girls, all "collateral damage" of the drug trade. I have friends who live there, and it makes me want to cry. Makes rude, ignorant, rednecks from other parts of the country look laughable.

Plus it's dirty and there aren't decent stores (just rip-off corner bodega type operations).

On a scale of 1 to 100, the worst parts of North and West Philly are a 1. Seriously.

[demnan]

155. Harlan, KY

Yes I actually once went through this fabled town of Appalachian feuds and coal mines. Just driving on the roads in this part of the world makes you nauseous. If you survive that, driving around areas where the strip mines are will break your heart. You want poverty and hopelessness? Go to Eastern Kentucky.

[Joe Fields]

212. I remember the documentary, "Harlan County Wars,"

Pretty bleak. The people looked like zombies.

[LostInAnomie]

162. Estill, SC

Well, really the whole "Low Country" of South Carolina is a run down toilet.

[XemaSab]

174. But... but.... I love the Low Country

:cry:

[LostInAnomie]

185. Yeah, it's great.

If you love run down buildings, spanish moss, and large areas of intractable poverty.

[Submariner]

172. Tri-Cities in Washington state

Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland WA. HOT, dry, and the air would turn beige with sand when the wind blew which it did all the time. I worked at the Hanford site out there, and it does not anywhere resemble the Seattle side of the state. A common site were the locals driving around in mini-vans stuffing Whoppers and Big Macs in their pusses.

[martymar64]

349. Spokane sucks pretty hard too!

Lived there several times. RW nuts galore. Poor transportation infrastructure. Meth labs everywhere.
It's like Tri-cities but more trees.

Dishonourable Mention:

Billings, MT

Bakersfield, CA

Panorama City, CA

TX Panhandle

Gallup, NM

Klamath Falls, OR

Pend Oreille County, WA

[Kerrytravelers]

176. My in-laws house at Thanksgiving... you did say anywhere!

I was more miserable there than any other place on the planet. I literally cried myself to sleep every night until we finally went home.

[XemaSab]

177. I gotta seperate this out into two categories:

California and non-California.

'Cause I gotta say California has some of the shittiest hell holes in the country.

Needles. Bakersfield. Brawley. Gerber. Trona. Fresno. Madera. Stockton. Grimes. Boron.

These are all places I have been where I feared for my life.

Places in other states where I was glad to leave include some small towns in Nevada, St Johns Arizona, a few small towns in Utah, and Corpus Christi Texas.

I was also underwhelmed by the Valley in Texas, the suburbs of Des Moines, and Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

[Broken_Hero]

181. Riverside, California....nt

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

182. A fleamarket in western PA.

[RPM]

291. Pechins?

was it?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

365. I don't remember the name of it.

But it was pretty close to Allegheny National Forest. Basically, it was really big and really scary and there were very little teeth. I'm a Jersey girl, so I've been lost in bad areas of Newark before, but this was way scarier.

[kskiska]

183. Bridgeport, Connecticut

More like Fort Apache, with Jersey barriers erected to keep drug dealers out of various neighborhoods. I'm no longer in Connecticut, but I hear that Hartford has surpassed Bridgeport as the worst.

[MarkDevin]

190. Or as we Nutmeggers call it, "Bridgepit."

That town really is a shithole!

[pagerbear]

205. Now, now. Bridgeport has some perfectly presentable areas.

I used to live in Stamford, and visited a friend in a nice part of Bridgeport.

[regnaD kciN]

184. So, which house of ill-repute did YOU work at...?

Worst place I ever lived was Pahrump, Nevada. On the edge of Death Valley, hard to make a living, unless you worked at one of the four houses of ill-repute in town, dusty, windy and very unfriendly.

...and was it the houses themselves or their employees who were "dusty, windy, and very unfriendly?"

:evilgrin:

[Joe Fields]

214. They wouldn't hire me. I refused to shave my legs.

As for the people there, well let's just say that if you put them all together, you might have a full set of teeth. Las Vegas rejects and snowbirds living in trailer courts. Not to mention the seperatists, who belonged to some ultra anarchist militia of one sort or another.

[last_texas_dem]

186. I wonder if you were driving through my hometown...?

Orange is the first place you hit on I-10 coming west from Louisiana. It's not a beautiful place, but I don't really think we look any more depressing than most of the small-town south. We do have some very poor areas around here (Port Arthur as a whole is pretty depressed) and some problems with pollution due to the chemical plants being the main industry. And getting smacked by Rita didn't really help things. But I actually prefer southeast Texas to most of East Texas. Most of the other areas of East Texas depress me more, but maybe it's just 'cause where I am (Orange/Beaumont/Port Arthur area) is home.

It's hard to pick a worst place I've been, 'cause most of them I don't feel like I spent enough time in to really assess. I lived for a while in Huntsville, TX. I was a little depressed mostly due to loneliness and other things, but the town is actually fairly interesting for one of its size.

I did some canvassing in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield when I was doing some campaign work up there and was disturbed by the massive homes and the Bush-bots, but I loved Milwaukee itself and the suburb of Shorewood, and Waukesha was OK, too. Sheboygan seemed a little depressing, though.

The Dallas/Fort Worth suburbs are a little too sprawling and seem a bit too yuppie-ish for me, but I'm sure there are some nice spots among them as well.

In terms of driving, west Texas is the most boring drive I've made. Driving through the plains areas of Kansas, Nebraska, and southern Illinois weren't particularly interesting, either, but still more interesting than the neverending drive that is west Texas.

[Joe Fields]

216. No. We (my brother and me) stayed off of the Interstate. We....

took a series of state roads, to try and glimpse the "real" Texas. What an eye opener.

[MarkDevin]

189. Palm Bay, Florida.

Ten years ago, I visited relatives who had retired down there. It was like being in a jungle populated by oversized insects and Jerry Springer guests!

[Duppers]

293. great line there, Mark

"It was like being in a jungle populated by oversized insects and Jerry Springer guests!"

[Major Hogwash]

194. Salt Lake City

You get the message that you're not welcome right off the bat.

[Joe Fields]

217. You're right. You aren't welcome there. Closed community.

[blindpig]

202. Orlando, Fl.

But then I've never been to Las Vegas.

[Earth_First]

203. Dothan, Alabama

While I was stationed at Fort Rucker, Alabama...

[femmocrat]

206. Patterson, NJ

It reminded me of the place where Chevy Chase stopped in the first Vacation movie, and they stripped his car.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

366. Oh Patterson's not that bad.

Now Irvington is that bad. Irvington is like the bad parts of Newark, but worse. It's probably on par with Camden, but without the aquarium.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

367. Oh Patterson's not that bad.

Now Irvington is that bad. Irvington is like the bad parts of Newark, but worse. It's probably on par with Camden, but without the aquarium.

[Inspired]

210. BUSSEY, IOWA

[elehhhhna]

224. Miami Int'l Airport. Rude rude rude.

[Patiod]

233. Which is why I ALWAYS use FLL. Plus it has free wireless!

Ft. Lauderdale is so much more manageable and easy. And who doesn't love free wireless?

[skygazer]

236. I got stuck in Lodi, New Jersey once when I was 17

I was hitchhiking from Vermont and got picked up by a couple who dropped me off there. No doubt my impressions were colored by the fact that I was 17, coming from Vermont and hitchhiking alone but I was on the road for a month and no other place affected me like that. It was dirty and chaotic and dark and confusing. It seemed impossible to hitch out of - no clear highway ramps or anything but long, dingy roads packed with cars. I trudged around until I found a diner and luckily a truck driver stopped to ask me directions. I told him I had no idea where I was and he offered me a lift to Ohio. So I took it.

[DeaconBlues]

244. For sheer poverty and horridness I would have to pick the ghettos of

Baltimore and Pittsburgh. But for a place I have actually lived in I would have to pick Lincoln, Nebraska. Absolutely nothing to do and nothing to see, unless you are a football fan. Mind-boggling boredom, which is surprising for a town that has a quarter million residents.

I wouldn't exactly call Lincoln Hell. Its more akin to purgatory.

[Joe Fields]

247. lol. Good way to put it.

[femmocrat]

254. What part of Pittsburgh do you consider to be a "ghetto"???

[DeaconBlues]

341. A good part of the Hill District along Centre Ave is really bad

I rode the bus through these areas to get downtown for a better part of a year, and there were certain stops I wouldn't get off at to save my mother's life. That was way back in '96, so things may have changed. But by the looks of things then, I seriously doubt it.

[MiniMandaRuth]

246. The small crappy hotel I've been in Portland Oregon.

I love Portland as a town, as a city... but that hotel was a hellhole. It was the fourteenth level of hell.

[electricmonk]

300. Wasn't on North Interstate Ave was it?

Can't remember the name of the place but it was nasty. Stayed there for about a week while looking for an apartment.

Or maybe the Hamilton Hotel downtown. I lived for 2 months in the Hamilton back in 1992. That was an experience worthy of a Bukowski novel.

[TK421]

248. My vote goes to Ft. Myers, Florida ( aka Ft. Misery )

Yes, that's what the locals call it down there. The single-most depressing place I have ever been. Thankfully, I just worked there. Actually, I should just say Florida in general ( although there were some nice places to go ) but as far as living there...never, EVER again

[Haole Girl]

252. Quitman, Georgia

It was pretty bad. Like going back into a time warp.

[SOteric]

255. OOOhh, no, no, noooooo. The last time I mention my disenchantment

with (blank), an angry mob of DUers from (blank) spent months afterward being abject (expletive deleted)heads about to me with regard to my comments. Which, maybe more than anything explains and amplifies my disenchantment with (blank).

[Joe Fields]

267. lol! I feel your pain.

[Kali]

259. Del Webb's Sun City, Arizona

Got lost trying to get out of Phx and to Wickenburg. :scared: :scared: :scared:

[distantearlywarning]

265. My grandparents used to live there.

What a place! I thought it was hell on earth when I was about 14 years old. Those people put cinders in their front yard and then paint them green to look like grass from a distance. :wtf: Why not just put in desert-friendly landscaping? It would require the same maintenance (virtually nothing) and would look a hell of a lot better than ROCKS WITH GREEN PAINT! It's nuts. *shaking head over idiocy of Sun City residents*

[Kali]

268. It was that huge Hospital/church thing on a hill that creeped me out.

The city you go to wait for your death....:scared:

[distantearlywarning]

277. "the city you go to wait for your death"

That's completely true. I never want to live in one of those retirement communities when I get old. They are incredibly depressing.

[jmowreader]

263. The worst place is Key Largo, Florida

Key Largo's basically the worst tourist trap in the entire world. That's all that's there.

It's the first island in the Keys chain, so naturally they put so many bars, souvenir shops and restaurants in Key Largo that no more will fit just to catch the people who won't drive any farther south. I'm not even sure there are any houses, but there's lots of everything else.

The Keys are supposedly a wonderful vacation spot, just make sure you mash the gas really hard when you hit Largo.

[RagingInMiami]

288. I take it you missed John Pennekamp Park

http://www.pennekamppark.com/

[JackDragna]

264. Tampa, Florida and anywhere in Texas.

Tampa is dirty, grimy and just feels seedy. Texas has some nice cities, but on the whole some pretty terrible citizens, who are mostly convinced anything made in Texas, done in Texas or said in Texas is more important than anything anywhere else. If we could sell Texas back to Mexico for a dollar, we'd be ripping them off.

[maveric]

273. Tampa is nasty. Lived there three years during the mid-70's.

The only city I've seen that has strip joints in between a church and an elementary school.

[NightNurse]

347. Well...that was 30 years ago, Sweetie.

We'd kill to live in Greater Tampa now.*













*(wait for it.) :rofl: "Just Sayin' !:rofl:

[TheCentepedeShoes]

312. Hee, hee

I lived in Texas, then I lived in Tampa, now I live in ... Texas.

[pink-o]

270. I've been all over roadside America

...and there are some places on I-80 that are so butt-ugly, it just reinforces my Agnosticism, because God couldn't have created such eyesores.

But by far--BY FAR!!!!--the most hideous place I've ever had the displeasure to experience is Kettlemen City, California. On I-5 between LA and Sacto, it's a desolate desert, and it's also home to this ginormous slaughterhouse. Everywhere there's cattle waiting to be murdered, and the smell of death is so overwhelming, it'll make you a vegetarian if you aren't one already (if like me you are, it's just a knife in all your sensibilities)

Drive the coast if you're heading north. It takes longer, but you'll avoid Dante's 9th circle of hell.

[nosillies]

274. I have a thing for places that stink

And you're right, that place is hell. Cows and mud as far as the eye can see, and that eye-watering smell to go along with it.

I have to drive past a landfill near where I live sometimes, and it gives me flashbacks of driving down I-5.

[Joe Fields]

275. You ever been through the panhandle of Oklahoma, around

Guyman and Boise City? Nothing but feedlots as far as the eye can see. The landscape is more like a greenish-black moonscape, and the stench is gut-wrenching.

[fishwax]

314. I was on a bus that broke down in Boise City once

good god did that suck.

there are parts of the panhandle that I actually liked--driving through--but I can't imagine living in boise city.

[Joe Fields]

332. How about those feed lots?

[YellowRubberDuckie]

315. Boise City had a really good Pizza Hut back in the mid 90s...

That's what I remember about the place coming back from Colorado.
Duckie

[fishwax]

357. hehe ... i ate at that pizza hut when the bus broke down

on the aforementioned bus trip. It was, I must admit, pretty good pizza that day. :)

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

375. "Really good" and "Pizza Hut" are two phrases that should never

be next to each other.

:puke:

That shit ain't pizza.

[Fox Mulder]

272. Pretty much most of North Dakota.

Except Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Fargo.

The drive through the state is really boring.

[SnohoDem]

276. Center, Texas

right by the Louisiana border.

Houston, TX and Many, LA tie for second place.

[last_texas_dem]

302. Hey, but Many, LA has Hodges Gardens

It was a tradition in my family while I was growing up to go there every year or so. It was always nice there and I always enjoyed going. That's the only reason I've heard of Many, though, and since I've never really spent time in the town itself, I might agree with you that it's not a very cool place. But I'd still have to give it a couple points for Hodges Gardens!

[smitty]

279. Oil City, Michigan. The name says it all.

[Extend a Hand]

280. the great dismal swamp

it was really creepy.

[deadparrot]

287. Gatlinburg, TN. nt

[Joe Fields]

306. I've been through Gatlinburg a couple of times. Stayed there two

days, once. Don't live there, but actually, I found it to be a quaint little tourist trap. Had a poretty good time there.

[Duppers]

362. me too

I love Gatlinburg. It has a charm.

But Pigeon Forge, next door, is an abomination in those great Great Smoky mountains.

[Katina]

295. Salt Lake City

they had groups of LDS kids singing on the street corners. I thought I was in cultville USA.
Funny, I had always called them Mormons, and then I told my sister I had to go to Salt Lake City. She told me that a lot of the stores would ask if I was LDS....I asked her why they would think I was Learning Disabled? OK...so I had a brain freeze, or maybe I really didn't and just got it right about the Church of LDS.

[Taverner]

305. Bakersfield, CA

Only to be seconded by Fresno.

Angry white people, in the desert, with guns...

[XemaSab]

311. That description applies to most of my choices too

:scared:

And Crescent City. Can't forget Crescent City.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

316. I had a really great experience in Fresno...

I visited my uncle. We went this beautiful park on my birthday, ate free where ever we went because my uncle fixed pepsi machines and people loved him, and it seemed like a nice town. I'd go back. The one and only time I've ever been to California.
Duckie

[Joey Liberal]

320. Alabama

[Extend a Hand]

371. I love some parts of Alabama!

(but I'm glad most people don't-- since that's part of why it's nice).

[tinfoil tiaras]

330. Worst place ever to pass through is Kansas

by far. No offence if you live there or anything, but I thought it was really boring...

[kwassa]

379. My wife wanted a compression algorithm for Kansas ....

it is a long boring drive. Much of the middle part of the country is a long boring drive, though

[sakabatou]

333. Central Valley in summer

GOOD GOD IS IT HOT!

[OnionPatch]

335. Vidor, TX

Couldn't get out of there fast enough.

[last_texas_dem]

342. Haha

You mean the Klan Kapitol of Texas? I live fifteen miles from there and I never go there either! (Well, I do drive past it on way to work every day, but I don't exit.) As late as the late seventies, they wouldn't let my dad buy gas there because he had long hair. It's definitely a scary little place. Oh yeah, and the numerous "In Vidor, he got away with murder" signs (if you drive by on the highway, you've seen them) don't exactly make the place look more appealing to outsiders!

[OnionPatch]

344. I didn't see the signs

but I was there about 15 years ago. I had to work in the area. And yes, the KKK is the biggest part of why I hated that town with a passion. What a bunch of addled, half-wit scumbags. :eyes:

[AutumnMist]

336. Vinton, Ohio

The poverty was soul crushing and the town itself was in pretty bad shape. I wouldn't say it was the worst place because of that. Just the most earth shattering. You realize that when a family is putting five and six mobile homes on a half acre of land...that changes should of been made a very long time ago. The help is no where to be found for the most part.

[Philosoraptor]

343. Okmulgee, Oklahoma. (shudder)

insane. bizarre. disgusting. repulsive. obnoxious. repellant. pukey. awful. icky. did i say disgusting already?

[wildhorses]

359. worst place I ever visited?

a couple of blocks of downtown NYC at midnight were kinda "iffy"

worst place I ever lived...Lake Tillery, NC or Fort Smith, Arkansas

[sarge43]

363. Greenville MS

Fall of 1962, segregation still well entrenched, third world poverty level and insects that could have been extras in a Stephen King movie.

[SoCalDemGrrl]

373. Albuquerque..

I haven't visited all 50 states, but I have travelled a lot and this city
was incredibly boring... although Santa Fe was nice..

[Critters2]

376. I'm living in it now eom

[Sequoia]

382. Fresno, CA.

Hot and ugly. However.....YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK is about 40 miles away.