Dumpiest city in the USA?

Discussion Open Forum
1

Just curious what the consensus might be, if there is one at all, for the biggest dump of a city in the USA?

I’ve heard Detroit referred to as the “armpit of America” more than once.
Pittsburgh has a bit of a reputation, if I’m not mistaken.
And Hartford?

I’m not saying New York City is a dump, but I was in the Big Apple for the first time in my life this year and it was certainly not what I expected. Just filthy and rough.

What do you think?

Edit: We can do the Dumpiest city in Canada commentary too, if you prefer that. I’ve got some thoughts there also.

2

Detroit is not that bad… Some parts yes, but that is the same for every big city in the states… They all have their bad parts, but as for the the “dumpiest city”, visit Liberty City in Miami. This is where the majority of Haitians immigrate to. That is got to be the worst place I have ever visited, and I lived within in miles of it for years.

3

Duluth, Minnesota gets my vote.

4

I got lost in St Louis once…OMFG. Maybe cleaned up from back then but it would certainly take my vote as the dumpiest/scariest ghetto I’ve ever seen.

Wow.

5

Newark, NJ is also not someplace you want to be, beside using the airport.

6

or going to ironbound for Portuguese food.

7

Sad but true… Detroit is not a nice place. I grew up in, roughly, the “Detroit Metro Area,” (an hour and a half from downtown…) and it was always somewhat disturbing to go into town for a baseball game or concert. (If you’re thinking that indeed I was “privilaged” and could just drive in and drive out, well, I guess that would be true.) Detroit has suffered from decades of bad mayoral administrations, and the current malaise in the auto industry is certainly not turning things around. The immediate downtown area does benefit from professional baseball and football games (and both teams have actually been good this year!) but it just doesn’t help the post-apocalyptic atmosphere of the city.

What might be interesting to know is that Cleveland and Pittsburgh–often targets of ridicule–undertook reasonably successful urban renewal projects in the 1980s, and both are now a lot more attractive than they used to be in, say, the 60s and 70s. I know Cleveland very well (with some family there) and I’ve been to Pittsburgh a couple times. Neither of them are the hell holes they are sometimes portrayed to be. (Check out Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!)

Here are some numbers from an interesting website:

milwaukee.areaconnect.com/crime/ … urgh&s2=PA

As you can see, Cleveland’s and Pittsburgh’s murder rates are both near 20 per 100,000. Detroit’s? 39.3.

8

Having only been to NYC for 18 hours and an airporter lodge in LA for an overnight layover, I can’t say from experience which city would be worst. But I can imagine the once great city of New Orleans is pretty beat up, nu? Crime is off the charts in America, but I have heard really bad things about Yale’s host town of New Haven. A college friend of mine auditioned for The Yale School of Drama, was accepted, but turned them down because her fear of New Haven was far too ingrained. She opted for SUNY Binghamton over Yale, but ended up living in NYC. She was a tough cookies kind of woman too.

For smelly cities, I’d have to imagine Toledo must be quite odiferous. Max Klinger came from there and he was really smelly.

If you had to live in the USA, which (inner)city would you choose to live in? For me it would be NYC, then SF. The Big Easy used to be on that list, but aside from those three, I’d probably kill myself before entering the jungle that is urban America.

The street crime in Vancouver can be a drag, with all the stupid car break-ins and far more serious home invasions, usually for drug money, but compared to America, Canada is very safe. From East Hastings to the Jane Finch Corridor, to Point St. Charles, I feel far safer than I would in any American city. In Canada, the top 3 smelliest cities I’ve been in are Trail, Sudbury and Cornwall. I’d imagine Sarnia to be not so splendiferous. Quebec City has to be the most picturesque for architecture and let’s not forget la joie de vivre. For drop dead scenery, Vancouver, Kamloops, and my adopted home town of Whistler top the list. Single guys should move to Ottawa (if they fail in Taiwan) cuz it’s like 5:1 women to men. Across the bridge in Gatineau, Les Cabans (Quebecois pubs) offer Men’s Nights where the men get in early and drink free, and the women are kept in line, erm…percolating…

In my world travels, sorry Gus, but Manila has to be the scariest place I’ve ever been so far. For cleanliness, Tokyo far outstrips the entire world. Safest? Taipei by far. Safer than Spuzzum even.

9

Kamloops is atrocious, just awful. I had the displeasure of working there many years ago. What a stinkfest! It gets my vote.

10

why, east st.louis. used to be a huge transport hub.now it is just…sad. as the national sales manager from hartford said “this place needs to be razed”.

11

Kamloops is atrocious, just awful. I had the displeasure of working there many years ago. What a stinkfest! It gets my vote.[/quote]

Oh yeah, I forgot the smell. The smell of money as they say. But Kamloops has some amazing sunsets. Great hiking/mountain biking, Robson is what, 90 minutes away? Vancouver less than 3 hours down The CocaCola Highway. Rafting The Clearwater or The Upper Fraser. Kamloops even has it’s own trout named after it. Billy Miner legends. Jack Daniels Saloon. Best restaurant in Canada too, forget it’s name now. Up on Battle Street. And then there’s The Blazers. It could be worse than working for CP and living in The Loops.

12

Kamloops is atrocious, just awful. I had the displeasure of working there many years ago. What a stinkfest! It gets my vote.[/quote]

Oh yeah, I forgot the smell. The smell of money as they say. But Kamloops has some amazing sunsets. Great hiking/mountain biking, Robson is what, 90 minutes away? Vancouver less than 3 hours down The CocaCola Highway. Rafting The Clearwater or The Upper Fraser. Kamloops even has it’s own trout named after it. Billy Miner legends. Jack Daniels Saloon. Best restaurant in Canada too, forget it’s name now. Up on Battle Street. And then there’s The Blazers. It could be worse than working for CP and living in The Loops.[/quote]
I worked for Radio NL in Kamloops. I got Tue and Wed off being the junior news guy. My Monday night, essentially my Friday night, was spent covering the riveting weekly school board meeting until 11pm and cutting up what lame stories I dug up or stretched out of nearly nothing back at the station until midnight before going to the titty bar (the others are all country bars) to catch a buzz. Wow, what a hoot! Tie that in with living on a shoe-string budget in the basement apartment of an East Indian family, smelling curry ALL DAY EVERY DAY. Let’s just say I don’t have great memories of living there.

13

While I haven’t had the privilege of smelling him, I always figured he would have worn perfume–at least for the first few seasons, back when he went in drag. Anyway, he’s Lebanese (and Maronite, I assume), if that explains his manly muskiness. Ohio’s full of Middle Eastern types like that.

Anybody been to Lubbock, Texas? (Affectionately known as “Le Buttock.”) Around 1992 some people were saying the Virgin Mary appeared there, but the Vatican said no, and I can understand why she wouldn’t.

14

[quote=“Mer”]Just curious what the consensus might be, if there is one at all, for the biggest dump of a city in the USA?

Pittsburgh has a bit of a reputation, if I’m not mistaken.
[/quote]

Pittsburgh is beautiful. Google images.

15

Gary, IN. I didn’t think places like this existed in the states until I drove through this post-apocalyptic wonderland.

16

one thing is for sure, no shortage of dumps stateside.

17

I second that. Yuck!

18

Toledo, Gary, yes they’re both pretty rough. The only big difference is that Toledo is a bit more of a city in its own right, with some nice suburbs and an excellent art museum downtown. Gary, unfortunately, is nothing but a rusty industrial satellite city of Chicago–a true nightmare of a place.

No surprise perhaps, there are so many of these “best cities” lists on homepages like Yahoo and MSN. I peruse them often, as my wife and I are making plans to leave Taiwan. There are many different criteria–low crime, green space, economic outlook, “singles” scenes–but a few names appear again and again. No surprise probably–Portland, Oregon; Madison, Wisconsin; Austin, Texas; Cary, North Carolina; Bozeman, Montana; many others that escape my mind at the moment…

As much as there is crime and urban rot in America, there ARE millions of people who want something more out of their cities and are keen to seek out good places. Sadly, municipal governments often fail to really do their jobs and make cities better.