The Ten Worst American Cities to Live In

Bully Magazine ^ | Ken Wohlrob

[Hillary's Folly]

Bully's "Ten Worst American Cities To Live In" List

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By Ken Wohlrob

10. Seattle

Seattle would seem to have everything going for it. Great music, good restaurants, a beautiful landscape, a range of ethnic cultures, and centralized collection of hi-tech businesses that attract brainy folks from places like San Francisco (ever since that city hit the economic slide). So what makes Seattle one of the ten worst cities to live in? Well it's those same techies who fled San Francisco to seek Seattle's venture-capital rich environment, usually after watching the movie Singles, who have turned this once humble and artistic community into a plague of cellphone sporting, PDA carrying idiots who fly around the streets in their Volkswagens while listening to the Flaming Lips. You know that annoying jackass who walks around in the cellphone commercials saying, "Can you hear me now?" He's the official mascot for Seattle. About the only consolation to all this is that Seattle still has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.

9. Toledo

The first of the Ohio Triplets on our list, Toledo would be the perfect place to re-make The Omega Man. This mostly due to the fact that this Midwestern hole is so bleak, so gray, so devoid of life, that except for rush hour, you wouldn't know that anyone actually lived in Toledo. Forget civic pride, everyone in Toledo knows the city is a hellhole and just stays home to watch TV. Last time we visited, the only after hours joint was located in a hotel for men. Toledo's official city slogan should be "Toledo…We're…well…ah screw it."

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"What can we say about Miami except that it brings out the worst cheesy tendencies in people of all races, creeds, and colors."

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8. Los Angeles

If you look at some of the most talented people to ever walk the planet that ended up destroying themselves - Hemingway, Bruce, Belushi, Morrison, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Welles, and yes even Osbourne - all have one thing in common. LA.

7. Salt Lake City

This one should be obvious to any intelligent human: Mormons and lots of them. Need we say more?

6. Cincinnati

If you took Chicago, sucked out every last ounce of culture including its thriving music scenes and quality restaurants and bars, leaving a graying hulk of skyscrapers and a complete lack of night life, then you would have Cincinnati. To some Cincinnati is the greatest city in the U.S. - usually these folks are old, white, Christian fundamentalists, confined to wheelchairs, and are very scared of "coloreds." If you are not this type of person and you live in Cincinnati and like it, you have mental problems and should seek professional help.

5. St. Louis

The "Gateway to the West" has three strikes against it. First is that St. Louis has the highest crime rate of any U.S. city. Second, the main architectural landmark looks like an unfinished McDonald's logo. Third, Bob Costas lives there.

4. Atlanta

Any place nicknamed "Hotlanta" has to suck big time. Here's the catch: Did you ever meet someone who went to New York City and said, "I didn't like it, it was too dirty and oh my God there were all these weirdoes." Usually in the next sentence they'll say, "But I really like Hotlanta, it's so cool down there." That's because Atlanta is the city of choice for suburbanites who don't really like cities. Hence Atlanta has turned into nothing more than an over-sprawled suburb, just with more bad bars.

3. Miami

What can we say about Miami except that it brings out the worst cheesy tendencies in people of all races, creeds, and colors. If you want to see blacks, whites, and latinos at their intellectual lowest, than Miami is just for you. Gaudy neon, bad dance clubs, dopey fashionistas, y'all come back now ya hear!

2. Phoenix

Only an idiot would want to spend most of the year trapped in air conditioning. Such an idiot usually moves to Phoenix. Then this dope will say, "Yeah but it's a dry heat." To make matters worse there is absolutely nothing to do in Phoenix besides run from your car's air conditioning to your house's air conditioning. Or you can play golf. Otherwise, they should tear the whole metropolis down and let it just rot back into the desert.

1. Cleveland

The obvious choice for worst city to live in is Cleveland. Not so much because of the lack of culture. Nor is it the lack of a thriving night life. And it is not the constant economic pall that looms over the city. What really makes Cleveland the worst city in all of America is the fact that it shares many of these qualities with other cities - such as its Ohio Twin, Toledo - and refuses to acknowledge it. As a recent article in the Washington Post pointed out, Cleveland peaked in the 1930s and has been on the downslide ever since. To make matters worse, the Plain Dealer - the local city newspaper - found that the higher a young person's education degree, the more likely said person was to move out of Cleveland. In fact it was one of the only three major metropolitan areas in the 1990s to experience such a mass exodus of intelligence. In essence, smart people leave Cleveland while the dumb stay to crank out children and watch the Indians games. Now if you said this to the average Clevelandite, they would call you an a-hole, pound their fist on the table, and insist that Cleveland has just as much to offer as New York City or Chicago. It's almost as if the citizens have become desensitized to the obvious. At least the Toledoans have a clue, but Clevelandites like their city just the way it is and they're damn proud of it…with the closed steel mills, and bad wing joints, and those horrible blues bands that all play a terrible rendition of "Mustang Sally."

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© 1998-2003 Bully Magazine

[Dan from Michigan]

Which ones?

The only "bad townships" I can think of offhand is Royal Oak Township(not the city) which is for all intents and purposes, Detroit. The other is Buena Vista which is East Saginaw.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

if you're looking for wild nightlife, then SLC isn't where you want to be.

You have the gift of understatement. I once spent 45 minutes in SLC looking for a six-pack of beer (several people actually asked me if I meant "ROOT Beer!)

No wild nightlife immediately presented itself.

[LanPB01]

The problem for me is the specialized nature of my work. Since the Cincinnati area only has two law schools (and it looks like no one ever retires or moves on from U.C.), I have to focus on the larger, private law firms. I'm still dreaming of the day when I find the job opening for a reference librarian at U.C.'s School of Law.

[Types_with_Fist]

Please...save the lecture on the virtues. Save the name-calling. I'm from near there. Up until a few years ago, it was the country's murder capital. Corruption is the lifeblood of the entire state. So, save it. No tourist here.

[Middle Man]

"Let's forget about the gaudiness, trash and gouging. As a "tourist" city, it's one of the most dangerous."

I've vacationed in N.O. for over 30 years and when I visited it again last summer I was really shocked by how it has declined. The food is still great, but the city's run out of steam from all the corruption and thievery by local pols. There's no money left to fix anything and it shows.

[Mr. Mojo]

They were on (or near) the west coast. I'll look at a map and see if I can remember, then get back to you.

[carton253]

Well... I'm a student at UC. I'll keep my ears open.

[Dan from Michigan]

Probably Benton Charter Township then (I-94). I forgot about that one. It's near Benton Harbor...which is most known for rioting when a crook kills himself in a crash fleeing from the cops.

[LanPB01]

I appreciate it.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

I have to agree that New Orleans should be on the list-- I have worked offshore Louisiana, and made many trips to NO- always armed. The place is run by gangs, with the NOPD being the biggest among them. A history of corruption that is probably unrivaled in this country, and a bunch of overpriced and over-rated scuzzy bars. Not a lot to recommend it.

[doug from upland]

Divine Providence caused my parents to move to the West Coast from Cleveland when I was 5.

[Types_with_Fist]

A while back, the F.B.I. pulled some undercover drug agents out of a probe in the NOPD because they learned the cops were planning to kill them.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

To be fair, there really aren't any cities I DO like. I grew up in Manhattan, and have been trying to escape from cities ever since. At the core, they are all rotten.

[Pietro]

"..humiliating beating we gave you earlier in the year"

Oh, there is no doubt that the Steelers stink out loud this year, it's just comforting to know that no matter how bad they are they can still beat the skidmarks. I mean, the Steelers had less than 100 yards total offense and STILL won, damn, that gotta hurt. LOL

[Bikers4Bush]

Oddly enough when you expect to lose it doesn't really hurt.

3 times we were on the five or inside of it and two of those times we turned the ball over resulting in no points.

I'm a "one step back to take two steps forward" guy. I'll take a loss like yesterday if it means Butch Davis and the rest wind up being run out of town.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Yeah- I remeber one NOPD Sergeant who ran a big drug operation- he was getting on the police radio and running his deals, as well as ordering witnesses shot. Wonderful place. And what about the officer who robbed a Vietnamese restaurant and killed a coiuple of fellow officers who were working the old protection racket ("guarding" the place")

[bigfootbob]

"There is no such thing as a good city to live in."

DITTO!

[gdani]

Cleveland isn't THAT bad.

Sure, the weather sucks & the economy is constantly spiraling downward but that can be said for a lot of cities.

Also not good if you're a sports fan. Cleveland holds the current record for longest streak among 4 major sports without a championship.

If you're younger, it has a great music scene with tons of clubs/venues & national acts always stopping through. It also has a couple of world class hospitals & a very low cost of living. It's also very cheap to fly in & out of and many destinations (Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Washington DC, etc) are a relatively short drive away.

I'd certainly live in Cleveland before Toledo or even Columbus - which bores me to tears.

[Jonah Hex]

ARRGH!!! Barstow!!! (shudder)

I stayed in Barstow a few nights on business about two years ago. I woke up at one o'clock in the morning to the sound of helicopter rotor beats and police loudspeakers. Turned out the feds were busting a biker club's meth lab next door.

Barstow, where the predominate colors are brown hills and blue sky. Carry me back to old Virginny....

[WKB]

You talking to me?