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

---

---

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."

---

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

---

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."

Home

© 1998-2003 Bully Magazine

[HamiltonJay]

Agreed. You can't respect a top 10 worst cities list that doesn't list Detroit! If you want to know what a post apocolyptic nuclear attack survival american metropolis would look like, just take a ride on any Detroit highway through town and you'll find the model used in the Terminator movies for Judgement Day scenes.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"You really don't know Michigan at all if Flint is your reference point."

Hmmm- so Flint has been moved out of Michigan? I will have to check my Rand-McNally, and then get back to you with an apology...

[bonfire]

...and the best orchestra in the world.

[Joe Hadenuf]

The dumbest comment the author made is about LA. This guy obviously can't afford to live there.

Besides, LA just makes the rest of California look even more fantastic. Hehehe.

From the deserts to the sea, to all of Southern California! Yeee Hawww.....

____________________________________________________________ The greatest state of the greatest country on earth

[Rifleman]

Never been to East St Louis, I see.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Very true! I would go further, though, and state definitely that if Detroit were to be utterly destroyed tomorrow morning, no-one would miss it for at least a month.

[mlmr]

Portland was trying to be a little Boston but I think it is gbing to be a little Hartford instead. Hartford Conn should be on the top of the list.

[richtig_faust]

The list forgot Milwaukee, the original "hate whitey except for his tax money" city.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"Never been to East St Louis, I see."

I have- and I'm never going back. But East St Louis doesn't really qualify as a "city"- it's just a dumping ground, like Newark or Phenix "City" Alabama.

[Hillary's Folly]

How much are you getting for the cans nowadays?

LOL! I'm purely a charitable trash picker-upper.

[HamiltonJay]

"Pittspuke"?


Man, I gotta tell you Pittsburgh is definately no NYC... and its not going to appeal much to the Yuppies from LA and NYC etc (though far too many of them seem to be migrating here lately) But You can't put Cleveland or Cincinatti anywhere near the same level as Pittsburgh in terms of livability.

Pittsburgh has low crime, low cost of living, great quality of life, an active arts culture, great universities and while certainly nothign to write home about does have some night life as well. Pittsburgh biggest problem is simply the Democratic machine that's been mismanaging the city and region for the past 60 years.

Pittsburgh only other big negative (as a non native whos been here a while) is it isn't the most open town to newcomers... people are born live and die in this town and outside of the university patches, they aren't the most welcoming.. .not that they are rude... just you are the new guy until you lived here 10 years or more type thing.

[WhiteGuy]

I guess this guy has never been to Cowlumbus............

[sphinx]

APPARANTLY D.C. HAS BEEN RETIRED WITH "FULL HONORS"

In looking at D.C., remember that the statistics lie unless you look at the metro area as a whole. The District of Columbia itself is very small, with its size constitutionally limited. This left the federal district unable to annex the close-in suburbs which is, naturally, where a lot of the middle class lives. This in turn leaves D.C. proper with very skewed demographics. Gentrification is accentuating this, as many good, histocially middle class neighborhoods are getting pricey. The rich-poor divide is pretty steep.

Take the metro area as a whole, however, and DC looks a lot more "normal" in terms of crime, education, ethnicity, etc., simply because the broader focus brings the middle class back into the picture. It's a very affluent city with a cosmopolitan population and an astonishing array of world class attractions provided free of charge by Uncle Sam. Plenty of history. Plenty of nightlife and fine dining for those interested in such things. More history. As far as high culture is concerned, we are worldbeaters on equestrian statues of Civil War generals. Does anything else matter?

Take the schools as a bellweather. Most people here are familiar with the travails of the DC public school system. However, Montgomery and Fairfax counties -- much of which would be incorporated into the city proper in any other jurisdiction -- have some of the country's best public school systems, and the private/parochial school network is second to none.

[hosepipe]

Anchorage, AK is a cool city as citys go....

Alaska even has two republican parties..

One regular(elephant) and another one(moderate), a fat donkey with a lame-ass horn on its nose as their mascot....

And the dumbocrats are embarrased by the moderate republicans mascot but pander to them anyway.., I tell you its a riot up here...

[Serb5150]

Oooh, check out #2.. BURN!

[Scenic Sounds]

Having been to each of these cities I'd say the descriptions are fairly accurate, particularly Seattle.

I don't think that I've ever been to Toledo (at least not on purpose), but I've had a wonderful time in some of these cities, including Seattle. The San Juan Islands are beautiful and there are some neat things to do in Seattle.

Our day comes when they post the Top 10 Best Cities to live in. ;-)

[T Minus Four]

The ONLY CONSERVATIVE city on the list is SLC. Other than MORMONS, I wonder what is SO BAD about it? Anyone?

First of all, it's not a serious list, so don't take it seriously. Secondly, do they still force watered down beer in Salt Lake? If so, that's good enough reason to make the list.

The trick is to have a military ID card and buy all your beer at Hill AFB. :-)

[furball4paws]

As I get older, I move to smaller places. My next move will be to the middle of the Pacific. I hit the "big" (>10,000) city about 3 times a year only because my wife needs a mall fix.

With the Internet and mail order, who needs city hassle? Our air is clean and our water pure. There is no traffic. Almost Heaven, San Juan Mountains.

[StoneColdGOP]

I'd have to agree with each of these, but add both Fresno and Stockton, CA somewhere down the list.

Love the Miami and Seattle descriptions.

[j_tull]

Q: "Where's Detroit?"

A: http://detroityes.com/toc.htm