(Forbes) Worst Places: America's Most Miserable Cities

Forbes ^ | 1/30/08 | Kurt Badenhausen

[MotleyGirl70]

Imagine living in a city with the country's highest rate for violent crime and the second-highest unemployment rate. As an added kicker you need more Superfund dollars allocated to your city to clean up contaminated toxic waste sites than just about any other metro.

[pabianice]

You have to give Detroit an A for consistency. It was a stinking, crime-infested, druggie, rape and armed robbery hell-hole at least since my last visit in 1979.

[Allegra]

I’m frankly pleasantly surprised that Cleveland isn’t in the top ten!

I breathed a sigh of relief to see that Houston was not, either.

[NativeNewYorker]

If you live in the Rockaways or Canarsie....

You call that living? ;)

[IndyTiger]

I’m frankly pleasantly surprised that Cleveland isn’t in the top ten!

Me too. LOL. And I'm a lifelong Cleveland area resident.

[Clemenza]

Stay away from the bad neighborhoods and you are fine

Which is basically every neighborhood outside of the Walnut/Chestnut Corridor in Center City, and Chestnut Hill.

I was much more miserable in the few years I spent in Jersey.

The South Jersey suburbs are a-s ugly and boring to boot. Other than the shore towns, anyplace south of Princeton is a wasteland (although Freepers who live in Piney country might take strongly with my assessment).

[durasell]

Note, a significant fact regarding these threads: New Yorkers never tire of talking about their city, even to the point of agonizingly small details of neighborhoods.

Very few folks from other cities exhibit this same trait. Indeed, they’d rather discuss how much they hate NYC than discuss their own city.

[Inyo-Mono]

And it's funny that California, the spiritual home of econazis, is noted for its bad quality of air.

Remember California is a BIG state, and where I live there is no, zero, ziltch, air polution. We have the clearest, bluest skies and freshest water in the entire U.S.

[cowtowney]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1961950/posts

[napscoordinator]

I have family that live in Arlington Heights and Lincolnshire Illinois and they love going into Chicago. I am surprised that it made the miserable list.

[ditto h]

Not to stick up for Philly, but we threw snowballs at Santa about 40 years ago! There were still Datsun's on the road at that time.

[Clemenza]

Canarsie was known as "the Sh-thouse" back in the day because all of the sewage exited Brooklyn into the bay near where Canarsie pier sits today. Let's also remember the fact that the nabe is largely quicksand and landfill, so the houses are sinking (as is JFK airport, btw).

As for the Rockaways, John Lindsey should be dug up and slapped for taking prime beachfront property and building projects.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Native Pittsburgher here...I feel your pain.

[MotleyGirl70]

Enjoy the hoagies.

You mean subs ; )

[AngryJawa]

I DEMAND A RECOUNT!!!

Third-World Atlanta is far and a way more of a miserable dump than Charlotte.

[ops33]

Oklahoma ain’t have bad, either! Specially since we got that lectricity.

[durasell]

Rockaways are coming back a little bit. A lot of single family homes going up. A lot of city workers moving there.

[mrsmel]

Sorry, should’ve been more specific in my post.

[NativeNewYorker]

Saw a news story yesterday that the neighborhood with the most mortgage distress in NYC is Canarsie.

[Clemenza]

It also helps that seemingly every Brazilian girl in the city seems to congregate around the 116th Street beach in the summer. ;-)

[Kevmo]

This is fascinating. Detroit is #1 because the auto business is going soft. #2 is Stockton, caused by all the folks moving OUT of the bay area. If Detroit had caused the kind of population migration shift that the SF Bay Area had done in the last few years, Detroit would be off the list and wherever those people moved to would be on the list.

This is proof that the Bay Area is the center of outsourcing in the world. It even outsources its misery.