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

[furball4paws]

Always thought Scranton belonged on the list. Maybe we should make it the top 20 and then no one would be disappointed.

[HamiltonJay]

SCRANTON? You actually consider a town who's claim to fame is a song about a truck accident full of bananas a city?

30,000 lbs... of bananas....

[Billthedrill]

Heavy ambivalence here. Understand, I love Seattle, it's beautiful and sparkling-clean, but so is a toilet bowl when you run that much water through it on a daily basis. It's actually refreshing to be a conservative here - you get to scream "I'm a gun-toting, meat-eating redneck and I hate hippies!" and the locals just nod and go "how quaint" as if you'd said you were a Wobblie or a Whig.

We just had a minor tectonic event in city government - it was astonishing how entrenched a certain coterie had become in a city so "progressive" on matters other than local. Several of these are now looking for work. Not a bad thing.

Traffic sucks. It really, really sucks, and there's so much water around here that they've built roads pretty much wherever possible. Still sucks. Way too many yuppies with cellphones stuck to their faces with velcro. In high tourist season the nearest downtown parking is in Canada. There's enough goose and seagull crap to peel the paint off an Abrams, and the place is chock-full of mind-numbed, addle-pated, self-righteous fools who get their daily marching orders from NPR and their daily ideology from local fish-wrappers slightly to the left of Pravda in the bad old days. The city flower is moss, the city anthem is "We Are The World," and the city motto is "to each according to his need, from each according to how much we can screw out of him."

But there's no state income tax (yet) and the Space Needle is kinda cool. Guess I'll stick around.

[Hank Rearden]

I have a very simple rule for domiciles. It's not 100% accurate, but definitely sufficient for me. Try it, it works:

Never live anywhere the TV and radio stations begin with a 'W'.

[Revelation 911]

we just spent a short vacation in Cleveland (downtown) - the kids (young teens) wanted to visit the rock hall of fame - very polite people and easy town to get around - I would have to express surprise that armpit of the Earth Rochester NY didnt make the list

[Getsmart64]

Taxes are pretty high...3.2 beer...the Mexican population is booming.....the traffic is horrible......inversion during the winter could choke a horse....the list is long....

[Getsmart64]

your wrong on the crime and traffic.....where in the SLC Valley do you live??

[Getsmart64]

oh...also forgot about the "affordable housing"....housing is becoming over inflated in the SLC Valley.....

[Dolphy]

Bet that map of yours will show you that Flint isn't the only city in Michigan.

[Getsmart64]

Back in '89...I bought a six of Heinekens from the Package Store with he "strong beer" sticker...drank all six while watching football and didn't catch nothing but a headache...it's 3.2 beer....

[smith288]

My son's Pop Warner team could compete in the AFC South

I can tell you are an avid NFL fan. *snort*

[richtig_faust]

Always thought Scranton belonged on the list.


My father was from Scranton and my grandmother lived there until her death. It's a dreary town with no reasonable form of jobs or night life, but at least the crime is low. The people were all really friendly whenever we visited.

[smith288]

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

Shut it, you.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Relax- I'm only having a little fun. Note that this "survey" was from "BULLY MAGAZINE"- it's a joke.

If it feels better, I'll let you make fun of Anchorage for awhile. You can even insult the entire State of Alaska.

I'm tough- I can take it! LOL!

[richtig_faust]

---

....or any place followed by the word "Township"=

---

I live in a township. I love it. Lower taxes, no gang bangers, no illegals. All in all it's pretty nice. It will change though if they start importing the schit from Milwaukee.

[smith288]

Oooh...my tagline needs a little changing... :(

[Allegra]

Just damn!
Houston didn't even make the list!

Stolar Storm and bonfire seem to be very disappointed about that.

They must not know the little secrets we do about the good places to go. Or perhaps they have no appreciation for good ballet and musical theatre, etc. (And yeah, I've lived all over the world, so I'm not some rube making comparisons from a narrow field.)

We didn't make the list because our NFL team has the coolest logo in the league. :)

[WhiteGuy]

HEY!

I know what I'm talking about!

I've lived here all my life (which is only a few years more than you..........)

GO WNHS Warriors

[Allegra]

Thought you might have something to say about this. :-)

[TheGunny]

They forgot Detroit!