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

[T Minus Four]

Oh, ooops, good point :-)

[Jorge]

This article is garbage. I lived in Miami for 11 years and it was like paradise...heaven on earth. Absolutely beautiful and one of the funnest places I've ever been.

[Bernard Marx]

Barstow exists for only one reason: To stop for gas on the way to Vegas (from L.A.)

True -- and for heavens sake never eat there! I've had food poisoning twice in my life, both times from Barstow "restaurant" meals. Pack a lunch.

[Jorge]

New York City f**kin' rocks. Best designed city on the planet, I'd get close to saying. LOVED living there for a couple months. Again, Crappy state.

I have relatives in NY City and have been there several times. I've never seen such a trashy, dirty run down depressing place in my life.

Sure there are some nice areas and some really cool happening hot spots...but the majority of the city is disgusting and ugly.

[Not A Snowbird]

About the only consolation to all this is that Seattle still has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.

I see absolutely nothing witty about this little comment. Are we supposed to do the Northwest a favor and toss ourselves into Elliot Bay when our latte's aren't quite hot enough?

[Free Vulcan]

Gary is a town? I thought it was a string of steel mills surrounded by company housing.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

Bayonne, OTOH...

What about Bayonne?

[Free Vulcan]

The beauty of Iowa is that it never changes, still as boring as ever. Seriously though, CR is a little better than it used to be with many of the U of I grads going there now after school for jobs. When you were there it was at it's low point and a nearly dead blue collar factory town. It has since reinvented itself. Now Des Moines, THAT is a gawd awful boring town.

[Diddle E. Squat]

You talking to me?

Yep.

BTW, the above is the exact and complete total of the freepmail I sent you, because I was trying to avoid taking this thread further down that tangent you started. Not because I couldn't say it on the forum.

[Diddle E. Squat]

We like to look through our binoculars into the owner's box and spy on 'em for a few minutes.

Was she wearing those football black eye underlines?

[Lancey Howard]

Should have been a "Hundred Worst" list, with all of them tied.

[MetalHeadConservative35]

Where's Detroit?

Detroit? how about river rouge..that city is literally falling apart

[MetalHeadConservative35]

And Flint- and just about any other city I can think of in Michigan. Man, do I hate that place!

not true..westland/wayne area's bloomin up nice same with canton other than that youre right

[dano1]

Was you ever in Cincinnati?

[lennydetroit]

Detroit Rocks, son.

We were the "Arsenal of Democracy" back in the Big W-2. (Of course there was that unfortunate race riot in '43, and that other one in '68, but hey, you can't please everybody.)

Many of our streets are safe to walk along. (Take that, E. St. Louis.)

We pioneered the auto industry (along with that quaint tradition of overturning cars and torching them on the rare occasions our sports teams win a national championship.)

We invented carjacking.

We have beautiful oases on the Detroit River, such as Belle Isle and Zug Island.

Our potholes are second to none, and a majority of our street and traffic lights actually work.

We have a lot of open spaces where those pesky abandoned houses were burned down on Devil's Nights past.

I could go on and on, but you get the point--Deetroit Rocks big time!

Now, as for River Rouge, and add Ecorse and Highland Park to the mix, I thoroughly agree with your assessment.

Regards, Lenny

[MetalHeadConservative35]

We have beautiful oases on the Detroit River, such as Belle Isle and Zug Island.

Zug island??? LMAO that place is one big dirt pile and steel works all over

[MetalHeadConservative35]

Now, as for River Rouge, and add Ecorse and Highland Park to the mix, I thoroughly agree with your assessment

Tip never get lost in ecourse at 1am...your chances of making it home alive are 50/50 if that..

[WKB]

See # 13 and 19 I did not start it sir.

[Safetgiver]

It is titled "...American Cities...." so that leaves Philly out.