Worst City You've Ever Been To?
- Thread starter Andrew Korenchkin
- Start date
In Australia, the capital cities are all pretty slick. Perth is a bit plain and Sydney has a lot of jerks but they're perfectly enjoyable. Beneath the capital cities, Newcastle is a bit gross but not as gross as the Gold Coast. I hate my birth town of Rockhampton, such a fucking shithole and I'm thankful I never really lived there.
In America, I lived in Houston and loved it even though it is objectively a concrete wasteland. Los Angeles can be amazing or an absolute dump, depending where you are or what you're doing.
In the U.K., Aberdeen is a bit shit but it had amazing kebabs and booze.
I'm gonna say the cities I like the least are Kuala Lumpur and Cancun. KL was hot, it stank, and apart from unreal food had nothing to offer the tourist. Cancun didn't feel like Mexico and we were only there for a flight. It reminded me of the worst parts of the Gold Coast and there were much more interesting places to visit in Mexico.
In America, I lived in Houston and loved it even though it is objectively a concrete wasteland. Los Angeles can be amazing or an absolute dump, depending where you are or what you're doing.
In the U.K., Aberdeen is a bit shit but it had amazing kebabs and booze.
I'm gonna say the cities I like the least are Kuala Lumpur and Cancun. KL was hot, it stank, and apart from unreal food had nothing to offer the tourist. Cancun didn't feel like Mexico and we were only there for a flight. It reminded me of the worst parts of the Gold Coast and there were much more interesting places to visit in Mexico.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
Yeah, you can classify areas based on population and design, but I decided to be a bit more flexible. On another weird note, funny how whenever I google Cottonwood it's classified as a city, despite having only 10,000 people. As a planner even I find classification of city/town/etc not definite. But I see your point.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
I can't believe people are saying NYC. It's not perfect but its a cultural mecca and one of, if not the, most important cities in the world.
AdventureRacing
Member
What's gross about Newcastle? I'm biased because I used to live there (and plan to in the future). It's a great place to live.
flintstryker
Banned
Thats all well and good buti still don't like it there
acheron_xl
Member
Of the places I've been that I could call a city (very small list), I'd have to say Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The city and most everyone in it is terrible.
AppleSeason
Member
Barcelona is easily the worst experience I've ever had while travelling.
most australians on gaf seem to hate the gold coast. i live there and love it
TommyTosser
Member
Been there about 6 times and enjoyed it thoroughly. Couldn't recommend it enough to people.
Can't believe i'm seeing NYC getting mentioned too. I went there for 10 days, loved it so much i felt like it was my new home.
close to the edge
Member
I dunno, apart from a bus driver who would only speak French with me even though I talked to him in English I had no issues there. I think that sort of thing always depends on where you're originally from.
BolognaSoup
Member
Drive by Toledo Ohio sometime and try not to barf at the site of it. Fortunately I only ever have to drive by and not stop.
GoldenCrow
Member
Marrakesh, Morocco. Unfriendly, dirty, smelly, tourist trap where you are constantly harassed. Fuck those snake charmers with their half dead snakes who chase you down the street. Thankfully there are lots of amazing other cities that are much nicer and very easy to get to in Morocco.
Everything for the $$$
Hah, yea as a geographer I know that the term "city" is pretty ambiguous, just feel that the common use of it is a large and relatively dense urban environment. It's your OP though, you make the rules.
pigeon interrupted
Member
I think Slough should be considered here. I live a few miles away and every time I've been there, I've found myself wanting to leave.
Boring architecture, it has the largest industrial park in Europe; it's full of nondescript factories, cramped and rundown housing, too many roundabouts, too much traffic, too many violent kids with nothing to do, too many drug addicts.
It's boring and intimidating at the same time.
John Betjeman wrote a poem about Slough:
Slough
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
Also it's where Richy Gervaise located his series The Office. Here's a song he wrote about Slough.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zNX5zYec01c
What a dump!
Pleases don't beat me up if you're from Slough. Take my wallet if you want just don't hurt me ;p
chicko1983
Member
Cairo, only city in the world that I felt unsafe walking around with my sisters and mum
Pankratous
Member
Los Angeles, Hollywood area.
Horrible.
Horrible.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
I took a few classes on landscape ecology, fun times. Of course, we use GIS a lot too. I miss map making.
Jzero
Member
L.A. for sure
Why does all the good stuff require me to drive there?!
and I just want to say since listenin' to Kanye's workout tape
I been able to date outside the family, I got a double wide
And I rode the plane, rode the plane, rode the plane"
Why does all the good stuff require me to drive there?!
"My name is Alamae from Mobille, Alabama
and I just want to say since listenin' to Kanye's workout tape
I been able to date outside the family, I got a double wide
And I rode the plane, rode the plane, rode the plane"
HazySaiyan
Banned
What a fucking dump that place is, although if we're extending it to towns then my vote is for Keighley, UK. I get depressed going through there, it's so grim.
A tacky neon fake-breasted quagmire of skin cancer, overpriced drugs and semen. Hell on earth. The only silver lining to climate change is that Surfers will be reclaimed by the sea.
Newcastle is okay. I lived and worked there for a bit. Visited 6 months ago and there were a slew of cafes and a trendy WWII themed sushi bar - it had come a long way. I was going through the list of Australian cities and thought Newcastle warranted mention. You can't escape the feel of the coal industry though, no matter where you go.
SchrodingerC
Member
At least you had a decent experience. There's plenty of good cities in Canada I've yet to visit, Montreal can wait for a few decades.
Winnipeg is a frozen shithole that doubles as a void where joy goes to die. The closest thing to happiness I ever felt there was leaving it. The food was exactly as exciting as putting salt on a semi-thawed TV dinner, and the place is so flat and windy you can taste the desperation on the air.
It really is. When people visit I always tell them to avoid Hollywood and they can't believe their ears. They think it's like some cool place to see full of history and wonder, when it's really just Fisherman's Wharf with no water and terrible food.
Because the subway system that should have been built half a century ago isn't going to be ready until the mid-2020s.
Always-honest
Banned
Brussels.
Shithole.
Well, the part i was in and where my hotel was located. Absolute shit.
Shithole.
Well, the part i was in and where my hotel was located. Absolute shit.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
As a listener of Venetian Snares for ten years, I alwayz wondered if Winnipeg was really that bad.
Aeriscloud
Banned
I don't think this counts as a city. I think it counts as a shitty little college town where dirty old men try to pick you up in the K Mart cafeteria when you're 15.
It's genuinely atrocious. It creates hard people, but they also end up aloof and distracted because nobody wants to look at the buildings around them for fear of having a heart attack by believing they've fallen into a dull grey void from which they can never escape.
Sgt. Kabukiman
Banned
Saint-Nazaire is kind of a shithole. Guingamp is pretty ugly as well.
As far as major cities go, Paris. A handful of gorgeous spots and great museums do not make up for all the ugly garbage surrounding them. Paris is one of the last cities tourists should visit in France.
London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin and Brussels are far better even though they also have their rough spots.
As far as major cities go, Paris. A handful of gorgeous spots and great museums do not make up for all the ugly garbage surrounding them. Paris is one of the last cities tourists should visit in France.
London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin and Brussels are far better even though they also have their rough spots.
I quite liked the city itself but the people there were incredible assholes, full of hatred towards strangers.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Stockholm. Here in Gothenburg we call it "the asshole of Sweden".
Nah, Stockholm is great.
CherryWoodFuton
Member
US cities:
Didn't really care to live in Las Vegas. It's cool to visit though
Cleveland is a shithole. It's like if you took everything cool and nice from Chicago you get this shitty midwest pile
Wilmington Delaware lol
Didn't really care to live in Las Vegas. It's cool to visit though
Cleveland is a shithole. It's like if you took everything cool and nice from Chicago you get this shitty midwest pile
Wilmington Delaware lol
Generalpsyduck
Banned
Buffalo, NY
Everything smelled like piss.
Everything smelled like piss.
Most definitely Perpignan in France. It is located near the Spanish border, north of Barcelona. Me and my wife decided to visit this town two years ago while on vacation in the region. We parked our car and paid for a ticket. When we came back 2-3 hours later, our car was missing. First, I thought it had been stolen and we were fucked. But then we saw other people in the parking area looking nervous, some calling on their phone. After some further investigation, it turned out that we had parked our car in a spot that was closed during two hours of that specific day, which was pointed out with a handwritten sign on a wall somewhere near. Really?
So, we asked a policeman in the area where the location of the towed cars was to be found. Luckily he was very helpful. We took a cab, which cost us around 20 EUR, and then we had to wait in line, while being confronted with classic French bureaucracy. I thought I was part of a British sketch. There were two desks, separated by a wall. We approached desk A, explained our issue, pointed at our car outside, and then had to move to desk B. The woman behind this desk asked us to handover some papers, which were still in the car. Then, we had to go to desk A again, who verified the papers a second time. After confirmation, we were fined with 150 EUR and solemnly swore never to visit this piece of crap town again.
It must have been a very lucrative business towing cars in Perpignan, because they were being towed all day long and the parking lot they were taken to was filled with them.
And to think I paid for a valid parking ticket. It seemed really unfair to treat tourists like that.
So, we asked a policeman in the area where the location of the towed cars was to be found. Luckily he was very helpful. We took a cab, which cost us around 20 EUR, and then we had to wait in line, while being confronted with classic French bureaucracy. I thought I was part of a British sketch. There were two desks, separated by a wall. We approached desk A, explained our issue, pointed at our car outside, and then had to move to desk B. The woman behind this desk asked us to handover some papers, which were still in the car. Then, we had to go to desk A again, who verified the papers a second time. After confirmation, we were fined with 150 EUR and solemnly swore never to visit this piece of crap town again.
It must have been a very lucrative business towing cars in Perpignan, because they were being towed all day long and the parking lot they were taken to was filled with them.
And to think I paid for a valid parking ticket. It seemed really unfair to treat tourists like that.
I can usually find something nice to say about most cities and normally only have a bad impression of them when they are so boring they don't leave any kind of impression. Saying that, the must boring "large" city I've ever been to was Ottawa. Holy hell does that place make me want to sleep. I would rather sit in a room and watch paint dry. I'm pretty sure boredom is the main export of that city.