The Worst Shithole Areas in Europe

[quote]chateaus

Oh, cher.

of course, OP. there is a region of Poland near the Czech border that was exploited during Soviet times that is still so environmentally degraded that it is sometimes called "the dead zone". Lots of the east is very polluted still.

Paris' suburbs.

Italy.

Riverside.

Leeds

I've never been but have never heard many positive stories about Athens.

There are no words to describe the shockingly disgusting Swiss slums.

Hull

Belgium.

The sprawling slums of Switzerland are indeed appalling. Miles of emaciated, blond peasants screaming for this year's cars.

Tschernobyl

Vatican Shitty

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Venice, Ca.

hmmm Essex, Manchester, much of the north of england including lets face it Scotland(thanks mrs.thatcher)

The whole country of Andorra. Seriously. It's nothing but one big discount shopping mall for French and Spanish daytrippers looking to buy cheap booze.

There are some low-class beach towns between Marseille and Toulon that make Myrtle Beach look ritzy. The city of Toulon is no gem, either, although I love their opera house and all those sailors. (I have a special fondness for sailors.)

Someone already suggested the suburbs of Paris. I'd add the suburbs of Rome. They're not as dangerous as the Paris suburbs but they're just as nasty.

All of Greece

I agree about the Paris Suburbs, some are really nice but the shitholes are Clichy-Sous-Bois and ST.Denis.

Moldova

Oberpfalz!

I saw a lot of very depressing areas of England. Spain had some very dubious areas that even our friend, Spanish and our guide, hustled us through. Lots of people laying passed out with needles still in their arms. Even in the nice areas you have to ignore the beggars coming up to your table.

[quote]I've never been but have never heard many positive stories about Athens.

I know, me too, until I went there. I thought it was a very exciting and vibrant place.

There's a huge area around the Acropolis, where I stayed, lots of winding streets and outdoor cafes and reasonably priced places to stay.

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[quote]I saw a lot of very depressing areas of England.

Yes, I thought this walking along Shepherd's Bush Road this morning, especially as it hasn't rained in weeks, the dirt is wretched.

Southern Italy Campania region..average yearly salary is about 12,OOO. but nobody beats Bulgaria and Romania

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What are the nice suburbs of Paris, r19?

I adore Bulgaria and Romania....what do you speak of?

R22 went to Spain during the 80's.

after watching the movie 'hostel', i vowed to never go to europe. ever. fucking depraved sadists.

No R27 sorry I was there. I think he mistakenly took us through there taking us to some tourist area and thought it was a shortcut. To be fair he said most of the druggies were from other parts of Europe. Where is the nastiness coming from dear?

R3 I haven't been there lately so it may be better. Is it?

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Greece is fabulous. The Cyclades are the most stunningly beautiful islands in the world with deep blue seas, sugarcube houses and breathtaking landscapes.

[quote]What are the nice suburbs of Paris, [R19]?

The nice suburbs are typically those to the west of the city: Neuilly, Versailles (to a certain extent). All the others (and I mean ALL the others) are absolutely shitholes where the French deposit their undesirables so they don't sully the fantasy for the tourists.

Anything south of the river in London, far enough to be out of sight of the Thames. For that matter, anything "out." Overreachers, poseurs and trash.

ALL suburbs of Paris. Christ. Quit excusing the tidier messes.

Most of Berlin.

Oddly, since being on the south of Italy requires making certain adjustments, none of Rome is a shithole. If you don't make an adjustmant, all of it is.

I've only been to Versailles. What is wrong with the suburbs of Paris?

R24 Not true about the Ruhrgebiet. It is one of the greenest areas around in fact.

R31 Oh, yes, please. Stay away. It's much better like this. Thank you.

I went to Paris a few years ago and thought the city was lovely, of course. But the drive into the city from the airport was a highway uglier than one I'd ever seen. There was a large, dark stadium by the road and my friend asked when it was built and they said the 90s. It looked like something from the 70s- functional and that's it.

R37, crime, drugs, riots, unemployment, Arabs, gypsies. Seriously, there are some neighborhoods the police refuse to enter. Of course we're talking about the FRENCH police, so that's not surprising.

R36, that's not true about ALL suburbs of Paris. You sound like an awful person. Saint Germain en Laye, Neuilly, Etang la Ville, Maisons Lafitte are all nice. Versailles is a middle-class town as well.

Berlin has many beautiful parts, though.

A few hideous Stalinist and post-WW2 all concrete districts, but many beautifully preserved pre-war areas too.

Clermont-Ferrand, France

I understand Versailles has both middle-class and upper class areas.

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Charleroi, Belgium, was voted the "ugliest town in Europe" several times.

Also, Seraing in Wallonia, where the Dardenne brothers set most (or all) of their films.

Almere and Lelystad in the Netherlands are pretty grim as well.

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Is it because of suicide and boozing R46 (ref. Glasgow)?

Romania!

Only Paris suburbs on the into Paris on the train matched the worst I've seen in Philadelphia and Wash. DC.

It's a real dichotomy considering that Paris is the most beautiful city on the PLANET. I didn't see the same slums leaving Paris to the north on the train to London.

It ain't real pretty, but London makes my heart feel good. I can't even explain why, but London is the most wonderful place for me.

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Sicily. Lived there for two years. While there are some beautiful spots, the Sicilians have done their best to trash the rest of it. The big cities are made up of huge depressing Eastern European-looking apartment blocks. The countryside should be beautiful, but around every corner, there are piles of trash, rotting fruit, old mattresses, a pack of feral dogs, and something on fire.

There is one nice suburb of Paris and it's Neuilly-Sur-Seine/Levellois-Perret..It's the wealthiest suburb . A lot of the politicians and rich french have houses there, it's where the American Hospital is too where the stars go to die.

Bette Davis died at the American Hospital in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, after being emergency airlifted there from a film festival in Spain. I always thought that was such an impossibly glamorous way to die, and so fitting for a star of her stature.

Being in any of the sink estates in England would be massively depressing. Massively high levels of crime and unemployment are coupled with very poor and overcrowded housing. Not a good place to live or drive through.

Is a sink estate what an American would call the projects?

The Blights of Interlaken in Switzerland's Bern Canton is truly a sight one should never see.

Young people ODing on Lindt's Truffles and spitzbubens.

Ghastly.

Gillingham, in the Medway Towns in my county of Kent is utterly charmless. Chatham isn't much better. It's like South East London took a shit just outside Rochester. But yes, Gillingham has absolutely nothing to recommend it. It needs to be carpet-bombed.

It's an abortion of bad town planning (confusing one-way systems), 19th century ugliness, 20th century ugliness, and a dead high street of pound shops and fast food joints. There's an almost total lack of greenery and the major feature is a business park on the outskirts featuring B&Q; and Medway Hospital which has a large chimney that makes it look like the oven at a concentration camp. A more depressing place you'd be hard-placed to locate.

r36 - not all of south London is bleak. I live in Clapham and I love it. Lots of families and gay stuff to do as well. I walk around late at night and don't feel unsafe at all.

But Hackney or even a few stops further South on the Northern Line from my house (Tooting, etc) and it can get a bit dicey...

R55 There are various types of housing estate mostly made up of social housing (or ex social housing which is now owner occupied). Sink estate refers to large groups of social housing which are in a very poor condition. They are lived in by the very poorest in society. They are mostly in inner city or poor urban areas and are often no go areas even for the police.

I second Hull. And I'd add Helmond, the Netherlands.

Anywhere in Poland. The word Poland means "Shithole".

Don't most suburbs tend to suck? Even wealthy ones are boring.

[quote]Anything south of the river in London, far enough to be out of sight of the Thames.

Complete and utter bullshit. There are some crappy areas, of course, but there are also plenty of nice ones. Just one example: Wimbledon Village is an upmarket little village, with a large common (a type of wild-ish parkland area) nearby and surrounded by many roads of large, mostly lovely houses. Plenty of other nice areas of South London. Anti-Brit trolls are so fucking tedious, and just end up looking so fucking ignorant.

Thanks, r59. By your explanation, sink estates are definitely the equivalent of our housing projects - the poorest of the poor and crime-ridden.

r44, not the entire city was carpet bombed.

You clearly have never been to Prenzlauer Berg, which was preserved in its entirety.

So was Lichterfelde, a jewel of Belle Epoque architecture - entirely preserved. Grunewald as well.

Thanks for playing, though.

Many of you are so full of shit I don't know where to begin. Berlin a shit hole? Italy? Belgium? WTF?

South London, Berlin and Belgium are all like Heaven on Earth to me. I can't believe anyone would trash these places! Have you SEEN the gorgeousness that is Antwerp, Ghent, or Brussells? They are the most beautiful cities on EARTH. South London has great character and charm, and Berlin is easily the COOLEST city on the whole planet!

this thread is useless without pics

I choose Solntsevo, Moscow

I had to go to a small city in Eastern Poland for work. No one smiled, the buildings were Soviet style, and for dinner they had things like pork lard and heavy starchy things. and the town was full of hookers.

[quote]Italy? Belgium? WTF?

Specific cities/towns were mentioned, not these countries as a whole.

[quote]the dead zone. Isn't that Tom Cruise's bedroom

R46,Galway?! You must not have had a look around. One of the few places in Ireland that I genuinely like.

I agree generally on the suburbs of Paris being shitholes, but definitely not all of them. Most of the Hauts-de-Seine département is very nice (second wealthiest region in France) and the suburban areas of it like Malakoff, Sèvres, Vanves etc have a very high quality of life.

[quote]Anything south of the river in London, far enough to be out of sight of the Thames. For that matter, anything "out." Overreachers, poseurs and trash.

well done...Gwyneth couldn't have done better.

[quote]Complete and utter bullshit. There are some crappy areas, of course, but there are also plenty of nice ones. Just one example: Wimbledon Village is an upmarket little village, with a large common (a type of wild-ish parkland area) nearby and surrounded by many roads of large, mostly lovely houses. Plenty of other nice areas of South London. Anti-Brit trolls are so fucking tedious, and just end up looking so fucking ignorant.

I'm not an anti-Brit troll & I agree about South Of The River. Thanks for your reference to twee Wimbledon, but I'm not buying it. A poor man's Hampstead, quite frankly.

[quote]Anything south of the river in London, far enough to be out of sight of the Thames.

& for some reason I wouldn't trust someone who comes from Greenwich or Dulwich. Who'd CHOOSE to live so far away from everything?

& Blackheath! I feel suicidal just driving across it (and these are the 'gems' of South London).

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Ahem! r76

Certain areas of London now qualify as sh*itholes.

Marseille is a violent dump.

Toledo, Boston, Birmingham, Manchester

Thindy) Who's Attle?

Alice) What?

Thindy) Mommy said you were going to See Attle

Alice) I wish abortion was legal about 5 years ago

[quote][R41] there are not "beautifully preserved pre-war areas" in Berlin. The city was entirely carpet bombed. They might have nice reconstructions though.

You have, obviously, never been to Berlin.

Some avid Google Earth users on this thread.

Oslo, Norway.

Ugly and overpriced capital with very little to do and see. It's also full of druggies, prostitutes, immigrants and homophobes.

Why is Oslo so ugly? Was it bombed during the war or something?

R84.. it just is. I haven't been to Oslo in years, because I feel no need to visit the overpriced shithole. It's so fucking ugly.. immigration totally ruined it. You have areas where there's 90 % immigrants.. like Gronland. There's no beautiful architecture to speak of at all. The town hall is just one giant big red brick building.. and most of Oslo is like that.. ugly run down brick buildings.. it really is an eyesore. Even western parts of Oslo, where all the rich people live.. the architecture there is ok, but nothing special.. but it's still 100 % better than eastern Oslo.. puke. It really does look like the shittiest places in Eastern Europe. It's that fucking bad. Just look at the link. Doesn't that remind you of eastern Europe? I'm so glad I live in Bergen.

Yes, I think the reason Oslo is so ugly is because it was bombed during the war, but Oslo has never been particularly pretty... it wasn't pretty before the war either. And now it's just been ruined by immigrants.

Another vote for les banlieues.

Naples the dump of Italy Sometimes they have gone months without picking up the garbage!

People throw shit out their windows. set garbage on fire.

And your lucky if you dont get ripped off or shot by the Camora!!

Essen germnay, dark grey nasty impolite folks, a real horrible place.

I got stuck in Newcastle for a few days several years ago.

Vile.

Prince Harry's.

Europe's ugly places are uglier than America's, but its beautiful areas are more beautiful. I agree with those who say Moldova and parts of England. Naples is actually quite frightening... I'm not sure how that place functions.

More about the banlieues... They fascinate me.

The communist-era factory towns of the Balkans and former Soviet Union have no competition. None. Collectively (ha ha!) they own this thread.

In the U.S. shithole thread, everyone named actual cities. I realize European countries are considerably smaller than the U.S., but shouldn't we still be naming individual cities or parts thereof. I can't believe that all of Belgium or Italy is the "worst shithole" area in Europe. And, simply being ugly without more doesn't really scream "worst shithold" IMO.

R85 Ah, the Oslo troll. Well, I'm not Norwegian and I visited Oslo twice. It was wonderful.

Holmenkollen and the view over the Sound, Bygdoey and its beautiful museums, the harbor, the archipelago, the houses with the carvings, if that's ugly, I'd take it any day.

Bergen, mainly because the Norwegian troll lives there.

R93.. did you go to Toyen, Gronland.. eastern Oslo? NO. Everything you visited was in western Oslo. Enough said. Try visiting the shithole that is eastern Oslo the next time and you'll see what I mean. It looks like a city from eastern europe.

R94, hah.. right. You won't convince me that Bergen is ugly, cause it's not. Nice try though.

R85 what an asshole. Oslo may not be the postcard-quaint European village of your fantasies, but it's far far from a shithole.

At it's worst it's a standard-issue capitol city.

You're own photo link, which I guess is supposed to provide some sort of support to your idiotic claim, doesn't even agree with you.

Your only argument is immigrants and money, so clearly you're a tight-ass bigot with no money.

What crawled up your butt and died?

Shit, r87. I'm surprised there hasn't been another Bubonic Plague.

Kate Middleton's withered cunt.

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Minsk, Belorus, it's like Akron without the glamour.

Could anyone even follow R99's post? Only a dumbass would forget to punctuate and capitalize so consistently.

Bergen, Norway. The barebacking capital of Scandinavia.

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R88, Hmm. Newcastle looks vile

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I agree that Blackheath, London is bleak bleak bleak - and I live in [italic]Tottenham[/italic], home of last summer's riots.

Learn how to punctuate, R103.

try all the shitholes in berlin, get worst specially in winter, all of the former east berlin decayed and dilapidated, the garbage and the pee on the snow everywhere in winter, piling up on the snow in neukoln and kreuzberg

Plumstead,London.A real shithole horrible rude people and a horrible dirty place...live there at your own risk.Disgusting.

r36 let's be precise south london shit holes - elephant and caste, peckham, camberwell, deptford, new cross, woolwich, plumstead, thamesmead (uber hole!!), (sc)abbeywood, erith, eltham

dulwich, greenwich, blackheath, parts of charlton and plumstead are nice

r109 try woolwich dockyard and thamesmead

[quote]Anything south of the river in London, far enough to be out of sight of the Thames. For that matter, anything "out." Overreachers, poseurs and trash.

Rubbish. Barnes, Clapham, Putney, Richmond, Wimbledon, and Wandsworth, all south of the river are very nice neighbourhoods and not even close to being shitholes. Similarly there are plenty of godawful neighbourhoods north of the river also.

Could someone explain why these countries haven't had any re-gentrification or urban renewal projects? Many areas where I am in the US have had professional young urban people buying up houses and buildings in areas that were previously slums and "dead" zones and either tearing down ugly buildings or renovating the interesting or more historic ones. Once that started developers came in too.

First there was the white flight, now they are going back and some places are thriving and have a nightlife with clubs and restaurants whereas before you would hear gunshots and sirens.

London.

Thread closed.

How dare you call Camberwell a shit hole. It's good enough for legendary supermodel Erin O'Connor. Camberwell Rocks.

I understand that Germany may be full of Fraus.

Moldavia. I still wish I'd never heard of it.

R113, the answer is of course that they have and it happened as you described - young professionals taking a chance and moving in.

There has been a vast gentrification of what were formerly some of the poor areas of places like London. However, that tends to concentrate on the fundamental decent quality old buildings - residential or old warehouses and towards the centre or with good connections. This process has been going on forever and some of the most expensive areas of London now were vice-ridden slums of the lowest kind even 50 years ago (e.g. houses that in the 1960s still had multiple families living one family per room in squalor are now gorgeous period homes that sell for millions of pounds and are owned by city bankers).

Sink estates tend to be post-war and badly built (aside from how horrid the areas are). There is nothing worth renovating. They are often built out on the edges (the suburbs of Paris are a perfect example) and part of the problem is that there is nothing there that would attract a young professional class of people. The tower blocks are only worth being demolished (and many have come down).

Some of the most charming and beautiful neighborhoods on earth are on the south side of London. So don't listen to anyone who says south London is shitty. Much of south London makes NYC's Upper East Side look shitty by comparison.

People trashing Berlin here are fullof shit.

Know what the bad part of Berlin is? THERE ISN'T ONE! Berlin is fabulous, top to bottom.

A lot of the country areas in Russia are just so poor and not pleasant to visit.

Newcastle is hardly vile. It's beautiful, and has a phenomenal number of flowers in it.

Bergen, Norway, is widely regarded as one of the prettiest cities on earth. Calling it a shithole is absurd.

Rural Russia is like stepping back in time about 700 years. It's not clean & easy, but it can be beautiful in a primitive way at times.

Once you leave the urban centers in Russia, you leave good paved roads, street lights, stores, restaurants, drinkable water and gas stations behind.

And don't have a car problem there - you may never get it fixed.

Plumstead, London, is a delightful and pretty place. I think some people here are hating every place where they've seen a woman in a head cover, which is sad.

Italy is one big cesspit full of racist football thugs.

Lisbon

I spent a few hours on google maps visiting the streets and I couldn't believe what a dump it was.

PARIS -- Is the City of Light about to hit the dimmer switch?

Some of the French capital's most celebrated attractions, including the luxury stores of the Champs-Elysées, could be thrown into darkness under a government proposal to pull the plug on illumination at night.

Delphine Batho, France's minister for energy and environment, is drawing up regulations to force shops, offices and public buildings across France to switch off their lights between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. The new rules, to be outlined "in the next few weeks," are aimed at saving energy and money as well as showing "sobriety" at a time of economic crisis, Batho told reporters. Major cities, towns and even small villages would be affected.

Paris was named La Ville Lumiere during the Age of Enlightenment, when it was considered a hub of intellectual ideas and learning. The reputation was cemented when it became one of the first cities to adopt street lighting. Even earlier, in 1524, city-dwellers were ordered to keep lights burning in the windows of all houses that faced the street.

Opponents of turning off the lights, including some chambers of commerce, cannot wholly blame Batho and the new Socialist government of President Francois Hollande. The idea was first proposed under former conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

"One of our main objectives is to change the culture," Batho told BFM television. "We need to end the cycle of producing more because we are consuming more. There should be sobriety in energy use."

Batho said the regulations, which if approved by parliament would come into effect next June, would be imposed "without exception" unless the light was essential for the public, including hospital, police and pharmacy signs.

She added: "Lots of local authorities do this already. It makes good sense."

The minister's main targets are shops that leave their windows ablaze every night. The regulations, Batho says, will save $261 million in electricity, the equivalent of that used for non-heating sources by 750,000 households in a year.

Shopkeepers have complained the measure will bring an "obscure gloom" to France's streets, but many are in favor -- in principle, at least.

"Apart from a few party-goers, who is passing shop windows between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m.?" said Christian Baulme, president of an association of shopkeepers in the southwestern city of Bordeaux.

I refuse to frequent such places.

Belgium!!!!!!

[quote]I understand that Germany may be full of Fraus.

Lol. Austria too!

Have any of you guys thought about the former Yugoslav states. They are all shit hole. I am Bosnian, and that country is a war-torn piece of shit.

Albania is a crap country too.

Though Bosnia and Albania are arguably one of the "prettiest" countries in Europe, they suffer from a much poorer quality of life, than their third world neighbours.

I have come to understand that Austria is a pretty depressing place, and Neo-Nazi's are popular there, so I would say Austria is the shittiest country in Europe.

After that maybe Albania, Bosnia, or Macedonia.

I am not including Former USSR states, that are way crappier.

I know Poland's a pile too.

Fuck Europe.

Which European country has the homeliest white people?

Which has the best-looking?

Kevin, racists like to make the claim that non-whites are just inherently dirty and disorganized.

Are you saying that whites are this themselves?

And are slavs and Albanians considered too 'off-white' for most Caucasians?

I love Athens but for those of you that have been there, you have to admit it is grey and dirty, tons of graffiti . Sad , considering all the beautiful ruins.

What a strange question R133

Are you planning to go there and bring yourself a hot stud in exchange of a good life in the US/or your country?

Went to Marsilles and the areas under the freeways and near the docks were nothing but homeless black people (immigrants?) living openly there with their clothes, shoes, pots and pans strewn all over the place. Some people were barbecuing in an area between the freeway intersections while cars and buses whizzed past. I asked why people left their clothes around, apparently they were for sale. I don't think I've seen so many homeless people in one site.

You wouldn't find a bigger shithole than Hungary and the Hungarians are the ugliest people you can find on this planet. All liars and thieves.

Worst. Toss up. Amsterdam and/or Copenhagen to start. Wet, dank, ugly...the houses are so old! Like your grandmother's attic. And the streets? So narrow it barely fits the M class BMW. You simply can't bring your SUV. Both totally old school..and don't get me started in those dumps like Vienna and Florence, which are so old-fashioned they should just demolish and start again--this time in eood, please.

Any where rabidly fundamentalist,right-wing, gay hating,Sharia law loving religious fanatics and the people who love them reside.

What about Andorra?

Thamesmead, the arsehole of South East London. I worked at the community radio station there. It's where Stanley Kubrick filmed much of Clockwork Orange. Remember the scene where Alex beats up the droogs and they fall into what looks like a concrete lake?

That's the Thamesmead... Lido.

Yes, "Lido". Some twat at the local planning department must have pissed his pants when he named it that.

Racial violence by the local neo-Nazis was so bad in Thamesmead in the early 90s that AL SHARPTON arrived to lead a march through the estate.

Liverpool.

Basel, Switzerland. Dank, dirty,.

Lille, France. Miserable.

R139 I find both Amsterdam and Copenhagen beautiful.

(145) he's pulling your leg. Wise up.

I lived in the Seine-St-Denis département in a town called Pierrefitte where a Roma boy was recently murdered quite brutally. Like the US, France thought it'd be a good idea to warehouse the poor in shabby tower blocks. The people who live there are mostly immigrants who look very downtrodden. It's very depressing, especially during the gray winters.

Newcastle

The Albanian part of Skopje and also it's gypsy town. The first is sinister and sullen and the second is chaotic, hustling and depressing.

Manchester what an arsehole of a place. Full of shitty Mancs and that set of tossers MUFC. A place that so wants to be LIVERPOOL...

I heart r1.

[quote] Have any of you guys thought about the former Yugoslav states. They are all shit hole. I am Bosnian, and that country is a war-torn piece of shit.

Some parts of ex-yu look quite nice. Croatia and Slovenia look like your average well developed countries (probably because of the tourism), but the souther you go the poorer cities and villages become. Some parts of Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo look slightly scary. People there are very friendly though and the food is tasty.

And I agree on Marseilles. I watched "Fanny" with Leslie Caron before I went there so I thought I'll be visiting a romantic seaside port town. Yikes, Pagnol would spin in his grave if he knew what happened to his beloved Marseilles. And no, I'm not that kind of tourist who likes only Disneyfied towns (Naples happens to be one of my favorite cities in the world) but Marseilles was just too intimidating for my taste.

[There is nothing more tedious than a race baiting troll. Except the people that talk to it.]

I agree with Scouse Mouse... What a shit hole Manchester is... would rather run through Rolph Harris's house naked than go to Manchester at any time fully clothed!!!

The outskirts of Moscow make Starrett a City look inviting.

More Moscow suburbs

R122 Yes the centre is quite handsome with its Georgian architecture, but it's the knuckling-dragging, thick-as-pigshit Geordies that ruin the place. In fact that applies to a lot of places north of Watford Gap. They're just thick bastards who can't speak properly.

But see how just a touch of color makes Moscow beautiful

R156 Aside from there being far too many of them, those blocks of flats still look more presentable than the ones you see in Britain's council estates.

The outskirts of St Petersburg are far more glamorous. Keep in mind it takes many years to get a permit to move to either Moscow or St Petersburg

Albania has so much potential in terms of its scenic beauty, but the inhabitants treat it like a fucking dump.

Was that supposed to be ugly, r155? I think it looks cool.

R162 Me too.

Luton, England

Hellhole town north of London with an adjoining airport that does Easy Jet and Ryanair flights.

The Four Towers in Moscow image was a mistaken post. Those are very expensive housing units. The other images are what miles and miles of outer Moscow look like. They are self contained housing projects that seem to go on forever. They are joyless to drive through on your way into the city.

I notice on UK police shows that housing projects ("estates") have access to the flats from the outside. In NYC, the projects don't have outer access. People have to go in front doors that practically look like cages, then take elevators to the apartments. Once in the elevator, there is no outdoor access.

I'm not sure what the outer access areas are called. Are they balconies? We have them in the US, but they are at hotels. You can either take an elevator or walk up stairways to your floor, then you disembark on an outdoor "hallway" that leads to your room.

Do housing estates have these outdoor areas to use for hanging laundry to dry? Or are they for people to sit outdoors in warm weather?

Here's an awesome photo of Moscow from 1867. The city looks practically unrecognizable today (with the exception of Kremlin which looks basically the same). They demolished almost all of the buildings from the photo below to build Stalin's crazy projects. Many of the churches remain or were reconstructed after 1991 but are hidden among tall buildings today.

But kudos to them for renovating St Petersburg and its palaces in the original style after that terrible siege during WWII.

A well-traveled friend who recently traveled there described Albania as "the toilet of Europe".

Everyone else I know who's been there seem to concur, so I think we have a winner.

R168 I've never been there but they're trying to promote it really hard as the next big undiscovered thing right now. Photos of the beaches really do look inviting online but some friends of mine who went there said it is one of the dirtiest places they've been to, where beaches literally double as junkyards. They also said Tirana is one of the dullest European capitals but they did like the Albanian mountains and the landscape overall. But even gorgeous landscapes don't help much if they're populated with people who ruin it with all the litter.

The Albanian and Roma parts outside Skopje, which by itself is a lovely city with hawt men.

The amount of gentrification going on right now in Berlin is just off the wall. Anyone that called it a shithole either hasn't been there lately, or is an idiot.

The worst I've been to was the old quarter in Marseilles during a garbage strike - it was worse than India - and Naples.

R166

Yes, they're called balconies. I think the design dates from the early days of tower blocks, when they were called "streets in the skies". There's no real intention behind it other than to, in some way, repeat the design of the two-up-two-down tiny tenement streets the tower blocks replaced.

These days, tower blocks aren't being built for low-cost housing. Instead, there are teeny-tiny houses that are more like rabbit hutches than anything else.

The blocks being built are more upscale and they follow the American way of "indoor front doors".

High-rise blocks of flats in Britain are seen as a failed experiment and associated with rough areas. Some of them are just ordinary towers though, I think it's the shorter ones that tend to have the outside walkways.

Well, you can't expect people who are used to the architectural riches of Brooklyn and Jersey City, or the bucolic idyll that is suburban Philadelphia, to find anything to appreciate in shitholes like Rome or Prague.

Svenborgia.

R166, many of the Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago did have those outer balconies. They ended up being screened in. Just watch "Candy Man."

Damn, some of these Brit council estates make the projects in The Bronx look almost charming.

Thanks to the enlightened posters who have defended Naples, a beautiful city that has been much maligned.

R178 Probably considerably less dangerous though.

Hunderwasser Haus in Vienna is public housing, or was when I visited in late 2000. I went early in the morning to photograph it, and the police were dragging some guys in wife beaters out of there.

So bad architecture doesn't help, but neither does good architecture.

What do you think of the new British public housing?

I really envy you, R179. I'd move to Naples (or should I say "Napule") in a second if I knew how to speak that crazy dialect of yours. It is kind of sad how most people think all of Naples is just like it was depicted in Gomorra - dirty, dangerous and grim. That is certainly true for some parts of the city but those infamous suburbs mostly lie miles away from the atmospheric city centre. Parisian suburbs are also a dangerous place to be but you never hear anyone saying how he's afraid to visit Paris because of them.

Oberpfalz

Agree with Marseilles...they're were immigrants living right off the freeway, cooking their meals in the middle of a island freeway and clothes were strewn all over the place, people were selling their clothes. In the US, we may live on the edge of a police state but they would never allow this in the open.

It looks like Tunis, r182

I have to say I think it is shortsighted to build bright white housing, especially in a northern area. But then again, what do I know? Maybe it is easy to whitewash housing.

Actually I had heard a joke about Tunisia. What is the Capital of Tunisia? Tunis? No, Marseille.

R183 Naples is really ugly even compared to other southern Italian cities. Bari is a million times nicer. Naples is the Italian city that will remind New Yorkers of the way certain rundown and skeevy areas used to be before it became hipsterville.

Marseille is nicer than what it was years ago but it is still the armpit of France.

Athens is pretty disgusting as well. Possibly the ugliest capital in the EU.

Athens is actually really beautiful.

[quote]I can't even explain why, but London is the most wonderful place for me.

We know why, dear. You don't speak a foreign language, do you?

Pristina, Kosovo is a hellhole. Filthy, ugly people; every one on the verge of a psychotic outburst, poor infrastructure, miserable food.

I thought it was Sicilians who speak an incomprehensible version of Italian?

R182, that's horrible and charmless.

[quote]I thought it was Sicilians who speak an incomprehensible version of Italian?

Many regions of Italy have dialects which can be difficult, if not incomprehensible, even if you speak standard Italian. And old Venetian will not sound at all the same as an old woman from Bari.

As the famous saying goes: A language is just a dialect with an army and a navy. Western Europe was, until modern times, made up of hundreds upon hundreds of related dialects, not 6-7 languages as we tend to think of it today. It was especially true of Italy, which was somewhat late to become a united independent nation.

Stockholm architecture varies from fairy tale gorgeous to Soviet nightmare.

R182 Looks fucking hideous - looks like it belongs in Florida.

I'm amazed that city counsels and planning commissions in Britain allow shit like that to just be plopped down in the middle of beautiful buildings that are centuries old. It looks like such an eyesore.

I don't see any beautiful buildings that are centuries old that that housing is in the middle of.

R189 I remember a writer saying that Athens was the ugliest city in the world after Guatemala City. Really an eyesore to be honest. A lot of its buildings are newer than what one can find in other European cities(because of Ottoman domination and occupation) but the buildings seem decrepit just the same.

The South of France. In my youth, I lived amid the squalor and deprivation for 2 years as a Mormon Missionary.

The buildings linked at R182 have a certain appeal. They would probably look great on a Spanish coast or somewhere like that. The surrounding buildings are not that old - probably from the 70s - and not particularly beautiful either.

R198 Outside of the Acropolis and Plaka districts (the main tourist areas), the city of Athens is quite ugly. Most of the residential apt buildings in the city are white painted concrete structures that resemble bombed out housing similar to what might be found in Beirut. The smog is awful, they still use leaded gasoline in Greece, and the locals are rather pushy.

I googled "Athens suburbs" and this is what came up. Is this what you meant, R201?

Poland and Moldavia seem depressing to me.

[all posts by tedious, racist idiot removed.]

What shocks me about the houseing at R182 is the lack of windows

You need to see photographs from the central area to see the larger windows.

They look better close up. I could live there if they added a few planters

I don't need to go to Europe. I can see drug addicts, beggars, the homeless and the depraved by merely going to work in the morning on New York City's subway system. And those are only the police force!

Naples, Italy and it's surrounding area.

Hmm... Housing in R206 looks like the newer UK public housing

Sorry. Brain fart. Thought R205/206 were referring to housing in Athens. Yes, I'm an idiot.

Lived in Marseille for several months. I guess I was lucky because I was pretty adventurous yet nothing bad happened to me. (157 I think?) I've got to agree, Chatham and gillingham are awful. The worst? Not in Europe, costa rica

(R1) I'm going to pretend you said "cher" with a Cajun accent.

R195, those are hideous. But if you see the original Swedish version of "Let Me In" aka "Let the Right One In," the main character lives in same dull housing like this.

Too bad there is no town in the German Alps called Scheißburg.