Worst Cities in America

Gary, Indiana.

Well certainly not East St Louis, after all my wife was the "Belle of East St Louis"

Cairo, Illinois

The abandoned tires (are they truck size?) are nice touch in the OP’s pic.

Sandusky, Ohio!

Definitely Detroit.

I would live in Camden just to meet Officer Thomas Rambone!

Or Officer Adam Fulmore..

Officer Fulmore can pat me down ANY time!

Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh chamber of Commerce is working overtime to make this shithole happen. It's a dump that looks and feels rundown.

Pittsburgh actually looks quite lovely.

I've never known anyone who's lived in pittsburgh who hasn't loved it, including friends from big cities. Like Philly and Baltimore gets a bad rap from people who haven't lived there

R7 I'd like him to ram his bone into me

R10: You're wrong about Pittsburgh. It has its less desirable parts like any city, but in general, it's a very nice urban area. For a smaller city, it has some really great architecture, much of it from the city's steel industry heyday. And unlike many rust belt cities, its downtown core never became rundown or abandoned. Today, two of its major industries are higher ed and medicine, both thriving. So, as far as cities go, you could do a lot worse.

With the "I'm black and you can't touch me" and "If the blacks are going to act like assholes I am too" perma bullshit in St. Louis, it's now lawless, lazy, selfish, hateful activity all day and all night in St. Louis. So it gets this biracial guy's vote for worst city as I plan to move.

It's become horrible, and what I see is white millennials playing "fight the power" as they drive their Beemers back to the suburbs treating African Americans like they're puppy-mill victims who need to be talked baby talk to while violence against everyone is justified. "We're going to run everyone out of business" is repeated over and over, with tourists being robbed and shot, random violence and property damage every night, police now sitting on their hands and people shouting hate at each other. How's that for a sentence.

Welcome to Trump World.

R15, you are my least favorite of the new trolls, please DIAGF.

Thanks, The Management

r3

Seriously? This was never anything more than a town. You may as well count Ford Heights (South Suburbs of Chicago) where the gangs controlled the city hall and police.

Baltimore, MD

San Bernardino, CA

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Oh. I'm also illiterate, but I don't need to know English because I'm superior, as all hall monitors here always have been.

Try walking around at street level, r11. It looks great from afar, but close up not so much. Also, that's Downtown. Try Googling areas like The Strip.

There are nice enough parts of Pittsburgh, but much of it looks like this. Not as bad as the bombed-out looking cities above, but the plenty of former steelworker shanty town areas still exist.

I'd argue with R14 about downtown Pittsburgh. It might not have been fully abandoned, but there's no life there after 5pm and practically no retail. All of the major stores have closed up and left.

Do Officers Rambone and Fillmore do pron? Their names alone demand it!

"Rambone" is the best name in the world.

Yup, r23 pretty much sums up Pittsburgh. The heroin/opiod problem is getting worse. Crime is surprisingly high, so much so that that a public event had to be canceled over the summer because 150 kids decided to go wilding. Watching the news is depressing and loaded with stories of horrendous child and animal abuse. And aside from housing, which s real cheap (with good reason), things like groceries are not.

There's good reason why the population keeps going down.

I'm ashamed to write my hometown, San Francisco. The Tenderloin, Embarcadero and South of Market, street after street of homeless, reminded me of Mumbai and Kolkata.

To pile on to R26 (Hi, neighbor!) the infrastructure is a nightmare, public transit is risible, and litter is out of hand.

And we're surrounded by a terrifying sea of the worst sort of Pennsyltucky deplorables on all sides.

Does anyone know of any American city with an African American majority with an African American mayor and city government that isn't seriously challenged? It seem like almost all of those cities, except those few with other specific circumstances, are the ones appearing here. Not that this association is cause/effect, of course. Except for the high crime, which obviously is an effect of black majorities, unfortunately. Like in St. Louis.

[quote] I'd argue with [R14] about downtown Pittsburgh. It might not have been fully abandoned, but there's no life there after 5pm and practically no retail. All of the major stores have closed up and left.

That's changed a lot. It used to be that way for a long time - it's one of the reasons I moved away - but the downtown corridor has a lot of nightlife now. Not so much near the offices, but more over near the convention center. Which is still way better than years ago, when the theaters were the only life at night.

I love Pittsburgh, and it has its charms. I would consider moving back. But it also has its minuses. And more so than many other cities, once you leave city limits it is DIRE, in almost every direction. I think Cleveland is actually doing better at a full city recovery, even if their downtown is taking longer to recover.

[quote] It seem like almost all of those cities, except those few with other specific circumstances, are the ones appearing here

Which is a sign of centuries of entrenched racism and a complete lack of investment in those areas.

Yeah, Camden is a horror.

[quote]Which is a sign of centuries of entrenched racism and a complete lack of investment in those areas.

Irresponsibility, high unemployment, crime, rioting and looting play absolutely no part in "entrenched racism".

You'd like to attach results to people, R32.

I know it's decades if not centuries of government policy.

Pittsburgh and Detroit/Windsor are in the thick of the battle to get the second Amazon headquarters

Newark

R33 It's far easier to blame someone else than to look inward for cause and solutions.

I can also corroborate what R23, R26 & R28 have to say about PGH. There are some nice areas in PGH with interesting architecture & history but a LOT of dilapidated shanty town areas as well. Dirty, rusty, poorly-maintained infrastructure. The roads are some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Still, the city has a gritty kind of charm to it. However, the others are right in that once you get out of the city limits, it is BAD. Massive opioid use/abuse, a non-existent economy and nasty, provincial, ignorant white trash as far as the eye can see. I lived in Johnstown from ‘11 to ‘14 and couldn’t get the hell out fast enough, one of the most depressing episodes of my life. A friend of mine sent me an article last year about one of the Johnstown cops being found unconscious from an overdose...at police HQ. Based on my travels and what I’ve heard from friends, the same holds true for much of western PA. It’s too bad, it’s beautiful and wonderfully scenic in the countryside (love traveling the Laurel Highlands in the Fall) but the towns/cities for the most part are economically depressed, anachronistic hellholes.

R27 Fellow SF'an here (though moved to London in May). Yeah, it's pretty bad, the worst it's been since I'd moved there in 2002. I wouldn't call it the worst city in the US by any stretch, though. SF has the resources to clean itself up and it still draws talented people from all over the world in droves. It's just the city doesn't have the political will to run the street trash out of town on a rail and the TL has been that way for over a century. The ongoing mistake with the TL is having SO MANY bum services and SROs concentrated right in that area- and for those unfamiliar with San Francisco the Tenderloin neighborhood borders right on the western boundary of Union Square, the city's premiere luxury shopping district. I lived at The Gateway apartments before moving overseas and Jackson Square and the areas between Embarcadero Center and Levis Plaza was getting all the shitty spillover from the parks and open space along the waterfront. SOMA, along/under 80 is THE WORST with the tent shanties and...ugh. And having to walk through that area to get to the ballpark...THAT is like Kolkata. Oh and Powell and Civic Center BART stations. Horrid. But I still plan to move back to SF when my career takes me back to the states.

Rockford, Illinois- everyone in the Chicago area knows its a hellhole

R38 I was born there. My mind sees San Francisco as I remember. Vibrant, exciting and CLEAN. My eyes see a shabby, dirty, overcrowded, smelly garbage dump full of hopelessness. I hadn't been back in 20 years. Yes, you can go home again. But it will break your heart.

Anyone who would interpret life in Pittsburgh through the lens of three years spent in Johnstown deserves to spend three more years in Johnstown.

[quote] Does anyone know of any American city with an African American majority with an African American mayor and city government that isn't seriously challenged? It seem like almost all of those cities, except those few with other specific circumstances, are the ones appearing here. Not that this association is cause/effect, of course. Except for the high crime, which obviously is an effect of black majorities, unfortunately. Like in St. Louis.

Washington DC and Atlanta are doing fine. Philadelphia is rebounding nicely. High crime follows poverty no matter what the race of the perpetrators.

R35 I remember visiting Newark in the '80s and thinking it was like Berlin must have looked after the war. But I was just there a few weeks ago and it seems a lot better now. Is it really still awful? (I didn't see much of it this time.)

r42 "Philadelphia is rebounding nicely. "

Oh, that's priceless.

Detroit seems to be slowly making a comeback - downtown showing a revival, empty buildings being torn down, etc.

They can't change the weather though.

Is it Detroit that has the lead in their water? It won’t matter how much they try and fix it up, nobody would want to live there if the drinking/bathing water isn’t safe.

How is upstate New York doing (Albany area)?

Anyone for...Macon,Ga.

R34, there's about 10 cities competing hard for Amazon. New York is one and I even believe Toronto is in the mix.

Philadelphia is so ugly. Oh wait.

r49 Nice try. Check it out during the day, it's no better than Columbus Circle in NY or Copley Square in Boston

Parts of Center City Philadelphia are stunning. Society Hill is lovely.

But it doesn't make up for the scary aspect so much of the city has.

So R49, when did the city fire you? Did you miss this?

I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned Florida!

What's the worst city there?

[quote]I'm amazed that nobody's mentioned Florida! What's the worst city there?

All of them.

There are a lot of good things about Balitmore as well r18, some of you are just "Oh, this city has some poor neighborhoods!!!" and ignoring anything else.

[quote]What's the worst city there?

In terms of real cities in Florida, Jacksonville is probably the worst.

To say places like Philly, Pittsburgh, or Baltimore is silly IMO.

I'd much rather live in one of those places than a boring suburban strip mall place that has a lower crime rate.

Pittsburgh has 35 malls.

Downtown Portland, OR is being overrun by homeless opioid addicts. Very sad.

Buffalo - another forsaken hell hole.

[quote]Pittsburgh has 35 malls.

1. Monroeville Mall

2. South Hills Village

3. Ross Park Mall

4. Pittsburgh Mills

5. Robinson Town Center (mall-esque)

6. The Waterfront ("lifestyle center")

7. The Waterworks (strip mall, really)

Where are the other 28?

St. Louis, bar none. It's bad and with all of the recent problems, its getting much worse. 2/3 of the 1950 population of approx. 850K have left, with the current population about 300K and skyrocketing downward. Downtown is simply dead. There are no major businesses located there anymore, they either moved or went out of business through mergers/acquisitions, etc. You can walk major downtown streets at high noon on a beautiful day and not encounter anyone other than winos and vagrants. North St. Louis is vast swaths of abandoned building and vacant land. Unfortunately, the blight and decay has spilled over into the suburbs. Suburbs mostly built since WW II are experiencing white flight, abandonment, failing, unaccredited schools, high crime. There are parts of Bellefontaine Neighbors, Riverview Gardens, Moline Acres and Jennings where a single family house built in the early 1950's is selling for less than the cost to build the house back then.

Atlantic City NJ.

Believe me.

Agree with r63. It was a shithole back in the 80s. I can’t image what it’s like now

R61, you're forgetting places like Station Square, The Pointe, The Galleria, the place that's half closed (Century 3 I think it's called).

Houston has an AA mayor and we're doing fine but it might have more to do with the shipping and petrochem industries bringing in money and jobs, not to mention MDACC which is huge. Camden looks terrible. Does it not have any nice side of town? How do these towns get like this in the first place?

I lived in St. Louis for about a year. Hated it. Boring, no night life to speak of and full of people who were boring, insular, and incurious about anything outside of St. Louis

I guess the point is that in the US, unless you're wealthy, your surroundings are pretty shitty.

Macon, Ga. is a perfectly nice city. Nothing spectacular, not the most exciting city in the world, but a good city to live in.

I moved to Connecticut from the DC area years ago. I still wonder what I was thinking at the time. Hartford and Bridgeport are not only run down, with block after block of ugliness and decrepitude, but they are also the most boring places on Earth. New Haven only gets by because of Yale.

Buffalo is hardly a hellhole. It's full of students, there is a medical school with an international presence, major art galleries, and many of the suburban neighborhoods are gorgeous.

Baltimore, MD- and I live here!

70 posts and no Youngstown?!?

Mesquite, NV.

Schenectady NY.

At least the worst in NY, if not the entire Northeast.

I went to Carnegie Mellon for a year. I thought Pittsburg was quite fine. Like a giant Brooklyn, with a mini skyline downtown, and working class parts like Philly, Boston, etc. Great parks. Hardly one of the worst cities.

Bridgeport is pretty awful except for Black Rock.

[quote]I went to Carnegie Mellon for a year. I thought Pittsburg was quite fine.

And no one told you about the "H"?

Philadelphia' first black mayor, Wilson Goode, started the demise of the city. It's a shame, but when the government turned black, the city really became a dump. If it weren't for the wealthy whites in center city and the nearby suburbs donating to the arts, the city would be another Detroit.

Here are some HORRIBLE small cities: Bridgeport, Derby, Beacon, Newburg, Poughkeepsie, Binghamton, Woonsocket, Fall River, Lowell, Brockton, Worcester etc etc etc

every state has these armpits

R29 I lived in culturally "black" cities Philly and Atlanta(yes, in areas actually full of black people) and had a much better life and experience than in Lily white Boston.

R43, Newark is not as bad as it was in the 1980s.

One of my in-laws has family who live in one of those Forest Hill homes, and I know co-workers who live in both Ironbound (which looks a lot better now than it did 20 years ago) and Weequahic. Plus the city has been trying to re-invent the Lincoln Park section for the past several years. (My guess is that it might actually be presentable in about 5-10 years.)

However, many parts of Newark are gruesome (like Vailsburg & Dayton), and the entire Downtown area needs a profound make-over - although I give the city a great deal of credit for getting Whole Foods to move in and for other construction taking place, not to mention the construction related to the institutions of higher learning that are in the area.

Anywhere there are large groups of blacks living together you see cesspools of violence in cities, big and small. They can't live together but they can't integrate with whites successfully due to the perpetual indoctrination of their offspring into a belief system that encourages self destruction rather than joining white society. To be an "Uncle Tom" is worse than being a rapist and murder. It's a bad situation that will never get resolved. Not peacefully anyway.

Buffalo is experiencing a rebirth. 100+ year old wood doubles on the west side now easily go for $200K+. These were $50-$75K 10 years ago. Houses in the downtown area have exploded in price. Not to mention the elmwood village. Even the east side, once a baad neighborhood, is coming around with new housing/apts aimed at people in their 20's-30s.

Does Buffalo have banking? services? tech? what?

Is Albany nice r83? (And the surrounding areas like castleton-on-the Hudson)

So true, r82.

Black local government = totally dysfunctional city.

If only black people possessed the governing capabilities of Donald Trumpr r87, right troll?

One hasn’t nothing to do with the other, r88.

The data supports my assertion.

Albany is nothing great but has a beautiful surrounding area and some nice old architecture. It's in a good location too. But it is very small, under 100K and a Government town so not a ton of the industrial decrepitude of cities like Troy, nearby. I actually like the industrial look of a city. It's too bad more if it isn't working. Buffalo has a lot of it and much of it being repurposed, same in Syracuse on a smaller scale. That's what I know about Upstate cities. Rochester has always been a company town, Xerox, Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, both those companies are way past their glory days.

Whatever city produced Trump.

Buffalo should be having a rebirth. The "Buffalo Billions" - I got lured up there to work at one of the hospitals (where all the victims of violent crime end up) - atrocious weather, and a small town attitude, very conservative core (Carl Paladino, remember that racist loon?), a small strip of decent restaurants and stores in the neighborhood where I lived - I think it was the Elmwood area. People were nice, but I do not recommend a move to Buffalo in the near future. Most of the doctors I worked with had done their initial training in the Third World, so life in the Buffalo suburbs t is perfect for them, compared to where they came from. I wanted a break from NYC, thought I would give it a try.

They paid me really well there- they have to offer more to get skilled professionals up there to stick it out through those winters. I do miss the money and the cheaper rent.

Happy for now in New Paltz - a nice college town in the Hudson Valley.

Its funny how people complain about Florida all the time, but people still continue moving their sorry asses here everyday.

New Paltz? There is no there there.

New Paltz = it ain't Poughkeepsie.

The Bills are 3-1!!

Washington does as well as it does because the white federal government actually gives the black run city government their marching orders. Atlanta does as well as it does because the majority white business community dictates to the predominately black city government what they can and can't do. Atlanta is now at a point where it's entirely possible the next mayor may be white. The city proper has been going through reverse white flight for a few years. Whites are moving back into the city and prosperous blacks (which there are plenty of in Atlanta) are increasingly moving out to the suburbs.

New Paltz is a quick drive to the city, and friends do like to visit in summer/fall.

Got assaulted by a patient at a shit hole hospital in Poughkeepsie, so I dislike it even more than Buffalo.

There are three cities stuck together in Northern NY -- Schenectady, Troy, and Albany.

Schenectady lost all hope when GE moved out. It has nothing, and has no hope for the future. You can buy a huge victorian mansion, the former home of a GE executive, for $100K. But then you'd be in Schenectady, which is corrupt and lifeless.

Albany was never much, and never faded. It has ridiculously bad ghettos for such a small city. But it also has the state government and the university, so it won't collapse. But no one really lives in it -- they all live in the the northern suburbs, which are actually quite nice. Albany's only hip area, Lark Street, is absolutely hip-less.

Troy is the surprise. It almost fell apart, like Schenectady, but RPI saved it -- there's a lot of tech entrepreneurism going on, new money is coming into the city, and most surprisingly, its downtown is totally charming. There are new restaurants springing up all the time, and one of them, at Peck's Arcade, is the best restaurant in the area.

Weirdly, the three hate each other. Schenectady and Albany call Troy Troy-let. Troy and Schenectady call Albany Small-bany. Troy and Albany call Schenectady Shit-nectady.

100% true, r97.

I lived in Washington and Atlanta.

I like the Bills, didn't mind sitting in a bar and watching games. But there was n o way I would ever sit outside in that weather under any circumstances, much less to see the Bills.

oops, sorry R96 - that was meant for you.

[quote] 100+ year old wood doubles

What the hell is a wood double?

Death Town.

Animation: The Collapse of the Middle Class in 20 Major U.S. Cities

When future historians look back at the beginning of the 21st century, they’ll note that we grappled with many big issues.

They’ll write about the battle between nationalism and globalism, soaring global debt, a dysfunctional healthcare system, societal concerns around automation and AI, and pushback on immigration. They will also note the growing number of populist leaders in Western democracies, ranging from Marine Le Pen to Donald Trump.

However, these historians will not view these ideas and events in isolation. Instead, they will link them all, at least partially, to an overarching trend that is intimately connected to today’s biggest problems: the “hollowing out” of the middle class.

VISUALIZING THE COLLAPSE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

The fact is many people have less money in their pockets – and understandably, this has motivated people to take action against the status quo.

And while the collapse of the middle class and income inequality are issues that receive a fair share of discussion, we thought that this particular animation from Metrocosm helped to put things in perspective.

The following animation shows the change in income distribution in 20 major U.S. cities between 1970 and 2015

That unfortunate town of Greenwich, Connecticut. Full of Catholics, Jews, poseurs and other undesirables.

It is often referred to as "Westport's poor cousin" with good reason since it's yacht clubs allow unrestricted membership.

Detroit's Collapse Reveals the Awful Dystopia that the United States Is Becoming The Motor City's problems -- deindustrialization, robotification, long-term unemployment, racial division -- are America's problems.

. . . The foremost historian of modern Detroit, Thomas J. Sugrue, has explained the city’s decline. First of all, Detroit grew from 400,000 to 1.84 million from 1910-1950 primarily because of the auto industry and the other industries that fed it (machine tools, spare parts, services, etc.) From 1950 until now, two big things happened to ruin the city with regard to industry. The first was robotification. The automation of many processes in the factories led to fewer workers being needed, and produced unemployment. (It was a trick industrial capitalism played on the African-Americans who flocked to Detroit in the 1940s to escape being sharecroppers in Georgia and elsewhere in the deep South, that by the time they got settled the jobs were beginning to disappear). Then, the auto industry began locating elsewhere, along with its support industries, to save money on labor or production costs or to escape regulation

The refusal of the white population to allow African-American immigrants to integrate produced a strong racial divide and guaranteed inadequate housing and schools to the latter. Throughout the late 1950s and the 1960s, you had substantial white flight, of which the emigration from the city after the 1967 riots was a continuation. The white middle and business classes took their wealth with them to the suburbs, and so hurt the city’s tax base. That decrease in income came on top of the migration of factories. The fewer taxes the city brought in, the worse its services became, and the more people fled. The black middle class began departing in the 1980s and now is mostly gone.

Other observers have suggested other concomitants of the decline, like poor city planning or the inability to attract foreign immigrants in sufficient numbers. I suspect that the decline of Detroit as a port is important somehow to the story (only one of the four old locks at Sault St. Marie lets big ships come down to the lower Great Lakes and therefore to Detroit any more. A new, big [pdf] modern lock is being built to accommodate larger vessels, but it will be a decade before it opens. Some observers point out that Detroit would make sense as a Midwest hub port for international shipping containers if its harbor was expanded and linked by rail to the cities of the region, but I suspect the new lock at the Soo is a prerequisite.

After all these decades of dashed hopes, it is hard for me to take too seriously any assertions that the city is about to turn the corner or that some renewal project is about to succeed. At this point it seems to me a question of whether you retain some of the population that will otherwise leave. I find particularly unlikely the idea that urban farming is part of the solution. It sounds cute, but farmers don’t make nearly as much money as urban industrial workers, which is why they mostly went to the cities. You can’t put money into a city that way.

While other cities have avoided Detroit’s extreme fate, I think the nation as a whole faces some of the intractable problems that the city does, and I don’t think we have a solution for them. . .

R106 " Full of Catholics, Jews, poseurs and other undesirables. "

That leaves who, exactly, who is allegedly "better," ; you and your slimey KKKunt-popped brood?

What Causes Urban Decay? By Contributing Writer Urban decay occurs when a part of a city falls into disrepair and abandonment. Characteristics of urban decay include high unemployment rates, high crime rates, depopulation, desolate-looking landscapes, abandonment of buildings and split families. Urban decay does not have one single cause, but rather a combination of many, including poor urban planning, redlining, poverty, suburbanization and racial discrimination.

Poor Urban Planning

Urban planning involves planning for land use and transportation. A city could propose to use land in poor ways so as to accelerate the urban decay. For example, when a major employer in the city decides to move outside the city, the city would experience high rates of population decline because people would move with the employer. A city could have made the company stay by offering more appealing offers, but instead, the moving of the company leaves more land unused and buildings abandoned.

Redlining

Redlining occurs when services--such as banking, insurance and access to jobs and healthcare--are denied to certain races or classes of people through increasing the costs. The term was coined in the late 1960s to refer to targeting of certain areas of Chicago where banks would not invest due to racial discrimination. As a result, those areas would remain underdeveloped, as no one was willing or able to invest there. The lack of investment increases the levels of unemployment and poverty, which in turn contributes more to urban decay.

Poverty

Poverty contributes to urban decay by helping to reinforce the shoddy and desolate urban landscape. High levels of poverty contribute directly to higher drug and street gang activities. Both are causes for suburbanization, as the middle class feel more and more unsafe living in the city. The drug and gang activities often increase the level of crime, which contributes to urban decay. As the level of crime increases, the property value of buildings in this area decreases, leading to higher levels of building disrepair and eventual abandonment.

Suburbanization

Suburbanization helps further urban decay by removing people who are better off economically, leaving the area to those who are usually poorer, which contributes to higher unemployment rates, a characteristic of urban decay. Historically in the United States, the white middle class gradually left the cities for suburban areas because of the perceived higher crime rates and danger caused by African-American migration north toward cities after World War I—the so-called "white flight" phenomenon.

Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination contributes to urban decay by providing for higher rates of unemployment. African-Americans were most likely to be declined jobs and loans, both of which would help their economic status as well as the health of their neighborhoods. Discrimination, thus, promotes unemployment, which in turn promotes poverty, street gangs and illegal drug-trafficking activities and other crimes. Discrimination stifles opportunities which would normally be available to certain races and in turn stifles the growth of a city by promoting urban decay.

It's not a city, but Bombay Beach, California is quite charming.

Steubenville, OH.

It's ridiculous to say that black majority cities can't govern themselves and it is the fault of black people. They're black majority because whitey moved out. Many black majority cities were fine but then their jobs left, their social fabrics broke apart, the rest is history. Then they voted for politicians who cared only about enriching themselves. It's really not that hard to figure out. Not sure what can be done about it, but you can't just lay all the blame at one group of people.

R108 needs to get his sarcasm meter checked.

SJWs are so boring.

The mayor of Gila Bend, Arizona

Your fourth sentence undercuts your entire argument, r113.

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma....Gay bashing are alive and well there...

R115 Would still be an improvement over the current White House occupant.

118 posts and no one has mentioned the Murder Capital of the United States? Chicago is in a class by itself. How the residents re-elected that moron Emmanuel is totally beyond me.

Also, it's sad to see New York starting to decline again after a pretty good job by Bloomberg.

Syracuse NY resident. If it wasn't for the university this place would be nothing. A year or so there was some talk of creating an inland port since its central location makes it an ideal spot. I don't think it came to much as there has been little talk of it lately. We desperately need jobs (like everywhere else). The highway infrastructure needs replacing, and since the original city planners built elevated highways it's all rust and graffiti. Heroin has hit the wealthy suburbs hard. It's definitely a have/have not town. The middle class has moved away.

But the geography and scenery are gorgeous. The Adirondacks, the Thousand islands, the Finger Lakes; most just a two hour drive away. There is little traffic. And I can't not mention the weather. You will never know the joy of waking to hear the radio say your school is closed. When I was younger we skied and ice skated and built forts and tunnels in the snow and had a blast. But it's cold and wet and grey and the winters last longer the older I get.

R68, Thank you, for the lovely pic of the Cherry Blossoms in bloom, which happens for 2 weeks out of the year!! Let's talk about a boarded up downtown, which it has been since the 70's. Let's talk about boarded up Macon Mall and Hilton. Let's talk the only part of town worth living in is north Macon, where I grew up. Shurlington, bloomfield, Houston Ave. are the new ghettoes. Forsyth and Warner Robins are now nicer than Macon. When I was growing up, they weren't nothing . Black Govt. came in and destroyed the town.

Let's not forget the role Peak Oil plays in lack of work. There are more hands reaching for a shrinking pool of oil. So, fewer jobs, less goods being created. So, cities die. PO is complicated, finance is involved, too. Do a search. PO is a part of the picture.

So this is how it feels to watch the world go Medieval....

Pittsburgh gets panned by DL queens because it was, is and probably ever will be a huge sports town, which is anathema to, let’s say, gentler pursuits. Granted some of you will have found Pens or Steelers fans that love to suck cock. They’re out there and some are even hot.

^ Fans who*

Newburgh NY. A dangerous dump.

DLers dislike Pittsburgh, because I don't live there.

R113 here. Take Marion Barry, he was great for while, he promised poor people government jobs and he got them and raised people living standards. Of course it didn't end well.

I hate it wen people say well if it wasn't for the University this place would be nothing.

Downtown Pittsburgh is fine. It's the old close in residential areas that look like old mill towns that are horrible. And unfortunately there are a lot of those types of neighborhoods there.

[quote]Take Marion Barry

No, thank you. I have sufficient.

Anywhere where blacks are a majority = shit hole worse than 3rd world

Not true in all cases R131.

R132,

R131 probably meant anywhere in the US.

R111, that photo would make a great painting...

I live Downtown, r129. You can't go out alone at night. You don't want to go anywhere near Wood Street any time of the day. Crime is high, especially when school let's out for the day. All the public schools have a grade of D or lower. And the buildings, except for the few skyscrapers, are old and busted.

Fascinating R99

R99, yes, but you NEVER hear disparaging remarks about their neighbor, beautiful Utica, New York, the shining diamond of New York State.

Is that sarcasm, R136, or a compliment?

I also live in the Pittsburgh area. For the past 25 years, I have waited for my bus at 9 p.m. Downtowb and have had no problems. Yes, the Wood Street area is overrun by teens who attend the charter schools in the area. Yes, the public schools in Pittsburgh are horrific (I cringe when the local Catholic diocese announces a school closing; at least parochial schools are giving student s an education)

Downtown Pittsburgh needs more residential units. More housing and more residents would strengthen the weakened retail portion of the economy. There are a lot of smaller older building that could be turned into condos co-oops.

The older neighborhoods in the city are gentrifying. Neighborhoods such as Hazelwood and Allentown -- which I thought were too far down to make comebacks -- are beginning to show new signs of life.

The real problems are in the old industrial towns along the three rivers. They have not shared in the money and development that have come with high tech, health care and higher education

[quote]The real problems are in the old industrial towns along the three rivers. They have not shared in the money and development that have come with high tech, health care and higher education

Note to self: redevelop Charleroi and Donora.

The great thing about critizing Pittsburgh is the responses are always to the effect of, "you're right, but..." There is not "but",. Even the areas that are gentrifying are dumps. So you wait for a bipus at 9pm...try walking home three blocks from work or dinner. .

Democrat or Republican, SJW or Deplorable...whites are scared shitless of young Black men.

^^ pretty true. I try to be liberal and open minded but I do get nervous walking by a group of young black men.

Why wouldn't whites be "scared shitless of young Black" [bold]people[/bold] (the females are just as scary as the males)?

Newsflash - Lausanne Switzerland, city of 200,000, has:

a multi-billion dollar subway and light rail, not to mention regular speedy buses everywhere.

fast frequent rail connections everywhere

an opera, a ballet (very important), orchestra,

theatre, art, music conservatories/universities

2 research universities

several applied universities

(all of these universities cost about 1.5K a year and of course students in need have stipends, etc.)

good public schools including academic and vocational schools. many post secondary training institutes that are PUBLIC and not jokes

enough decent art museums

Medical school and medical centre

plenty of public pools, beaches, gardens, parks, etc. immaculate public amenities and cleanliness

fibre optic

complete social safety net and no homeless of course

The point is, the USA dumps it riches into the fortunes of the .1%, and military spending.

The USA is ONE OF THE WEALTHIEST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD and has thousands of good, old cities, that should be IN MUCH BETTER SHAPE than their current conditions .

Americans are being ROBBED of their riches. I know, I am American and pay taxes. Our cities are shit and underserved for all our wealth.

It's such a shanda!!

Pittsburgh should be drop dead gorgeous with 21st amenities and infrastructure. Copy, paste, 100 other American cities.

Did Dietrich slum herself to star in a movie about a shit hole?

[quote] I lived in Johnstown from ‘11 to ‘14

R37, you have my sympathies.

Johnstown is so inbred that you may have been one of the few new resident it's had in decades.

[quote] Pittsburgh should be drop dead gorgeous with 21st amenities and infrastructure. Copy, paste, 100 other American cities.

Who's paying for it?

Companies expect tax abatements, so do homeowners. No one wants to pay more taxes.

Too much state and federal money is going to build suburban roads, when it's impossible to keep up with the existing ones, all because all the fat suburbanites in their fat SUVs need to drive everywhere and park six steps from wherever they go, lest they break a sweat.

R145, Switzerland las a total population of less than 9 million people on a land mass ~16,000 miles and far less income inequality. The United States in many ways is so large that's it's become unwieldy.

R150 states are cannibalising each other with their abatements and tax rates.

Its a fucking race to the bottom and has been for 30 years.

The SUNY System in NY was a MARVEL. Fucking expensive. UofC and California State systems, same. Stop collecting adequate taxes and EVERYTHING goes to shit.

The ONLY reason inadequate taxes are being collected is the rich are greedy fucks and they get congresses that give them what they want. MORE OF THE PIE. Both Dems and Republicans have been willing to do this, for too long.

R114, Deploracunt needs to get out of his trailer park more often.

I do believe it is a "cultural" challenge. The "consciousness" of the American voting consensus isn't even committed to universal health care. Affordable higher ed. 21st century infrastructures.

I agree with the poster above who used Switzerland as an example. But, the US spends a ton on policing the rest of the world. The only Government agencies with any $$ are DoD because many countries depend on it. It's out of hand but I do realize that is only part of the problem. We simply don't pay enough taxes to support such a huge and aging (in many ways) country.

r149, at least Johnstown, PA is a progressive hell-hole city. This is a photo of gay illuminated stone bridge on Human Rights day.

That looks pretty, r157. Im surprised that Johnstown is so progressive. If I recall correctly, that was the place we would pass on Amtrak on the way to NYC that had a shit ton of church steeples.

R145 Firstly, Nazi gold and no questions asked banking goes a long way. Secondly, Switzerland... Beaches...?

R156 I think the rest of the world would be happy for you to keep your money. No. Really. Do.

R103 a wood double is a wood post victorian double house. Two three bed flats. Upper and lower.

There really should be a minimum set tax (dollar amount- not %) that all people pay. It would teach everyone responsibility and the need to contribute to society and demand that government earns the cash. For this to happen, we have to raise the minimum wage so that we can all afford to pay this tax AND to live.

It wasn’t until i really started paying $100,000s per year that I really got interested in government and making my city better.

American really has to stop paying for the rest of the world’s problems. Sorry- we have too many of our here now— it’s not the 60s, 70s, or 80s anymore.

Lastly, no more public handouts. Welfare for 24 months of one’s life after 18 years unless someone is physically or mentally unable to support himself.

R161 would you include addiction in that? Are you a proponent of forced sterilization too? The poor do pay taxes BTW just not federal.

Where do all the athletes who play for Detroit teams live?

Amarillo, TX

Oklahoma City, OK

R145. I don't live in a city. I've never lived in a city. The nearest city to me is over 100 miles away. Why should I give a damn about rebuilding your cities with my tax dollars? Tax the people and companies existing within the boundaries of those cities and take your goddamn hands out of my pocket.

R162, yes the poor pay taxes. They pay city and state sales taxes and gas taxes that go directly to fund the expenses of their state. When you glibly proclaim "The poor pay taxes, too!", you fail to understand that they pay no FEDERAL taxes for the FEDERAL program benefits they suck up generation after generation.

Totally agree, r161.

Detroit pro athletes live in the Oakland County suburbs. Bloomfield Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Franklin Village, Birmingham.

R165: You say you don't live in a city, and don't want your tax dollars to benefit cities. But you do realize that federal and state tax revenue from cities pay for the roads, schools, and government services in your rural corner of the world, don't you? Rural America does not and cannot financially support itself -- tax dollars from urban areas make your existence possible.

R169 is correct. The last time I was out in rural Ohio, I saw all the Romney signs everywhere, and just marveled at the disconnect of people who complain so much about taxes, when I see well-maintained roads that only serve a couple of families, while the in city, the same length of road (full of potholes), will serve dozens of homeowners and businesses, all paying taxes. We always hear about inner city welfare recipients, but not about all the welfare recipients living in trailers in Appalachia.

Ohio is a total shithole

R152 The SUNY system is still an excellent and affordable public system compared to the rest of the US. There are several standout schools. Binghamton, Buffalo, Geneseo, Oneonta, Potsdam, New Palz, Stony Brook all have quality programs and are rated highly.

And what about me, R172?

I wasn't saying SUNY was poor. Sorry. More that such amenities are very expensive to the public and state governments need tax revenues to keep them excellent. I would question how "affordable" SUNY and UofC and Cal State is, nowadays. SUNY is 6.5K a year. I happen to know the cost of educating a B.A. or B.S. student is about the same across Western Europe and North America. If Swiss kids are paying 1.5K, its because the State is subsidising almost the entire cost. As is the rule in most western democracies. U of C is 14K a year for IN STATE.

that tuition alone.

The cost to the state in switzerland is about 45k a year, per student, depending a bit on the exact nature of the school. Thats surely about the cost in USA to a State Government.

R145, how much does it cost to live in Lausanne?

[quote] at least Johnstown, PA is a progressive hell-hole city. This is a photo of gay illuminated stone bridge on Human Rights day.

Johnstown is not in any way, shape or form even remotely progressive. Not even a little bit, not even on a Tuesday.

Lights on the bridge meant someone in city hall was able to swing it. But that translates NOT AT ALL to the people around there. You'd be hard pressed to find a more backwards group of people outside of the deep south.

Johnstown is so NOT progressive that they closed one gay bar by throwing bricks at the patrons, and almost shut down Lucille's, which is the only remaining gay bar anywhere between Pittsburgh and State College.

There's a reason James Carville said that PA is two big cities with Alabama in between. Because it is.

Most major Swiss cities - Lausanne Geneva Bern Basel Zurich - are rated with among the highest cost of living in the world. They are small cities and there are plenty of middle class and even working class people, just like all over Europe, so its not that extreme.The cost to be upper middle class is higher, and to be rich, higher. The cost of being SUPER rich is the same in the cities of the world that house the super rich. A palatial home and lifestyle in Zurich or Geneva is the same as London, New York, Paris, Moscow, Hong Kong, etc.

The Big Mac Index is a way to conceptualise this:

New York State colleges are now free (with some strings) to in state students.

wow fantastic news

When did that start?

Either this year or last. Not sure exactly, again though, there are strings attached.

I think it will be interesting to teach in some suny colleges or community colleges in the coming years. There will definitely be a different crowd showing up at Freshman year Semester 1.

Having taken the Amtrak Corridor from NYC to DC, there are spots in Phillie and Baltimore that look quite...distressed.

[quote] I think it will be interesting to teach in some suny colleges or community colleges in the coming years. There will definitely be a different crowd showing up at Freshman year Semester 1.

What a stupid thing to say.

You still have to QUALIFY and get ACCEPTED into college.

Free tuition doesn't mean automatic acceptance, moron.

"there are spots in Phillie and Baltimore that look quite...distressed."

Of the 10 largest U.S. cities, Philly is, by far,.the poorest, on a per capita income basis. Philly boosters don't tout that statistic, as it doesn't suit their agenda to picture their city as the Paris of the United States. Ask Philly Snoop.

Once you leave the thin veneer of glitz and glamour of downtown, you basically have a third world country.

Whatever r187.

Just an FYI, R188: from Wikipedia:

The Philadelphia Main Line, known simply as the Main Line, is an informally delineated historical and social region of SUBURBAN Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[quote]Does anyone know of any American city with an African American majority with an African American mayor and city government that isn't seriously challenged?

I guess you could say Atlanta. Every city has serious challenges of some sort.

I love when people use a postcard-styled skyline shot taken from high-up, to praise a city's prettiness.

Like we all float around in a hot air balloon when we live in a city.

[quote] in Phillie

Oh, dear.

You are either an idiot or a troll r165, those people in urban areas are the driving force of the US economy, you would be nothing without them.

I was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area, and recently went back for a visit after a thirty year absence.

The city is busy during the day, with many people going about their business.

However, except for sports events, the downtown is dead at night. There used to be seven movie theaters in the downtown; now there are none. There were three major department stores; now there are none. They were able to keep their trolley system running way past many other cities; now it’s gone.

The Hill District, long a black neighborhood was razed in the late 50’s to build the overweening Civic Arena, a circular sports and entertainment arena, with a huge retractable dome. But winters made it intractable, and the whole thing has since been torn down, leaving a blighted field of weeds where the black neighborhood used to be. So all of that was for nothing. And Pittsburgh’s black citizens are still justifiably angry about it.

The only thing that keeps the downtown going is sports. Crowds of fans fill the streets on their way to games. But that doesn't make for a thriving downtown.

Though it seems vibrant on the surface, there’s really nothing underneath.

When industries left or went out of business, the vibrant, Eastern European immigrant blue collar workers, who’d made their homes there for over a century, left with them.

Pittsburgh is now little more than a grubby shell of what it once was.

True, unfortunately, R27 That's what happens when there's too much concentration of wealth. The working class gets pushed out, and all that remains are the very rich and the very poor. The house in the Sunset that my grandparents paid less than ten grand for is now going for 1.5 million dollars. Multi-million dollar 'estates' in the Avenues, FFS.

It's insane.

I see that the poor benighted denizens of this board have been blessed with the presence of yet another Queen Blackety-Black.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's causing America's cities to fall"?

"Why it's YOU, your Majesty, you".

The comments on this board are in complete opposition regarding Pittsburgh's recent PR push. They make it sounds like paradise. R196 you need to try harder.

In response to Miss R194 -

[quote] However, except for sports events, the downtown is dead at night.

It's way more vibrant now than it was in the late 80s/early 90s. I know, I was there then.

In the 90s you could have thrown a bowling ball down Smithfield or Wood after dark. It's way, way, WAY better now, though it's still more vibrant on the outer parts of the Triangle and in the Penn Avenue/Theater corridor than in the central office district. But there's many new restaurants and hotels opening, and it's nice to see a lot of people on the street at night that AREN'T derelicts or prostitutes.

[quote] There used to be seven movie theaters in the downtown; now there are none.

It's been more like 40-50 years since there were that many theaters downtown. There is one, though it plays arthouse films. There's a multiplex across the bridge.

[quote] There were three major department stores; now there are none.

Department stores are dying. It's sad Kaufmann's is gone, and it may have stayed a healthy company if it hadn't been driven into the ground by Macy's. But that's a cultural change, not specific to Pittsburgh.

[quote] They were able to keep their trolley system running way past many other cities; now it’s gone.

Again, not specific to Pittsburgh. Trolleys were yanked in the 80s. Pittsburgh kept them for a long time because of old Pittsburgh's mythological fear of change. Most cities were fighting a losing battle. Cars were more popular, and car and tire lobbyists worked hard to strip many North American cities of their mass transit, a mistake for which many cities are now paying dearly.

I grew up in the area and think the city itself is doing pretty well. I don't know why it's getting so many bad comments, as R197 notes.

Is it perfect? Hell, no. But that's the case with a LOT of former rust belt cities. There are great areas in Pittsburgh - some that have always been great, like Shadyside and Squirrel Hill, and some that have had a tremendous renaissance, like Lawrenceville and East Liberty. But there's also still a lot of the city - and especially a lot of areas around/outside of the city - that hasn't recovered from the mills closing. Some of those places will never come back.

Sorry R194, no personal attack intended, just disagree with a lot of your argument. A lot of the reasons you cite are not specific to the city, but cultural and demographic changes that are happening in all cities. In Pittsburgh, a lot of the inner ring suburbs like West Mifflin, Plum and Penn Hills are becoming the new blighted areas, because young people and affluent people are moving closer to the city. That's been happening nationally, gradually, for almost 20 years now.

PS R194 we do agree on the Hill District. They fucked that up, just as the whole Penn Center circle fucked up S'liberty for many years.

R197, what R194 writes about Pittsburgh being a blight and shell of itself is true. My feeling is the big PR push is an attempt to paint a better picture of the city in an effort to reverse the population decline that's been happening since the 50s and continues to today.

To add to my post at r200...someone up thread posted that young people are moving from the outer areas of Pittsburgh into the city. This is true in that if you work in the city and live just a few miles away then you are in for an insane commute. When I first moved to Pittsburgh I lived 8 miles from where I worked. It took me an hour to get to and from work during rush hour. Yes, 1 hour to go 8 miles. No joke. I moved closer just to get those 2 hours a day back. The infrastructure is bad and public transportation is nothing like what you see in other metro areas. Thise same young people will end up moving back out once they start raising a family. The public school system in Pittsburgh is awful.

It is actually sad to come upon a city which still has the physical plant of its great days but will never see it again. Detroit is like that, but so are places like Toledo and Cincinnati, which thought in the 1980s that they would survive the hard times.

Springfield, Illinois. Not even Lincoln could save it.

^^ Lol! My husband is from there. It is perhaps THE most boring place on earth. I hate visiting there. Not a decent restaurant in the whole town!! It's doesn't even have the charm of post industrial blight!

[quote] When I first moved to Pittsburgh I lived 8 miles from where I worked. It took me an hour to get to and from work during rush hour. Yes, 1 hour to go 8 miles.

That's true of Pittsburgh wherever you go. Pittsburgh is many good things, but easy to drive ain't one of 'em. It's a pain in the ass because of the topography, and the fact that there are only three or four ways into the city.

“Here we are, Sunset and Camden!”

Shittsburgh

[quote] Worst Cities in America

This sounds like it could be a new reality show.

I'd actually watch it.

Newark has not changed in the 50 years since the riots. 3 out of the 5 wards and parts of the remaining 2 are no-go zones for whites. Downtown consists of the train station interconnected to surrounding office buildings by above-ground walkways, never have to touch the ground for blocks. The Crown Jewels of Newark - the Performing Arts Center and the Devils Arena have brought no business to the city as the suburban patrons flee as quickly as they can back to the train station, or their car if it hasn't been stolen.

The State pours BILLIONS into the city and schools are still combat zones. The mayor employs his entire family and collects 2 public pensions. The previous mayor (Sen. Cory Booker) hightailed it out of town to avoid getting entangled in a Water Company corruption scandal involving millions of stolen dollars - thus avoiding being the third Black mayor to serve jail time on federal corruption charges.

Don't ever make a wrong turn in Newark, don't ever run out of gas in Newark and don't try and make a train connection at the train station from the airport just as the building is being evacuated due to an unattended parcel and you're tossed into the streets of Newark to fend for yourself after flying back from Europe. Other than that? Piece of cake.

However I do give kudos to the persistence of the guy in the Devils marketing dept. who calls my office every year pitching to get me to buy season tickets and who doesn't flinch when every year I ask him "Sure, have they moved out of Newark yet?" He just sighs, as if that's how all his calls end, and hangs up.

R209 I haven't been to Newark in probably 10 years, but the last time I was there I was at the greyhound station at night (stupid college kid), trying to catch a bus to Boston. I have lived up and down the east coast since then and I have never been to a place scarier than Newark NJ.

Huntington, West Virginia. So many drug overdoses that they actually made a documentary about it for Netflix called Heroin(e). Only one gay bar in the area called Stonewall and it's shit.

R59. Portland? Really? With stunning beaches and hikes and skiing nearby? All that lush green? Microbrews and farm-to-table restaurants lining the streets? Sorry you have to step around the homeless.

Almost every city in the north-eastern section of the country - east of the Mississippi, and north of, well, the pig fucking South - has the same sort of feel.

Indianapolis has a lot of buildings downtown that are 30ish years old (and has a really suburban look as a result) but the old sections of Indy are pretty beat down. Cleveland has, like Pittsburgh, some old nice areas (Coventry, Shaker Heights, Lakewood) and some new nice areas (Tremont, Ohio City) but a lot of the city is rundown.

I think Philly and Boston may be the rare exceptions because people restored a lot of the "old" sections when there was way more investment money to do so.

Part of the challenges w/Cleveland and Pittsburgh is that so much of it is built along hills and valleys. Undoing one part could make a whole hillside shift.

If you want to see something that looks like a third world country? Drive through Gary, Indiana. 90 percent of the city is just wasted.

[quote]Portland? Really? With stunning beaches and hikes and skiing nearby?

Please elucidate on the stunning beaches nearby. AFAICR, the Oregon coast is two hours away.

R209 R210 I grew up in a Newark suburb, and except for Penn Station and EWR, my feet have only touched Newark pavement once. Yet, after reading this thread, I suppose, I had a dream last night that I was living in Newark.

The states are sovereign. They are responsible for the shitstorm most American cities are.

Basically every city in the U.S. has neighborhoods like the one in OP's link. Workers' housing was built for industries that then died, along with the workers' paychecks.

I keep hearing stories about certain parts of Detroit having significant amounts of revival and investment. It's also supposed to be well situated, with lots of fertile land and water resources. Is that really the case?

140 square miles, at least 40% vacant R218.

Of course, some people say it's only 20 square miles of 140 square miles, but many streets and some parks are abandoned too, and probably a much higher proportion of commercial property.

The Russians are taking over Camden...another reason to not wanna live there...

Detroit is a very large city geographically. It needs to shrink. It's not like most industrial cities.

Almost all Rust Belt cities need to shrink. Cleveland is doing the same but yes, Detroit has more shrinkage than other cities. 40 percent sounds right.

They all have a much smaller population than they did. Better to raze some neighborhoods, let nature take its course and focus on the intact ones.

Really, r221?

Well maybe they can do something with it, because no other whites are going to ever move there.

They’re only making it worse r224, since most of them are mob trash with tackily dressed girlfriends. They are bringing in even more drugs and racketeering.

Russians moving into Camden NJ? Are you sure about that?

There might be hope for the place after all.

Lots of property available cheap in East St. Louis!

[quote] there are spots in Phillie and Baltimore that look quite...distressed.

Well you're right if by "spots" you mean "vast areas".

[quote]there are spots in Phillie

"Phillie"?

Phillie, r229. You know...Phil's neighborhood. Phillie.

East St. Louis, IL makes Camden NJ look like Beverly Hills.

The 10 hottest US neighborhoods right now from MSN.com.

#10: East Liberty & Lawrenceville — Pittsburgh, PA "Pittsburgh won't be the first American city to beep on your cool-o-meter, but its eastern neighborhoods might just be the sleeper hit your hipster sensibilities have been craving... the influx of moneyed millennials has willed a new food and beverage scene into existence, led by the Ace Hotel, which opened in a once-derelict YMCA in 2015 - all of which is making the Steel City's reputation considerably less rusty." - Brandon Presser

What do all these cities have in common?

R232, that's an example of the PR campaign that's been referenced throughout the thread.

R232, my favorite thing in East Liberty is Pizza Taglio.

Those are New York pizza prices.

It's worth it.

It better be considering the average salary out there is low.

What do you think good pizza should cost?

I would hope a second tier city like Pittsburgh would be less than New York.

I visited Philly last year and loved it. I had lived there when I was in the 6th grade and had fond memories of going to school in Society Hill and getting snacks at WaWa on the way.

I was surprised by how much gentrification has taken place, especially around the Philadelphia Art Museum and Center City areas.

Also, I find the Philly accent on guys kind of hot.

Hey Pittsburgh people, heads up!

CNN has a new episode of Anthony Bourdain's Parts Unknown featuring Pittsburgh. And a lot of it is exactly what you've been talking about here.

Please report back on the accuracy of the show.

Most cities in the West have hipster food outlets. A handful of gourmet casual eats does not maketh a great city.

A city has to offer more than expensive burgers and shakes.

They are killing higher/intellectual culture. All that is left is expensive burgers & shakes.

Personal and residential safety rank (scale of 1 to 50; 1 is safest): 50

Alaska wins the No. 1 spot as the most dangerous state. WalletHub researchers found this state has the most assaults per capita. In addition, FBI crime statistics revealed among cities with 100,000 people or more, Anchorage, Alaska, has some of the highest reported crime, with 1,692 violent crimes, nine murders, 326 robberies, 6,853 property crimes, and 1,055 aggravated assault cases in 2016.

[quote] Democrat or Republican, SJW or Deplorable...whites are scared shitless of young Black men.

[quote] ^^ pretty true. I try to be liberal and open minded but I do get nervous walking by a group of young black men.

[quote] Why wouldn't whites be "scared shitless of young Black" people (the females are just as scary as the males)?

* Only about 1 percent of African Americans — and no more than 2 percent of black males — will commit a violent crime in a given year;

* Even though there are more black-on-white interracial crimes than white-on-black interracial crimes, this fact is not evidence of anti-white racial targeting by black offenders. Rather, it is completely explained by two factors having nothing to do with anti-white bias: namely, the general differences in rates of criminal offending, and the rates at which whites and blacks encounter one another (and thus, have the opportunity to victimize one another). Once these two factors are “controlled for” in social science terms, the actual rates of black-on-white crime are lower than random chance would predict;

* No more than 0.7 percent (seven-tenths of one percent) of African Americans will commit a violent crime against a white person in a given year, and fewer than 0.3 (three-tenths of one percent) of whites will be victimized by a black person in a given year;

* Whites are 6 times as likely to be murdered by another white person as by a black person; and overall, the percentage of white Americans who will be murdered by a black offender in a given year is only 2/10,000ths of 1 percent (0.0002). This means that only 1 in every 500,000 white people will be murdered by a black person in a given year. Although the numbers of black-on-white homicides are higher than the reverse (447 to 218 in 2010), the 218 black victims of white murderers is actually a higher percentage of the black population interracially killed than the 447 white victims of black murderers as a percentage of the white population. In fact, any given black person is 2.75 times as likely to be murdered by a white person as any given white person is to be murdered by an African American.

I've been to many of these cities. It's all pretty much true what's posted here.

Decline in river transport and manufacturing seem to be the biggest causes. Decline in rail too but I'm not sure whether it predates or follows the decline of riverways.

The automobile and petroleum industries worked in tandem against rail and river.

Oh for chrissakes, anyone with the slightest claim to street smarts is aware that groups of young black might be dangerous. And that groups of young men of ANY race and class are potentially dangerous, you never know when a group of stupid rich frat boys will decide to play Patrick Bateman with you. And that's because when young men get together in groups, their immaturity and aggressiveness grows tenfold because of the group Dynamics.

That's Street Smarts 101. A man with a woman and children is unlikely to be a threat, a lone man is a potential threat, and groups of men always bear watching.

R246 All of those fuzzy statistics are about murder. The crime picture is much bigger than that.

“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps... then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” ― Jesse Jackson

Amarillo, Texas. No possible competition. Go there. You'll see.

Taking Amtrak through the NE corridor, DC to NYC is an exercise in blight and depression but for some reason I like it. I kind of grew up around it and find some beauty in the post industrial landscapes.

Chester PA bitches, real top drawer