Seedy US cities

NYC & LA

Anywhere in rural new york state.

Miami was Seedy City the last time I visited.

NYC has a lot of problems these days. "Seedy" isn't really one of them.

El Paso TX. I had to go there for work for three days. It is one pawn shop after another. People never look you in the eye. I'm sure I must have had an off experience but it was weird

St Louis - topped only by East St Louis

Wilton Manors

Memphis. The whole city feels grubby.

Harrisburg, PA.

What a dump!

Tacoma, WA

Totally agree about Tacoma and St. Louis. Philly a bit too. The entire state of Louisiana.

Shreveport

Lake Charles

Port Arthur

Beaumont

Vicksburg

Any town with a large military base nearby. Fayetteville, NC Twenty-Nine Palms, CA and Norfolk, VA are prime examples.

Baton Rouge, LA, is a pit, but it is still better than Beaumont, TX.

Bremerton, WA . . . make that Kitsap County, WA

Oh, wonderful. We've only done this thread 9,467,536,985 times before. It's been a whole five minutes since the last one....

Baltimore. Newark. Chicago. Detroit. St. Louis.

New Orleans - yet not in a 100% bad way.

Any town except New York

Kansas City is quite gritty: rusty midwestern red-brick buildings. Lots of loan and pawn shops in Midtown especially. This is real life.

Las Vegas (not counting the Strip and Fremont St area) seems gritty in an aggressive homeless and more dangerous way.

No Las Vegas? Maybe the Mormons have cleaned it up?

Jacksonville, Fla.

Here's a better question: are there any US cities that are sparkling gems?

I want to say Austin. I also want to say Vancouver, but then we obviously have to expand to include Canada. If Vancouver were ours though, I would move there in a heartbeat. Except for the mayonaise they put in sushi that city is damn near perfection.

Well seedy is technically different than worst. Camden is horrible but not necessarily seedy. New Orleans is seedy but not necessarily horrible.

I'm still vaguely uncomfortable about the Upper West Side. Seedy and still a bit.... ethnic.

At least for my tastes.

Philly and surrounding region

Oh ja, Philly's a shithole for sure. And mean, too.

R22 What about Monterey, California? The fabulous Jennie Jerome of New York City said it was beautiful when she visited with her husband.

Since my city was named not once, but twice, let me defend the side of town I live in. None of the descriptions OP gave would fit for my side. The other side, however, yes. But many cities share this same dicotomy. I've never been to some parts of the south side of town, and for good reason. Ft

Riverside CA. An armpit meets toilet.

What about Carmel-by-the-Sea for a gem?

What are you going on about R28, in what seedy shithole do you lurk?

For seedy, I nominate Detroit. Tant pis!

Amsterdam, NY. I’ve driven through there a couple of times and I just got the chills looking out the window. Of course, cities like St Louis, Cleveland and Detroit have a lot of poverty, empty lots and so forth - but they also have lively arts scenes and restaurants and more. Amsterdam NY just strikes me as seedy through and through.

Hudson, NY north of Warren St.

Tbh I always feel this way about DC, though it's sparkling and gorgeous

Miami

R33, I live in DC, and I think you're having us on. Have you seen the gorgeous sparkle off of NY Ave. ?

Many cities have a seedy part - is the lesson this thread is reminding me. Even some nice cities - like Miami, DC and Philadelphia - have seedy parts and/or components.

Cleveland. Troy.

Hudson NY, home of Data Lounge & Kevin Sessums.

Vermont - not seedy. New Hampshire - kinda seedy.

Chattanooga Tennessee is very seedy!

I don't think NH is seedy at all and I've spent lots of time there. It can have a strong summer biker element during race week, but it's one of my favorite places ever. It smells really good too, so does Maine.

Some of the mid-Hudson valley towns get sketchy even though parts are beautiful (Kingston and Ellenville I'm looking at you).

Vegas is #1 in seediness

Port Jervis, NY

Miami/Fort Lauderdale

Key West, now that meth is making a comeback

Palm Springs has always had an element of seediness

Cincy is despondent, icy and menacing. It seems abandoned even by hoods & pimps.

They also make their chilli wrong.

R12 Gerard Depardieu grew up near a military base. Yes, he smuggled lots of stuff to them. Until police told him he better leave town. That's when he rode the train to Paris to become an actor.

R33 What do you do for a living? Can you drive?

Surely somewhere in Florida?

Up thread it was said that Philly and the surrounding area is seedy. That may be true about the city itself. However, the suburbs of that city are far from seedy. I am thinking of central Bucks county and the main line. Not that there aren't some areas that are not as nice.

Good point about towns next to a military base. Why is that the case? Dive bars, strip clubs, whores, drugs(?), babymamas, etc. Why?

Add to that list: pawn shops, furniture rental stores, tattoo parlors, and used car dealers, R48.

The majority of the military are young, single men and their interests trend toward the seedy. Jacksonville, FL mentioned above is also a military town.

Let's list every city in America, except New York!

Hollywood, although it's not really a city, more like a district

Scranton, Wilkes Barre, all Pennsylvania towns really. They are Deliverance creepy and filled with gun shops and porn shops. The people look inbred. I’m scared to get out of the car in PA. They have a lot of fentanyl too.

Cincinnati beats all for skittish characters.

Biloxi, MS

I guess we have to add Milwaukee, with the Dixie mafia being re-established there.

Steubenville, Ohio.

Wrigleyville, Illinois.

R30 That's not Detroit. We don't have palm trees.

R49 - in other words horny single straight men with a little disposable income are not too unlike horny single gay men - except the gays spend it a little more stylishly. And gays aren’t entrapped by thirsty babymammas...

West Palm Beach is still pretty seedy in parts but that pawn shop has gone: it had a hugh sign over it saying, "Liquor, Guns, Loans"; it was across the street from West Palm Dialysis. I had to drive through from time to time, en route.

One place I will never, evah, drive through again, around which I would take a huge detour en route is: Belle Glade - it seems to be a sugar plantation; "For a time during the early to mid 1980s, the city [Belle Glade] had the highest rate of AIDS infection per capita (37 cases in a population of roughly 19,000) in the United States. According to the FBI, in 2003, the city had the second highest violent crime rate in the country at 298 per 10,000 residents. 'In 2010, the Palm Beach County sheriff’s office estimated that half of the young men in Belle Glade between the ages of 18 and 25 had felony convictions. Some families have recently resorted to catching rainwater to survive because their utilities have been cut off for nonpayment.'" An online chat partner who sent me his 'pics' showing a young man with a huge dick, claimed to be 19yo, living at home with his mom wanted me to visit him there for sex - I declined, the whole thing was too weird (I prob dodged something incl STD).

RE Hudson, NY….I live about 20 minutes outside of the town, it's my Amtrak station when going in NYC….and yes, other than Warren St. it is a total dump. Like LV, when you go off "the Strip" the city just falls apart. When I lived in LV I would not even drive to N.LV, it was so dangerous and now the same with Hudson. Amazing amount of drug trafficking in Hudson...

R49 The military seem to be very low key in Jacksonville, Fla: they are nowhere to be seen in town despite the huge concentration of forces around there. The main problem with Jacksonville is that it is one huge junction for the I-95 which is too bad as you can tell from some remaining enclaves that it used to be a charming littl' ole Southern town.

Details please, R59. Are you saying the gays are more stylish only because they aren't entrapped by babymammas? That's what it sounds like.

Agree many Hudson Valley towns have a degree of seediness. I never understood why people would live IN those towns when the countryside around it offers such scenic beauty - and usually better prices. You go upstate for the nature not for the seedy towns.

R62 - yes that’s exactly what I’m saying. Poor and working class gays’ quality of life is helped immeasurably by the fact that some trashy teen-mom slut isn’t going to get pregnant and latch on to their monthly earnings for 18+ years. I can’t think of anything LESS stylish. They have a shot at a more elevated existence despite the fact that like straight boys, they think with their dicks.

Dover, delaware

Norfolk/va beach/hampton roads VA

Not seedy......Santa fe, telluride, aspen....but none of those are big cities. I cant think of any US cities that dont have an element of seedy.........Honolulu?

Murder capital Wilmington, Delaware.

Was anything on earth seedier than 42nd Street in the '70s?

There are very entire cities that are seedy, but most cities have seedy areas -- like around the Greyhound station, or near the Salvation Army shelter.

Reno

Fresno

Stockton

Hudson NY is seedy. We spent a weekend there & don’t understand why anyone would visit or live anywhere near there.

Bump.

San Bernardino and Riverside, CA - neighboring hell holes.

TAMPA omfg

OP, skittish characters ? Or sketchy characters...?

R73, you beat me to the punch. I was just about to post San Bernardino.

I'll add Barstow.

R42 - I live in Key West and I’m unaware of this meth problem. Alcohol and pot, definitely but I’ve never heard of a meth problem. That being said, the old Key west is gone and now taken over by the cruise ships and straight, drunk people who think they’re Jimmy Buffet.

West Palm Beach, FL for sure is very seedy. My father lives in Palm Beach Gardens to the north and when I’ve visited I drove around and checked out West Palm...run-down strip malls and the main downtown street, Clematis, could be ok - lots of outdoor restaurants and bars but it’s overrun with hordes of homeless people and young drug addicts who got out of one of the 100’s of nearby rehabs abs halfway houses and are back on drugs. It’s a vile place.

Albany NY, seemed depressed with hobo adjacent people and run down in areas. Sad because it could be very nice.

Downtown Atlanta

Pittsburgh. A number of films have even used its grittiness as a backdrop.

R22.. When I visited Salt Lake City a few years ago, I was amazed at the cleanliness and it sparkled. The cleanest city I've ever seen.

Hudson NY. We wen there is weekend and it’s the airpit of the Catskills region, why would anyone want to live such a pretentious depressing hamlet?

"El Paso TX. I had to go there for work for three days. It is one pawn shop after another. People never look you in the eye. I'm sure I must have had an off experience but it was weird"

I know. It's weird to keep hearing how clean and great it is from Betos. I keep wondering how my impression could be so wrong. A friend from there HATES when anyone walks behind him now and blames it on being raised there.

Austin is less diamond and more Tex Mex. Everything's a little dingey and dirty, you can blow dust off cans in some stores, and the Weird thing really isn't always as fun as one would hope. I like it -- it was home for years -- but it's far from perfect.

Another vote for West Palm Beach.

AlsNoro 'The Northern Kingdom' of Vermont - huge uppermost area of the state bordering Canada - is VERY SEEDY.

LA wins this.

*also

Marina, CA.

Seaside, CA.

Both a stone's throw from Monterey and SEEDY AF.

Minneapolis.

Another vote for Hudson NY - weird it became a destination and people are paying $1MM for a building there.

What’s that NJ beachtown that had a big carnival type area that is a ghost town? I think they shot part of Boardwalk Empire there? That was an eerie, freaky ghost town. My other choice for seedy towns are Chicagoland towns Cicero, Stone Park, and Berwyn. Most of the Midwest.

R91: Asbury Park?

Las Vegas - We have a winner!

R84, I was raised in El Paso. Most of my family still lives there and it is incredibly safe. However, it is very depressing and soul sucking. I hate visiting because of the starving, sad stray animals you see on every street. Worse is when you see a frightened dog trying to cross Interstate 10 or a major roadway because it's just been dumped there and you know how the story is going to end. There is a lack of compassion for people and animals there that chills my bones. Nobody's going to hurt you in El Paso, but no one will help you either.

If they gave America an enema they'd put the nozzle in Orlando Fl.

I don’t think border towns are seedy - because they do tend to be safe and filled with regular people and hard working immigrants. But they are poor - which is different than seedy. Towns like Hudson or New Orleans or Atlantic City are seedy - sketchy characters with a hint of menace in the air.

Pine Val...,, wait, never mind.

Let me defend Scranton, Pennsylvania where I live. We have a beautifully restored downtown with a variety of architecture. We have great festivals, parades and other good sized special events going on year round. If you're into industrial history we have Steamtown National Park, the Northeast Trolley Museum and the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour. And we have our own ski resort right within the city limits. And there's more. Now Wilkes-Barre. That place is a pit.

Macon , Ga.

New Orleans, La . Even Satan avoids it.

University City , Pa .

Metarie , La .

Baton Rouge , La.

Homestead , Fl

Chur , Switzerland. Just to piss off a DL'er. Who once went off on me.

[QUOTE]There is a lack of compassion for people and animals there that chills my bones.

That describes all of Mexico.

I was surprised to see the most recent Miss USA Pageant being held in Reno, Nevada...isn't it rather seedy?

Cincinnati. I was there for a conference last summer. The downtown convention area was nice, but I was started by how seedy it got just walking a handful of blocks away. The homeless were some of the most aggressive I've encountered, with one guy following me for blocks and hassling me for money.

Fresno is basically the Walking Dead. And Reno too... Cant imagine much worse.

Yeah, Reno is like a mini Vegas with all of Vegas's current woes, all the Californians that used to visit are now going to the local Indian casinos so the gambling industry that supported the town has collapsed.

The town isn't completely lifeless or anything, but most of the big casinos are shuttered or nearly empty, the downtown "strip" is a few doors down from the homeless shelter with all that entails, and the place is fading from a mini-Vegas party town to another torpid, isolated, Nevada desert town.

Hudson NY

Gary IN

Normal, IL

Camden NJ

Rockford.

North Las Vegas is MUCH seedier than Las Vegas.

Hudson NY is overpriced, pretentious and seedy!

Agree, Hudson was so ballyhooed and when I went, I thought, What a dump. I have found other Hudson Valley towns I adore, and much cheaper too.

St. Pete Fl.

Hudson, NY is no less interesting/pretty/seedy/quaint/odd than any of the other small towns scattered all over upstate NY area. All these towns are a mix old time locals mixed with NYC "retirees" (creative types in the later stages of their lives, some very wealthy). There's always an old main street where everything *seems* to congregate near, surrounded by houses which vary wildly in quality and type of occupant (there's a pleasant nice area here, then the 'crummy' part, then another nice area, then some more 'crap,' all like an irregular patchwork), then there's (usually) a nearby strip away from all that where the "burg" stuff is, like old strip malls and fast food joints. Surrounding all that is open land. And in these outskirts there's always some weird barn converted into a high-end art gallery that you read about on trendy blogs, or old warehouse changed into an avant grade music venue by trust fund kids. There *always* that detail in these places. Hudson is just like that.

The most "traditionally charming" upstate NY towns have just the main street, surrounding nice to semi-nice houses, and that's more or less it (like Athens, very, very pleasant and peaceful… but kinda dull)

Hudson's popularity in recent years happened because of an inexplicably large number of NYTimes write-ups, Marina Abramovic's over-hyped plans to open her performance art center (which fizzled), and other stuff which set in motion a snowball-effect of attention that got developers from faraway places sniffing around and making big plans, which are now all slowly starting to bloom, and causing even more attention, and more STUFF. A lot of people visit Hudson and like it but wonder what the fuss is about. It's a place of extremes. Everything is either super high end expensive, or lowest possible denominator garbage. If you want to feel like you're there to see and be seen, or spy celebrities walking around, and think to yourself, "Well, this is pretty nice I guess," Hudson is your place.

The trick to living in a place like Hudson is owning a car so you can just drive around NY state and discover all the little towns, which are always surprising, different, interesting, and often delightful. You'll never see all of them because they never seem to end.

Agree R11 - I don’t understand why people move all the way up there to live in a trashy depressing town. Why not live in the pretty area OUTSIDE the town - which is the benefit of living way out there - instead of the slums in the center of the rundown town? I love upstate but most of the towns - except maybe Woodstock - are depressing rundown holes.

For some of us, living right in town is the appeal. I don't want to live in an isolated place but even Main Street in one of those Hudson towns is relatively quiet and bucolic.

New Orleans is really no different than DeBlasio’s Manhattan.

Providence, RI. Lots of mob-run places, the only baths around, strip joints, etc.