Ugly cities in beautiful countries

Glasgow has some wonderful architecture but I hear some the inhabitants are nasty thugs

Marseilles, France

Albuquerque, NM, US

Belgrade, Serbia.

Glasgow is a hidden gem of Europe. Probably my favourite non-“major” city. I’d love to live there.

I don't think Glasgow is ugly at all. OP is crazy.

Benidorm

Turin

Brisbane

Strasbourg

Johannesburg

Charleroi

Los Angeles (US)

I’d rather ‘bask’ in my tiny village than to live in Calcutta, India.

OP has never been to Glasgow.

Athens Greece 🇬🇷

Brisbane is forgettable, not ugly. Australia is full of forgettable places.

I think Glasgow had a more negative rep than Edinburgh about 60 years ago, but things have changed.

Any city in California that isn't the part of San Francisco where homeless people take dumps

The vast majority of US cities are quite uninspiring in terms of architecture. Bland high rises, strip malls, suburban sprawl...zzzz

Just about any sunbelt sprawlbrug would qualify as ugly.

La Habana

Arecibo, Puerto Rico, USA

Santiago, Chile

I loved Glasgow. The neighborhood right outside the city center, near the botanical gardens, is magical with gorgeous, 19th century brownstones and apartment buildings that look like castles.

Yeah, there are gritty parts. But the city overall is dynamic with galleries, incredible restaurants and gardens. I can't wait to go back.

R6, Strasbourg?! You're crazy! I mean, every city has some grungy sections, but come on! (And yes, I've been, several times).

I’m reading the book Islands of Abandonment and just learned about the Glasgow Effect, the higher mortality and illness rates that people who live there experiences. The city is making them ill and killing them sooner.

ONG, r10, I so agree! I was very disappointed overall, and I even had a great view of the Parthenon from my room!

Glasgow, Marseilles, and Strasbourg shouldn’t be in this list. They have some shitty areas, but they’re not ugly by any means.

I’d argue for Athens as well, but while I find it gorgeous, it’s also pretty gritty and I can understand why people wouldn’t love it like I do. The graffiti there is like art. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Sam Antonio was always heralded as a city with wonderful history and beauty with things like the river walk, but was an armpit. Incidentally, Pittsburgh is usually described as ugly, but is quite lovely.

Guatemala City is probably the ugliest city I have been...a stark contrast to spectacular Lake Atitlan and Antigua.

Mexico also has some good contenders with Tijuana, Juarez, etc.

San Antonio ain't ugly. You must be confusing it with Austin or Dallas.

Secaucus, New Jersey

It's simpler to name attractive US cities, r26.

Rotterdam, Netherlands. Berlin, Germany. Little or no historic architecture after it was all bombed out. At least Glasgow has intact historic center - though admittedly surrounded by some ugly modern neighborhoods. Coventry UK is up there too,

R27- You're right because 99 percent or more of US cities are UGLY.

I’ve only been to a handful of the cities mentioned here.

Strasbourg is by no means an ugly city. I remember wandering round the canals on a sunny day, thinking how lucky someone would be to live i; the old half-timbered houses. It has much more modern areas too, but none that struck me as especially hideous.

All cities have their rough areas, and that’s certainly true of Glasgow. It suffered a catastrophic, nearly terminal economic decline in the 1970s and 1980s, but it has had a remarkable recovery. The Victorian architecture is amazing, and the museums, theatres and restaurants are high-quality. It has wonderful parks too, all over the city.

Berlin is pretty ugly, I think. Even the Tiergarten seems pretty fragmented and eaten up by traffic. There is so much to do there though, and it’s definitely a place to visit if you love modern architecture. I do prefer other German cities though, especially Hamburg, Weimar, Trier.

It does amuse me how Americans pretend to be experts in Britain and its culture.

The whole DFW metroplex is ghastly.

R31, And why is that amusing? Were we not colonized? Have we not a common language? Were we not Allies in two World Wars?

Do we not have the abilities to read of British history; travel throughout the UK; study in British universities; watch British programs on television and more on the Internet; read UK newspapers; even buy imported British comestibles in our supermarkets?

I have read British history since Grade 2, when I found a book in my classroom that told of Richard Lionheart. I eventually became a teacher of British Literature and History. I have travelled throughout England and Scotland (with some brief excursions into Wales and Dublin) ten times, twice with student groups. I would bet that I have seen more of England---its cathedrals, castles, churches, cemeteries, crypts, crowns, country houses, ceremonies, megaliths, museums, monuments, Roman baths, Churchill's Blenheim, bunker, and Bladon, and literary sites---than many a UK citizen.

Can I "feel" what it is to be born and bred British? No.

But neither am I wholly ignorant of your culture.

P.S. I trust you refrain from opining on American culture?

R33 sounds insufferable.

There isn’t an attractive city west of Montreal in all of Canada. Vancouver has it’s natural surroundings, but it’s urban form is as grey and soulless as much-dunked on Toronto.

R33 is the worst kind of American. He has no idea what he's talking about but thinks if he shouts loud enough it makes him right.

R33, if you are white North American, you are a beneficiary of colonisation, not its victim.

All of human history stems from one tribe colonizing another.

Mariupol, Ukraine, doesn’t look too flash at the moment.

In America, the vast majority of the sunbelt cities are hidieous.

[quote]In America, the vast majority of the sunbelt cities are hidieous.

The OP specifically mentioned 'beautiful' countries.

Auckland, New Zealand. Though not downright ugly but jarringly blah, compared to the beauty of the rest of the country.

Also, this describes most large Canadian cities except for Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax.

Proud Glaswegian here. We have many beautiful sights here, but some people can’t get their heads round that.

Trondheim in Norway

R36, I was "shout[ing]"? You have very tender sensibilities.

R34, I'm "insufferable" because? I mean, I probably am, but your reasoning?

R37, Never said or implied otherwise, now did I?

R32- Thank you for your comment Miss Upson.

Most middle American cities are pretty shabby with desolate downtowns and run down sprawl in all directions (until you go far enough out to hit the shiny new sprawl, which will be the run down sprawl of 20 years from now). Places like Oklahoma City, St. Louis or Des Moines. Although I don’t think Missouri, Oklahoma or Iowa can be called beautiful country.

Ugliest capital in Europe: Oslo. And this is coming from a Norwegian. I wish Bergen was our capital instead.

Oslo, Norway. One of the ugliest capitals in Europe. Even new buildings are horrid looking. And I say this as a Norwegian. Bergen and Trondheim are both prettier cities.

R49 we heard you at R48. Two years later and you still can’t get over the ugliness of Oslo eh?

[quote]Auckland, New Zealand. Though not downright ugly but jarringly blah, compared to the beauty of the rest of the country.

I live in Auckland, and yes, the city centre IS downright ugly, with a lot of downright hideous architecture, with a few beautiful old historic buildings scattered in the mix that just highlight how bad everything else is

A lot of the newer suburbs are shockingly ugly too, we'd give a lot of American cities a run for ugliness there too.

New Zealand's cities seem the ugliest to me in the developed world. I am aware earthquakes and fear of further damage caused many historic buildings to be taken down. And there is architectural talent in NZ. But between small budgets and (it must be said) small minds, the general urban form is simply a collection of architectural litter. Compare anything at all in Wellington, the capitol, with its equivalent in DC. The most decayed area in DC still is solidly built. Wellington seems to be made of cardboard.

OP desperately needs attention.

R52 no argument there

I was replying to R42 above but it somehow got lost fuck knows how

Ugly Monaco in Beautiful Monaco.

R38's head is so far up her ass she can see daylight.

People who know nothing of history and human populations like to pretend they're on the "right" side of things by braying about universal colonization.

Populations mingle. Cultures combine. Societies with perceived advantages in meeting needs and building prosperity (whatever their definitions are) tend to draw people to them. It's not colonization but creolization that rules history. Colonization is one trigger or stimulus for such activities.

Ignorance is fine, but proud ignorance got us Trump for President.

Thanks, doll, for your continuing role, the opposite of what you think you're doing.

R49- You don’t think Athens is worse?

Well, not UGLY, exactly (and i don't know what it's like now), but...

Back in 2007 when i visited Paris for the first time, I was SHOCKED at how much graffiti there was in so many places. Also, the big, open lawn/grassy area leading up to the Eiffel Tower was strewn with discarded empty bottles of wine.

That was disheartening to see. But the city itself was interesting and many parts of it beautiful.

My mother said Edinburgh was bleak.

Zlin (the Czech Republic), birthplace of Ivana Zelníčková. No wonder that woman tried so hard to migrate to the West. You would too if your hometown looked like this:

I like Athens.

I used to live in New Mexico, Albuquerque is ugly in a lot of areas.

I was just in both Glasgow and Edinburgh last week, and neither of them is ugly. In fact, I would call Edinburgh one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

[quote] Back in 2007 when i visited Paris for the first time, I was SHOCKED at how much graffiti there was in so many places. Also, the big, open lawn/grassy area leading up to the Eiffel Tower was strewn with discarded empty bottles of wine.

But it's wrong! SHOCKINGLY wrong!

Brasilia

R55, Do you mean " ugly" Monte Carlo? (You'd be so very wrong, though.)

Turin is not ugly!

London

NYC

Paris

Singapore

Tokyo

Shanghai

Melbourne

Buenos Aires

Cairo

Mexico City

Paris?

My coworkers all seem to be traveling to NZ (for vacation). Not sure why. I can think of so many other places I'd rather go.