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If you’ve someone who is native to the States, especially if you have spent any time traveling the winding roads that aren’t quite on the interstate, you know that you can never be quite sure where you’re going to stop for gas – or what might be waiting for you when you do.
If traveling the States is on your todo list soon, you might want to peruse this list of 17 cities people say are absolutely the worst of the worst.
17. A too-common tale.
McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
Industrial Town on a steep decline into heroin, poverty, gangs and criminality.
16. That’s some logo.
I miss living there just because it’s home
Modesto, Ca
Our logo is “Meth, Death and Auto Theft”
15. A super friendly dump.
Utica, NY.
My experience is anecdotal as hell, but the one time I went to Utica, my first thought was “Holy crap, the place looks like a dump.” My second thought was “Holy crap, the people are really friendly.”
We ate at a café that also doubled up as a greeting card store and a furniture store, then went to a beer-fest across the street and had a total hoot of a time for the next 5 or so hours. We left before nightfall, so I dunno, maybe the town’s scarier at night?
On the way back, we stopped at a bar in the middle of nowhere to wait out a storm of such magnitude that we could barely see the road again. The place was deserted but the bartender and owner were there, and again, super friendly people, we shot the s**t for a couple hours, they even gave us T-shirts with the bar’s name on it. Then we hit the road for the night.
14. Can confirm it’s an armpit.
Lebanon, MO is currently investigating a guy who could be linked to the “Springfield 3” (3 missing women in the 90s) someone tipped off FBI saying he is killing people.
When they busted in he was laughing eating a human sandwich and said he fed his neighbor ribs and so far they found 18 peoples remains around his property.
Also after they started investigating the dude’s house burnt down to nothing?? AFTER him and the trucker were arrested?!…
13. Don’t go east.
East anything. East Palo Alto, East Oakland, East Side San Jose, apparently East St. Louis which I just found out about on this thread, East LA used to be bad but my point stands. Avoid cities with East in the name lol.
I wrote a paper about this phenomenon when I was in college. I never did come up with a satisfying explanation. It holds true in many European cities as well. The only semi-plausible thing I could come up with is that, very very broadly speaking, winds are from the west, and many cities also have rivers flowing west to east, so very generally, it’s the eastern side of cities that are going to have fouler air and water, so that’s where the lower socioeconomic classes will be pushed to.
12. It’s not Boston.
Fall River, MA.
Poverty in Massachusetts is wild because it’s so dense. You’ll be in one city and it’s super run down, High crime, lots of gangs, etc.
Then you go a town over and it’s all big single family homes, perfectly manicured lawns, prep school, minivans, etc, etc.
11. I’m not sure it’s affectionately.
Huntington WV. It’s less than affectionately known as little Detroit for a reason.
I’ve been stuck in there exactly once to fix something on my car and watched 3 drug deals and a lady walk in tweaking out nude into a dollar general in the span of 30 minutes.
10. Second to none.
Reading Pennsylvania.
Higher violent crime rate per capita than Philadelphia.
9. This is most of central/southern MO.
Rolla, Missouri.
Tiny college town, if you stray out of the downtown/campus area it gets real sketchy real quick.
“Deliverance” meets “Breaking Bad”
8. Not like the song, I guess.
Gary, Indiana.
Used to have a prosperous steel economy, but now it’s just home to abandoned buildings, failing infrastructure, and lots and lots of crime.
Just look up pictures.
7. It’s beautiful, but…
Niagara Falls, N.Y This city’s history is as close of a paradox as you can get!
Went there with family a few years ago and when we got to the hotel the guy checking us in gave us a whole speech about where we should and should not go.
“If you stay around the main road on this side of the casino, you should be fine. If you go past the casino…just don’t go past the casino. And don’t bother with any of these restaurants, the food sucks. Enjoy your stay.”
6. An insult.
East St. Louis, Illinois
Come for the strip clubs, stay because you’re in jail.
My favorite thing to ask people from St. Louis if they’re being douchey is “oh, you’re from St. Louis? Must be the east side, right?”
Gets them every time.
5. Poor Massachusetts.
Brockton, MA.
My aunt lived there for such a long time. She pretty much had to be a shut in where she lived, because her neighbors would steal and sell all her prescriptions.
She finally got out of there, and is now living in a 55+ apartment building in Fall River that was once a textile mill.
4. The bars are a tipoff.
Stockton, CA
There’s also Fresno, CA
Both are SKETCHY AF. You can EASILY tell when you hit the gheto in both places, as suddenly there are bars on all the house windows.
3. Literally.
Mound House, Nevada.
It’s literally just a whore house on the side of the highway.
2. Shockingly sketchy.
I visited Denver, and while I quite enjoyed Denver proper & downtown, the motel I stayed at in Aurora (which is I guess a satellite town that got swallowed by Denver) was some shockingly sketchy stuff lol.
Sign on the door telling guests to keep their rooms locked at all times. Signs of multiple previous break-ins. Cages on the windows and counters of the liquor store and gas station across the street.
Crappy old cars with 20” chrome rims rolling around the block constantly. Good times
1. Backwoods racists.
Brownsville Alabama is…methy, dead bodies turn up all the time. If you are African American Cullman AL is sketchy and dangerous. Filled with backwoods racists law with law enforcement that look the other way.
Former Cullman native here. Yeah. You are 100% correct. After I met my wife, her skin is basically like vantablack, my entire family disowned me. If you are not from Cullman, or never been for a few days, you don’t understand just how racist it is.
Definitely going to try to remember these (though some weren’t a surprise to me).
Do you have a city to add to the no-go list? Drop it in the comments!
