I’ve done a fair amount of traveling across our great country and I can see the bad AND the good in every city I’ve been to.
Let’s take Chicago for instance. I lived there for five years and there are many great things about it, but there are also certain aspects of that particular city that drive me totally insane.
But the people you’re about to hear from didn’t hold back at all when they talked about what they think is the worst city in America…let’s take a look at what they had to say.
1. Top two.
“Bakersfield, California is the worst.
Please never go there. There is no reason to go there.
It is followed closely by Dodge City, Kansas.”
2. A twofer.
“Midland/Odessa, TX.
It’s two miserable cities close to each other in the middle of the Permian Oil Field. Your hours away from any other real city in west Texas. The population is basically all transitory-meaning it doubles in size during a oil boom and empties during a bust.
When oil booms, it jacks the prices on everything, traffic sucks cause everyone can only live or stay in Midland or Odessa. Traffic fatalities there are the worst in Texas. I almost get in a wreck every time i drive down the parking lot rows at walmart. When it rains, I get the crude oil stench in my neighborhood. The m**h is pretty top notch though.”
3. Meanwhile, in Ohio…
“Youngstown, OH.
It was major Steel producer in the 1940’s, but after the mills shut down the Mafia basically had their way with it.
Now there’s really no reason for it to exist besides a small university, YSU, which the locals all refer to as “you screwed up” If you take the sketchiest parts of any major city you’ve been to… that’s basically all of Youngstown.”
4. Down South
“Biloxi, MS.
No redeeming qualities unless you like sweating your balls off at 7 am and waffle houses on every corner.”
5. ATL.
“Atlanta. I’ve lived there and it is weird.
It isn’t really on the river and it’s nowhere near the ocean. It was instead built at the crossroads of railroad lines. Which means it’s ugly. People line up to take photos off some bridge…of a highway exchange (the view was popularized in the Walking Dead or something). Every epic photo I’ve ever seen of the place is bisected by highways. It’s a damn highway town.
Those major highways are Interstates 85, 75, and 20. They are ALWAYS slow, and they oddly always have broken down or collided cars off to the side. Every day I would drive I-75 and there’s always a broken down car on the shoulder. I’ve never seen this in any other big city. Not in NYC, not in LA, not in Seattle, not in Portland.
The pay is miserable and the cost of living isn’t commensurate with the wages in and around Atlanta.
What Atlanta does have is a thriving film industry, the CDC, Turner Broadcasting, Home Depot, lots of sport franchises and warm weather. But the city itself is so d**n ugly. It’s just a wretched place.
Oh, and the strip malls with chicken joints! Chick-fil-A, KFC, Popeye’s, Chicken Salad Chick, Zaxby’s, Bojangles, chicken bones litter the streets.
I’m so sorry this is so disjointed. Atlanta sincerely traumatized me. I’m in a much better place now.”
6. Hot and steamy.
“Miami.
Hot year round, traffic, s** trafficking amongst other crime, expensive, hurricanes, even residents complain, smells.”
7. Scary.
“Maybe Hartford, CT.
There’s just nothing there.
It’s insurance companies and street gangs.
That’s it.”
8. Could go either way.
“Tough call between Salt Lake City Utah or Little Rock Arkansas.
Both cities are slowly gentrifying themselves to d**th, while anyone who’s not a whit heteros**ual “Christian” essentially has no rights whatsoever.”
9. A cesspool.
“Hollywood…LA overall isn’t the worst, but Hollywood is a cesspool.
It’s been accurately described as the world’s most disappointing tourist destination for many reasons.”
10. Mississippi.
“Jackson, MS. Freaking sad and embarrassing that our capital doesn’t have drinking water, trash pickup, drivable roads, or other things that most small cities across the country already have.
Potholes that have been there for years deep enough to destroy your rims if you don’t constantly switch back and forth between the lanes. Most people I know avoid going into the city limits at all costs because the crime is so high. I mean driving 30-40 minutes out of the way to go around the city. Recently, there was an announcement that if you’re in a car accident to just keep driving to a safe destination instead of stopping because people were purposely wrecking into others in order to jack their vehicle or rob them.
It’s almost like we’re a third world country, and it sucks. Check out Yazoo City as well. It’s much smaller but just as bad if not worse. Sucks seeing cities you grew up in go to crap. Many of the cities in the state are this way, and I can’t wait to freaking leave.
11. Let’s get outta here.
“Oakland.
Went to get a medical procedure done there and there were active encampments underneath the overpass on the street. Like a whole d**n street was shut down.
Had to take the long way ended up idling at a red light and watched a shirtless guy randomly punch a window of a truck two cars behind me and walk away. I was out.”
12. Deep in the heart of…
“Dallas
The entire DFW metroplex is a dusty s**t hole packed to the rafters with the worlds most basic motherf**kers imaginable. This town is Jerry World, that’s right as in Jerry Jones. 9 thousand square miles inhabited by 8 million people all amounting to one life support system for a giant communal ego.
BIG D!!! The land that self awareness forgot and decency goes to d**.
Where narcissism rules, no truck is too big, every road is a toll road, every restaurant is a chain, every business a front for a scam and f**k you, I got mine. That’s real freedom. If you don’t like it then you just hate us ’cause you ain’t us.
And that’s the absurd part. For all the bluster and ego it’s easily the lamest most vanilla big city in the country. There’s literally nothing of interest here. No culture, no scene, no creative center, nothing. A black hole of thought and creativity constantly spewing ‘influencers’ onto the internet with their bulls**t.
Oh sure if you’re absolutely in love with sprawl, strip malls, mega churches, right wing politics and unearned confidence then Dallas must seem like heaven. After all it is home to the 3 Percenters, Patriot Front AND Mary K. How ’bout them Cowboys?
The place does have its fans. People who like things just right and are convinced that leading the local Junior League is the height of achievement, if a town only has 10 radio stations well it’s a darned good thing 8 of them are hosting Evangelical religious sermons and right wing talk shows.
No shame in their game as they continue to milk borrowed glory and imagined glamour from a 40 year old TV show and a 30 year old super bowl win. A town thriving on it’s delusions.
Best of all it has the highest density of men’s Low-T clinics in the world, by a lot, they’re f**king everywhere and I’m convinced that it’s the explanation for the ludicrous state of Texas politics. Just imagine hordes of obese, middle aged, evangelical diabetics with roid rage.
That last part isn’t a joke. There’s a low T clinic at the end of my street. It’s in a strip mall in between a Schlotzsky’s deli and an In-n-Out burger. And that pearl of information, fine Redditors, should explain everything perfectly.”
Now it’s your turn!
Tell us what you think about this in the comments.
We’d love to hear from you!
