The Ten Worst American Cities to Live In

Bully Magazine ^ | Ken Wohlrob

[Hillary's Folly]

Bully's "Ten Worst American Cities To Live In" List

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By Ken Wohlrob

10. Seattle

Seattle would seem to have everything going for it. Great music, good restaurants, a beautiful landscape, a range of ethnic cultures, and centralized collection of hi-tech businesses that attract brainy folks from places like San Francisco (ever since that city hit the economic slide). So what makes Seattle one of the ten worst cities to live in? Well it's those same techies who fled San Francisco to seek Seattle's venture-capital rich environment, usually after watching the movie Singles, who have turned this once humble and artistic community into a plague of cellphone sporting, PDA carrying idiots who fly around the streets in their Volkswagens while listening to the Flaming Lips. You know that annoying jackass who walks around in the cellphone commercials saying, "Can you hear me now?" He's the official mascot for Seattle. About the only consolation to all this is that Seattle still has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation.

9. Toledo

The first of the Ohio Triplets on our list, Toledo would be the perfect place to re-make The Omega Man. This mostly due to the fact that this Midwestern hole is so bleak, so gray, so devoid of life, that except for rush hour, you wouldn't know that anyone actually lived in Toledo. Forget civic pride, everyone in Toledo knows the city is a hellhole and just stays home to watch TV. Last time we visited, the only after hours joint was located in a hotel for men. Toledo's official city slogan should be "Toledo…We're…well…ah screw it."

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"What can we say about Miami except that it brings out the worst cheesy tendencies in people of all races, creeds, and colors."

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8. Los Angeles

If you look at some of the most talented people to ever walk the planet that ended up destroying themselves - Hemingway, Bruce, Belushi, Morrison, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Welles, and yes even Osbourne - all have one thing in common. LA.

7. Salt Lake City

This one should be obvious to any intelligent human: Mormons and lots of them. Need we say more?

6. Cincinnati

If you took Chicago, sucked out every last ounce of culture including its thriving music scenes and quality restaurants and bars, leaving a graying hulk of skyscrapers and a complete lack of night life, then you would have Cincinnati. To some Cincinnati is the greatest city in the U.S. - usually these folks are old, white, Christian fundamentalists, confined to wheelchairs, and are very scared of "coloreds." If you are not this type of person and you live in Cincinnati and like it, you have mental problems and should seek professional help.

5. St. Louis

The "Gateway to the West" has three strikes against it. First is that St. Louis has the highest crime rate of any U.S. city. Second, the main architectural landmark looks like an unfinished McDonald's logo. Third, Bob Costas lives there.

4. Atlanta

Any place nicknamed "Hotlanta" has to suck big time. Here's the catch: Did you ever meet someone who went to New York City and said, "I didn't like it, it was too dirty and oh my God there were all these weirdoes." Usually in the next sentence they'll say, "But I really like Hotlanta, it's so cool down there." That's because Atlanta is the city of choice for suburbanites who don't really like cities. Hence Atlanta has turned into nothing more than an over-sprawled suburb, just with more bad bars.

3. Miami

What can we say about Miami except that it brings out the worst cheesy tendencies in people of all races, creeds, and colors. If you want to see blacks, whites, and latinos at their intellectual lowest, than Miami is just for you. Gaudy neon, bad dance clubs, dopey fashionistas, y'all come back now ya hear!

2. Phoenix

Only an idiot would want to spend most of the year trapped in air conditioning. Such an idiot usually moves to Phoenix. Then this dope will say, "Yeah but it's a dry heat." To make matters worse there is absolutely nothing to do in Phoenix besides run from your car's air conditioning to your house's air conditioning. Or you can play golf. Otherwise, they should tear the whole metropolis down and let it just rot back into the desert.

1. Cleveland

The obvious choice for worst city to live in is Cleveland. Not so much because of the lack of culture. Nor is it the lack of a thriving night life. And it is not the constant economic pall that looms over the city. What really makes Cleveland the worst city in all of America is the fact that it shares many of these qualities with other cities - such as its Ohio Twin, Toledo - and refuses to acknowledge it. As a recent article in the Washington Post pointed out, Cleveland peaked in the 1930s and has been on the downslide ever since. To make matters worse, the Plain Dealer - the local city newspaper - found that the higher a young person's education degree, the more likely said person was to move out of Cleveland. In fact it was one of the only three major metropolitan areas in the 1990s to experience such a mass exodus of intelligence. In essence, smart people leave Cleveland while the dumb stay to crank out children and watch the Indians games. Now if you said this to the average Clevelandite, they would call you an a-hole, pound their fist on the table, and insist that Cleveland has just as much to offer as New York City or Chicago. It's almost as if the citizens have become desensitized to the obvious. At least the Toledoans have a clue, but Clevelandites like their city just the way it is and they're damn proud of it…with the closed steel mills, and bad wing joints, and those horrible blues bands that all play a terrible rendition of "Mustang Sally."

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[T Minus Four]

On the other hand, SLC was recently voted one of the "funnest" cities in the country. I agree with that list, rather than this one. I'm not Mormon, but they're great folks as a whole, and I appreciate their family values, which makes this a nice place to live, all in all.

Fun Cities

[Lijahsbubbe]

Do you agree with the assessment of Phoenix also? Alot of people from Minnesota move down there to retire and think it's all that.

[Hillary's Folly]

The writer of this article must be young. His criteria for a good city is Nightlife

Bingo, but then when I was young that too was my criteria, that an liberal open container laws. These days I'm with country mouse and stay clear of the city as much as possible.

[Bikers4Bush]

Lol! I have to get my jabs in where I can now that I had to watch us lose to the "Stullers" a-freaking-gain at home.

We're screwed until Davis is gone.

[truthandlife]

I do a lot of business in Salt Lake City and I really love visiting the city. People are very friendly, city beautiful and downtown is great. I don't know if I would want to live there though. I do have a co-worker who lives there and he is an atheist now (use to be a Mormon) and says the city is pure "hell" and wants to get out of there. He says it is the worst.

[Hillary's Folly]

Do you agree with the assessment of Phoenix also? Alot of people from Minnesota move down there to retire and think it's all that.

My problem with Pheonix, as with these new big cities in the South, is that the sunbelt really is no place for huge cities. It's just too hot. That said, I prefer Flagstaff when in Arizona.

[Eva]

What the author failed to mention about Seattle is that it has the third largest homosexual population in the country and that the gays rule the politics of the city. (Maybe that was who he was describing, running around in their Volkswagons).

[RockChucker]

This Top Ten list is a fraud only because Detroit did not even get an honorable mention.

[KarlInOhio]

If you took Chicago, sucked out every last ounce of culture including its thriving music scenes and quality restaurants and bars, leaving a graying hulk of skyscrapers and a complete lack of night life, then you would have Cincinnati

Cincinnati is where Daytonians want to go to have fun. I don't know if that says more about Dayton or Cincinnati. :-)

[discostu]

It's easier to drive in heat than snow. As nasty as it gets in Phoenix they never need to close the schools due to sun fall.

[Mr. Mojo]

Ping

[handk]

But Drew Carey said "Cleveland Rocks!"?

[LiteKeeper]

bump

[gracex7]

No and no.

[bigeasy_70118]

Detroit and Philly both deserve to be on this list. It must be the Larry Brown connection.

[T Minus Four]

The trick is not to actually live in the city. We're way north where it starts to thin out, but we're still close enough to take advantage of the shopping, dining, arts, zoo, etc.

[ArrogantBustard]

Any list of this nature which does not list Nu Yawk $#!+y in the top ten has no credibility.

[Andyman]

I am a Catholic living in Salt Lake City and I LOVE it. Nice, friendly people. I've lived in the Midwest, lived overseas, lived in two places in California, and SLC is by FAR the best place I've ever lived. The place is great primarily BECAUSE of the Mormon influence, rahter than in spite of the Mormon influence.

[chimera]

Ohio may have it's triplet of loser cities, but one reason why they are somewhat unbreable is because of the lousy weather in this area. From about October through April, you just want to crawl into bed and hibernate. Cold, gray, wet, boring. Time to head south...

Actually, my home state, New Jersey, has its own triplet of hellholes, and I'm amazed that they didn't make the list. Anyone want to take their life in their hands, take a walk after dark in Newark, Camden, or Trenton. Schundler did a decent job of turning around Jersey City, so I'd have to leave that one out. Bayonne, OTOH...

[BlackRazor]

Not sure exactly who I'd take out, but Detroit and Hartford definitely belong in the Top 10.