Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:

MantaRay wrote:Baltimore, MD- pray you don't ever get lost in the wrong part of town.. never seen slums like this in my entire life. Cars on blocks are about the most scenic thing in parts of the city.

Are you a shut-in or blind?
DC is not only one of the scariest places I've ever been, but half the city is slummy enough to make Baltimore look like a Swiss villa.

agreed with the comment about gentrification.. and I've seen the worst of both cities, and Baltimore is worse. Anyone who lives around here would back me on this.

I remember the first time I drove to DC.
It was 1997 (this is an importantpart of the story) and as soon as I got off 295 and made it into the city, what did I see before my eyes?
A Checkers.

Christopher J. McGarvey wrote:

endofanera wrote:Baltimore residents salivate at any and all opportunities to put down DC.

You make it seem like that's a bad thing.

Nonsense. Just an observation. One that you continue to provide ample evidence for.

I guess you can take the boy out of Baltimore, but you can never take the Baltimore out of the boy.

endofanera wrote:
Baltimore residents salivate at any and all opportunities to put down DC.

DC residents never even think about Baltimore.

Let me preface my post above by saying I like to slag on both cities. Fuck em both.

I've lived in both cities/metropolitan areas and I work in DC. I live in Baltimore at the moment cause I could afford a house. I have no "love" for either city. There's nothing silly to the fact that, per capita, there are fewer middle class residents in DC in comparison to Baltimore. DC has relatively few manufacturing industries, Baltimore does. Just look at average cost of home sales (which I am quite familiar having looked in both cities). It's not silly, really. DC has rich and poor and not a whole hell of a lot in the lower middle or middle. (Unless, of course, you consider the influx of tourism workers during the daytime hours from PG county and the Route 1 corridor in Virginia.)

http://www.city-data.com/picfiles/pic1538.php

The city of Kingsport, TN during "summer fun fest".

It's worth clicking. I promise.

vockins wrote:Riverside, California - Decrepit malls and 70's planned communities. Like the Brady Bunch if everything was dirty/dead/tweaking.

This is all true, and you also could have mentioned the horrible air quality. Every day, the sky is the color of dump.

San Bernardino has all the same awful traits as Riverside, but with even more tweakers.

Riverside has an okay downtown and an okay college campus. San Bernardino has absolutely nothing even remotely okay.

San Bernardino, CA gets my vote.

I'll only answer for the U.S., since I'm sure there are far worse cities in the world based on our collective standards of living:

Fresno, California.

It's a populated dirt pancake. That's the best thing I can say. Nearby Reno, NV is like Heaven in comparison.

As for Tacoma, I would have agreed a few years ago, but they've really improved their game in the past few years. I was there a month or so ago for a weekend, and the downtown area is certainly improving, and not just in a luxury-condo-for-outer-Seattle-people type of way either. They have a tram (which Seattle doesn't), and a great transit system in the center. The folks behind the tourism offices in Tacoma today really have an attitude that "our city kinda sucks right now, seriously, and we have to work our asses off to get shit done.", which isn't something you encounter often.

Aberdeen, WA though... yeesh.

Same goes for its British Columbian counterpart, Nanaimo.

syntaxfree07 wrote: "summer fun fest".

I looked hard, and I couldn't find the "fun"

New Orleans...by far the worst city to disgrace these United States. Apparently god agreed and tried to wipe it off the face of the earth...so close, so close.

mackro wrote:Aberdeen, WA though... yeesh.

Same goes for its British Columbian counterpart, Nanaimo.

Yeah, I vacationed in BC for a week a year ago and a spent a day in Nanaimo. I remember the teachers were on strike and there were kids hanging around everywhere. It seemed to be the canadian interpretation of the mostly vacant U.S. strip mall in a town that had recently lost its bread and butter. Felt like it was about to become all the bad things about Vancouver on a small scale. Depressing port town. Good salmon though..