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I'm a former military brat and then wife, so I've lived in a lot of very different places. And traveled to a lot more. So I do have some life experience that generally allows me to feel comfortable in just about any setting.
HOWEVER, I've lived in a few places that I just did not ever feel at home in. They are, in no particular order:
Fort Hood, TX - Ugh. I really dislike Killeen and the surrounding area. This was a surprise to me because overall I really like Texas and I also like the Hill Country. But Killeen and Fort Hood were just so UGLY and hot and dusty. The whole place felt transient to me. It felt like it had no soul, no natives, no real personality, like it was just a sandy, dirty, unfriendly area.
Connecticut - OK, I have not lived there, but it was an area that left me surprised at the unfriendliness of the people in general. My husband (who has lived and worked all over the world - in at least 42 countries) and I are well traveled and are not ignorant people. We speak with a Texas twang because he's a native Texan and I have lived here for 25 years. Wherever we went - WHEREVER we went in CT - as soon as we started speaking, the person we were speaking to would begin to look at us with something close to pity, mixed in with disdain and would often start talking to us very slowly, as if we were mentally challenged or something. I remember we went up to the counter to order some tea at a sandwich shop one time and there was something slightly confusing about the tea - I can't even remember what now, it was so trivial - and I sort of laughed and said, "Oh, I'm sorry - my bad" and instead of the usual Southern/friendly response I was used to, the waiter AND the people in line behind me began muttering and rolling their eyes - it was ridiculous. It didn't make ME feel stupid - it made me simply think they were rude and pretentious.
Small, rural towns - A couple of times over the course of my life, I've lived in small, rural towns. I never felt like I fit in - a newcomer in a town where anyone who lived there went to school from kindergarten to high school graduation with the same clique of people. I am not from a rural background - I don't know how to run a trot line and I've never killed a rattle snake and if there's a mouse in my house I'm getting out of there till someone else comes and kills it for me. I don't know how to clean a fish and I never want to learn how. I've never driven a four wheeler. I don't like hunting or camping. But most of all, I don't care if your granddaddy was a charter member of the First United Methodist Church or if your great grandmother inherited the bootlegging fortune and married the governor's youngest son and they lived in that big house on the square. I could not care less and it doesn't make you any more important in my eyes. So yeah - not a fit for me. North, south, east or west - small rural towns seem to have a lot of similarities.
Colorado Springs, CO - very weird vibe to me. As someone else said earlier, I found out that I am not a big bad mountain range sort of person. Not my thing.
St. Louis, MO - I never lived there but I have visited several times. There seems to be a really bad issue with racism there. Maybe I'm wrong but I am used to the easy camaraderie between races that I've enjoyed so much in my many years of affiliation with military towns and the south and Texas (Texas is one of I think only three or four states that is a minority/majority state - where white non Hispanic folks, while the largest single demographic group, make up less than 50 percent of the population). St Louis seems really racially divided to me and the races don't seem to be particularly friendly or comfortable with each other. I don't like that.
Philadelphia, PA - I just haven't experienced very friendly folks there. Terrible customer service as well. Didn't seem like a very "user friendly" city.
Salt Lake City, UT - wow, it was like a pretend city or something. People were not unfriendly but it felt sort of Stepford Wives to me.
Places that I've loved and fit right in to:
Hampton Roads area of Virginia
Baltimore and Maryland in general
Maine - the whole state
New Orleans (but I don't particularly like the small towns in south Louisiana - very weird feel to many of them)
Atlanta and Columbus, GA
Fort Worth, TX
Tyler, TX
Texas Hill Country
Surprisingly -Oklahoma City, OK - super friendly people there
Another pleasant surprise - Dayton, OH
And another pleasant surprise - Springfield, MO
World wise - I loved England immediately and felt very much at home there and comfortable, in both the big city of London and the countryside of Yorkshire and everywhere in between. I also felt comfortable in the mid size cities of Germany. I'm generally not a big city lover (which is why loving London really surprised me) but I felt very comfortable and at home in mid sized German and Belgian and Dutch towns. Not so much in France or Austria.
I don't know if out of place is the right word but I spent about 3 hours in Gallup, NM and never saw another Anglo. Pretty much everyone downtown and all the businesses were Navajo.
anyone mind clearing this up? I think he is BSing us.
People who live in Minneapolis proper want it to be a big city Santa Cruz, people in the exurbs love Michelle Bachmann. It is a very split metro, so your reaction depends on who you are around.
Very interesting. Care to share what gave you that "get out!" feeling in Phoenix?
In my case, if I had to pick a physical trait, it'd be the general flatness of the city. By "flat", I mean buildings, not land. LA felt overwhelmingly suburban: huge expressways, one-story buildings in a sea of parking lots, lack of that historic look and feel, and a gridlocked traffic jam. Although the biggest contributor was still non-physical: me "knowing" that I'd never fit in there. Like a kale-eating, bike-riding, latte-sipping hipster in a Texas small town.
I don't know why. I am Swedish and a lot of my relatives settled in the midwest because the climate is similar. I had heard the city was great but I always felt out of place. It was like wearing shoes that were too tight. I was happy to leave.
Also West Virginia. I have a slight accent on certain words and I never got questioned about it for 20 years of being in the US until I was there for a conference. I have never felt so uncomfortably foreign.
Atlanta also just never did it for me.
Ever try Boston? Apparently a lot of Swedes up there
Anywhere outside the north-central U.S.
There might be places out west, but I'm not as well-travelled out there. My limited experience didn't look promising though.
I live in an Orlando suburb (not by choice, family obligations) and have always felt like the square peg in a round hole here after now in this area for the third time over 30 years. While supposedly progressive if one looks at voting records it's basically not and more/less a cultural vacuum with little interest or respect for intellect, plus as a "foodie" pretty much hellish in terms of interest, as the farm-to-table movement for instance has yet to take off here despite a national trend the past couple decades. Factor in the weather (over 85 degrees and wilting humidity 8 to 9 months of the year) and it's baffling how so many can't wait to move here.
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