Crummiest Freaking town in America (to live, restaurants, move to)

[NYMTman]

There are a bunch of really depressing small towns out West. Cisco, Utah (pretty much entirely abandoned buildings, but not in a quaint ghost way), Browning, Montana (really really poor, on a reservation), etc.

[jrc]

Crappy places I’ve been to
Tucumcari, NM
Barstow, CA
Gary, IN
Camden, NJ
Philadelphia, PA
Cleveland, OH
Joliet, IL
Detroit, MI
Abilene, TX (maybe I only saw the bad half)

On the other hand nice places I’ve been to
Asheville, NC
Nashville, TN
Lexington, VA
Lexington, KY
Tyler, TX
Denver, CO
Salt Lake City, UT
Anchorage, AK (if you can deal with the cold and dark winter, I couldn't)
Flagstaff, AZ
Santa Fe, NM (if you can deal with Hispanics, I could)

On a side note someone wrote:
‘In my humble opinion the school system (and our teachers) should be the highest funded public institution in the Union. If I ruled the world (imagine that ), teachers would be paid $500,000/year.’

This is ridiculous
I think the following should be paid more than teachers

1. Military personnel
2. Police officers
3. Firemen
4. Doctors
5. Registered nurses and nurse practitioners
6. Emergency medics
7. Scientist and inventors that help us live longer, safer more enjoyable lives
8. Business people who take risks to invest into the ideas of the scientist and inventors above.

There are others.

Just saying that we should pay all teachers $500,000 or $100,000 is so naïve. The world works on a supply and demand basis. There are many people who can do the job of teacher so the going rate is what it is based on location. Unions upset this balance a little but they can affect it only marginally. I guess we could go to a totalitarian dictatorship that sets the prices but I prefer the free market thank you.

[GypsyHeart]

New Mexico....Albuquerque/Los Lunas/Belen....crime, drugs, gangs, DUI/drunk driving off the charts, poverty, filth, welfare, poor school system....ghetto in the middle of the desert.
Espanola, NM....heroin capital of the US.....on and on......

[ExNYC]

It's time this country provided illegals with a 'safety zone' from which they cannot be deported. I nominate Washington, D.C. When the politicians are forced to put up with what the rest of the country does, perhaps they'll see the light about the effects of the millions of these infiltrators.

[LovinTheMountains]

Was Trenton, NJ mentioned?

[SteelCityRising]

The title of "Armpit of America", in which Scranton was wrongfully-named as "runner-up", should have instead gone to Pittston, another struggling former mining community approximately ten miles south of the Electric City. My hometown of Pittston has descended from a peak of 21,000+ residents in its industrial heyday to just 7,000 mostly impoverished souls now. Meanwhile, the surrounding suburbs, including my own, are brimming with tract housing McMansions, chain stores, downed trees, and driveways adorned with BMWs. Here's a brief sampling of what Downtown Pittston looks like today:









For those of you who think urban Sp-r--a---w----l is a good thing, look how it has managed to destroy a once vibrant "Bedford Falls" type of community. Plans are currently underway to demolish yet another historic structure, the Radio City Building, to make way for another empty lot in Downtown Pittston. My parents, as recently as the 1960s, were able to head to Main Street and go to a JCPenney, Woolworth's, American Theatre, and a variety of other mom-and-pop shops and restaurants. Now, Pittston Township, among the most rapidly-growing communities in the region, is sucking the last remnants of Pittston's middle-class out of its municipal boundaries and into tract housing in places such as Horizon Estates, Quail Hill, Gable Crest, etc. Retailers have followed---the new "Pittston Crossings" retail complex, anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter, will be open this year, along with another new strip mall recently announced just down Highway 315.
These, in turn, will help to further the abandonment of the township's FIRST wave of urban sprawl, as tenants of the existing Pittston Commons and Pittston Plaza flee to the much-busier "315 Corridor." Center Point, a new major upscale commerce park that is being marketed towards Wall Street West, has also caused the vast downing of trees throughout the community. Highway 315 and its surrounding arterials, at rush hour, now back-up horrifically, even as new sprawl is rubber-stamped every month for this corridor. Between Highway 315, Oak Street, I-81, and I-476, 150,000 vehicles or so per day pass through this portion of Pittston Township, which has made it Pittston's "new" downtown, leaving Main Street to continue to decay with impoverished derelicts roaming the streets and facades crumbling on historic structures.

I once longed to stay in the downtown to help it on its path to recovery, even launching a new website (http://www.pittston.org) of a grass-roots organization called "Pittston 2020." However, I decided to abandon all hope for the city when I realized its own residents were too STUPID and poorly-educated to listen to new ideas to help their city rise from the ashes. Instead of pushing for historic preservation, most locals wanted to raze the older buildings in downtown in favor of "newer and better" chain drug stores, fast-food restaurants, drive-thru banks, and parking lots. While other local towns have become wildly popular tourist draws as a direct result of restoring older architecture (Lewisburg, Honesdale, Clarks Summit, New Hope, Stroudsburg, Bloomsburg, and even Scranton), Pittston's residents still didn't think that was the right path for us to go down, so they can take their decaying dump of a town and shove it! As for me, I'll be opening up my business and raising my family within Scranton's city limits, as people there seem to be more open-minded towards intelligent ideas towards rebuilding their city. Honestly, a drive-thru bank branch is a better option for Main Street than a refurbished older building with a specialty shop or restaurant on the first floor with living quarters overhead? What are these people smoking?!

[TERRIE]

I Definitly Wouldn't Call It The Crummiest Place To Visit...but To Live........paleese!.....if You Like Your $600.000 Home Surrounded By People Who Think Mowing Their Yard Is Too Much Work,spraying For Termites And Centipieds Would Cost Too Much Or That Three Junker Cars Parked In Your Yard "looks Ok" (this Is Common Around The Whole Island, Unless Your In The Multi-million Dollar Homes)!... ...oh, Did I Mention A Gallon Of Milk Is 7-8 Dolllars, Gas The Highest In The Nation!... If Your Not Local And You Get Pulled Over...you Will Get A Ticket...can't See The Beauty Of The Island Cuz Your Too Busy Working All The Time Just To Make Ends Meet...
Great Place To Visit, But A Very Crummy Place To Live Unless Money Is No Object.....

[suzanne7575]

wow, what an interesting thread, I'm just embarking on a move over to the states and i now know where not to go!!!! (erm pretty much the US i guess

However having lived for 10 years in Hull, England, and the fact that it is soooo bad it even gets a mention on a website dominated by US people goes to show what a grotty hellhole it is, so even the crummiest places in the US sound ike a dream.

[nanannie]

Originally Posted by TERRIE

I Definitly Wouldn't Call It The Crummiest Place To Visit...but To Live........paleese!.....if You Like Your $600.000 Home Surrounded By People Who Think Mowing Their Yard Is Too Much Work,spraying For Termites And Centipieds Would Cost Too Much Or That Three Junker Cars Parked In Your Yard "looks Ok" (this Is Common Around The Whole Island, Unless Your In The Multi-million Dollar Homes)!... ...oh, Did I Mention A Gallon Of Milk Is 7-8 Dolllars, Gas The Highest In The Nation!... If Your Not Local And You Get Pulled Over...you Will Get A Ticket...can't See The Beauty Of The Island Cuz Your Too Busy Working All The Time Just To Make Ends Meet...
Great Place To Visit, But A Very Crummy Place To Live Unless Money Is No Object.....

Having spent time in Hawaii and having friends who live there,,I sadly have to agree with you,,great vacation spot,,,tough place to live I'm sure,but it was also tough to leave,,so beautiful and the weather was perfect

[shadowmary]

Originally Posted by MagpiesMagpiesMagpies

There's a lot of talk on this forum about the best places to live. How 'bout we take a different trajectory and shout out the worst places that this great big country of ours has to offer. Don't just give names, say why they suck!

So let's have it -- how many armpits does this country have anyway?

Magpies

Madisonville, Kentucky