Biggest, most unflattering Stereotypes/Misconceptions of your city

[i'm not a cookie]

Split time between LA and PHX...LA has been done and Phoenix is my city:

Everyone loves guns- Most of my friends are anti-second amendment.
Everyone is republican- I'd say about half of my friends are dems other half are republican
Culturally, wee are a true southwestern city- this couldn't be further from the truth.
Phoenix is a wanabe LA- no one in Phoenix even talks about LA (san Diego on the other hand lol).

[bartonizer]

Bellingham, WA (also applies to Seattle and much of Western WA/PacNW)- lowest hours of sunshine in the US, so it must rain and be a depressing place all the time.

I hear it all the time, doesn't it always rain? First of all, the weather is much nicer and more variable than people think. And with mountains and water, the scenery is still visible, even when it does rain. Days that start out rainy often end in clearing skies and beautiful sunsets and vice versa. Also, much of Puget Sound is in a bit of a rain shadow from the Olympics. Sure, it's relative, but it does break up a lot of moisture that comes in from the Pacific. During winter the days are short and relatively dark, but the landscape is still very green. My wife, from the snowbelt near Erie, PA often remarks how much less depressing it is in that regard. In summer, the area has a dry, Mediterranean climate with very little precipitation at all.

This place is an outdoor mecca and the weather rarely slows anyone down. So it makes me laugh when other people assume that it's just nothing but drizzle and grey skies out here.

[Buckeye614]

Columbus, Ohio

Stereotypes:
Bland, cowtown, terribly boring, full of backwards people

Reality: Rapid population growth, political center in a swing state, robust economy and low-cost of living, extremely LGBT friendly, excellent and affordable food scene, oh and if you think Cbus is boring you should have been in the University District the night the Buckeyes won the national championship

New Jersey as a whole

stereotypes:
Gaudy, just Italian, all industrial, terribly polluted, uneducated, dirty.

Reality:
Parts of this stereotype are true in a very select areas of the state, right off the New Jersey turnpike and Newark airport is pretty hard to look at it, thankfully these industrial and high crime areas make up a small portion of our state and the rest is full of rolling hills, clean cut suburbs, lakes and beaches. New Jersey is incredibly diverse in terms of ethnic composition and is a highly educated state overall.

[jkobb510]

Originally Posted by Tdog79

Here's some stereotypes for Philly.

-Everyone knows a Rocky quote.
-Philly cheese steaks are a common part of diet.
-It's always very gritty or dirty (Not as bad as Camden).

Philly definitely does have a lot of dirtiness but some parts are really nice too. I don't think it was any more dirty than NYC to be honest.