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Belfast looked like sh*t honestly, I've been there. The murals are a big redeeming factor however. Without murals it'd be extremely depressing. But I wouldn't say it's a bad place to live, from what I know the crime is low. The prices are disgusting though, no way I'd survive as a starving college student
The worst city in the world would need to be in an active warzone, and a lot of these cities don't qualify. They may have been former warzones, but are not warzones at the moment. Even Mogadishu falls into this category. It does have occasional bombings, but fewer per capita than Baghdad or other Iraqi cities, and it is now rather firmly under Somali government/African Union forces control.
Juarez's murder rate is still high, but not nearly as high as it was in 2009 through early 2012. The city has sports teams, festivals, and actually continues to gain population in the metro area. Cross-border traffic is still substantial. It's a long, long ways from "as bad as it gets."
It also depends who you are. Mosul, Iraq is bad enough, but if you are one of the ethnic/religious minority groups currently being "cleansed" from the city by assassinations and bombings (like the Yazidis, or the Shabaks), then things are really bad.
There are some extremely bad-off areas of central Africa (the Central African Republic as a nation basically collapsed back in March), but those are small settlements or villages rather than "real" cities. The cities tend to be the only anchors of any kind of stability in those regions, however fragile.
I'd suspect that whichever large city in Syria is currently under the most intense shelling is going to be the worst in the world at any given moment. Other cities might be worse momentarily (like Monrovia whenever it got sacked by some faction in Liberia's old civil wars), but being in a cut-off, contested Syrian city which is too small to have many "safe" zones (smaller than Damascus or even Aleppo) would be extremely bad.
How odd that no one has mentioned Damascus yet, or Aleppo, Homs, Latakia...
Obviously, cities where there is a war going on at the molment will, at that point in time, be among the "worst" cities in some visible respects. (Nobody put Dresden or Hiroshima on the list.) But otherwise, Damascus is at least average by middle-east standards, and Aleppo, Homs and Latakia are all lovely cities, and the Syrians are extremely generous and welcoming hosts to visitors in their country.
Why not just say the worst cities are the ones where there is a current war going on, the second worst are the ones that have not yet recovered from recent wars or recent natural disasters, and then comes all the rest? Nobody would disagree with you. But what is the point of saying something so obvious?
AGREED!
The fact that Beirut, Belfast, Sarajevo, Bogota (and Medellin!!?? as if they can be classified as the same city), Tijuana, and DF were on that original list is absurd.
I will also agree that there should be American cities on a list like this since some of the most miserable places I have ever seen are in the states.
Glad to see someone else nominated Fresno haha
Of course American cities should be on that list. Just pick any city in Mississippi, doesn't matter which one, just pick any one.
Those Belfast pictures look nice but I'm still wondering about the "peace walls" and the barricades that the city is most famous for. Belfast will always be synonomous with the Northern Ireland conflict and the IRA bombings plus the nonstop sectarian violence.
Bogota and Medellin are centers for major Colombian drug cartels and Colombia is also in a civil war between the government and the FARC rebels. There are also regular kidnappings in Colombia by rebels and organized crime groups and gangs. Tijuana is a center for the drug war, just like Juarez is.
Mogadishu is probably the worst though, in addition to the continuing violence it is one of the most impoverished and lawless places on Earth. If you look at the housing stock remaining its worse than Baghdad.
Those Belfast pictures look nice but I'm still wondering about the "peace walls" and the barricades that the city is most famous for. Belfast will always be synonomous with the Northern Ireland conflict and the IRA bombings plus the nonstop sectarian violence.
Bogota and Medellin are centers for major Colombian drug cartels and Colombia is also in a civil war between the government and the FARC rebels. There are also regular kidnappings in Colombia by rebels and organized crime groups and gangs. Tijuana is a center for the drug war, just like Juarez is.
Mogadishu is probably the worst though, in addition to the continuing violence it is one of the most impoverished and lawless places on Earth. If you look at the housing stock remaining its worse than Baghdad.
Those walls have some beautiful murals on them actually.
Huge fan of it btw, taking something negative and using art to make it look more positive.
they do it in Berlin and Detroit, Detroit's Heidelberg Project
Belfast looked like sh*t honestly, I've been there. The murals are a big redeeming factor however. Without murals it'd be extremely depressing. But I wouldn't say it's a bad place to live, from what I know the crime is low. The prices are disgusting though, no way I'd survive as a starving college student
I don't see how you can write the entire city of as depressing? Sure it has some bad areas as remnants of sectarianism, but the downtown area is beautiful as are many of the leafy suburbs with their hilly and green backdrops.
Belfast has actually become a major tourist destination:
Tourists generally don't go to depressing places. I mean I don't see too many people paying money to visit and stay in Detroit. The violence in Belfast is still generally lower than in moat US cities, but it has been hurt by over the top negative publicity and is associated with the era in which the troubles were at their worst when the city was still occupied by the British Army.
On another note I don't think that Mexico City should be in this poll either.
So.....what is THE WORST hell on the face of the Earth?????
Belfast shouldn't be on that list at all. It is one of the safest cities in the world and has a very lively entertainment section.
It is decades since there has been any significant unrest in Belfast.
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