Most/least favored cities in your state/province

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

For Ohio the answer is Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. If you love one, you hate the others - those are the rules.

haha yeah! — well i would say cle cant h8 on cols too much being everyone from cle moves there lol. i dont think i ever met anyone from cinci in cols, so they do better dealing with it i’m sure. otoh, cle and cinci definately don’t h8 at all because actually they don’t even recognize the other’s existence most of the time.


but seriously, there is an answer to this that is clear.


most favored: beloved, coddled by state government columbus
most unloved: the apocalyptic, abandoned suburb of east cleveland

[iheartthed]

I don't know know if NY has a least favored city. At least from NYC it's kind of taboo to speak ill of other parts of the state, other than the occasional swipe at Long Island. But I imagine that upstate gets annoyed at sharing a state with NYC.

Michigan... Detroit was the least favored city from about 1970 through the bankruptcy in 2013. The most favored city was Oakland County. Since the bankruptcy, I think Detroit has regained title of most favored, but also remained the least favored city.

[twinpeaks]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

haha yeah! — well i would say cle cant h8 on cols too much being everyone from cle moves there lol. i dont think i ever met anyone from cinci in cols, so they do better dealing with it i’m sure. otoh, cle and cinci definately don’t h8 at all because actually they don’t even recognize the other’s existence most of the time.

can you translate?

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by PoshSteve

For Ohio the answer is Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. If you love one, you hate the others - those are the rules.

Cincinnati hates everything outside of 275. Columbus is probably most-favored because of being the capitol and home to a giant-ass university that brings in people from all over the country/world. Hard to pick a place that's least-favored, since the state is comprised of so many different little regions. From what little experience I have with Cleveland, it struck me as being it's own worst enemy?

Cleveland and Cincinnati hate each other only when it comes to sports teams (neither professional football team has anything to brag about). Cincinnati hates Cleveland because of some sort of fucked-up inferiority complex (I think it hates being in Ohio?). Cleveland just shrugs, doesn't give it much thought, and worries about Cincinnati giving itself a heart attack with all the stress, defensiveness and anger.

Again, Cincinnati hates Ohio and even the Chamber of Commerce/tourism boards refuse to acknowledge that it's part of Ohio ("Cincinnati, USA"). It's bizarre. And don't even think about calling them Kentuckians (or as some people say, "Cincitucky")

[kool maudit]

In this part of Sweden, and the capital aside, I'd say Uppsala is the sweetheart and Södertälje is the goat.

[JManc]

NYC is definitely the most favored city in NYS. Several neglected cities upstate probably share the least favorite banner.

[austlar1]

The city (not a very big one) in Texas that almost everybody seems eager to avoid or to leave would be Lubbock, an utterly charmless municipality of about 250,000 stuck in the middle of West Texas nowhere. It is the seat of a major and rather mediocre state university (Texas Tech), which is the main reason anybody ever ventured there in the first place. I have never known a single soul who wanted to remain there for any longer than necessary, but I guess I'll probably hear from a few Lubbock defenders here on this forum. Austin probably still rates as the most favored city in Texas since so many folks from other large Texas cities often seem to express a desire to live there. There are plenty of detractors, however, who do view Austin with a jaundiced eye for one reason or the other.

[ThePhun1]

Camden? Gary? Parts of Baltimore? The South Bronx? San Bernardino (because of the low median income)?

[edale]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Camden? Gary? Parts of Baltimore? The South Bronx? San Bernardino (because of the low median income)?

Maybe Gary comes close. Parts of Detroit or East Cleveland or Flynt...places where nearly everything that can be demolished has been, save for some haunting ghosts of the past that stand abandoned. Take a look around ESL on streetview. The grid of downtown is still there, but only a few buildings are left. It's like it's been completely wiped off the map.

Certainly nothing like what exists in San Bernardino, which is just poor in parts.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Camden? Gary? Parts of Baltimore? The South Bronx? San Bernardino (because of the low median income)?

The South Bronx has a low median income but isn't remotely decayed-looking. In fact it's one of the fastest growing sections of NYC, with luxury highrise towers going up. There hasn't been abandonment in a couple of decades now.

San Bernadino is poor and messed up, but never had abandonment, ever. Like all poor areas of SoCal, it's thriving.

There are some pretty bad sections of Baltimore and Camden, but not really totally bombed-out, empty sections, like you would get in E. St. Louis. Even Detroit isn't quite as empty, not even Detroit's East Side.

I've never seen anything as apocalyptic as E. St. Louis in any major metro. Even Gary isn't quite as bad, but it probably comes closest. Saginaw and Flint too, but they're smaller metros.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Even Gary isn't quite as bad.

Yeah, if you streetview around the two, Gary does look ever so marginally better than ESL.

You know you're bottom of the barrel when even Gary can look down on you in the urban abandonment game.

And Gary is still home to the largest, most productive steel mill in the western hemisphere (though it only employs a small fraction of its former heyday employment), so it at least still has that huge industrial economic base to help prop itself up (however marginal that may be). I'm not aware of any massive industrial facility like that within ESL city limits.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, if you streetview around the two, Gary does look ever so marginally better than ESL.

You know you're bottom of the barrel when even Gary can look down on you in the urban abandonment game.

And Gary is still home to the largest, most productive steel mill in the western hemisphere (though it only employs only a small fraction of its former heyday employment), so it at least still has that huge industrial economuc base to help prop itself up (however marginal that may be). I'm not aware of any massive industrial facility like that within ESL city limits.

gary is the closest analog, if there is one, and nw indiana in general is the closest analog of the metro east. there have been massive meat packing, factories, stockyards, railyards, etc in east st louis but i think most of that is gone. theres still a steel mill directly north and tons of chemical facilities directly south in the adjacent industrial suburb/satellite siblings of estl.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, if you streetview around the two, Gary does look ever so marginally better than ESL.

You know you're bottom of the barrel when even Gary can look down on you in the urban abandonment game.

And Gary is still home to the largest, most productive steel mill in the western hemisphere (though it only employs a small fraction of its former heyday employment), so it at least still has that huge industrial economic base to help prop itself up (however marginal that may be). I'm not aware of any massive industrial facility like that within ESL city limits.

Most of the big industrial things were outside city boundaries for tax reasons. I think that's part of the problem of why ESL is in so much trouble.

Anyway, Cairo is obviously a much smaller city, but arguably looks worse than ESL.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Most of the big industrial things were outside city boundaries for tax reasons. I think that's part of the problem of why ESL is in so much trouble.

That's why I mentioned the steel mill for Gary. It's located within city limits and is no doubt a HUGE crutch that helps prop up the struggling city's tax base. ESL has no such luck.

Both cities also have casinos within city limits that I'm sure also help out with tax revenue, but casinos can suck out more than they give back, overall.

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Anyway, Cairo is obviously a much smaller city, but arguably looks worse than ESL.

Sure. And there are innumerable full-blown ghost towns that dot the plains and mountain west, but I assumed we were talking about places that had at least become small cities in there own right before they declined, say maybe at least 50,000 people or so. Cairo never came close to that mark.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Most of the big industrial things were outside city boundaries for tax reasons. I think that's part of the problem of why ESL is in so much trouble.

Anyway, Cairo is obviously a much smaller city, but arguably looks worse than ESL.

Henry Ford's desire to avoid Detroit's taxes is why Highland Park, MI, wasn't annexed into Detroit. Today Highland Park is only 20% of its peak population. It is probably in far worse shape than either EStL or Gary.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Yeah, if you streetview around the two, Gary does look ever so marginally better than ESL.

You know you're bottom of the barrel when even Gary can look down on you in the urban abandonment game.

And Gary is still home to the largest, most productive steel mill in the western hemisphere (though it only employs a small fraction of its former heyday employment), so it at least still has that huge industrial economic base to help prop itself up (however marginal that may be). I'm not aware of any massive industrial facility like that within ESL city limits.

IDK I think the massive polluting steel mill is really holding Gary back more than anything else, otherwise it would be a much better choice for urbanists looking for cheap housing to start settling in especially since it's right on the lovely Indiana dunes. The steel mill kinda ruins that.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by The North One

IDK I think the massive polluting steel mill is really holding Gary back more than anything else, otherwise it would be a much better choice for urbanists looking for cheap housing to start settling in especially since it's right on the lovely Indiana dunes. The steel mill kinda ruins that.

If the SSL ran more regularly that would probably also help. Gary is a relatively short ride to downtown Chicago.

That said, ESL has amazing train service to SL and that doesn't seem to help.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by The North One

IDK I think the massive polluting steel mill is really holding Gary back more than anything else, otherwise it would be a much better choice for urbanists looking for cheap housing to start settling in especially since it's right on the lovely Indiana dunes. The steel mill kinda ruins that.

If we're talking about Chicago transplants, if it was just the steel mill and not general crime and decay, why would they jump over Englewood and other inner city neighbourhoods and head that much further to Gary?

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by The North One

IDK I think the massive polluting steel mill is really holding Gary back more than anything else, otherwise it would be a much better choice for urbanists looking for cheap housing to start settling in especially since it's right on the lovely Indiana dunes. The steel mill kinda ruins that.

gary is too far from chicago to get urban transplants from the city. it's 25 miles from downtown chicago. and chicago iteslf already has dozens of sq. miles of forlorn neighborhoods on the southside chock-full of cheap housing that would have to fill up first before you saw much in the way of meaningful numbers of urbanists moving to gary (and gary really isn't all that urban of a place, any random southside neighborhood will have a much denser built form).

as for US Steel's Gary Works (the largest in the US), it, along with other associated industrial lands, occupies ~6.5 miles of Gary's 11 miles lake michigan shoreline. all told, it's about 8.5 sq. miles of land. it obliterated the dunes that were there when it was built over a century ago. and now, even it were to close, you'd be looking at decades-worth of environmental clean-up.

and that's not to mention that the #2 Steel plant in the US is located ~6 miles west of Gary along the lake at Indiana Harbor, and the #3 steel plant in the US is located ~10 miles east of gary at Burns Harbor (both now owned by ArcelorMittal). all told, NW Indiana holds half of the nation's BOF steel production capacity. HALF!

yes, steel production is a dirty, nasty business, the heaviest of all the heavy industries, but it has to be done somewhere. it's probably best to continue doing it where it's always been done.

[JManc]

Amarillo is terrible and literally smells like shit.