Most/least favored cities in your state/province

[SFBruin]

Originally Posted by IWant2BeInSTL

It's pretty damn bad. If you stand directly across the river from the Arch and draw a circle with a radius of 10 miles, I'd say just about everything within that circle on the east side is absolutely horrible. Strip clubs, poverty, decimation, pollution from chemical plants and refineries, crime. I doubt there's another city in the US (or maybe in the developed world) that has to contend with a neighbor as bad as East St. Louis, and the state of IL doesn't give a shit.

That said, if you go farther north along the river you find a bunch of cool, old river cities with tons of character like Alton and Grafton. To the northeast you've got Edwardsville (home to SIUE) and to the southeast you've got Belleville, both of which are nice little towns. Due east is basically exurbs, and I'm not sure about south along the river—I think it's pretty rural.

One of my favorite facts about Illinois is that the second largest metropolitan area in the state is eastern greater St Louis.

It would be kind of surprising if the state government was deliberately disinvesting in its second largest metro area, although I don't know enough about IL politics to know if this is possible.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by 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.

Lubbock at least has a university (caveat: I once considered attending law school at Texas Tech...) and I always thought Midland-Odessa was less favorable?

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Lubbock at least has a university (caveat: I once considered attending law school at Texas Tech...) and I always thought Midland-Odessa was less favorable?

Midland and Odessa are (during boom times) a great place to earn a very nice living. For that reason, they hold at least some attraction some of the time. This would not be one of those times. Lubbock, on the other hand, is just dull and dreary.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Midland and Odessa are (during boom times) a great place to earn a very nice living. For that reason, they hold at least some attraction some of the time. This would not be one of those times. Lubbock, on the other hand, is just dull and dreary.

Sure Lubbock is boring, but Amarillo has to be worse right? It doesn't even have Texas Tech! All they have is helium, beef, and nukes.
I guess the fact that they have nukes and helium makes them somewhat favored in some sense though!

[Dariusb]

Originally Posted by llamaorama

I'm not sure if Texas has an obviously dis-favored region in state politics. Areas that are on the periphery of the Houston-Dallas-Austin-San Antonio "triangle" region seem to receive greater than their expected share of highway funding and they all have large public universities, etc. If anything, it is the urban districts that get the short end of the stick.

In my experience traveling, Beaumont and Texarkana are both kind of grungy and Corpus Christi has some issues too. Conversely, the border cities like El Paso and panhandle cities exceeded my expectations. The poorest part of the state is South Texas, but in the RGV there's pockets of affluence and economic vibrancy so it doesn't come off as hopeless.

Just based on my own observations and experiences, the most favored seems to be either Dallas or Austin. I agree with you on least favored being Texarkana or Beaumont. I was born and raised in Texarkana and lived in Beaumont for about a year.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Sure Lubbock is boring, but Amarillo has to be worse right? It doesn't even have Texas Tech! All they have is helium, beef, and nukes.
I guess the fact that they have nukes and helium makes them somewhat favored in some sense though!

Guess with regards to Amarillo versus Lubbock, it is kind of a "pick your poison" sort of choice. I have a good friend who has somewhat fond memories of his Amarillo childhood, so maybe I am prejudiced. I've never heard anybody speak fondly about Lubbock.

Originally Posted by SFBruin

One of my favorite facts about Illinois is that the second largest metropolitan area in the state is eastern greater St Louis.

It would be kind of surprising if the state government was deliberately disinvesting in its second largest metro area, although I don't know enough about IL politics to know if this is possible.

yeah, the metro east contains a substantial portion of the St. Louis MSA but there's not much in the way of urbanity over there (mainly because East St. Louis is a crater.)

i don't know to what extent, if any, there is still competition between St. Louis and Chicago in terms of business, transportation, etc. but given that Chicago and Chicago politics dominate the state, i can very much see IL lawmakers intentionally neglecting the metro east to keep St. Louis at a competitive disadvantage. they've done similarly underhanded things in the past, and there's really no explanation, other than neglect, for why East St. Louis has remained in such an utter state of apocalypse for so many decades. i really don't think that people from other parts of the US understand the level of decimation in East St. Louis; it is comparatively beyond any other place in the US that people consider to be "bad".

[ThePhun1]

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

[JManc]

Amarillo is terrible and literally smells like shit.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Isn't that also where they make nuclear weapons?

[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.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Isn't that also where they make nuclear weapons?

Pantex, yup

[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.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

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.

Yeah, I was thinking of Highland Park, but it's such a tiny enclave. It's more like a small neighborhood than an entire city. And it isn't as desolate as ESL.

[llamaorama]

Amarillo has the feedlot smell and the scenery of its immediate surroundings are pretty bleak, but by and large I don't think its that bad.

It's an average looking small city.