The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsWhat are the least beautiful places you ever visited?
Many parts of the NE corridor as viewed from Amtrak.
The rather scary parts of Baltimore, quite close to the train museum.
Large sections of Detroit.
Oil refineries in New Jersey.
What are yours?
lapfog_1
(29,191 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,816 posts)Watchfoxheadexplodes
(3,496 posts)Upstate south Carolina
The isolated areas of the Louisiana bayou.
dawg
(10,621 posts)nolabear
(41,932 posts)Buddy...
Aristus
(66,286 posts)A squalid, muddy hellhole.
I suppose at one time its lush forests and rambling hills were beautiful. But now, the place is ugly, uninviting, dirty, and depressing.
I visited the region when I was in the Army and part of a funeral detail for a veteran who had lived in the hill country in the extreme east of the state. It was the kind of place where you more or less expected Snuffy Smith to jump out at you from behind a boulder, brandishing a blunderbuss.
I realize that the region's condition is largely due to the grinding, oppressive poverty that hangs over the place like a cloud. But I can't help reflecting that the people there are eager participants in their own economic oppression. If they can get together to end the clear-cutting of their forests and the explosive destruction of their once-lovely hills, maybe they can turn it around.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Aristus
(66,286 posts)And I was planning to borrow it from the library to read in full. Then I found it that it is very popular with conservatives, and reconsidered.
Evidently, it seems to validate right-wing beliefs about welfare cheats, even though the subjects are white people who vote Republican.
lark
(23,061 posts)Going through there during rush hour traffic 40 years ago, so driving slow, it looked like one giant slum for miles and miles and miles, so dirty, poor and hopeless looking. Hope things have improved a lot since then.
KS, also 40 years ago. It was just so bleak and dried up looking, even the cars were really bad. Never will go to either place again if I can avoid them. I don't remember seeing anything nice in the whole state.
fifthoffive
(382 posts)woodsprite
(11,904 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)What's not to like?
woodsprite
(11,904 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Years and years ago, I was at a comedy club in Wilmington and the comedian was absolutely dying.
There was a loud "boom" somewhere outside, and he asked, "What was that?"
Someone in the audience said "Marcus Hook."
And the comedian says, "Marcus Hook? Does he blow up a lot or something?"
The audience started laughing, and the comedian thought he was onto something, but he didn't realize that everyone was laughing at him thinking Marcus Hook was a place instead of a person.
malchickiwick
(1,474 posts)... having never set foot inside, I can't say I've ever actually visited. We do have one where I live and it stands there in the skyline like a disgusting gold brick.
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)...passed thru it a few years ago. Looked like an atom bomb had hit it. It's too bad, since I love so much of Baltimore...
rzemanfl
(29,554 posts)OregonBlue
(7,754 posts)Everything rusted, old mattresses everywhere, all the old houses falling down and broken out windows, etc. It was really depressing. Coming from Seattle I had a hard time believing it was America.
rzemanfl
(29,554 posts)Burma Jones
(11,760 posts)Took my son through there on a Midwest College Visit tour 4 years ago. I asked him to make sure he thanked my Father the next time he saw him for getting the hell out of Gary.
It was about as bleak a place as I've ever seen, complete with yet another failed Trump Casino.
rzemanfl
(29,554 posts)I stayed in Wisconsin until I moved to Florida twenty-one years ago.
Awsi Dooger
(14,565 posts)My name is Gary so I was excited to visit the first time. Then once I saw it I was almost embarrassed. Mostly I wanted to get out of there.
I went back a decade or so later and it matched my initial impression. That was 1981 and I haven't been back since.
Good handicapping in this thread because other cities that came to mind quickly have also been mentioned -- Detroit and El Paso, along with some of the dull stretches to drive like eastern Kansas and much of Wyoming.
phylny
(8,368 posts)East Chicago, Indiana.
We lived in Munster and my husband worked in East Chicago. It was not pleasant there.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)I was totally unimpressed when I visited this spot. Gaudy hotels and casinos surrounded by slums.
Bantamfancier
(365 posts)One block off the boardwalk and it's a war zone.
randr
(12,409 posts)I admit I have only passed through on the I-70. No rest stops and trash, enormous amounts, covered the road side.
Freddie
(9,256 posts)Expecting some scenery, it was 90% weeds and the backs of buildings. A couple downtowns were nice.
malthaussen
(17,175 posts)... into the city, this would not surprise you. Really bleak.
-- Mal
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Nothing like starting your day with a stop at the "Chester Transportation Center".
Generic Brad
(14,272 posts)I went there for dinner one night back in the 80's. The homeless, the poverty, the hustlers - it felt dystopian.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)CanonRay
(14,084 posts)Floyd R. Turbo
(26,544 posts)Filthy! Incredible poverty. The stench is overwhelming. People urinate and defecate openly in the streets.
Thyla
(791 posts)In fact the Spanish have a knack at turning beautiful locations into horrible ticky tacky. And Alicante is stuck in an awful 70's art deco nightmare.
Also the industrial north in France, Belgium and Netherlands is a bit rough and there are certainly parts of Brussles that I would not venture to again.
TuxedoKat
(3,818 posts)along the coast of Spain. Very dry and mountainous, no trees, or much green vegetation, very rocky, brown and ugly. On the return though at night, driving inland we could smell orange groves perfuming the air, too bad it was dark. I'm sure it would have been lovely.
kwassa
(23,340 posts)must have been quite comfortable in California when they first colonized it.
Similar climate and appearance.
Sinistrous
(4,249 posts)Everything is brown. And the HEAT!!!!
GeorgeHayduke
(1,227 posts)It takes some getting used to, but some places are really lovely. And I'm an outdoorsy guy from tge mountains of the Northwest.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,153 posts)Which isn't a slum by any conventional means of the word. It's considered a middle class bedroom community for New York.
But for whatever reason when I was there, I just found it to be utterly soulless and joyless....just stretches of sprawled up boulevards filled with traffic lights where you couldn't even turn left.
Of course, the fact I associate it with an ex-girlfriend might have something to do with my feelings about it. And the fact that I visited in the dead of winter when it was cold and icy and everything was dead and brown.
I also found Las Vegas to be incredibly tacky and cheesy beyond redemption both times I've been there.
crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)I was just on the train through there today.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,587 posts)nocalflea
(1,387 posts)cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)Aberdeen/Hoquiam WA is pretty dismal. The usual rural poverty, plus a grimy decaying waterfront, plus a degree of cloud cover and rain that makes Seattle look like San Diego.
Bayard
(22,005 posts)Bakersfield, CA, where the entry from the north is all oil fields. Fresno, coming in from the West.
Cleveland, OH, from what I saw
The side of Chicago I was lost in once, going between Minneapolis where I was living, back home to Louisville. Pulled over to look at a map, and a cop pulled up behind me and said--follow me, I'm going to lead you out of here NOW.
Wwcd
(6,288 posts)We ended up down in the middle of the hell-hole, needed gas but just kept driving as locals approached our car with the MN license plates
We were high so that miggt have added to the paranoia.
But yes it was as far into inner city as I had ever been. Dark lit streets, trash, stench, & bars on every window.
I have no idea where in Birmingham we actually were.
We had a map but GPS sure would have been welcome back then.
GeorgeGist
(25,311 posts)Cairo,IL
Grand Rapids, MI
Erie, PA
Gary, IN
Dayton,OH
Frankfort,KY
Valdosta, GA
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,321 posts)Not what I envision for "island life"
jrandom421
(999 posts)The only place that made me wish I was in Xuan Loc Vietnam. At least in Xuan Loc, I had an M-79 grenade launcher to use on targets of opportunity, and I could call in artillery, helos and close air support strikes on anything bigger.
In Killeen, I could only drive the speed limit, and get the hell out of town as fast as I could
Jack-o-Lantern
(966 posts)however that photo is stunning. I couldnt stop looking at it in its abstract beauty.
dhol82
(9,352 posts)Hadnt been there in fifty years and decided to drive and have a look.
Burned out houses, obvious crack dens, boarded up windows.
It was so sad.
malthaussen
(17,175 posts)... but there are so many parts of Philly that would match that description, it's hard to say.
-- Mal
dhol82
(9,352 posts)Actually Fern Rock but close enough.
When I was a kid it was a really nice blue collar area.
malthaussen
(17,175 posts)... her street fully matched your description in the 70's. Since I went to Temple, I got a daily dose of the best North Philly could offer.
-- Mal
nocalflea
(1,387 posts)Beautiful location actually, but the dump was truly ugly.
3catwoman3
(23,947 posts)...at the Midland-Odessa TX airport in 1977, on a connecting flight to Colorado Springs. Nothing to see except flat and brown everything.
Corvo Bianco
(1,148 posts)Both for the scenery and the residents you have to converse with whilst passing through.
wasupaloopa
(4,516 posts)It is the area that Steinbeck wrote about in Grapes of Wrath.
The Weed Patch Camp is still there in Arvin, CA. It was called Wheat Patch in the movie. The scene In the movie where they Joads hit a bump coming into the camp is next to the old Weed Patch post office. It was an office in the movie. The building still stands today. Every October they celebrate Dust Bowl Days at Weed Patch.
The Weed Patch school is still in operation down the road. It was started by the Kern County school superintendent in the 30's because the Bakersfield schools did not want the migrant children coming to city schools. The school taught things like airplane mechanics so the children had a skill instead of remaining migrants.
The families in Bakersfield wanted to send their kids to Weed Patch School because they could get a better education there.
I worked for a while in the Arvin city offices. The mayor then was Hispanic and he told me that half of the residents are undocumented. Now instead of coming from the dust bowl the migrants come from Mexico. They are still as poor as the migrants in the 30's and still treated poorly. But Arvin is a slice of Mexico in the USA.
I also was the controller of the largest farm labor contractor in the San Joaquin Valley. We had 3,000 on the payroll every week.
I also applied to the United Farm Workers, in Keen up the 58 hwy, headquarters as an accountant but they could not pay enough for me to pay my bills.
The area is dirty and dusty and Arvin has some of the dirtiest air in CA because the pollution from LA gets trapped up against the mountains and hangs over Arvin.
fierywoman
(7,671 posts)askyagerz
(776 posts)Rural parts of the south, decomposing neighborhoods in the industrial cities and lets say Kansas, just because it's the longest and most boring state to drive through
The Polack MSgt
(13,182 posts)Makes my top 10 - not even close...
I had a pretty comprehensive, if non-voluntary travel plan between 2002 and 2004 that put a metric ton of perspective in my mind.
The worst part of the most depressed Compass Town (North Little Rock, East St Louis, West Memphis etc etc) in America compares well to any part of Afghanistan in 2002.
After 90 years of Soviet and Russian occupation, Turkmenistan (except the show case section of Ashgabat) is a severely polluted poverty stricken wasteland. Run by a dynasty of maniacs BTW...
People in West Pakistan, Djibouti, Iraq, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan would dream of projects in Baltimore as a leap forward. I ain't Johnny Cash, I have NOT been every where, but I've been to all those places...
I know it's just the Lounge, but, holy fuck people - get outside and take a look
KPN
(15,635 posts)hlthe2b
(102,120 posts)That said, I can find beauty in people, their spirit, their art, their humanity--no matter their circumstances or environment.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)rsdsharp
(9,137 posts)We were on a train from LA to the Grand Canyon when a derailment up ahead forced us to stop in Needles. We were told it would only be a few minutes. It wasn't. We had no food (and no dining car). Half the cars used their ice for air conditioning. The other half, including ours, used it for cold water. It was 116 degrees.
It wasn't Hell, but it was just outside the gates.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)TheSmarterDog
(794 posts)http://www.onlyinyourstate.com/new-york/buffalo/20-most-beautiful-places-buffalo/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellicott_Square_Building
http://www.newyorkupstate.com/buffalo/2017/09/architectural_digest_names_buffalo_school_most_beautiful_in_ny.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware_Park%E2%80%93Front_Park_System
Alpeduez21
(1,749 posts)applegrove
(118,492 posts)We stayed at a motel that was near a plant or factory of some kind. It stank to high ****. It was also by the river and the water stank too. Bad place for a motel.
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)cloudbase
(5,511 posts)Port Sudan
Beira, Mozambique
A village of squatters along a canal outside of Manila
Donaldsonville, LA
dhol82
(9,352 posts)Vowed I would never go back.
It was just too depressing.
Raster
(20,998 posts)hunter
(38,302 posts)On a hot humid summer day, the air still, everything about these places makes a person want to die. It's suffocating. No green hillsides at all. It can't be any different for the cows. Just as soon as their "productive" lives end they are killed and turned into meat. If they knew that they might look forward to it.
Wherever people live it's always possible to find beauty so I don't consider human communities "least beautiful." There are many places here in the U.S.A. very similar to the backsides of Tijuana or the rougher neighborhoods of India. I live within walking distance of a large homeless encampment. The dry creek running through it is an open sewer now that it has rained. But there's art in there, and music, and stories.
Strip mining is ugly. Factory farms are ugly, especially meat and dairy. Square mile after square mile of monoculture industrial agriculture is ugly.
People may be forced into ugly situations, but most people are not ugly. In the darkest places there will be light.
Bayard
(22,005 posts)The big dairy operations would have lakes filled with waste, solid and liquid. You could not drive thru there with your windows down. The worst thing though is when you could see the tiny cages they stuffed calves into to produce veal.
gladium et scutum
(806 posts)gladium et scutum
(806 posts)Port Au Prince, Bandar Abbas Iran, Kaohsiung Taiwan, and Karachi Pakistan make my list for the least beautiful places I have visited.
sinkingfeeling
(51,438 posts)jalan48
(13,841 posts)Response to kwassa (Original post)
Texasgal This message was self-deleted by its author.
Laffy Kat
(16,373 posts)Most of Mississippi, except the coast; most of Oklahoma. Also, Commerce City, Colorado (cough, cough). Seriously, I used to have to commute around Commerce City every single day and would almost always have an asthma attack.
Zorro
(15,722 posts)Flew in to the Philadelphia airport one winter evening about 20 years ago, took a wrong turn after crossing the bridge on the way to my hotel in Cherry Hill, and found myself in a neighborhood out of a dystopian movie.
Burning 55 gallon drums on the street corners, seedy looking guys sitting on the steps of once lovely but now abandoned row houses, strangely clothed characters walking along the streets, etc.
I've been in tough places all around the world, but that place was really unnerving. And it's so very unfortunate, since the Philadelphia skyline across the river at night is a really pretty view.
discntnt_irny_srcsm
(18,475 posts)...I here Monrovia isn't really a honeymoon hot spot:
llmart
(15,532 posts)flat, pig farms and cornfields for miles of driving boredom.
Detroit and Cleveland
malthaussen
(17,175 posts),,, with a stagnant pond at the bottom filled with rusty trash. Used to be the local swimming hole, don't know how any of us survived.
-- Mal
steve2470
(37,457 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)Bleacher Creature
(11,252 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)that having a nice view of a lake, pond (as I do) or river is pretty nice also.
Bleacher Creature
(11,252 posts)I'm mostly talking about the huge areas of flat ground that's either barren or filled with cheap looking houses and/or strip malls.
And I do realize that people live there, and I am sorry for not being sensitive to that fact.
Tommy_Carcetti
(43,153 posts)?itok=lH15hc68
(Of course, if you're talking about Disney World and the surrounding tourist traps, I'll concur 100%)
Bleacher Creature
(11,252 posts)It does seem like the most beautiful places are those near a body of water, and I'll readily admit that I'm talking mostly about the areas that are just one strip mall after another.
Apologies!!
KPN
(15,635 posts)eissa
(4,238 posts)Kali
(55,003 posts)effing cancers. and they think cows are bad!
Paladin
(28,243 posts)It's been years ago since I saw them, and I'd like to think things are better for all those poor people. But I've seen enough of the world not to get my hopes up.
BluesRunTheGame
(1,607 posts)The whole neighborhood really. Prostitutes lining the streets on the way in (in broad daylight). Fuel desk behind bullet proof glass. They tore it down a few years ago.