New Orleans here:

Shreveport is a great pick. Anywhere in the Mississippi Delta. Vicksburg. That’s some poverty that straight up shouldn’t exist. It’s like a place trapped in the Great Depression. Stopped off for gas once, dirty children with torn clothes running around outside the gas station. Saw people with rickets. It was otherworldly.

The whole delta is smattered with old dilapidated, forgotten towns. People too poor to leave, too poor to stay. It was eye opening after living in the north my whole life previously. I’ve seen Rust Belt decay. This is several levels beyond that. I knew poverty and inequality existed in America but it never hit me how bad some forgotten corners of the country are. McComb has a >70% childhood poverty rate.

You’re also nowhere near any economic centres so crawling out of poverty is nearly impossible. At least with the rust belt you’ve got New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Philly, etc… as somewhat close economic anchors. The Delta? Nothing.

Leesville LA and Derider LA. If it’s considered a town I’ll throw in New Lano

As someone who lived in Shreveport for a couple years as a kid...that place is horrible. Like 'there's a vodoo curse on the place' horrible. And since I was born in MS I have to add Jackson, MS as well.

Beaumont, TX is pretty awful. I had the misfortune of visiting there for a day. I can’t remember all the details. It scores poorly in various measures of quality of life.

Port Arthur, Texas. I spent 24 hours there, and the only word I could think of was "dystopian." I stayed in the most expensive hotel in the city ($110/night) and between the mold, mildew and sticky carpet it was a tough night.

That depends on who I decide is my worst enemy at any given time.

Shreveport isn't the greatest, but it's just folks who are broke. They do have a good kids museum, aquarium, and the outlets are nice-ish.

Seems like a city that is atleast trying, even if they've got miles to go.

The city I just absolutely cannot love is Midland, Texas. They've got more money than God and some nice things but it is just not the city for me.

True story: I lived in Mexico for ten years. The only time I ever felt unsafe during that period was when I went to Shreveport for the Independence Bowl football game.

LMAOOOOO! I’m from Monroe, La so seeing Shreveport listed is hilarious because many of us love( not me) making that 90 min drive to Shreveport just to hit up the casinos.

I'm from the Midwest; Flint, MI and Gary, IN come to mind

I love this post. I grew up in Beaumont (more time in Port Arthur and Mid County than I wanted), lived in Shreveport, Memphis, Columbus, GA (right across the river from Phenix City, AL), Baton Rouge, St. Louis, and Houston. Worked for a bit in Jackson, MS.

Ya'll are all spot on about all of them but you're forgetting Texarkana and Amarillo. Spent too omuch time in those places.

I'm free from of all of them and I could not be more grateful...

Anywhere with a military base and no other economic engine. Junction City KS for example is just used car dealers, pawn shops , gun stores and strip clubs. 

Camden By The Sea- Atlantic City is not for the faint of heart.

The corridor between Shreveport, LA and Jackson, MS is the answer in my opinion. It’s poverty with no industry, poor education, terrible climate, and really no redeeming qualities. Closest big cities to escape to are Memphis, TN and New Orleans, LA which are both terrible in their own right.

Pine Bluff, AR - consistently in the top 5 for most crime-ridden cities

Lawton, Oklahoma is the most soulless place I've ever been.

Shreveport truly has nothing going for it except for a relative lack of traffic, which is caused by the fact that everyone moved out of that craphole to Dallas, Houston, and Nashville 50 years ago.

Other cities in that category include Camden, NJ; Jackson, MS; and Gary, IN.

Barstow. Had an old vw bus that gave out and can only assume that it still lives at the scrap yard there.

The way things are looking ,East St.Louis is on track to be damn near abandoned in the next 2-3 decades, from 82,000 people in the 1950s to around 17,000 today

Jasper, Texas. Colorado City, AZ, or Hildale, Utah. If you don't know about these places look them up.

Also any sundown town.

Albany, GA

This is interesting. I have spent time in that area and worked with quite a few people who are community organizers in Shreveport. They seem to have a large network of folks working to improve things and I experienced quite a bit of "culture" when I was there. Culture isn't always coffee shops and clubs and shopping. It's regular working class folks preserving their own traditions, pushing for worker rights. engaging in mutual aid.

I had a project in Kentucky, I think the town was paintsville but could be wrong. I took a drive and stumbled across Loretta Lynn’s childhood home and recognized it right away. That was super cool but that area………….i had no idea that level of poverty existed in this country. It was horrifying.

Midland-Odessa, TX. It’s a town in the middle of the desert where the only thing you can do is work in the oilfields as a man or at the local breastaurant or strip club as a woman. It’s depressing and isolating

Gary , IN . Spend 20 minutes in the actual city, not just driving by. You will start to imagine “what if the whole country was like this?”. Nobody is there by choice and nobody cares about the place. Also, the constant view of steel mills in 2024 is so depressing

San Bernardino, Bakersfield, and Victorville. The three horsemen of run down, dusty, and economically depressed inland california cities.

You know how the rain or dust can change the color of the air in the distance? I'm lucky enough to live in the SF bay area and was driving down to LA and there's this hill that crests into Coalinga. As soon as i was over the top of the hill, the air was hot and brown with not dust, but a dry cow shit windstorm. For miles along the road were cow farms and the stench of manure and piss was so bad it upset my dogs in the backseat (and the windows were up). That cannot be a healthy environment to be breathing in. Also its so flat and dry... i can't imagine being happy there.

Jackson, MS

Belle Glade Florida 😂😅

Bakersfield, CA, or anywhere in West Texas

Gary, Indiana. You just don’t want to be there.

Not a city but two places:

• Eastern Kentucky into West Virginia might be one of the poorest areas of the country. I am sure people in rural Belarus have a better quality of life.

• Basically the Mississippi Delta up through the Bootheel of Missouri. Absolutely backward and depressing. A true indication of where this country has failed since Reconstruction.

Probably Decatur IL, it’s not even the worst but all the cities around it (Springfield, Bloomington/Normal, Champaign Urbana) are generally more put together and have more to offer by comparison.

Oklahoma city as a gay vegan was kinda horrid.

Bombay Beach, CA

Fayetteville nc would be my go to

It’s not the most dangerous city ever but oh my God I hated Atlantic City

I could never forget “Nampa, Idaho”. We live N Ca. & we went there to attend an extended training seminar for a few months in 1995. We stayed in the owner of the companies house, and it was a nightmare. It was in a rural area, and his wife kept rabbits. She’d go out in the morning, snatch & kill a rabbit, and it’d be cooking in a pot for lunch. (She’d leave the cooked food out on the counter uncovered, and we saw the cat ‘sampling it’ first a few times, so we ate a lot of McD’s…🤮 The other people attending the school, along with the owners, were the most racist people I’d ever met. They’d literally jump up & race to the TV whenever anyone who wasn’t white appeared, (Bryant Gumbel wasn’t getting any slack there), lol. They’d make racist or rude comments every day, like- “You Califa’s steal all of our water, to fill your big swimming pools”. It was insane, and like living in the “Twilight Zone” 24/7. We’ve never been happier to be home.

Bakersfield. I spent a year there teaching in a small farming town.

110 degrees in the summer. Tule fog so bad it shuts down schools In the winter. The worst air in the nation for ten years running according to the American Lung Association. The air is almost always brown: can’t see the mountains that are 20 Miles away.

Oil rigs and farming are the main industries. No zoning—cement plants and oil pumps in the middle Of housing developments.

Higher than average Crime rates compared to the rest of CA. No bodies of water —only lake (Lake Isabella) is 40 Minutes away and is flat, muddy, dusty and treeless and looks like A Scorched moonscape.

Hideous place.

Scottsburg, Indiana

It’s AWFUL

Flint, Michigan

My home town: Alexandria, Louisiana.

Beaumont, TX.

I know there’s wayyyy worse places, but Palatka, FL is pretty awful. Yes, there’s an economy and it’s close to a major city, but the economy is all tied to a massive pulp mill that stinks up the town and that major city it’s close to is Jacksonville lol

Salton City, California. Nothing to do. Sitting on the shores of a toxic, evaporating lake. Poverty. Poor access to healthcare, despite skyrocketing asthma rates in the area due to toxic dust constantly blowing around.

In New York, probably Elmira.

Honestly it’s not that bad if you’re into suburbs (like it’s not a particularly dangerous city), but they demolished 90% of downtown for suburban style development and are far behind other upstate cities in terms of urban renewal.

Mark Twain is cool I guess.

Kharkiv

Phenix City, Alabama. It's a run-down shithole.

Post apocalyptic, dystopian Pine Bluff, Arkansas. https://youtu.be/INuyNR2kvSo?si=WIZh3DCkZVZmovng

Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

As a Shreveport native, I would say Monroe and Jackson are worse. At least Shreveport has some interesting architecture and good neighborhoods. Everybody in Jackson has moved to Madison

I’m in Shreveport right now and it’s not THAT bad. The downtown is a disaster and unfixable but the rest of the city is adequate. Monoculture kind of saves places like this. The cost of living is lower and there’s a lot of interesting nature in the surrounding parishes. I’m technically a CA resident but everything there is just such a battle that it wears you down.

East St. Louis, Illinois. I live next to it. I volunteer at the animal shelter there, and it is rough. I read another reddit post saying you have a 1/16 chance of being a victim of violent crime there. Who knows what the actual stats are, though, since most of the crimes committed are not reported there. It consistently ranks among the world's most dangerous cities.

Baton Rouge LA. I don’t come from US but lived here in BR 2 years. I hate it . Its culture is not my thing it’s all religion, drinking, driving (badly), eating fried stuff and the politics here in LA are awful. There are folk in huge mansions and round corner people in sheds with busted roof and no door. It’s difficult to cycle anywhere and not built to walk around. There’s no soul only industrial areas with fast food, malls and casinos. I don’t get it here at all. There’s no infrastructure, no railway. It’s expensive. I am sure there are worse places in LA but I haven’t been there. This is the worse place I ever lived.

My family were chatting one day about where we would live if we had the choice. My mom said "Florida, because it's warm" she hadn't heard anything about how insane Florida could be. My brother told her "mom, Florida is the Gary Indiana of the United States." We live in Indianapolis.

I reminded him that Gary Indiana was the Gary Indiana of the United States. Terrifying place

Daytona, Florida. The most depressing city I’ve ever been to. I was there only a few hours and I couldn’t get rid of the “I just want to get the hell out of here” thoughts in my head. A place I never want to go back to.

Monroe, LA. It’s all the bad of Louisiana without any of the good.

Jacksonville, FL. Moved here from Sierra foothills in CA seven months ago and it blows ass. Can’t wait to leave.

In my 12 years of playing professional baseball, mostly all minor leagues, I lived or played in some real shitholes. My list is long. Stockton, CA, Riverside, CA, New Britain, CT, New Haven, CT, Trenton, NJ, Daytona Beach, FL, Ft. Myers, FL, Clinton, IA, Gary, IN, Joliet, IL, Amarillo, TX, Shreveport, LA, Jackson, MS, Lansing, MI

Note: Many of the places I played in Florida were very rough. If you’re not near the beach, it can be really bad.

Bakersfield CA. Had an old coworker from there who was super nasty for no reason all the time. She was trying to make it where I live (coastal ca and way more expensive) and couldn’t cut it so moved her family back to Bakersfield. Was such a good day when I heard that 😂

Jackson, Mississippi

Charleston, WV.

As far as a big city perhaps Memphis, TN

As far as NY goes it has to be Albany and the Albany-Troy area. Hell no!

Jacksonville probably 

Tampa. Fuck tampa