Well, for starters, Alberta as a whole is a frozen wasteland and run by two primary interests: the right wing religious lobby & the oil & gas industry. Calgary itself demands that all citizens be 'oil patriots' of sorts; anyone critical of the oilfield in any way is harassed, declared a 'job hater', equivocated with lazy drug dealers, etc. Native Canadian racism is through the ceiling, which in turn forces the native population into the underground scene - so the stigmatization fuels the manifestation of the stereotype.
Canada as a country is busy killing & torturing impoverished Afghans overseas, is run by an incompetent Calgarian who's part of the religious lunatic scene the short span of the year that he actually lives here, and has largely labelled respectable but inconvenient scholars like David Suzuki as 'fringe' because we told like to talk about uncomfortable facts.
All correct. I can add that:
Decades of sclerotic right-wing government mean that Calgary -- a city built on appalling amounts of oil wealth -- nevertheless has the worst homelessness problem for a city of its size in Canada (people visiting here from elsewhere routinely ask me why the streets are so overrun with bums and panhandlers), and is also a leading centre of child prostitution in North America.
The oilsands development in the north of the province is socially toxic in a way that bleeds back into Calgary itself: it's fairly routine for people to get an oilsands job, get hooked on the crack and amphetamines that seem to form a food group in Fort McMurray, and wind up on the streets of Calgary when subsequently losing their oilsands job.
There's no rent control, which makes renting in the city an absolute bitch. (I'm fortunate enough to be out of the rental market now. But I feel for anyone trying to manage recession-era economics while dealing with some of the slumlords running large rental properties here.)
City planners seem to expect the post-WWII suburban sprawl development model to last forever; the thought of doing something else is perpetually deferred to twenty years down the road. The transit system would be good for a city about half the size this one is.
It's got its good points too, mind you. But some days, man... some days...
BobDobolina on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
we'll steal your organs and dump your broke-ass corpse into a stinking, polluted swamp, where a school of pinch-faced jewish mermaids will screech at you for not slicing deli meat thin enough in a past life
okay maybe not
but camden alone probably gets us onto the shit section of any list you care to name
and there's "jersey shore," too, but those people are staten island's fault, not ours
Ugh... we went to the aquarium in Camden. One of the scariest drives I've ever made. Then again, I'm from..
Vermont!
So a drive like that is rather extraordinary for me.
Terrible things in Vermont:
We got the ball rolling on civil unions, leading to gay marriage. Oh wait, that's actually not terrible.
That stupid Dynasaur program.. oh, yea, that's pretty good too.
Two great microbrews, and one pretty decent one, all in state.
;-)
Seriously though, if there's one thing I hate about Vermont, and rural New England in general, you must own a car. Not only own a car, but you need to drive. Not just "I'm gonna shoot down the street to the store." More "hrm, gotta bring the cat to the vet, that's a 30 minute drive," or "I need some new shoes and I have big feet, guess I'm taking a day trip to Burlington, 95 miles away."
Also, shit is expensive here. Groceries particularly... milk for $4.50 a gallon? In a state full of cows? Shenanigans...
Been here five weeks. Its landlocked, theres more spiders in my apartment on a given day then people and we could really use a better east to west major roadway (blow me 195).
Why do I live here?
I work in Elizabeth (another double murder this weekend, yay) as a firefighter and my girlfriend is a teacher in Camden (Murderville 2.0). Why live in this enchanted forest? It splits the commute. I miss living near Raritan Bay.
RedTide on
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Pretty much the only bad part is that if you go too far in any direction you end up in Texas. Although they do have good BBQ out there.
Austin has fucking awful public transportation. We've even got a damn train system now, only instead of it running all around downtown it links the (affluent, car riddled) burbs with some sections of downtown that are too far away form 6th street to be convenient. Governor Perry lives in Austin, and he's a complete douchebag. Driving downtown is basically taking your life into your own hands.
Other than that, though, Austin's pretty great.
You guys had the opportunity to fix that, but the dumb fucks running Austin voted against improving public transportation. Way to go Austin!
EDIT: I used to (and still technically do) live in Texas, in between the Spring/Woodlands area.
If you aren't into sports, typical fratboy activities or have an endomorph/mesomorph body type, you are fucked six ways from Sunday. Literally everything, from working to dating, is pitted against you, and at times it can feel like being in your own personal hell.
I live in Toronto, ON now, and I practically have no heavyweight complaints. Maybe a squabble here and there, but they're nothing more than luxury problems at best.
I hate this city so much. I despise the people, the city literally stinks, there are more monuments to the south and the civil war than probably anywhere else in the country, our public transportation is horrible, and you have to deal with shitty stupid drunk college kids every Thurs-Sunday. People in Virginia also don't seem to know how to drive in any type of weather.
Richmond has no concept of city planning and only furthers the horrible ill-planned out and shitty developed urban sprawl that encompasses most of VA.
I'm also from Northern VA and used to commute into work in DC everyday. Wake up at 4:30am to get to the commute lot by 5:30 to catch a slug or bus so we could use the HOV, in order to be in at work by 7am. Leave at 4:30pm and get home around 6:30-7pm. I-95 is a bitch.
Edit:
Stay out of the James River. To say that it is dirty would be an understatement.
I live in Aberdeen. It's nearly always depressingly grey and all the people are mostly fat, ugly, boring and stupid. Oh and nothing happens here because the population is small. The rest of the country calls us "sheep shaggers". Other than that it's great.
I live in Carlsbad, California. I'm 5 minutes from the beach, weather is always perfect, hot girls everywhere, plenty of places to go hiking nearby, and getting to downtown SD is easy as fuck on the nearby coaster. Nothing to really complain about at all, aside from no jobs but that's everywhere in Cali. Whenever I hear some 18 year old girl talk about how boring it is here I just laugh. I've lived here all my life, traveled a lot and when I'm abroad and people ask me where I'm from every time they say how jealous they are I get to live here.
What's with all the dumbass new shows (on MTV/Oxygen/whatever) about New Jersey? Jersey Shore, Jersey Couture, Real Housewives on New Jersey? It's not like watching these shows gets you free NJ pizza, so why do people care?
Oh New Jersey... I love you and hate you at the same time.
I live in Aberdeen. It's nearly always depressingly grey and all the people are mostly fat, ugly, boring and stupid. Oh and nothing happens here because the population is small. The rest of the country calls us "sheep shaggers". Other than that it's great.
I got with a chick in Glasgow who said she was from Aberdeen. You guys have some fucking thick accents. Her and her friends said they've never even been hiking in the highlands and they've lived there all their life, which to me is completely insane. The hiking in Scotland is more wonderful and incredible than I ever would have imagined, and you guys are a 2 hour trainride away from it. One day I want to live over there, just for the wildlife.
I'm kind of suprised at how many other people from Colorado there are here.
Don't have any huge complaints myself. But then, I'm an anti-social asshole who doesn't mind staying home that much.
Of course, damned drivers piss me off when I do go out. You're in Colorado, you should learn how to drive in the snow. You riding my ass in a four wheel drive is just going to make me laugh harder when I see you bury your gas guzzling tank in a drift. And there is no damned reason to go 10 mph under the speed limit just because it's raining. The sky gods aren't angry folks, it's just water.
Connecticut has some pretty crappy cities. Nothing approaching somewhere like say, detroit, but places like Bridgeport, New Haven, and Hartford have some pretty sketch areas. However even the crappy places of the state have something worth checking out. From what i've seen public transportation in the major cities is lacking so you pretty much have to have a car in this state, but since it's a dense state it never takes too long to drive from one area to another.
Where I live the touristy areas get ridiculous during the summers, and there's basically nothing for younger people to do at late at night if you're under 21, which probably leads to all the underage drinking. The cost of living seems to be typical expensive new england rates. Long Island sound is full of largely mediocre beaches, but rhode island is only a short drive away. Also there's nothing particularly compelling here, but it's centrally located between cities in MA, RI, and NY so it's a good "hub" area to live in I suppose.
I know I want to get out of this state for a while, whether i'd go back to CT or somewhere else in New England if I move back remains to be seen; I'd enjoy living in Providence.
I noticed a guy from vermont earlier. I go to school up in Burlington which is as populated as the state gets (it's equivalent to a small city). Vermont has lots of cool things about it, however the cost of living in burlington in is atrocious for the mediocre-to-poor quality of many apartments. This is of course due to landlords exploiting all the college kids (a scene which I grew tired of my first semester here). If I were to actually live here it would probably be somewhere outside burlington where housing seems to be more reasonable. Of course as the other guy said you have to haul ass to get anyhwere in vermont if you live outside the Burlington area, and anywhere else in general unless you live in that area where Montreal is between an hour or two away.
Pretty much the only bad part is that if you go too far in any direction you end up in Texas. Although they do have good BBQ out there.
Austin has fucking awful public transportation. We've even got a damn train system now, only instead of it running all around downtown it links the (affluent, car riddled) burbs with some sections of downtown that are too far away form 6th street to be convenient. Governor Perry lives in Austin, and he's a complete douchebag. Driving downtown is basically taking your life into your own hands.
Other than that, though, Austin's pretty great.
You guys had the opportunity to fix that, but the dumb fucks running Austin voted against improving public transportation. Way to go Austin!
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, since I know nothing about Austin, but using rapid transit to connect the suburbs to the urban core is actually one of the best uses of that sort of infrastructure in terms of taking cars off the road
City planners seem to expect the post-WWII suburban sprawl development model to last forever; the thought of doing something else is perpetually deferred to twenty years down the road. The transit system would be good for a city about half the size this one is.
It's got its good points too, mind you. But some days, man... some days...
The planners probably don't actually want this. Generally, most planners are pro-transit and densification, but unfortunately, planning is strictly advisory, local politician are the final decisions makers. And of course, property developers are usually the number one donors to local politicians.
Other than that (and the crappy job market) I'm pretty happy with it.
Liquor stores also aren't open on sunday here, but if you really need to go to a liquor store on sunday you are either a drunk or a college student or both, and either way I'm not too fussed that you can't buy a bottle of HRD.
I live about 8 blocks from a liquor store that stays open on Sundays. I'm pretty sure the one on 42nd and Sandy stays open on Sundays too.
Portland has quite a few problems. The employment situation is pretty fuckin horrific, and yet because of the culture of the city, and the attention showered on it by more than a few major magazines and newspapers, people keep moving here. It's a great place to be unemployed, I guess, but it's not helping the job hunting when the number of jobs stays scarce and the number of overqualified people hustling for them just keeps growing.
Also, the police force here is a magnet for terrible decisionmaking. It's quite disproportionate how many questionable police abuse incidents happen in the city with what seems like almost zero repercussion for the Police Bureau. City politics is also really incestuous, in that almost everybody running for office is friends of friends of people who are already in office, or have also run for office and now work in an office for someone else running for office.
We're shitty basketball fans, too, which blows because Basketball is basically the only major sport we have, although Major League Soccer just finally came to town. if you're looking for an analog to the early days of Blazermania, when Portland contained the best fans the NBA had ever seen, you gotta look there. Plus the whole "keep Portland Weird" thing sometimes feels pretty forced and contrived, especially when you realize the population of the city is mostly middle-class white folks. There's a fair amount of weirdos and do-it-yourselfers truly not giving a fuck about norms and doing things the way they wanna do em, but there are a LOT of weekend warriors playing dress up with their particular flavor of exhibitionism.
It's also pretty fuckin passive-aggressive. I believe there's been a couple articles about this in a few magazines as well: Direct confrontation is typically avoided (which is funny considering how many fake revolutionaries live here and protest at the drop of a hat) and problems are addressed via snarky, snotty post-it-note or, even more prevalent, twitter. So many people I follow do NOTHING but bitch about their co-workers or their friends or the person they're riding to work with in the car on twitter. They're sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THE PROBLEM but instead of directly addressing it they do some bullshit Chandler from Friends impersonation into their cellphone.
I wouldn't live anywhere else, though. Those problems are pretty minor in the face of the geek wonderland this city currently is.
Man, you cannot speak the truth any further! The Passive-Aggressive silly gesse tude people up here have gets a lil annoying at times.
I'm moved here around July of 2005 from my hometown and birthplace , "Scary "Gary, Indiana. I revisited that place back in 2008 and holy shit could you see, taste and smell the "gloom" of the town. I'm thankful that I somehow made it out alive at times.
I live in Kentucky, and just moved here from California. Dry county sucks, but the worst part is the bugs. I mean, really.
Bugs in every direction. Every lamp post has a cloud of bugs, you leave your cars windows open at night and you wake up with a cloud of bugs in your car.
Pretty much the only bad part is that if you go too far in any direction you end up in Texas. Although they do have good BBQ out there.
Austin has fucking awful public transportation. We've even got a damn train system now, only instead of it running all around downtown it links the (affluent, car riddled) burbs with some sections of downtown that are too far away form 6th street to be convenient. Governor Perry lives in Austin, and he's a complete douchebag. Driving downtown is basically taking your life into your own hands.
Other than that, though, Austin's pretty great.
You guys had the opportunity to fix that, but the dumb fucks running Austin voted against improving public transportation. Way to go Austin!
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, since I know nothing about Austin, but using rapid transit to connect the suburbs to the urban core is actually one of the best uses of that sort of infrastructure in terms of taking cars off the road
You HAVE to have a vehicle when living in Texas; if you got no wheels it's pretty much suicide. Everything in that state is so spaced out it's ridiculous.
Austin had an opportunity to pass a bill, what, eight? Ten years back? It was supposed to focus entirely on improving public transportation and the highway system. The community voted against it, and now they are paying dearly for it. I thought traffic in Houston was bad, but Austin really takes the cake. It's a goddamn nightmare owning a car down there.
They dug their own grave on that one, so it's not something the people have any real rights to complain about when they've had multiple opportunities to improve transportation and have pretty much vetoed every one of them.
It's balls hot in the summer---and even when it's not summertime, our weather is completely unpredictable. The largest blizzard of the past 25 years happened two weeks after a mid-March heatwave. Living in the Bay Area for a year it was so weird to have somewhat regular weather.
Our suburban sprawl is terrible---and unfortunately instead of that suburban sprawl consisting of unique towns, it's pretty much stereotypical suburban landscape. The cities to the north and south of Birmingham pretty much are interchangable thanks to the fact that 90% of restaurants and shopping are chains. Once when I got out of a movie theatre I actually had to ask what city I was in.
Public transit is fucking pathetic, and nonexistent outside of the city itself.
We are overloaded with fundamentalists, of all types.
Terrible governance from the city itself. If you read a little bit about how badly our last Mayor fucked up the city/county budget you'd shake your head.
Racial tensions/racial politics are fucking terrible. White flight is moving people farther and farther out of the city itself, and destroying suburbs thanks to people eager to leave. Deep racism exists among both groups, and the city is still very much segregated
The city itself has been rotting from the inside out for awhile now. Many people work in the city, few people actually do anything there. I think there have been attempts to revitalize parts of the city, but I'm not sure how successful.
The city itself is mostly Democrat due to demographics, but the surrounding areas are highly, highly Republican. Glenn Beck/Fox News/Sarah Palin Republican mostly.
You HAVE to have a vehicle when living in Texas; if you got no wheels it's pretty much suicide. Everything in that state is so spaced out it's ridiculous.
Austin had an opportunity to pass a bill, what, eight? Ten years back? It was supposed to focus entirely on improving public transportation and the highway system. The community voted against it, and now they are paying dearly for it. I thought traffic in Houston was bad, but Austin really takes the cake. It's a goddamn nightmare owning a car down there.
They dug their own grave on that one, so it's not something the people have any real rights to complain about when they've had multiple opportunities to improve transportation and have pretty much vetoed every one of them.
Ah, the old, "I want magical transit elves to pay for my subway system" strategy.
Georgia: it sucks pretty bad. Not uniformly, but in a lot of places. Suburban sprawl is pretty horrible for where pretty much 80 to 90% of the state's residents live, myself included, and our mass transit system is practically nonexistent. I don't mind the blue laws restricting alcohol sales, but that's because I live in a big drinking town.
Coincidentally, I also live in a big football town, which is a goddamn huge problem between August and the end of November. It's my own fault for coming here, I know, but every time there's a home game, towns literally shut down. People make deliberate traffic.
Thankfully, I'm sure that's just something local to where I live.
Also, allergy season is goddamn horrible. Again, specific issue.
With that in mind, while it sucks, it could suck much, much worse.
So you live in Athens?
I live in Atlanta, GA. All the pine trees make living here unbearable in the Spring. Pretty much if you dont have allergies before you moved here, you will after a couple of years. Also, add in car pollution.
Atlanta is way too spread out. Racism, etc. ensures people will live in Chattanooga and commute into Atlanta before living in cheaper 'mixed' neighborhoods. Atlanta is trying to densify, but its a slow process. And public transportation isnt quite up to the task of handling such a spread out population.
I live in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, a state in which you still cannot have an abortion. But at least there aren't any French Canadians.
Sure you can, you just need to threaten suicide in front of a sympathetic doctor :roll:
Hmm. Well, they filmed a large chunk of Inspector Gadget 2 on one of our bridges, and part of Batman Forever on a nearby highrise. Yeah, sorry about that. We needed the cash. Also, sorry about Savage Garden, but at least you got Powderfinger as well.
An average of 2000 people a week have been moving into the Brisbane region for well over a decade, and show absolutely no sign of fucking off elsewhere despite the terrible traffic. Our infrastructure, as a result, is struggling to catch up and generally lags about 20 years behind where it should be. This has led to an endless progression of round-city roadworks, severe water restrictions for several years (140L per person per day lol) and electricity prices doubling in three years. Granted, the building works will be nice when they're done, but they never really are.
There's no nightlife unless you like getting very drunk in places where the music is too loud to talk to anyone, the rents are approaching Sydney levels thanks to the sprawl and all the builders being flown in by said infrastructure-providing corporations, and we still treat our natives like shit. But hey, we were effectively a police state 30 years ago, so at least something's improved. And the public transit is really quite good in Brisbane proper, just not so much in the sprawley suburb/cities abutting it.
The city spent 20 million dollars to put stone fish on the walls of a new underpass then realized it didn't have enough money and raised my taxes. Don't get me wrong I'm all for beautification projects but seriously they're fish, when I want to see fish I buy a 24 and go fishing. Two words "urban cowboys", if you've never castrated a steer you're not a cowboy. Wearing a cowboy hat and faux snake skin boots just makes you a douche bag if you haven't done the pre-req. Oh yeah add in most of the stuff that got said about Edmonton too. One last thing would be Alberta itself and their imposing of a minimum drink price at bars. There used to be a bar downtown called the Fox & Firkin that sold penny highballs, they were watered down as much as possible but what better use is there for pennies really?
Jimblin on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Camping on the long weekend
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BarcardiAll the WizardsUnder A Rock: AfganistanRegistered Userregular
I live in Carlsbad, California. I'm 5 minutes from the beach, weather is always perfect, hot girls everywhere, plenty of places to go hiking nearby, and getting to downtown SD is easy as fuck on the nearby coaster. Nothing to really complain about at all, aside from no jobs but that's everywhere in Cali. Whenever I hear some 18 year old girl talk about how boring it is here I just laugh. I've lived here all my life, traveled a lot and when I'm abroad and people ask me where I'm from every time they say how jealous they are I get to live here.
I live in La Jolla, directly south of Carlsbad by 10 miles or so.
San Diego is a massive military town and a massive tourism town. I am not in the military but i am applying for jobs with mostly military contractors. Most other jobs here are tourism related if they are close to the beach. That is, if there were any jobs.
During the summer the entire state of Arizona moves here and clogs our beaches. They act like we are servants. But in turn the locals act like anyone they do not directly know are outsiders and suddenly everyone at the beach pretends that they are Hawaiians defending their sacred beaches. I have seen a lot of fights at beaches between tourist kids and kids from down the street.
The vast majority of people here are very very pretty, but also very aware of it. I don't think i know a single person that does not ingest protein supplements in some form. It is much worse in downtown San Diego, where there is what i can only describe as a Hollywood wannabe crowd, complete with bars that you have to pay a 40$ cover and wear a suit to get into. Except that place closes at 2 AM. The whole "dude" "brah" "chill" is centralized here, especially in the college beach areas. Also there is a large amount of people here that pretend to be poor but somehow they own a bmw and their parents live in a mansion in a gated community.
The major plus for me though is that the San Diego area is the only place i have ever lived where i have had zero allergy attacks. Seeing as how living in the Midwest meant that i would be ingesting Sudafed every 6 hours, i prefer this.
Edit: also rent here makes no sense, a typical place in a older appartment building could be 1600$ a month. But in turn if you knew someone that lived on the beach they might rent out a room for you for 450$ a month if you ask nicely. Live in an appartment in an upscale area, 2000$ a month. Live in the shitty part of downtown? Try 2000$ a month. Live in the nicer part of downtown? Try either 1000$ a month or 5000$ a month, but not 2000$.
I live in Northern Ireland, in a village near a place called Newtownards.
I'm quite happy living here, as I'm not really a city person. It's quiet, not much happens and it's pretty beautiful whenever the weather is just right.
Rotam on
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
unfortunately for me, New Jersey is perfect, especially if you live in a town that borders Newark.
I live in Utrecht, in the inner city. As is the thing with Dutch inner cities, the prefered mode of transport is by bicycle.
But they get stolen and vandalized, so much.
I've lived here for 9 years now. I'm on my 10th bike. 5 got stolen, 2 got damaged beyond repair, 2 were sorta shitty to begin with. My current bike, about 16 months old (bought new), has broken lights, a slight bent in one wheel, is full of scratches from getting knocked over a bunch of times.
A more general thing, but our political system is "Americanising" at a rapid rate. Blatant lies, one-liners, pandering to bases, attack ads, all these things didn't really exist when I became politically aware 15 years ago, pundits analysing a politicians clothes and confidence in a debate instead of ideas..... It's really depressing.
I live in Carlsbad, California. I'm 5 minutes from the beach, weather is always perfect, hot girls everywhere, plenty of places to go hiking nearby, and getting to downtown SD is easy as fuck on the nearby coaster. Nothing to really complain about at all, aside from no jobs but that's everywhere in Cali. Whenever I hear some 18 year old girl talk about how boring it is here I just laugh. I've lived here all my life, traveled a lot and when I'm abroad and people ask me where I'm from every time they say how jealous they are I get to live here.
I live in La Jolla, directly south of Carlsbad by 10 miles or so.
San Diego is a massive military town and a massive tourism town. I am not in the military but i am applying for jobs with mostly military contractors. Most other jobs here are tourism related if they are close to the beach. That is, if there were any jobs.
During the summer the entire state of Arizona moves here and clogs our beaches. They act like we are servants. But in turn the locals act like anyone they do not directly know are outsiders and suddenly everyone at the beach pretends that they are Hawaiians defending their sacred beaches. I have seen a lot of fights at beaches between tourist kids and kids from down the street.
The vast majority of people here are very very pretty, but also very aware of it. I don't think i know a single person that does not ingest protein supplements in some form. It is much worse in downtown San Diego, where there is what i can only describe as a Hollywood wannabe crowd, complete with bars that you have to pay a 40$ cover and wear a suit to get into. Except that place closes at 2 AM. The whole "dude" "brah" "chill" is centralized here, especially in the college beach areas. Also there is a large amount of people here that pretend to be poor but somehow they own a bmw and their parents live in a mansion in a gated community.
The major plus for me though is that the San Diego area is the only place i have ever lived where i have had zero allergy attacks. Seeing as how living in the Midwest meant that i would be ingesting Sudafed every 6 hours, i prefer this.
Edit: also rent here makes no sense, a typical place in a older appartment building could be 1600$ a month. But in turn if you knew someone that lived on the beach they might rent out a room for you for 450$ a month if you ask nicely. Live in an appartment in an upscale area, 2000$ a month. Live in the shitty part of downtown? Try 2000$ a month. Live in the nicer part of downtown? Try either 1000$ a month or 5000$ a month, but not 2000$.
La Jolla is nice, I'm probably gonna hit up the cove at least a couple of times this summer. And as for the people, yeah almost all of them are complete shitbirds. I went to Stingaree for the first time last month and all of my dissapointments with humanity (in the SD realm at least) were validated 10 times over. Downtown SD in general is just really fucking depressing if you're sober and smart. I'm going to Pasadena in september for school, I don't think it's possible that the people there will be worse but I've been surprised before.
One last thing would be Alberta itself and their imposing of a minimum drink price at bars. There used to be a bar downtown called the Fox & Firkin that sold penny highballs, they were watered down as much as possible but what better use is there for pennies really?
Actually, that one I get. The penny highballs thing was supremely ridiculous and led to large crowds of really obnoxious drunks. There are still large crowds of obnoxious drunks, of course, but at least it takes them until close to get that way and is nothing to compare with the Fox or other places on "Electric" Ave in their so-called heyday.
Oh and speaking of Arizona, god damn. Does anyone here live there? I went to the Grand Canyon 2 years ago, passed through a big portion of the state. There's nothing there. At first, I was like "Cool! wild west scenery!" but after like 6 hours I started getting sad thinking about all the crap towns we passed through with one grocery store and no real culture to speak of. We never went into the city, but for the most part it seems like the only good thing there is the Grand Canyon, which is of course marvelous beyond description. Can't wait to go back.
City planners seem to expect the post-WWII suburban sprawl development model to last forever; the thought of doing something else is perpetually deferred to twenty years down the road. The transit system would be good for a city about half the size this one is.
It's got its good points too, mind you. But some days, man... some days...
The planners probably don't actually want this. Generally, most planners are pro-transit and densification, but unfortunately, planning is strictly advisory, local politician are the final decisions makers. And of course, property developers are usually the number one donors to local politicians.
I wish it were so and in some cities probably is, but alas, I actually know people in planning here. And there's more than a few of them who drink the Kool-Aid whole-heartedly and carp about schemes for "manipulating the populace" when it's suggested to them that some more bike paths in the downtown might be nice. (I'm not pulling that phrase in the quotation marks out of my ass, BTW. It's a verbatim quote.)
I suppose I'll be coated in crude oil soon, there's that.
Dude, you live in the ass-crack of Florida (aka the panhandle), and Pensacola is the sphincter. Being coated in oil will probably be an improvement.
Well. Here I was starting to like the place too.
Hey, there are some good things about north florida, but it's mostly due to the natural environment. It's the people that sorta screw it up with their insular small town mindset. Also, the fact that I'm liberal and the entire panhandle is super red probably has something to do with my bias against the panhandle.
Racially divided, is essentially 3 different cities, and has the third highest black homicide rate in the nation, a lot of which can be blamed on the horrible "no snitching" culture.
The city is also going to need something other than a bus system for public transportation soon, but everyone is just ignoring it.
I live a very pretty slice of London north of Paddington
Cons:
-Super expensive rent, the fact that its 5 minutes bike to work is the main reason I'm there.
-Is the haunt of ludicrously rich Americans and their god damn kids, the combination of not knowing the culture/how things work + expecting everything to jump to their whim is irritating. Does lead to hilariously preppy drunken teens on street corners.
-British weather
-London air and noise quality
Pros:
-Minutes away from the heart of London without being crowded or particularly noisy.
-Very pretty
-Best Kebabs this side of Istanbul.
Dis' on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited June 2010
Tyler, TX. Major "city" of East Texas. Official evacuation point of Louisiana for hurricane season.
It sucks here.
Nobody here can fucking drive. Almost everyone here has this habit of slowing down to 20MPH (in a 60 zone) before changing lanes to make a turn they need to make. And they never signal.
The racism is trashy and passive aggressive.
The town shuts down at like 10pm, and What-A-Burger and Wal-Mart are the only places that operate beyond midnight. A lot of stores shut down on Sunday, something I've never seen in California or in Oregon. The city has sidewalks in few neighborhoods and in the downtown area. There's few street lamps around. THERES NO FUCKING PUBLIC TRANSIT.
The city limits are abused to shit. There's a lot of businesses and housing outside the city limits, going fairly thick as 3 miles out, but the businesses in the city stop all service at that line. No cable, no DSL, no pizza delivery. And our infrastructure is shit. The roads crumble often, and some local company keeps filling them with asphalt, only for the potholes to re-emerge a month later.
The post office here is fucking god-awful. All mail is delivered a day later than it usually is compared to every other part of the country. Plus, the contracted people to deliver to outside the city limits are terrible and always bend packages that say DO NOT BEND.
The insects here are all Texas Big™. And insects make me nervous to be around.
Most every manager I've spoken to or worked with here has zero ounce of responsibility. Something in this town makes people lazy I guess.
The water in Texas smells and tastes funny. Fountain drinks are awful as a result.
The weather absolutely blows. It's chaotic, but likes to stay humid as fuck in the summer and I can't breathe outside almost.
All of this compared to Portland, OR: good tasting water, pleasant weather, public transportation, lights on the streets, sidewalks, open on Sundays and at night. I want to go back.
Posts
All correct. I can add that:
Decades of sclerotic right-wing government mean that Calgary -- a city built on appalling amounts of oil wealth -- nevertheless has the worst homelessness problem for a city of its size in Canada (people visiting here from elsewhere routinely ask me why the streets are so overrun with bums and panhandlers), and is also a leading centre of child prostitution in North America.
The oilsands development in the north of the province is socially toxic in a way that bleeds back into Calgary itself: it's fairly routine for people to get an oilsands job, get hooked on the crack and amphetamines that seem to form a food group in Fort McMurray, and wind up on the streets of Calgary when subsequently losing their oilsands job.
There's no rent control, which makes renting in the city an absolute bitch. (I'm fortunate enough to be out of the rental market now. But I feel for anyone trying to manage recession-era economics while dealing with some of the slumlords running large rental properties here.)
City planners seem to expect the post-WWII suburban sprawl development model to last forever; the thought of doing something else is perpetually deferred to twenty years down the road. The transit system would be good for a city about half the size this one is.
It's got its good points too, mind you. But some days, man... some days...
Ugh... we went to the aquarium in Camden. One of the scariest drives I've ever made. Then again, I'm from..
Vermont!
So a drive like that is rather extraordinary for me.
Terrible things in Vermont:
We got the ball rolling on civil unions, leading to gay marriage. Oh wait, that's actually not terrible.
That stupid Dynasaur program.. oh, yea, that's pretty good too.
Two great microbrews, and one pretty decent one, all in state.
;-)
Seriously though, if there's one thing I hate about Vermont, and rural New England in general, you must own a car. Not only own a car, but you need to drive. Not just "I'm gonna shoot down the street to the store." More "hrm, gotta bring the cat to the vet, that's a 30 minute drive," or "I need some new shoes and I have big feet, guess I'm taking a day trip to Burlington, 95 miles away."
Also, shit is expensive here. Groceries particularly... milk for $4.50 a gallon? In a state full of cows? Shenanigans...
Well. Here I was starting to like the place too.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Been here five weeks. Its landlocked, theres more spiders in my apartment on a given day then people and we could really use a better east to west major roadway (blow me 195).
Why do I live here?
I work in Elizabeth (another double murder this weekend, yay) as a firefighter and my girlfriend is a teacher in Camden (Murderville 2.0). Why live in this enchanted forest? It splits the commute. I miss living near Raritan Bay.
Come Overwatch with meeeee
You guys had the opportunity to fix that, but the dumb fucks running Austin voted against improving public transportation. Way to go Austin!
EDIT: I used to (and still technically do) live in Texas, in between the Spring/Woodlands area.
If you aren't into sports, typical fratboy activities or have an endomorph/mesomorph body type, you are fucked six ways from Sunday. Literally everything, from working to dating, is pitted against you, and at times it can feel like being in your own personal hell.
I live in Toronto, ON now, and I practically have no heavyweight complaints. Maybe a squabble here and there, but they're nothing more than luxury problems at best.
I hate this city so much. I despise the people, the city literally stinks, there are more monuments to the south and the civil war than probably anywhere else in the country, our public transportation is horrible, and you have to deal with shitty stupid drunk college kids every Thurs-Sunday. People in Virginia also don't seem to know how to drive in any type of weather.
Richmond has no concept of city planning and only furthers the horrible ill-planned out and shitty developed urban sprawl that encompasses most of VA.
I'm also from Northern VA and used to commute into work in DC everyday. Wake up at 4:30am to get to the commute lot by 5:30 to catch a slug or bus so we could use the HOV, in order to be in at work by 7am. Leave at 4:30pm and get home around 6:30-7pm. I-95 is a bitch.
Edit:
Stay out of the James River. To say that it is dirty would be an understatement.
Agreed. Aberdeen is a very depressing place.
My girlfriend is from Boston and this is really the only thing she ever complains about.
Hahaha!
What's with all the dumbass new shows (on MTV/Oxygen/whatever) about New Jersey? Jersey Shore, Jersey Couture, Real Housewives on New Jersey? It's not like watching these shows gets you free NJ pizza, so why do people care?
I got with a chick in Glasgow who said she was from Aberdeen. You guys have some fucking thick accents. Her and her friends said they've never even been hiking in the highlands and they've lived there all their life, which to me is completely insane. The hiking in Scotland is more wonderful and incredible than I ever would have imagined, and you guys are a 2 hour trainride away from it. One day I want to live over there, just for the wildlife.
Don't have any huge complaints myself. But then, I'm an anti-social asshole who doesn't mind staying home that much.
Of course, damned drivers piss me off when I do go out. You're in Colorado, you should learn how to drive in the snow. You riding my ass in a four wheel drive is just going to make me laugh harder when I see you bury your gas guzzling tank in a drift. And there is no damned reason to go 10 mph under the speed limit just because it's raining. The sky gods aren't angry folks, it's just water.
Where I live the touristy areas get ridiculous during the summers, and there's basically nothing for younger people to do at late at night if you're under 21, which probably leads to all the underage drinking. The cost of living seems to be typical expensive new england rates. Long Island sound is full of largely mediocre beaches, but rhode island is only a short drive away. Also there's nothing particularly compelling here, but it's centrally located between cities in MA, RI, and NY so it's a good "hub" area to live in I suppose.
I know I want to get out of this state for a while, whether i'd go back to CT or somewhere else in New England if I move back remains to be seen; I'd enjoy living in Providence.
I noticed a guy from vermont earlier. I go to school up in Burlington which is as populated as the state gets (it's equivalent to a small city). Vermont has lots of cool things about it, however the cost of living in burlington in is atrocious for the mediocre-to-poor quality of many apartments. This is of course due to landlords exploiting all the college kids (a scene which I grew tired of my first semester here). If I were to actually live here it would probably be somewhere outside burlington where housing seems to be more reasonable. Of course as the other guy said you have to haul ass to get anyhwere in vermont if you live outside the Burlington area, and anywhere else in general unless you live in that area where Montreal is between an hour or two away.
Maybe I'm reading this wrong, since I know nothing about Austin, but using rapid transit to connect the suburbs to the urban core is actually one of the best uses of that sort of infrastructure in terms of taking cars off the road
The planners probably don't actually want this. Generally, most planners are pro-transit and densification, but unfortunately, planning is strictly advisory, local politician are the final decisions makers. And of course, property developers are usually the number one donors to local politicians.
Most people are super friendly though cause it's paradise.
As a former resident of Austin and current resident of Houston, this made me laugh.
A lot.
Man, you cannot speak the truth any further! The Passive-Aggressive silly gesse tude people up here have gets a lil annoying at times.
I'm moved here around July of 2005 from my hometown and birthplace , "Scary "Gary, Indiana. I revisited that place back in 2008 and holy shit could you see, taste and smell the "gloom" of the town. I'm thankful that I somehow made it out alive at times.
Bugs in every direction. Every lamp post has a cloud of bugs, you leave your cars windows open at night and you wake up with a cloud of bugs in your car.
Also, the heat.
Jobs are fucking scarce.
Aside from that, it's a nice place to live and it's probably gonna be hard moving away for college.
You HAVE to have a vehicle when living in Texas; if you got no wheels it's pretty much suicide. Everything in that state is so spaced out it's ridiculous.
Austin had an opportunity to pass a bill, what, eight? Ten years back? It was supposed to focus entirely on improving public transportation and the highway system. The community voted against it, and now they are paying dearly for it. I thought traffic in Houston was bad, but Austin really takes the cake. It's a goddamn nightmare owning a car down there.
They dug their own grave on that one, so it's not something the people have any real rights to complain about when they've had multiple opportunities to improve transportation and have pretty much vetoed every one of them.
Nothing really bothers me here
It's balls hot in the summer---and even when it's not summertime, our weather is completely unpredictable. The largest blizzard of the past 25 years happened two weeks after a mid-March heatwave. Living in the Bay Area for a year it was so weird to have somewhat regular weather.
Our suburban sprawl is terrible---and unfortunately instead of that suburban sprawl consisting of unique towns, it's pretty much stereotypical suburban landscape. The cities to the north and south of Birmingham pretty much are interchangable thanks to the fact that 90% of restaurants and shopping are chains. Once when I got out of a movie theatre I actually had to ask what city I was in.
Public transit is fucking pathetic, and nonexistent outside of the city itself.
We are overloaded with fundamentalists, of all types.
Terrible governance from the city itself. If you read a little bit about how badly our last Mayor fucked up the city/county budget you'd shake your head.
Racial tensions/racial politics are fucking terrible. White flight is moving people farther and farther out of the city itself, and destroying suburbs thanks to people eager to leave. Deep racism exists among both groups, and the city is still very much segregated
The city itself has been rotting from the inside out for awhile now. Many people work in the city, few people actually do anything there. I think there have been attempts to revitalize parts of the city, but I'm not sure how successful.
The city itself is mostly Democrat due to demographics, but the surrounding areas are highly, highly Republican. Glenn Beck/Fox News/Sarah Palin Republican mostly.
Ah, the old, "I want magical transit elves to pay for my subway system" strategy.
Hey.
At least it's not Sumner.
So you live in Athens?
I live in Atlanta, GA. All the pine trees make living here unbearable in the Spring. Pretty much if you dont have allergies before you moved here, you will after a couple of years. Also, add in car pollution.
Atlanta is way too spread out. Racism, etc. ensures people will live in Chattanooga and commute into Atlanta before living in cheaper 'mixed' neighborhoods. Atlanta is trying to densify, but its a slow process. And public transportation isnt quite up to the task of handling such a spread out population.
Sure you can, you just need to threaten suicide in front of a sympathetic doctor :roll:
Hmm. Well, they filmed a large chunk of Inspector Gadget 2 on one of our bridges, and part of Batman Forever on a nearby highrise. Yeah, sorry about that. We needed the cash. Also, sorry about Savage Garden, but at least you got Powderfinger as well.
An average of 2000 people a week have been moving into the Brisbane region for well over a decade, and show absolutely no sign of fucking off elsewhere despite the terrible traffic. Our infrastructure, as a result, is struggling to catch up and generally lags about 20 years behind where it should be. This has led to an endless progression of round-city roadworks, severe water restrictions for several years (140L per person per day lol) and electricity prices doubling in three years. Granted, the building works will be nice when they're done, but they never really are.
There's no nightlife unless you like getting very drunk in places where the music is too loud to talk to anyone, the rents are approaching Sydney levels thanks to the sprawl and all the builders being flown in by said infrastructure-providing corporations, and we still treat our natives like shit. But hey, we were effectively a police state 30 years ago, so at least something's improved. And the public transit is really quite good in Brisbane proper, just not so much in the sprawley suburb/cities abutting it.
The city spent 20 million dollars to put stone fish on the walls of a new underpass then realized it didn't have enough money and raised my taxes. Don't get me wrong I'm all for beautification projects but seriously they're fish, when I want to see fish I buy a 24 and go fishing. Two words "urban cowboys", if you've never castrated a steer you're not a cowboy. Wearing a cowboy hat and faux snake skin boots just makes you a douche bag if you haven't done the pre-req. Oh yeah add in most of the stuff that got said about Edmonton too. One last thing would be Alberta itself and their imposing of a minimum drink price at bars. There used to be a bar downtown called the Fox & Firkin that sold penny highballs, they were watered down as much as possible but what better use is there for pennies really?
I live in La Jolla, directly south of Carlsbad by 10 miles or so.
San Diego is a massive military town and a massive tourism town. I am not in the military but i am applying for jobs with mostly military contractors. Most other jobs here are tourism related if they are close to the beach. That is, if there were any jobs.
During the summer the entire state of Arizona moves here and clogs our beaches. They act like we are servants. But in turn the locals act like anyone they do not directly know are outsiders and suddenly everyone at the beach pretends that they are Hawaiians defending their sacred beaches. I have seen a lot of fights at beaches between tourist kids and kids from down the street.
The vast majority of people here are very very pretty, but also very aware of it. I don't think i know a single person that does not ingest protein supplements in some form. It is much worse in downtown San Diego, where there is what i can only describe as a Hollywood wannabe crowd, complete with bars that you have to pay a 40$ cover and wear a suit to get into. Except that place closes at 2 AM. The whole "dude" "brah" "chill" is centralized here, especially in the college beach areas. Also there is a large amount of people here that pretend to be poor but somehow they own a bmw and their parents live in a mansion in a gated community.
The major plus for me though is that the San Diego area is the only place i have ever lived where i have had zero allergy attacks. Seeing as how living in the Midwest meant that i would be ingesting Sudafed every 6 hours, i prefer this.
Edit: also rent here makes no sense, a typical place in a older appartment building could be 1600$ a month. But in turn if you knew someone that lived on the beach they might rent out a room for you for 450$ a month if you ask nicely. Live in an appartment in an upscale area, 2000$ a month. Live in the shitty part of downtown? Try 2000$ a month. Live in the nicer part of downtown? Try either 1000$ a month or 5000$ a month, but not 2000$.
I'm quite happy living here, as I'm not really a city person. It's quiet, not much happens and it's pretty beautiful whenever the weather is just right.
But they get stolen and vandalized, so much.
I've lived here for 9 years now. I'm on my 10th bike. 5 got stolen, 2 got damaged beyond repair, 2 were sorta shitty to begin with. My current bike, about 16 months old (bought new), has broken lights, a slight bent in one wheel, is full of scratches from getting knocked over a bunch of times.
A more general thing, but our political system is "Americanising" at a rapid rate. Blatant lies, one-liners, pandering to bases, attack ads, all these things didn't really exist when I became politically aware 15 years ago, pundits analysing a politicians clothes and confidence in a debate instead of ideas..... It's really depressing.
La Jolla is nice, I'm probably gonna hit up the cove at least a couple of times this summer. And as for the people, yeah almost all of them are complete shitbirds. I went to Stingaree for the first time last month and all of my dissapointments with humanity (in the SD realm at least) were validated 10 times over. Downtown SD in general is just really fucking depressing if you're sober and smart. I'm going to Pasadena in september for school, I don't think it's possible that the people there will be worse but I've been surprised before.
Actually, that one I get. The penny highballs thing was supremely ridiculous and led to large crowds of really obnoxious drunks. There are still large crowds of obnoxious drunks, of course, but at least it takes them until close to get that way and is nothing to compare with the Fox or other places on "Electric" Ave in their so-called heyday.
I wish it were so and in some cities probably is, but alas, I actually know people in planning here. And there's more than a few of them who drink the Kool-Aid whole-heartedly and carp about schemes for "manipulating the populace" when it's suggested to them that some more bike paths in the downtown might be nice. (I'm not pulling that phrase in the quotation marks out of my ass, BTW. It's a verbatim quote.)
Hey, there are some good things about north florida, but it's mostly due to the natural environment. It's the people that sorta screw it up with their insular small town mindset. Also, the fact that I'm liberal and the entire panhandle is super red probably has something to do with my bias against the panhandle.
Racially divided, is essentially 3 different cities, and has the third highest black homicide rate in the nation, a lot of which can be blamed on the horrible "no snitching" culture.
The city is also going to need something other than a bus system for public transportation soon, but everyone is just ignoring it.
Cons:
-Super expensive rent, the fact that its 5 minutes bike to work is the main reason I'm there.
-Is the haunt of ludicrously rich Americans and their god damn kids, the combination of not knowing the culture/how things work + expecting everything to jump to their whim is irritating. Does lead to hilariously preppy drunken teens on street corners.
-British weather
-London air and noise quality
Pros:
-Minutes away from the heart of London without being crowded or particularly noisy.
-Very pretty
-Best Kebabs this side of Istanbul.
It sucks here.
Nobody here can fucking drive. Almost everyone here has this habit of slowing down to 20MPH (in a 60 zone) before changing lanes to make a turn they need to make. And they never signal.
The racism is trashy and passive aggressive.
The town shuts down at like 10pm, and What-A-Burger and Wal-Mart are the only places that operate beyond midnight. A lot of stores shut down on Sunday, something I've never seen in California or in Oregon. The city has sidewalks in few neighborhoods and in the downtown area. There's few street lamps around. THERES NO FUCKING PUBLIC TRANSIT.
The city limits are abused to shit. There's a lot of businesses and housing outside the city limits, going fairly thick as 3 miles out, but the businesses in the city stop all service at that line. No cable, no DSL, no pizza delivery. And our infrastructure is shit. The roads crumble often, and some local company keeps filling them with asphalt, only for the potholes to re-emerge a month later.
The post office here is fucking god-awful. All mail is delivered a day later than it usually is compared to every other part of the country. Plus, the contracted people to deliver to outside the city limits are terrible and always bend packages that say DO NOT BEND.
The insects here are all Texas Big™. And insects make me nervous to be around.
Most every manager I've spoken to or worked with here has zero ounce of responsibility. Something in this town makes people lazy I guess.
The water in Texas smells and tastes funny. Fountain drinks are awful as a result.
The weather absolutely blows. It's chaotic, but likes to stay humid as fuck in the summer and I can't breathe outside almost.
All of this compared to Portland, OR: good tasting water, pleasant weather, public transportation, lights on the streets, sidewalks, open on Sundays and at night. I want to go back.