Smartest/dumbest place you ever lived?

[ohiosmith]

Smartest: Vancouver, BC.

Dumbest: Bristol Indiana

[Chan790]

1. I'll play.

Smartest: The city, county, and state of NY.
Dumbest: Lower Roxborough, Philadelphia, PA.

*Not just smart, the New Yorkers were culturally tuned-in to everything. I've never met so many worldly, engaged, intelligent people outside of Europe.

*Roxborough is like the mixed German-Irish slums of Philly. It wasn't that everybody was poor and blue-collar...I've got no hate for the working man. No, these idiots reveled in it all: stupidity, laziness and racism. To-wit, the t-shirt shop by my house couldn't keep a shirt reading "White Trash" in stock. One of my roommates told me with pride that no (African Americans) had ever lived on this block. I was surrounded by the sorts of nimrods who used to do things like shoot each other with frozen paintballs, shitcup each other's apartments, and leave beer cans full of nails in the middle of the road because blowouts were exciting. At the height of employment, half the neighborhood was unemployed...no idea, don't ask...it's one of the few neighborhoods in Philly that consistently votes Republican. My landlord was that guy I couldn't watch South Park with because I'd have to explain the Terence and Philip fart jokes. He set himself on fire one day turning hamburgers on the grill with my $200 Wusthof cleaver. The Philadelphia bike race ran in front of my house (at a major corner!) so the landlord and his idiot posse showed up early to stake out the front yard with lawn chairs so that they'd have unimpeded range to pelt the cyclists with walnuts. My 32 year old roommate was having a casual sex relationship with his best friend's 17 year old sister and nobody seemed phased by it except me.

[ohiosmith]

2. Your description of NY would be mine of Vancouver. Bristol was populated by extras from Deliverance ...

[7wo7rees]

3. No prob.

Smartest: Washington, DC
1. Totally walkable and fabulous public transit. Outstanding layout and highly attractive urban scene.
2. More FREE shit than anywhere in the country. Culture, museums, multi-culti, metropolitan, ethnic wonderland.
3. Awesome street music and nightlife. Festivals and memorials for every weekend of the year.
4. Folks from EVERYWHERE just glad to be in the company of others glad to be there. Dogs catch Frisbees for a crowd of thousands.
5. Incredibly smart and interesting people who study, excel, think, collaborate, network, and influence. And drink and dance.

Dumbest: Dallas, TX
1. Zero appreciation for the history of the city or the surrounding environs.
2. Hellscape of sprawl and SUV's with no care or regard for anything other than the view in the mirror.
3. Southern Baptists, Megachurches, and televangelists like Bob Tilton. And Southern Methodist University, the home of the Bush library.
4. Calatrava bridge over a river of shit. Destroying Frank Lloyd Wright's theater and putting up one for Charles Wyly.
5. George W. Bush applauded at a Preston Hollow Mexican restaurant.
6. Bush Sr. killed Kennedy in Dealey Plaza. His name is on the toll road that rings the city. Folks love it.

[ohiosmith]

14. Washington is one of the places I always wanted to live.

:thumbsup:

[applegrove]

4. Someone warned me not to get an apartment above a certain street in Kingston, Ontario. I ignored

that advice and got an apartment it what looked like a nice neighbourhood. It was a nice neighbourhood except for my building. There were drug dealers there. There was a serious assault. I used to get home before dusk and head straight to my computer...pretending I was not living where I was.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Smartest: Tokyo, Japan

One of the largest cities in the world, it WORKS.

Probably the world's best coordinated public transit system, trash pickup, and mail delivery.

While crime is rising with greater social inequality, it's still one of the safest cities in the world.

Dozens of universities.

A whole neighborhood of bookstores and lots of bookstores everywhere.

Real neighborhoods that are real communities.

Living there and in thirty years of visits, I've never encountered anyone who can't make change or can't spell my name in Japanese katakana characters after hearing it once.

A vibrant cultural life with any kind of music you could ask for: traditional Japanese, Western classical, Japanese pop and rock, Western pop and rock, jazz, even country-western and salsa, as well as theater and visual arts.
-----
Dumbest: Tie between the suburb that I spent my high school years in and the small town where my last teaching job was.

First the suburb:
A small town that was just turning into a suburb, it had a real anti-intellectual attitude.
During my junior year, the man who taught senior English was driven out because parents complained that his courses were too hard (He wanted the students to think and write about what they read instead of just answering multiple choice tests about it.)
Every Friday, they cancelled sixth period so that we could all attend a compulsory pep rally. After a while, the teachers complained that their sixth period students were falling behind their other classes in the same subject, so the administration came up with a plan: We would have a rotating schedule on Fridays.
Awards day consisted of awarding letters to athletes. Period. The National Merit Scholars, the National Thespians, and other non-athletic honorees were inducted at evening events to which only the honorees were invited. They even stopped announcing one national award at all the year a homely, fat girl with bad acne won it.
There was a gang that wore jackets and drove into Minneapolis to fight with other gangs.

The small town:
Most of the people outside the actual college community were either fundamentalists or New Age types with drug-friend brains.
At election time, the local newspaper carried profiles only of the Republican candidates.
Teen-age pregnancies were practically the norm. I knew a 34-year-old grandmother (who taught aerobics at the local gym), and two sisters I was in community theater with both had children before the age of 19.
The racism against Latinos was appalling. Second-generation Latinos who could tried to pass for Anglo. Those who couldn't told everyone that they were from the Indian reservation down the road, since that was slightly more socially acceptable.
A couple of my colleagues liked living in in the woods, but they admitted that their neighbors were "the Jukes and the Kallikaks." (Traditional examples of social pathology in older psychology textbooks.)
I had to give up my favorite coffee shop when I found out that the owner was a leader in Oregon's many anti-gay movements.
With few exceptions, there were two kinds of restaurants in town: bad and ritzy tourist destination type places.
Instead of building upon their charming traditional downtown, they let every big box store come in and thought it was fantastic.
People drove everywhere, even when their destination was walkable. People used to stop and offer me rides when I was walking four blocks.
People from the college who tried to protest the Gulf War were subjected to all kinds of abuse.
The town was headquarters to a company rumored to be a CIA front.
It was represented in the state legislature by the mistress of the president of the company.

Actually, I guess the suburb wins.

[JCMach1]

6. Dumbest= Midland, TX

no contest...

[Arugula Latte]

21. Oh gawd. I've been to Midland.

I feel for you.

[sfpcjock]

7. Smartest: the big RV park at South Lake Tahoe

That was for an entire summer. Yes, I'm bragging. (I thought I was going to have to try and park a 40 ft RV in Zephyr Cove.)

Eugene, Oregon wasn't bad, but they roll up the sidewalks at night.

Dumbest: Las Vegas, Nevada. Most infra dig city I can think of. It's like of like Tijuana without the Mexicans.

[distantearlywarning]

8. Smartest: Pittsburgh, PA Dumbest: Colorado Springs, CO

Pittsburgh, PA:

1) Ridiculously low cost-of-living, especially housing
2) Speaking of housing...??? dozen square miles in all directions of gorgeous, cheap, pre-war housing of all different varieties, all with original woodwork, stained glass, fully intact character, stuff that would cost millions in any other city
3) Ridiculously awesome cultural amenities for a such a small, cheap city - world class symphony, ballet, museums
4) Culture is just left of moderate, the few Republicans I know are very sensible and not the Jerry Springer type at all, whole city has been moderate blue-collar pro-union Democrat for 75 years and doesn't seem likely to change any time soon
5) Population is a highly workable and interesting mix of Ph.D.s and blue-collar workers
6) Championship sports teams
7) Best skyline AND unemployment rate in the U.S. right now
8) 4 season climate with pretty leaves in the fall, usually not too much snow, and everything grows like crazy here in the summer so it's easy to have a vegetable garden in one's backyard
9) Very tolerant, diverse culture without being too hippy-dippy or politically correct - a lot of "live and let live" attitude here, and everybody fits in somewhere
10) 300 culturally distinct neighborhoods, each with their own awesome brand of character


Colorado Springs, CO:

1) Chock-full to the brim of fundies, military hawks, and conformist soccer moms
2) Miles and miles and miles as far as the eye can see of beige ticky tacky housing sprawl, where every McMansion looks just like every other McMansion and everyone but me liked it that way
3) Focus on the Family. Enough said.
4) The main issue in the city council the summer before I left that fucking pit was finding ways to take away domestic partner benefits from city employees. Never mind the drought, water restrictions, and major fires burning in the forests outside town - God forbid Teh Gay have health insurance. :grr:
5) Dry, brown, and dead all year round. Nothing would grow. It was like living in a wasteland. Humidity at 5% all winter long - my hands would crack and bleed no matter how much lotion I used and I would get nosebleeds all the time.
6) The mountains were pretty, but they shadowed the west side of town so everything was basically dark by 4:30 pm every night even during the summer. It was horribly oppressive.
7) Colorado Springs version of cultural activities = church and going to the mall
8) Nothing to do there unless you were into church, a mall junkie, or an "outdoorsy" sort of person who could escape the oppressive confines of town by going hiking (I'm not any of those things)
9) No public transportation to speak of - why would you need that when you could just drive your SUV to church or the mall???
10) The one pocket of liberalism in town - a small, expensive private college - was mostly populated by young, naive trustafarians who felt so threatened by the fundies on their doorstep that they tended to go completely overboard the other way and became walking stereotypes: quoting Marx while living off daddy's monthly stipend, subsisting on sprouts and granola, making sure nobody in their vicinity ever went a minute without feeling guilty about their "insert group here" privilege, basically working as hard as they could to make their young, rich lives as Serious And No Fun As Possible.

[Shagbark Hickory]

13. That was very helpful to me and informative. Thx for taking the time to post that.

I've been considering buying property in both of those places. Well not Co sprs per se but in CO.

[hunter]

20. I grew up in a Colorado Springs kind of place.

99.99% white flight upper middle class McMansion toxic. Big box stores, malls, and mega-churches. Corporate "campuses" for big banks and insurance companies.

Ronald Reagan is their patron saint and they support the California Republican Party, which is like the National Republican Party on a bad acid trip.

I don't blame my parents for that. When they moved there it was no place, nothing. Horses, dogs, dust, and fleas. Lots of fleas. A place where scumbags would drive to drop off their unwanted pets and drunk fuck their mistresses at the no-tell motels.

None of our family lives there any more, not my parents, not my siblings, nobody. It's too much money piled on too much dumb.

My schoolmates who didn't get ejected from the place, the ones who got the higher paying jobs that allowed them to stay, they think they are lucky. They don't know that it's a stifling place to live, that they will be run until they wear out on the great hamster wheel that powers the dim lizard intelligence of Corporate USA.

[av8rdave]

9. I'll play...

Let me preface this: My comments are based on how things were/are AT THE TIME I LIVED THERE.

Smartest: Phoenix, Arizona. Largely well educated work force, most outdoors types environmentally conscious. Good access to the arts and culture (lots of live music venues, and the ASU participated with the community a lot in performing arts at the time). Area history is fascinating, and most people I knew there were fairly well versed in it. This was all in the early 80s. My understanding is that it has changed drastically over the years. So sad.

Dumbest: Dallas/Fort Worth. There were aspects of living there that I really liked. A lot of good people there. However, it has become a very "red" area. Racism, homophobia and xenophobia are rampant. Political and social viewpoints trend to the FAR right of the bell curve. While I respect the opinions and beliefs of others, in this area most of these views are based on total ignorance. The most annoying aspect of it is that people are quick to voice their beliefs, and it is always under the assumption that you agree with them. God help you if you don't. Their attitudes about the Bush cartel are particularly galling. Those people are actual heroes there.

One of the posters here mentioned Colorado Springs as a "dumbest" place. I don't doubt it, but that is so unfortunate. I went to college there in the late 70s, and it was a completely different place. This was before the fundamentalists and megachurches took over. From everything I hear, I wouldn't even recognize it any more.

[distantearlywarning]

10. That was me.

Actually, I took the OP's question as "What city were you personally smart for moving to and what city were you dumb for moving to?", rather than, "In what city were the residents the smartest and dumbest?"

But honestly, I did meet a lot of dumb people in Colorado Springs. Or at least deliberately ignorant.

If I had to answer the question, "Where have you lived that the people were dumbest?", that would probably actually be Greenville, NC. Ridiculously provincial, racist, and home to many not-well-educated individuals. But I still liked living in Greenville better than Colorado Springs.

[av8rdave]

18. I liked Colorado Springs in the 70s

That may have had more to do with skiing and girlfriend than anything else, though.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Ooops ... posted in wrong place.

[KamaAina]

11. Smartest: New Haven, of course

Dumbest: Probably Jersey City.

[Shagbark Hickory]

12. Miami and Jacksonville. I'll let you guess which one is which. n/t

[RebelOne]

16. It's gotta be Miami. I lived there most of my life before

moving to an even dumber red area in North Georgia.

[Chan790]

19. I haven't got to guess.

I have family in J-ville. I lent my cousin Tim a White Zombie CD and his mother never spoke to me again after she had half the block exorcised because she could still sense my Satan music. She had some spiritualist nutbags burn the CD in a "Christ" fire-cleansing. On the plus side, I know now where to go to charge people $1000 to light their personal property on fire and mumble in tongues...I could be good at it, I took Greek, Latin and Aramaic in college. Maybe add some Paris Green and flash-powder in a sachet to fling into the fire...theatrics.

[siligut]

15. Dumbest, Salt Lake City, Utah

I went to Salt Lake for work. Took me a while to realize that the other residents were highly influenced with mind control (the mormon church). There was art, but no creativity, people would forget events that only happened a week ago, gossip was rampant and none of the wives understood their husbands. The men were chauvinistic and the women were obedient, but showed their rebellion in skewed ways. When they figured out I wasn't mormon, they enacted a crusade to convert me. I felt like I had escaped a fate worse than death when I left there. No offense to all mormons, these were the extremes because of where I worked. Honorable mention goes to Venice, Florida, where medicare fraud was a way of life for health professionals.

Smartest = Seattle, Washington. Intelligent, educated people, sports, nightlife, culture, great weather all year around, if you don't mind the rain and most of all, liberal politics. Honorable mention goes to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

[Brickbat]

17. Dumbest: First-floor apartment living by myself in an iffy neighborhood. Never had a problem, but I

know it wasn't the best situation.

Second dumbest: as a foreigner in a building where it quickly got out that I was an American. I knew no one and was isolated there. I got burgled twice.

Smartest: I guess where I am now. In the woods in a strongly union and blue area. I love it.

[Arugula Latte]

23. I've lived in some "smart" enclaves

Berkeley, San Francisco, Cambridge, Mass. (for a summer), and Portland (we are very book-crazy here!).

Dumbest: A small town in the mountains southwest of Denver (for a summer). Redneck/mountain man country. :scared: I did NOT fit in there.