Most depressing city/town you've been to?

[NWI_Irish96]

Gary IN

Yeah, Gary probably wins for most depressing. One place that doesn't top Gary but I found surprisingly depressing was Anderson. My first several visits were restricted to the IN 9 corridor and it seemed fine, but in the process of clinching highways I went through the core of the city and man it seemed desolate. Felt a lot like being in Gary.

[STLmapboy]

#1 Cairo, IL: It was a typical gloomy early spring day the day I stopped there. The sun, despite trying to fully reveal itself, cast a wan light. The wind, blowing up from the Gulf made the air feel mild. The town was dead quiet, the only sounds were aluminum cans and other items of litter blowing up the street. Seeing the abandoned and burned out houses and buildings made me feel a sense of loss. All the sense of pride that the residents had in their town seemed to have dissipated a long time ago.

Write a novel, man. I'd read it.

[STLmapboy]

As for depressing towns:

East St Louis
Parts of St Louis itself
Parts of Chicago
South Memphis
Some towns in southern Illinois and Missouri are absolutely gutted. Towns that have a four-way suspended beacon at the main intersection, surrounded by boarded up shops and crumbling buildings, are quintessential rural America for me.

[The Nature Boy]

Trenton, New Jersey is definitely the most depressing state capital I've ever visited.

[kevinb1994]

Trenton, New Jersey is definitely the most depressing state capital I've ever visited.

Have you been to TallaNasty?

[Roadgeek Adam]

Trenton, New Jersey is definitely the most depressing state capital I've ever visited.

You have been to Springfield IL or Jefferson City MO?       

[Rothman]

Trenton, New Jersey is definitely the most depressing state capital I've ever visited.

Have you been to TallaNasty?

Have you been to Trenton?  My father was from there.  As he says now, "It looks like it's been bombed."

Fun fact:  He, a white kid, got integrated into the suburban school along with kids of color in his neighborhood...

[TheStranger]

#1 Cairo, IL: It was a typical gloomy early spring day the day I stopped there. The sun, despite trying to fully reveal itself, cast a wan light. The wind, blowing up from the Gulf made the air feel mild. The town was dead quiet, the only sounds were aluminum cans and other items of litter blowing up the street. Seeing the abandoned and burned out houses and buildings made me feel a sense of loss. All the sense of pride that the residents had in their town seemed to have dissipated a long time ago.

Write a novel, man. I'd read it.

I had heard of Cairo before (and knew a little bit of its self-destructive history) and googled around and found this:

https://www.marinelog.com/coastal/inland/illinois-awards-40-million-grant-to-cairo-port-project/

https://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/new-agreement-could-make-cairo-illinois-port-a-model-for-21st-century-container-shipping/article_55429666-f75f-11ea-ad40-8fc3a67d19bf.html

(The project was in the works all the way back to 2018, as this NPR piece on the city's troubles mentions - https://www.npr.org/2018/06/16/618959048/nobody-cares-about-cairo-residents-of-shrinking-river-town-fight-to-bring-it-bac )

Whether this will be enough to reverse a literal century of decline is anyone's guess, but interesting that the state hasn't completely given up on the town and region even after the locals' own racism/prejudice and railroad/road bypasses of the town had all but eroded away at the place in those 100 years.

[Roadgeekteen]

Baltimore

[triplemultiplex]

For Wisconsin, I'd say Ashland is up there in depressing.

Even more so since they tore down the ore dock.  That was strangely beautiful monument to another era and the shore looks naked without it.



I'm gonna buck the trend of picking on rust belt cities and oil towns and call out vast swaths of suburbia for their endless, mostly empty parking lots, cookie-cutter housing and big box stores that look like warehouses.  Everything built cheap, cheap, cheap.  Sometimes, the stores have a fancy facade to make it look posh, but inside, it's all cheaply constructed because they know in 20 years it'll get torn down and replaced with something else.

The sterility of 'perfect' lawns, devote of any useful life.  The pathetic attempt to make strip malls look 'old'.  The intimate fascism of "home owners associations." The fact that 10 years earlier, it was all farm fields and woodlands.

I find it depressing.

[formulanone]

Trenton, New Jersey is definitely the most depressing state capital I've ever visited.

Have you been to TallaNasty?

Erm, I'm a Gator and I wouldn't even call Tallahassee "nasty". Most of it cleans up quite well, though having the capital and a state university in your backyard helps. There's many other places in Florida that would outrank it, to me (though a great deal of familiarity doesn't bother me as much).

Trenton is kind of dumpy, but sometimes that's interesting to me...but the mere fact that the State Capitol building is boarded up (as of 2019) was a bit of a shock to me. Government is always massively dysfunctional, but never quite so disillusioning. It's the perfect metaphor if everything and everyone else is so fine and dandy around the entirety your state that you could conceivably ignore that sort of fluffy thing...but I'm sure it's not.

Cairo is really high up there, but having spent 10 days there (work is a peach, isn't it?) at least there was a lot of interesting crumbling stuff to see - preferably in daylight - which was both eerie and neat at the same time. It's very post-apocalyptic but you can't help but feel that so much has been left to just become abandoned. The people I worked with were generally friendly; hell, I've met more depressing and annoying people in nicer towns. Off the main drag (US 51) there's still life and vitality, if not increasing property values. There were some interesting sights, and nobody bothered me when I took photos. Coming from someone who spent many decades in suburbia, there's some odd and curious vestiges of its past. It just seems that 20 years from now, there may very well be nothing to speak of.

[The Nature Boy]

Trenton, New Jersey is definitely the most depressing state capital I've ever visited.

Have you been to TallaNasty?

Have you been to Trenton?  My father was from there.  As he says now, "It looks like it's been bombed."

Fun fact:  He, a white kid, got integrated into the suburban school along with kids of color in his neighborhood...

Trenton looks like an old industrial city that time has essentially forgotten. It's made more depressing by the fact that it's the seat of government for a relatively prosperous state. It shouldn't look that way but yet it does.

I've never been to Jeff City or Springfield so maybe they're worse but visiting Trenton was such a "wow" experience for me. I never could've imagined that the capital of New Jersey could look like the land that time forgot.

[nexus73]

At least Albert Speer's plan for Germania included making the future ruins looking like something from antiquity. We can't even make a decent looking set of ruins anymore...LOL!

Rick

[Max Rockatansky]

At least Albert Speer's plan for Germania included making the future ruins looking like something from antiquity. We can't even make a decent looking set of ruins anymore...LOL!

Rick

To that end, as someone in the ghost town hobby I disagree as I've seen plenty of interesting modern ruins.  Most of the intact stuff is located at remote former mining town locales like; New Idria, Bodie, and Vulture City.  The closer a place is to civilization the faster it will be weathered by said civilization.  It doesn't help modern construction is mostly prefab and really won't last long term.  It also definitely in vogue to demolish structures that are considered blight as opposed to ignoring them. 

[WillWeaverRVA]

I've been to a lot of small towns in Virginia but Stony Creek, VA seems pretty depressing to me. There are signs of the town's decline everywhere, including an abandoned elementary school along VA 40 BUSINESS in the western part of town that's been mostly reclaimed by nature.

[nexus73]

At least Albert Speer's plan for Germania included making the future ruins looking like something from antiquity. We can't even make a decent looking set of ruins anymore...LOL!

Rick

To that end, as someone in the ghost town hobby I disagree as I’ve seen plenty of interesting modern ruins.  Most of the intact stuff is located at remote former mining town locales like; New Idria, Bodie, and Vulture City.  The closer a place is to civilization the faster it will be weathered by said civilization.  It doesn’t help modern construction is mostly prefab and really won’t last long term.  It also definitely in vogue to demolish structures that are considered blight as opposed to ignoring them. 

For a small town on the verge of going ghost, Shaniko OR comes to mind.  100 years from now the ruins would look pretty good due to the very dry climate.  When passing through Shaniko several years ago, I spotted a handful of abandoned cars from the early postwar period. The paint on them was weathered away while the chrome was spotless, rust free and shiny as can be.

Rick

[mgk920]

For Wisconsin, I'd say Ashland is up there in depressing.

Even more so since they tore down the ore dock.  That was strangely beautiful monument to another era and the shore looks naked without it.



I'm gonna buck the trend of picking on rust belt cities and oil towns and call out vast swaths of suburbia for their endless, mostly empty parking lots, cookie-cutter housing and big box stores that look like warehouses.  Everything built cheap, cheap, cheap.  Sometimes, the stores have a fancy facade to make it look posh, but inside, it's all cheaply constructed because they know in 20 years it'll get torn down and replaced with something else.

The sterility of 'perfect' lawns, devote of any useful life.  The pathetic attempt to make strip malls look 'old'.  The intimate fascism of "home owners associations." The fact that 10 years earlier, it was all farm fields and woodlands.

I find it depressing.

I'm thinking that due to a myriad of factors, including plummeting marriage rates, the Baby Boomer and 'Gen X' crowds aging and passing on, the evolving and changing priorities of the Millennial and post-Millennial crowds, even the poor build quality of many of the structures, that over the next few decades the ubiquitous 1970s-1990s era suburban 'McMansion' neighborhoods will become very depressing places, indeed.

Mike

[ftballfan]

Parts of Sandusky, OH are not the best, especially along OH-4, Monroe St, and 1st St. This might be part of why Cedar Point traffic is not directed to use OH-4 from the Turnpike, although it's quicker to use OH-4 (over US-250) if coming from Toledo and points west along the Turnpike.

Also in Ohio, Toledo has some depressed neighborhoods, especially along OH-2.

The south side of Lansing (MI) has also seen better days, especially along Cedar and Pennsylvania.

[Max Rockatansky]

Parts of Sandusky, OH are not the best, especially along OH-4, Monroe St, and 1st St. This might be part of why Cedar Point traffic is not directed to use OH-4 from the Turnpike, although it's quicker to use OH-4 (over US-250) if coming from Toledo and points west along the Turnpike.

Also in Ohio, Toledo has some depressed neighborhoods, especially along OH-2.

The south side of Lansing (MI) has also seen better days, especially along Cedar and Pennsylvania.

Lansing doesn't even come to mind as one of the more depressing cities in Michigan, I say that as a former resident.  There too many part of that city that are active and lively to crack a list that has places like Detroit or Flint as headliners. 

[Rothman]

Parts of Sandusky, OH are not the best, especially along OH-4, Monroe St, and 1st St. This might be part of why Cedar Point traffic is not directed to use OH-4 from the Turnpike, although it's quicker to use OH-4 (over US-250) if coming from Toledo and points west along the Turnpike.

Also in Ohio, Toledo has some depressed neighborhoods, especially along OH-2.

The south side of Lansing (MI) has also seen better days, especially along Cedar and Pennsylvania.

I've considered retiring on Cedar Point.  Sandusky does have some suprisingly run down areas (especially compared to other amusement park towns, like Agawam, MA).  I wouldn't call it depressing, though.  And, New Straitsville is definitely a LOT worse.

[Flint1979]

Bay City, Michigan is a city that looks beat up in some areas especially on the South End coming in on Broadway (M-13). The downtown looks old and worn out and most of the rest of the city is very old looking. The State Park has a beach but I wouldn't suggest using it because of the water quality, much of the shoreline in this area is mudded with muck. The Saginaw River watershed collects a lot of pollution.

One would think Bay City isn't that bad but it certainly isn't as bad as Saginaw. Midland is the nicer of the three Tri-Cities. There is a Dow plant there and Dow pretty much dominates Midland. It has a nice downtown as well.

[zachary_amaryllis]

pueblo, co.

it just seems like a town that once was something, and now its just sort of dusty and largely irrelevant.

just an opinion.

[Max Rockatansky]

Center Hill, Florida is kind of depressing (but also kind of cool) considering Market Street essentially is a crumbled ruin.  Otter Creek is the only other incorporated community I can think of that looks like a run down ghost town.

[GCrites]

Parts of Sandusky, OH are not the best, especially along OH-4, Monroe St, and 1st St. This might be part of why Cedar Point traffic is not directed to use OH-4 from the Turnpike, although it's quicker to use OH-4 (over US-250) if coming from Toledo and points west along the Turnpike.

Also in Ohio, Toledo has some depressed neighborhoods, especially along OH-2.

The south side of Lansing (MI) has also seen better days, especially along Cedar and Pennsylvania.

I've considered retiring on Cedar Point.  Sandusky does have some suprisingly run down areas (especially compared to other amusement park towns, like Agawam, MA).  I wouldn't call it depressing, though.  And, New Straitsville is definitely a LOT worse.

I don't mind New Straitsville. It's honesty in pretty typical condition for towns of that size in Appalachian Ohio. As someone who likes dirt bikes and quads it's sort of neat that it calls itself ATV Friendly City USA. Very few towns in Ohio allow these vehicles to be ridden into town from the trail system and campgrounds to visit local businesses. They also set up an outdoor ring and have pro wrestling in the streets once a year.

Other than that, you can't say it's more or less depressing than Appalachian Ohio villages such as Malaga, Jerusalem, Haydenville, Cumberland and about a zillion others that used to be more relevant when you couldn't just hop in your car and easily drive to the county seat in 12 minutes to do all of your business.

[Rothman]

Parts of Sandusky, OH are not the best, especially along OH-4, Monroe St, and 1st St. This might be part of why Cedar Point traffic is not directed to use OH-4 from the Turnpike, although it's quicker to use OH-4 (over US-250) if coming from Toledo and points west along the Turnpike.

Also in Ohio, Toledo has some depressed neighborhoods, especially along OH-2.

The south side of Lansing (MI) has also seen better days, especially along Cedar and Pennsylvania.

I've considered retiring on Cedar Point.  Sandusky does have some suprisingly run down areas (especially compared to other amusement park towns, like Agawam, MA).  I wouldn't call it depressing, though.  And, New Straitsville is definitely a LOT worse.

I don't mind New Straitsville. It's honesty in pretty typical condition for towns of that size in Appalachian Ohio. As someone who likes dirt bikes and quads it's sort of neat that it calls itself ATV Friendly City USA. Very few towns in Ohio allow these vehicles to be ridden into town from the trail system and campgrounds to visit local businesses. They also set up an outdoor ring and have pro wrestling in the streets once a year.

Other than that, you can't say it's more or less depressing than Appalachian Ohio villages such as Malaga, Jerusalem, Haydenville, Cumberland and about a zillion others that used to be more relevant when you couldn't just hop in your car and easily drive to the county seat in 12 minutes to do all of your business.

There aren't any local businesses in New Straitsville to visit.