Dislike about the state/province/country/city you live in, including weather

[Rothman]

Weather mostly. Also my vote not meaning anything kind of sucks.

What, in MA?  That makes what you wrote a very interesting statement.

I generally do agree with politics in Massachusetts (not exclusivly) but as a politics nerd I guess it would be more cool to have some competitive races on the ballot.

I do like the fact I moved from a blue district to a purple district, in which my vote then helped flip from a GOP representative (for very specific reasons other than party affiliation; if we're ever at a meet together, I'll tell you the whole story.  Let's just say if I knew the same thing about a Dem rep, I'd vote against them, too).  Anyway, in this case it was very satisfying.

Wonder if western MA is becoming more purple, though.  Amherst certainly isn't the progressive liberal bastion it once was (Northampton's kept its vibe, though...).  Springfield looks like Biff's Hill Valley, complete with the casino right in the middle of it.

So, stay in western MA.

What? I never realized Amherst was moving right? It seemed very left when I was there (I graduated in May).

Pfft.  You weren't there in the 1980s, youngin', before Romney forced UMass to increase its enrollment and before Amherst got rid of its Town Meeting.  Your concept of "very left" is red-shifted.

It's still 90-10 Democrat. Maybe it's less "leftist". IDK.

Evidently not.

Heh.  Come to think of it, you don't even know the UMass that had a Frat Row!

I guess we didn't have a per say frat row, but we did have an area where the Frats were mostly concentrated in, in the area just south of campus.

The real Frat Row was demolished in 2006, all along North Pleasant St.  There's a reason why there's this grassy area along it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6Cd8EkSJvjX1Twj58

Then again, Southwest has always been Southwest.  Ah, the days of elevator surfing are long gone...the risk of death probably had something to do with that...

The craziest thing I saw in Southwest was of my friends freshman year punching the ceiling in our dorm lobby and breaking it.

<.<

If this is the craziest thing you saw in Southwest, Amherst has certainly become a lot tamer than the days of ZooMass. ;D

UMass is certainly more tame than it used to be. There was also a girl who threw all of her roomates' stuff out of a high rise after her boyfriend cheated on her with her roommate.

Dude...this is common...

Somewhere a goat is very happy with the path of this thread.

Have to say I'm quite happy with the paths of the threads.  Given other discussions I've seen out there on the Interwebs, AARoads, for once and as an exception, has been a breath of fresh air.

[LilianaUwU]

Weather mostly. Also my vote not meaning anything kind of sucks.

What, in MA?  That makes what you wrote a very interesting statement.

I generally do agree with politics in Massachusetts (not exclusivly) but as a politics nerd I guess it would be more cool to have some competitive races on the ballot.

I do like the fact I moved from a blue district to a purple district, in which my vote then helped flip from a GOP representative (for very specific reasons other than party affiliation; if we're ever at a meet together, I'll tell you the whole story.  Let's just say if I knew the same thing about a Dem rep, I'd vote against them, too).  Anyway, in this case it was very satisfying.

Wonder if western MA is becoming more purple, though.  Amherst certainly isn't the progressive liberal bastion it once was (Northampton's kept its vibe, though...).  Springfield looks like Biff's Hill Valley, complete with the casino right in the middle of it.

So, stay in western MA.

What? I never realized Amherst was moving right? It seemed very left when I was there (I graduated in May).

Pfft.  You weren't there in the 1980s, youngin', before Romney forced UMass to increase its enrollment and before Amherst got rid of its Town Meeting.  Your concept of "very left" is red-shifted.

It's still 90-10 Democrat. Maybe it's less "leftist". IDK.

Evidently not.

Heh.  Come to think of it, you don't even know the UMass that had a Frat Row!

I guess we didn't have a per say frat row, but we did have an area where the Frats were mostly concentrated in, in the area just south of campus.

The real Frat Row was demolished in 2006, all along North Pleasant St.  There's a reason why there's this grassy area along it: https://maps.app.goo.gl/6Cd8EkSJvjX1Twj58

Then again, Southwest has always been Southwest.  Ah, the days of elevator surfing are long gone...the risk of death probably had something to do with that...

The craziest thing I saw in Southwest was of my friends freshman year punching the ceiling in our dorm lobby and breaking it.

<.<

If this is the craziest thing you saw in Southwest, Amherst has certainly become a lot tamer than the days of ZooMass. ;D

UMass is certainly more tame than it used to be. There was also a girl who threw all of her roomates' stuff out of a high rise after her boyfriend cheated on her with her roommate.

Dude...this is common...

Somewhere a goat is very happy with the path of this thread.

Have to say I'm quite happy with the paths of the threads.  Given other discussions I've seen out there on the Interwebs, AARoads, for once and as an exception, has been a breath of fresh air.

Hi, goat. Are you happy now?

Anyways, I will shit on Québec City now, since this is the goal of the thread. The cyclists here are so incredibly suicidal, everytime I go out they surprise me.

[Scott5114]

Bad things about living in Las Vegas:

- The summer heat, of course. This year wasn't as bad as last year, but...
- ...electricity is expensive (thanks, Berkshire Hathaway!), so if you want to afford your power bill in the summer you have to turn the thermostat up. I have to keep it set to 75°F because my office tends to run 5° hotter than whatever the thermostat is set to. I tried setting it to 80°F once and I hated my decision.
- I do sort of miss thunderstorms. (This is not the desert's fault, of course, but I was told there'd be monsoons. Where are the monsoons?!)
- The water in the Colorado River is so hard that I have to keep various forms of acid around to mitigate the calcium buildup. About once a month I have to soak my dishes in vinegar to get the calcium off.
- There is some sort of belief on the city's part that the primary cause of mosquitos is stagnant pools, so Code Enforcement appears to fly a drone around looking for pools with green water. Given that this is my first year owning a non-salt pool and I've having to learn how to keep the chemicals balanced, this has been incredibly anxiety inducing.
- Las Vegas is a notoriously transient city. Thus there isn't a lot of civic pride, which is probably why there's a lot of litter and graffiti. It is hard to make friends since so many people are just here "for the time being" and don't have any interest in putting down roots.
- Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is worse than useless; they tend to ignore most sorts of reported crime in progress in lieu of promising to send an officer around to do a report later (who then never shows). They will, however, send SWAT to destroy your garage door if the person who lived there five years before you has a warrant out. They offer zero traffic enforcement, so there are lots of people driving around running red lights with no insurance and no license plates. Packages get stolen all the time (fortunately it seems like it's not bad where I live now, but when I lived off of Rainbow and Charleston we had stuff go missing all the time).
- There are not really any nearby cities. Once you get outside the LV Valley your options are...Pahrump, Boulder City, and Laughlin/Bullhead/Kingman, or else drive for a few hours to somewhere like St. George or Barstow. Even Beatty and Tonopah, in the next county over, are hours away. None of these cities are anywhere near the size of LV, so it's kind of hard to even scrounge up a reason to want to do a short-ish road trip after you've already run up the score on Travel Mapping. You may as well just stay home until you can put aside enough time for a multi-day trip to California or Utah.
- This is a me-specific problem and not a Las Vegas problem, but...judging from my kitchen and shower, my house was designed by someone no more than five feet tall who ordered takeout every day.

[kphoger]

So this is what I'm getting out of the thread lately:

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[Max Rockatansky]

So this is what I'm getting out of the thread lately:

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Yes

[JayhawkCO]

Denver area dislikes:
Cost of living
Traffic
"Crowdedness" of outdoor spaces near town
Strip mall architecture
Covid killed downtown
Homeless issues (although the mayor of Denver is trying at least...)
Wildfire smoke from time to time

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Minneapolis:

-The provincialism. We have this annoying fixation on people who are "one of us" and news aggregators are full of random stories stretching MN ties to an event, like "this major newsworthy person lived in MN for five minutess" or "this newsworthy person had a second cousin's best friend who knew someone from Minnesota". People who move here have said it's virtually impossible to make new friends because no one wants to expand their circle beyond whoever they knew at the end of high school. What outsiders don't understand is that "Minnesota Nice" is not meant to be an endearing term.
-The rural/urban antagonism from outstate.
-Because summer lasts five minutes, every nice day is crowded wherever you go.
-Increased wildfire smoke issues.

[kphoger]

Country — USA
It's so big, that a trip to some other part of the country takes at least a day or two of driving.
Other than a few cities, public transportation is inadequate, especially on the week-ends.
Widespread belief, even if unconscious or unspoken, that America is the only country that really matters.
The cost of healthcare, especially for anything beyond routine care.

State — Kansas
Cold winters, although I realize half the country is even colder.
The nearest coast is a full day's drive away.

City — Wichita
Mosquitoes are out during the few weeks of truly pleasant weather for being outside.

[1995hoo]

A few:

• Traffic. I think a key to living in the DC area is to know multiple routes to your destination, especially routes that don't use the highway, and to be prepared to change routes on the spur of the moment when something happens to mess up the traffic. But you still have to factor travel time, including traffic backups and long traffic lights. Put differently, it's about 11 miles to the golf course I play the most often. I allow 25 minutes to get there (and that's using the HO/T lanes, too). The District of Columbia is also making every effort to make driving more and more miserable (removing lanes, banning right on red, etc.).
• High subway fares. The fares vary by distance and time of day. At rush hour, it's $6.75 one-way from the stop nearest our house to downtown (plus $4.95 to park).
• Rude people. There is a difference between "New York rude," which to me generally manifests itself as impatience with stupidity or indecisiveness, and "DC rude," which is more of being rude just for the sake of it. There can be a mile of open space behind you on the road and the guy in the other lane will be desperate to get in front of you to exit, rather than just falling in behind. You'll be tailgated no matter what lane you're using on the highway. I've had people pass me in the bike lane, or over the double yellow line, even when I was already going over the speed limit. As to non-road issues, I think of people in our neighborhood who race to put out their recycling even on windy days so that it blows all over the place into everyone else's yard (but do the culprits ever clean it up? Of course not.).
• Related to "rude people," there is also this attitude that some people have of "this is how we do it where I came from, so all the rest of you are wrong." That comes from DC being the seat of the federal government and drawing residents from all over the country.
• Summertime heat and humidity, although this year wasn't nearly as bad as many other years (at least, August sure wasn't).
• Real estate taxes. While I appreciate our high property values, I don't like the way the real estate tax works. We get our assessed value in February, but you can't use that to determine the tax. The county board of supervisors establishes the budget for the year and then sets the real estate tax rate, usually sometime in May, based on how much money they decide they need.
• Personal property tax. It's due in a lump sum every year on October 5. For some reason, Fairfax County refuses to split it up into two installments, which some other Virginia counties do (and which Fairfax does for real estate tax). It doesn't sting me all that much right now because the highest car tax we owe is on my wife's 2015 Acura TLX and the amount is around $300, but if you have multiple newer cars the tax can hit you fairly hard. I've long thought that one reason everyone hates that tax so much is the lump-sum requirement.
• Single-party government in Fairfax County due to too many automatons who vote solely on party lines instead of qualifications.

[vdeane]

Regarding the Albany area, the tourist traffic on I-87 is really annoying, especially during track season (which has gotten longer in the time I've lived here).  And there's no Wegmans.  I also miss Lake Ontario.

On the state level, I don't like how NY has the speed limit capped at 65.  Every other state our size or larger has 70+, why don't we?  The Thruway is a very long drive at 65.  We're also the largest state still using (mostly) sequential exit numbers.

[thspfc]

Minneapolis:

-The provincialism. We have this annoying fixation on people who are "one of us" and news aggregators are full of random stories stretching MN ties to an event, like "this major newsworthy person lived in MN for five minutess" or "this newsworthy person had a second cousin's best friend who knew someone from Minnesota". People who move here have said it's virtually impossible to make new friends because no one wants to expand their circle beyond whoever they knew at the end of high school. What outsiders don't understand is that "Minnesota Nice" is not meant to be an endearing term.
-The rural/urban antagonism from outstate.
-Because summer lasts five minutes, every nice day is crowded wherever you go.
-Increased wildfire smoke issues.

Agreed on all counts, though I would argue (especially as of recently) the weather tends to be fair enough for almost all summer activities from mid-April to late October.

[JayhawkCO]

Minneapolis:

-The provincialism. We have this annoying fixation on people who are "one of us" and news aggregators are full of random stories stretching MN ties to an event, like "this major newsworthy person lived in MN for five minutess" or "this newsworthy person had a second cousin's best friend who knew someone from Minnesota". People who move here have said it's virtually impossible to make new friends because no one wants to expand their circle beyond whoever they knew at the end of high school. What outsiders don't understand is that "Minnesota Nice" is not meant to be an endearing term.
-The rural/urban antagonism from outstate.
-Because summer lasts five minutes, every nice day is crowded wherever you go.
-Increased wildfire smoke issues.

Agreed on all counts, though I would argue (especially as of recently) the weather tends to be fair enough for almost all summer activities from mid-April to late October.

As a native Minnesotan, I think Minnesota's weather is a bit overstated. I prefer Minneapolis' to Kansas City's for instance.

[gonealookin]

In the Lake Tahoe Basin in Douglas County, NV:

1.  There's a lot of hypocrisy in moving to a high-tourism area and then complaining about how many tourists come here, but after 16 years of it, that's my #1 irritation.  Weekend traffic in an area with a very limited road network (basically one road around the rim of the lake, most of it 2 lanes) makes me very hesitant to go anywhere on Saturday or Sunday.  Fourth of July in particular, everybody in Northern California and Northern Nevada comes to have a noisy drunken party and who cares how that impacts the residents, they're paying money for hotels/vacation rentals and restaurants and they will enjoy themselves as they damn well please.  I spend my own money to leave the area for several days to get away from that.

2.  As you get older, snow becomes more of a hindrance.  Mostly because it's difficult to maintain a regular outdoor exercise schedule in the winter.  I do have an indoor exercise bike, but that's just too boring to do enough work on that to make any difference.  I don't actually mind the shoveling and snowblowing as that gives me some outdoor exercise, but older people get hurt and have heart attacks doing that.  This is why Florida is full of geezers.

3.  Insurance coverage with a Nevada HMO ends at the state line for the most part.  Services in South Lake Tahoe, CA, just a few miles away, are unavailable because they are out-of-network.  I have to drive about 25 miles to Carson City for health care; if you have an appointment in the winter and the weather is bad you notice the inconvenience.

One thing that does NOT bother me is the local political persuasion.  Our county always votes about 65% for the candidate of one of the major parties.  I'm definitely in the other 35%.  I think living here has made me more tolerant of political viewpoints that I don't subscribe to, and has made me realize that all the national political warfare doesn't really affect my life on a daily basis.  I care about living in a nice, safe neighborhood, enjoying the recreational opportunities in a beautiful natural environment, keeping track of what businesses I patronize or might patronize are opening and closing, those are the things that matter every day.  All that stuff that Fox News or CNN or somebody named Charlie Kirk talk about, I just tune it out.

[Scott5114]

What outsiders don't understand is that "Minnesota Nice" is not meant to be an endearing term.

It's also not true, in my experience. Maybe I was in MSP the wrong day, or maybe Burnsville (where I stayed the night) is just like that, but I found people there to be rude as hell.

[ZLoth]

In the Lake Tahoe Basin in Douglas County, NV:

1.  There's a lot of hypocrisy in moving to a high-tourism area and then complaining about how many tourists come here, but after 16 years of it, that's my #1 irritation.  Weekend traffic in an area with a very limited road network (basically one road around the rim of the lake, most of it 2 lanes) makes me very hesitant to go anywhere on Saturday or Sunday.

From my experience, the casinos were a bit nicer in South Lake Tahoe than in North Lake Tahoe. The Lakeshore Inn was a nice place to play and stay, but permanently shut down due to Covid and has been torn down and is being replaced by Barton Health. Has that been completed?

[LilianaUwU]

Since we're whining about tourists... les Îles de la Madeleine have the same problem. The road infrastructure is built for the 12k or so people that live there year round but during summer those numbers balloon up to 75k or even 100k. It results in massive traffic jams and, due to the place being in the middle of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, leaves locals with empty shelves in grocery stores no matter how many trips the cargo ferry does to resupply.

Of course, this also applies to Québec City, but that has the benefit of being an actual city that's not in the middle of the ocean, so the problems aren't as major.

[gonealookin]

From my experience, the casinos were a bit nicer in South Lake Tahoe than in North Lake Tahoe. The Lakeshore Inn was a nice place to play and stay, but permanently shut down due to Covid and has been torn down and is being replaced by Barton Health. Has that been completed?

The site has been cleared and the Barton Hospital proposal is in the extensive process of environmental review.  That will be lengthy, as there has been little all-new commercial development on that scale anywhere in the Tahoe Basin in recent decades.  We wouldn't see a new hospital opening until the 2030s.

As to the casinos, the ones at Stateline have gotten various refurbishings in connection with re-brandings.  The one formerly known as "Harvey's" is now a "Caesar's Republic" and is currently getting a lot of remodeling, likewise with the one that was originally the Sahara Tahoe, was most recently a Hard Rock Resort and is now a Golden Nugget.

[Great Lakes Roads]

Dislikes about living in Indiana:

1. Lake-effect snow (winter weather in general)
2. Two different time zones (scheduling doctor's appointments in Indy, living in La Porte)

[hotdogPi]

For Massachusetts:

I like pretty much everything, but here are the exceptions I can think of:

• Transit doesn't cover the entire Greater Boston area. My area (Lowell/Lawrence/Haverhill) has very good transit, as does anything inside 128, but if I wanted to get to North Reading or Middleton (halfway in between), I have no options.
• Housing costs are too high, and for some reason, people aren't building more housing to offset this. I've even seen signs saying "minimal compliance" for a new law requiring denser housing near MBTA stops.
• The disparity in education between towns is too high.
• If you're not on a freeway, you won't be going quickly, with a select few exceptions.
• New Hampshire refuses to cooperate. The Lowell Line commuter rail doesn't go to Nashua or Manchester. No buses go from here to Manchester NH, either. There are some long-distance buses (e.g. Concord Coach Lines) that do so, but it would require backtracking to Boston.
• Official signs are in English only, even in majority non-English places (e.g. Lawrence). You can tell the majority language isn't English by the signs on businesses.
• Neighborhood walking shortcuts aren't really a thing; some other places allow walking between neighborhoods in ways that cars can't. There's also nothing saying you can walk on someone else's property just to pass through if you're not interacting with them in the way e.g. the UK has.
• Salem for Halloween is too overrated — the historical event itself has nothing to do with Halloween and lasted several months.
• We don't round to the nearest five cents yet. No state currently does this, but there's no federal law preventing it, so why not start?
• Our state is preventing the $1 bill from being phased out because the company that makes the paper is based here.
• I'm in favor of legal prostitution, as it would decrease rape. It's legal in New Zealand, some Australian states, and Washtenaw County MI has simply said they're not enforcing the law as long as it's consensual. Massachusetts hasn't legalized it yet.
• Similarly, no state has done it yet, but Massachusetts should allow their state police to arrest any ICE officer who arrests someone who is here legally.

[kphoger]

For Massachusetts:

Official signs are in English only, even in majority non-English places (e.g. Lawrence). You can tell the majority language isn't English by the signs on businesses.

Isn't this totally normal everywhere?

[JayhawkCO]

For Massachusetts:

Official signs are in English only, even in majority non-English places (e.g. Lawrence). You can tell the majority language isn't English by the signs on businesses.

Isn't this totally normal everywhere?

Everywhere in the US, sure. Everywhere in the world, certainly not.

[kphoger]

Everywhere in the US, sure. Everywhere in the world, certainly not.

So, in other countries, official signage changes language from neighborhood to neighborhood?  Interesting.

[JayhawkCO]

Everywhere in the US, sure. Everywhere in the world, certainly not.

So, in other countries, official signage changes language from neighborhood to neighborhood?  Interesting.

I've seen plenty of places with English signage only in places where tourists may be and then only the local language elsewhere, for instance.

[kphoger]

I've seen plenty of places with English signage only in places where tourists may be and then only the local language elsewhere, for instance.

Ah, yes, signage for tourists.  I've seen that too.  But I considered that to be a separate matter from what |hotdogPi| called "the majority language".

[JayhawkCO]

I've seen plenty of places with English signage only in places where tourists may be and then only the local language elsewhere, for instance.

Ah, yes, signage for tourists.  I've seen that too.  But I considered that to be a separate matter from what |hotdogPi| called "the majority language".

Another example would be in countries with almost not government issued, "official" signage. Any signs put up would be done by the locality and inherently in the local language. Obviously this is likely to be more regionally specific as opposed to neighborhood specific, which is the point you're making of course.