America’s 20 ‘Worst’ Small Cities Have One Curious Thing in Common — Can You Spot it?

America’s 20 ‘Worst’ Small Cities Have One Curious Thing in Common — Can You Spot it? We bet you all get it right without even looking.

 

This post was last modified on January 26, 2021

CO2Insanity: Tired of the CO2 BS and all the other BS in the US and the world.

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  • This year California has the top 20 worst places to live in the country, next year under the continued enlightened rule of Gov Moonbeam, they will have the top 50.

    • You know, every time I hear the name of Jerry Brown, it reminds me of an old water saving poem.

      If it's yellow,
      Let it mellow.
      If it's brown,
      Flush it down.

  • Any time you see a list of "Best this or that", take it with a grain of salt.

    I remember a list rating towns in NJ. Camden rated higher than Wildwood Crest, and many other towns I don't recall now.

    Camden.

    In real life, you know what Camden is better than? A grave 6' under. Okay, seriously, maybe it's better than East St Louis, or Benton Harbor. But they're not in NJ. You can get a building lot in Camden for $10,000. Using the law of supply and demand, what does that tell you?

    All of these things are based on some kind of criteria. And what criteria, and how important each criterium is in determining the standard is usually arbitrarily decided on by the authors/researchers. And in the case of this NJ "study", when they get Edison as the best town in NJ, they don't stand back and say "wait a minute. Something may not be right in our criteria".

    Paramus?

    Besides being a giant shopping center, which stretches across the Borough in the N/S direction along Rte 17, and E/W along Rte 4, with all the rest a failry decent suburbia, it is also one big traffic jam all day, except Sunday (blue laws). You can get a nice split-level, or a colonial. But your property taxes will probably be in the $12,000 - $15,000/year range. Or you can knock down that split and build a McMansion (as many have done), and pay $20K+

    Here's how I look at it - imagine you win the Mega Millions or Power Ball. You now have 175 million dollars. Chances are, you're going to move (chances are you're going to have to move, to get away from all your new "friends" and relatives, but I digress). Princeton may actually be on someone's list. Trust me, Paramus (and Edison) will not, not in any universe.

    • The only way I can see Camden beating Wildwood Crest is if they graded solely on price of housing.
      However, there is one benefit of living in Camden, it's not Philadelphia.
      The main reason for Philly to exist is to put the people that got kicked out of Camden.

      • Cheap housing and availability of public transportation. Libs LOVE public transportation. Meanwhile, in places people really want to live, such as Harding Twp, near Morristown - New Vernon zip code, one of the priciest in the US - they not only don't have public transportation, and not only do they not want it, but when the state built Interstate 287 through the township, the people demanded that there be no exits in town.

        • Very true. Public transportation isn't well accepted in expensive communities. If they want to take the bus or train into the city, they are more than happy to travel to another town to utilize them.
          I didn't know about the no exits thing, but it makes sense. By limiting access to town, they can keep down traffic and keep out undesirables.

          • But if you are going to pay a lot of money for property and spend a lot of money in taxes and make sure that the community remains stable and economically viable you do want to take measures to prevent the place from going ghetto (and this is not a race thing). I have no problem with that. The higher you go up the social economic status the more separation you want from those that may do you harm or steal from you and the more you want the area in which you live in to be sustainable, and economically viable. In this community we aren't rich people, but certainly we do care about our properties and we do whatever we need to do to keep it stable, safe and economically viable.

          • Exactly. You don't want someone buying an empty lot and bringing in an old trailer or camper, putting cars up on blocks, and having old appliances on the front lawn, and living there, when you have nicely kept homes everywhere else.

  • 1. Democrat run for decades.
    2. Overrun with illegal aliens.
    3. Everyone votes democrat because they make things better.

    If the GOPe gets its way with amnesty the entire USA will be like California.

    • 4. They blame Republicans/Conservatives for their lives being bad, so they do 3, because that is the only thing that makes sense. :-/

  • The only reason New Mexico doesn't have more on the map is we don't have very many "small cities". We only have 5 that would qualify and I'm pretty sure they would be on the list if it were expanded to include the 30 worst places to live.

  • Something else liberals can be proud of....The 20 worst all in Kalifornia....We are sooooooo screwed....

    • For the first time ever, I'm going to get off the freeway in Stockton, first weekend in December. They're having their first annual Tamale Festival!

      • Bring a gun, and don't take any 25 dollar bills...Someone was just trying to use those at a stop and rob...

        • I used to have a stack of Bill Clinton three dollar bills. Joking around, I gave one to the kid behind the counter at Del Taco. He was trying to find the slot in the cash drawer to put it in when I grabbed it back real quick, not wanting to get in trouble.

  • My best guess, without looking, would have been Democrat run cities.

    edit:

    How the Hell did NJ make 2 of the 20 best small cities?

    • lol, that's what I was thinking too! I'm not surprised a couple of Mass. towns made, but not THOSE two!

    • You would be surprised. When you get away from the crime ridden dumps like Hoboken or Newark, NJ is a fairly rural state and much more conservative. Their problem, like most of us have, is there isn't enough of us clear thinking people to out vote the liberal loons in the big cities.

      • That seems to be the problem, but perhaps it is the constant gerrymandering that the Liberals are allowed to do.

        • IMO, NJ has taken gerrymandering to perfection.

          You know how the libs take up the anti-electoral college movement when it suits them, such as the hanging chad election and Florida? We hear all about "the will of the people"

          One time I added up the voting for our state legislature here in NJ. In total, all the districts lumped together, in the state Assembly voting, the Republicans got more votes than Democrats. But the Dems hold an almost 2-1 majority in the Assembly (also a majority in the state Senate, but less than 2-1).

          Now part of that is the usual low turnout in the Dem districts, where a D will win 90,000 votes to 8,000, while in a solid R district, the R wins 200,000 - 130,000. But still, there isn't much concern over "the will of the people" there.

          We have one district that was created specifically to get Latinos elected. In order to travel to Perth Amboy from the rest of the district, without actually leaving the district, you need a boat to float down the Arthur Kill (between NJ and Staten Island).

      • I know, I grew up in Ocean County NJ. Home of many lovely beach towns. None of which would qualify as small cities.

        edit:
        BTW, Paramus is more of a huge shopping mall than anything else, it is a shopping destination for New York City dwellers, because of a much lower sales tax rate, and no taxes on clothing.
        Princeton is mostly a college town, and I don't understand how it made the list as a city.

        • Princeton does serve as a bit of a hub for the surrounding, mostly rural but getting a bit more suburbanized townships.

  • I see a lot of CA's... could it be that? But it can't be... I mean California is just awesome... I know because I've seen the commercials that say that California is awesome.

    Somehow I am not surprised...

      • I don't contend anything different. I am sure it is a place that is good to visit like any other place worth visiting. The issue here is not about visiting, but about living there and having gainful employment and being able to deal with taxation and issues involving local ordinance. Detroit is a place worth visiting... but if the choice was to live somewhere else I would live somewhere else.

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