People who have never set foot in your city that act like they know more then you do?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

But I mentioned suburban Detroit bc there seems to be a recent wild swing, where even Fox News/Trump types are now really wildly bullish on Detroit and yet couldn't be more negative re. other cities. Their Detroit interaction(s) are almost exclusively racing on freeways to some downtown event. Before they'd brag about not setting foot in Detroit in 20 years.

Yeah. At some point in the past 15 years or so trashing Detroit became taboo. But crime in Detroit, the favorite topic of an L. Brooks Patterson supporter in the 1990s, has also dropped significantly from where it used to be.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Have you noticed suburban Detroiters, as they got more positive about Detroit, got way more negative about other cities? My brother recently experienced this. He was parking on-street at night in a not great area around New Center after a Tigers game, and the suburban locals he was with kept telling him Detroit was now great and it wasn't like he was parking in a hellscape like Chicago or LA. This is same neighborhood where his old car was stolen a few years back.

Uh if you're worried about parking in New Center then you definitely deserve to get clowned on. I've parked in outer neighborhoods more times than I can count at late hours and I've never had anything happen. And I don't drive a cheap car.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Docere

It doesn't help that in Ontario say half a century ago, Maritimers and Newfoundlanders were seen as similar to Appalachian migrants in Midwestern cities. The stereotypes persist somewhat today.

The migrations were pretty skewed too. The median historical migrant out of Atlantic Canada would be something like a rural NLer or Cape Bretoner, but the median NSian lives in a metro Halifax exurb. This is true of a lot of historical migrations like highland Scots.

I also find it annoying how the Maritimes are sometimes presented as part of Appalachia or Appalachia-like. It's not really accurate in any meaningful cultural or geographic sense. NS is no more Appalachian than Vermont or New Hampshire, and I don't think Americans view those places as Appalachia. You even sometimes see "Alabama of North America" type content about Nova Scotia that tries to make it seem like it had racial laws equivalent to a southern US state, when it was one of the most progressive places in the world (which just makes sense as the cultural and political influences were the UK and New England).

[streetscaper]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Years ago, I endured an extremely awkward engagement dinner party hosted by in-laws' friends who lived on a small lake up in rural Wisconsin.

After dinner, the fuckhead hosting the damn party let out a very FOX-newsian "Chicago is such a hopeless and helpless shithole" while blathering on about nothing of importance.

Being who I am, I most certainly did not let it "politely" slide, and I reminded fuckhead that me and my soon-to-be wife, the alleged guests of honor at his house, fucking LIVED in Chicago. He started blubbering with his foot firmly inserted in his stupid mouth while his wife tried to defuse with a "I'm sure Tom didn't really mean what he said", which I quickly met with a stern "well, If he didn't mean it, then why the hell did he say it? Especially at a party meant to celebrate me and my fiance and our engagement? Why would you invite people into your home just to insult theirs?"

No good answers were offered because none existed.

He eventually attempted an insincere and tortured back-pedalling explanation, but the mood was completely killed by the awkwardness of it all. My mother-in-law was of course horrified (these were her friends afterall), both by his wildly innapropriate insult and by my assertive smackdown of it. Party was over and everyone was in their cars going their separate ways forever 15 minutes later.

What a fuckhead.

This is so hott btw!!

[MayDay]

Try living in Cleveland

[SIGSEGV]

hell, I was at a supportive living home in Romania visiting my grandpa two weeks ago and this old Romanian dude in a wheelchair was telling me all the things he saw on TV about Chicago....

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

hell, I was at a supportive living home in Romania visiting my grandpa two weeks ago and this old Romanian dude in a wheelchair was telling me all the things he saw on TV about Chicago....

Damn!

Better to be hated than ignored?

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by The North One

Uh if you're worried about parking in New Center then you definitely deserve to get clowned on.

My brother's car was stolen in broad daylight five years ago from New Center, for a meaningless joyride/crash. Wasn't stripped or anything. Clown away.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Have you noticed suburban Detroiters, as they got more positive about Detroit, got way more negative about other cities? My brother recently experienced this. He was parking on-street at night in a not great area around New Center after a Tigers game, and the suburban locals he was with kept telling him Detroit was now great and it wasn't like he was parking in a hellscape like Chicago or LA. This is same neighborhood where his old car was stolen a few years back.

Detroit has definitely improved but bizarre worldview. Suburbanites know little about Detroit outside of trips to sports events and casinos. And the local media is very much cheerleader-esque while the Fox news blares the ills of distant "hellscapes" like CA. Now the Macomb County crowd is scared to visit Chicago for fear of "BLM rioters" while deeming Detroit fixed bc their GMC Yukon isn't stolen in the $50 lot during a Lions game.

I used to work for Comerica Bank which had a huge data center in Auburn Hills. Our I.T. group was split between Livonia and Redondo Beach CA. When I first started working there I remember speaking with several of the staff members about the region. Not one of them ever wanted to be associated with Detroit. They tried to tell me that Livonia was not part of the Detroit metropolitan area as if there was no ties to it.

It really wasn’t that much different from when I worked for another company that had a vendor in Ossining NY. The workers in that office talked really bad about NYC and didn’t seem to be interested in hanging out in the city. I’ve driven to Ossining from Brooklyn Heights before and maybe it was a good day but it didn’t take that long to get there, maybe 30 minutes.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by JManc

I grew up in New York and Texas where it's an Olympic sport to hate on California but I absolutely loved living out there and would have never left if I had the chance to stay.

I love it, a friend of mine originally from NYC came to California for her son’s graduation, yep he came and stayed with his sister and finished high school in Fresno. The mom would talked so bad about California, but in reality she told me in secret she really loved it here. The woman ended up staying here for 5 years, she rented an apartment in LA, even though she had a house in Queens.

I had colleagues in our New York office who I became friends with. We hang out when I visit New York. They too criticize Los Angeles, but had never been anywhere on the west coast. Two of them eventually came to visit and both fell in love with LA, They mentioned how they would love to move to LA just about any time we speak on the phone or when they came back to visit.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by JManc

I grew up in New York and Texas where it's an Olympic sport to hate on California but I absolutely loved living out there and would have never left if I had the chance to stay.

Never heard of this in Buffalo. In fact people wish there were more direct flights to LA instead of the 6-8+/week (depending on time of year) that currently exist thanks to Jet Blue.

Then again Western NYers might be slightly better traveled than Utica peeps, semi-regularly going to both Toronto and NY. Toronto and Canada overall are spoken of fondly as well. Most Buffalonians have a deep fondness for Chicago, maybe thinking that Buffalo might be more like it if it had millions of more people.

[craigs]

I was once close with a cousin whose family, when we were kids, moved to St. Louis (while mine moved to the Bay Area shortly thereafter). For many years, we spent a couple of weeks together with our families in Boston in the summers, and I visited her in St. Louis twice. But when it came to visiting us in California, she was as stubborn as a mule. "I know what California is like, and I don't like it." She has never set foot in California. Over the years, she became estranged from our entire extended family.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by MayDay

Try living in Cleveland

Child, try the state. But while living in the "Rustbelt," you grow a pair early dealing with inaccuracies, stereotypes, and downright "What?" conversations. Sometimes, when you feel like it, you'd like to inform X of Y but then Y bother because you know X already has their opinion already set. So you keep Movin' On like Dayton's own CeCe Peniston.

But as I've traveled to 81 countries (so far; adding 5 more this November), everybody has misinformation about everywhere so fuck it and fuck them.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Child, try the state. But while living in the "Rustbelt," you grow a pair early dealing with inaccuracies, stereotypes, and downright "What?" conversations. Sometimes, when you feel like it, you'd like to inform X of Y but then Y bother because you know X already has their opinion already set. So you keep Movin' On like Dayton's own CeCe Peniston.

But as I've traveled to 81 countries (so far; adding 5 more this November), everybody has misinformation about everywhere so fuck it and fuck them.

81 countries? Wow!

[The North One]

Originally Posted by Crawford

My brother's car was stolen in broad daylight five years ago from New Center, for a meaningless joyride/crash. Wasn't stripped or anything. Clown away.

Sucks for him but that can happen for the unlucky few in many places in metro Detroit. I know people who got their cars stolen and broken into in Ferndale and Royal Oak and nobody is ever afraid to park there.

[38 Geary]

Bipping is very common even in high end suburbs here in the Bay Area. The perps usually come from Oakland and/or the not so great suburbs in the Bay Area. Not sure what can be done about it.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by 38 Geary

Bipping is very common. Not sure what can be done about it.

My strategy: drive an extremely boring, busted-up, 11 year old Mazda CX-5 that absolutely no one would ever want.

Hell, I barely even want it.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by MayDay

Try living in Cleveland

The amount of shit I still hear around Pittsburgh about Cleveland is hilarious. Mostly, it seems, from people who haven't been there -- Pittsburghers, in general, are not a very well-traveled lot .

I guess it's just the high school team across town rivalry sorta thing going on.

[meh]

Originally Posted by MayDay

Try living in Cleveland

St. Louis: "Hold my Budweiser."

[PhilliesPhan]

The more I've traveled, the more I realize that I love everything about the places that most Fox News viewers hate.

My entire life has been spent in the Philadelphia area, and the vast majority of it in the city. I'm used to not only suburbanites (especially from Delco and Lower Bucks) shitting on the city, but also the preconceived notions of those who have never been to Philly. I used to spend tons of hours going to bat for Philly on the Facebook pages of our local news channels before I unfollowed them years ago. I just don't feel the need to do that anymore, as I know that I live in one of the best cities the US has to offer.

In fact, all of my favorite US cities--Philly, NYC, Boston, Baltimore, DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle--are all shat on to various extents. Every single one of these cities represent the best of what the US has to offer IMO. Over time, I've tried to shed my internal biases as well. My visit to Detroit for the 2023 International Half-Marathon really drove this. I had a preconceived notion of what Detroit was going to be, but I ended up being blown away by my stay. Detroit left such a great impression on me that I'm eager to return and do some more exploring and especially return to Tenacity Craft!

As an American, the one city in "decline" I keep hearing about is London. This is when I realized that people had truly gone off the deep end. I visited London in August 2024 and that city is as far from decline as imaginable. If you listen to some right-wing American outlets, they attempt to portray London as a crime-ridden, Muslim-majority city with more immigrants than Brits. That was not what I saw on the ground.

Sorry for my ramblings!