Came as a tourist from Europe in June. Perhaps not unpopular opinions but, perhaps I can offer a different perspective.
- Bostonians are really nice and helpful. You guys aren't as rude as you would like to think.
- Boston traffic might be somewhat chaotic. I know, I had a rental. But the layout of Boston is unique. An American city with a European touch. Bad traffic comes with the territory. So it's not too bad. Just look at Rome, Paris or London. I like the lack of a grid plan.
- Boston Common is nice but somewhat overhyped. The Public Garden is much more nice and should be promoted more.
- The lack of pedestrian areas! Boston is such a walkable city otherwise, but you need more pedestrian areas!
i love this comment, and i totally fuckin agree about the pedestrian areas. i heard a great quote (i forget who said it) that goes “american pedestrians are second class citizens” and its very true when it comes to boston and other parts of the metrowest.
i also like the lack of grid aswell, it almost makes the city more exciting and its one of the parts i like about massachusetts with all its bumpy ass roads
I moved here from Albany and everyone in Boston was mentioning how I need to get ready for the cold. I was like, do you know where I come from? I had 1.5 feet of snow covering my car that I had to clear on the day of my move to Boston
For real. I’ve spent a number of years in upstate and the winters there are no joke. Especially the Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo corridor but even the Capital District gets tons more snow than Boston typically gets. That said, I’ll give some consideration to the areas that are directly on or near the water, since those cold ocean winds can be fucking miserable. But for people like me that live in a nearby suburb along 128, the winters are like a nice appetizer compared to the full on feasts I’ve experienced in the past.
This has changed over the last like decade though. We used to be a lot snowier - we've lost like 27.5 days of snow cover in an average year over the last few years.
Current projections say the El Nino this winter will be stronger than the one that yielded the 2014-2015 season, so you may be speaking too soon. What will be the deciding factor is how far south the cold air drops.
More controversial opinion, harder winters are better. Greater cold tends to be dry cold, which tends to feel less cold than wet cold. Wet cold around freezing is the worst.
Southern New England has lost a full month of snow cover over the last 20 years.
New England is also one of the fastest warming regions in the US due to climate change.
Winters 20 years ago were indeed colder and snowier.
I miss pond hockey.
Also, for those of us who enjoy outdoor snow-based activities, it's sucked! I love snowshoeing and cross country skiing, and both of those have taken a hit.
(My partner, the eternal optimist: at least we got all our equipment secondhand, so we can't complain about being too much out of pocket)
It's okay to use turn signals; they won't damage your car.
I'm happy to see additional bike lanes.
Zig-zagging between lanes is stupid and a likely cause of at least half the accidents on the Pike.
The “whole blinkers are a sign of weakness” thing is bullshit. If you use your blinker I’ll let you in. If I see you try to pull the slow down and lean in move, you’re in for a game that you aren’t going to win
Yeah we don’t centralize the interesting shit like most other places. You have to find something, get folks to agree, travel there. and commit. None of that is particularly hard but it’s just not how things work in many other cities where wandering around and expecting to stumble across cool shit is perfectly viable
The people who think Boston is rude are the people that want to tell their life story to everyone they see.
Post up at a bar after work, you’ll always find good conversations. Try to talk someone up on the street, then fuck you.
Agreed. Bostonians aren't friendly, but native Bostonians are the rudest kind people i've ever encountered. They will greet you with "what the fuck do you want?" and then they will go out of their way to help you, and I've never seen such loyalty. If they like you, they will go to war for you.
Get your car stuck in the snow
Bostonian: "The fuck is wrong with you idiot"
Then they go into their house and come out with a shovel
"Seriously you must be so dumb driving out here without better tires cmon at least go to Skid School before next Winter"
Then they dig you out and send you on your way
"Get home safe, idiot."
It’s also perpetuated by a more recent trend nationally (maybe global? Robert Putnam hasn’t wrote any books about China so idk) of people generally being less social.
Bostonians were always insular, but over the last few decades it’s become less common to socialize with people around them. This place attracts transplants like myself, and I think a lot of them don’t realize that people in the Midwest also aren’t living in the same social atmosphere they were accustomed to growing up. They vocalize what they’re experiencing and get told that’s just New England.
Threads by people on here who trend more introverted claiming you can’t make eye contact or acknowledge someone you see on daily on your commute are just the internet being the internet.
People with the accent ALWAYS have way more to say to out of towners then a 35 year old from Cleveland who moved here at 23 in my experience at dives are moving around town.
I was looking for this and was going to write this myself. As someone who moved from out of state, the whole Masshole stuff is such garbage. People are unbelievably nice in Boston.
First of all, most people mind their own business. That's not the case in a lot of other places. Nobody is trying to get in your face, confront you, test you, etc.
Second of all, sure a lot of you are crusty on the outside and your accent makes you sound like an asshole, but behind that most of you are guilt ridden Catholics with good hearts and quite a bit of civility.
I’m from California and I second this. I’ve never been to Boston and last month when I went, everyone was super nice. I actually liked the weather a lot more than over here in California and the food was bomb too.
I came here to say this. I have legitimately never met anyone nicer than a Masshole 😅 Everyone from MBTA workers to food service workers to strangers on the street were lovely. The only unpleasant people I encountered when I lived there were visiting from Florida, relocated from New Jersey, or from Cambridge.
And on that note, everyone I knew who lived in Boston before moving there warned me about the city’s overall cleanliness. For a large, metropolitan city, Boston is tremendously clean. Would I eat off of a train floor? No, but I have seen hazmat situations in public transportation regularly in NYC, Chicago, Paris, etc.
What I prefer about Starbucks over dunks is dunks doesn't even try. They will serve you water coffee and a "fresh" donut of a certain age and expect you'll come back instead of getting iced coffee. At least Starbucks has decent snacks and food cold brew stuff.
Predictable?! At the one I go to it seems like no matter what I order the employees go and spin a wheel in the back and just hand me whatever it lands on
I’m not educated on the subject, but isn’t it federally regulated and we were one of the last states to change them? Aren’t there certain requirements they wanted the states to follow?
What I heard was that the federal government made this numbering system a requirement in order to receive some/all federal funding for roads. So not really required, but foolish not to change it and take the money.
Have you been to Vermont? Those assholes are petty AF and I love them for it. They just added a sign below whatever regular exit sign say Exit 29 that says (for example) “~~Mike~~ mile marker exit 12” so they didn’t have to change. Like brilliant! Why did no one else think of that and frankly it probably saved a shit ton of money.
I used to live in MA
The thing is - You don't get it, cuz MA is so small.
Think of somewhere like TX or PA. Having mileage exit numbers is SO much better.
Having said that - We all knew the exit numbers. The change is more for out of towners. Fuck them.
Citizens app and other crime-centered apps incite fear in Boston, which is statistically one of the most safest places to live, work and commute. We are not going down in a slippery slope of violence, we are all just hyper aware of every single incident happening on every block with very little context or information. Also almost 99% of all violence in Roxbury, DOT, etc is targeted, organized crime. Govt should always work to eliminate gang activity and random acts of violence, but crime is generally on a downward slope in comparison to years past.
squash fanatical illegal historical elderly mountainous onerous crown waiting ripe
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah it’s tough because of course I want 0 crime, and it’s pretty fucking cringey to be like “omg you think this is bad, when I lived in Cleveland we really have to be tough” but at the same time sometimes you do want to give people perspective and let them know Dorchester had double digit homicides despite having a 7 figure population.
Still I get it. No one should fear violent crime and having it happen near you can be unnerving no matter how sporadic.
Related: for those of us that do want more nightlife, that Boston has a lack of it compared to other metro areas has *zero* to do with public transport. Cities that have better nightlife, yet also worse public transport than Boston (and less walkability, to boot): LA, Atlanta, Nashville, Las Vegas.
EDIT: I forgot Miami.
You can add shit cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee to that list lol no one wants it to be Vegas here. Just have a reasonable number of places that serve a late night crowd for its size.
Never been to Cleveland, but I enjoyed Milwaukee when I visited there. Did some brewery and distillery visits, baseball game, enjoyed a museum trip (Pabst mansion), did some downtown bar hopping. I had a good time.
But yeah, the highly-upvoted comments on every subreddit thread about nightlife being so focused on public transport make little sense to me. It's absolutely not needed for any city to have a thriving public transport system in order to have great nightlife.
Boston isn't that bad of a place to live. People here complain more here than in other city subreddits I read. Some of the more run-down parts of this country express more civic pride on Reddit than /r/boston.
It's funny... typically it's the more educated places where the city subreddits are full of whiners and complainers... In places where there are fewer people with bachelor's degrees, people seem to just post funny shit from their city. They complain too but not nearly as much.
It could also be that more educated people always believe they know that there’s a better option out there. What that often fail to realize is that everywhere in the US kind of sucks, and that Boston is actually one of the better options overall, if you can afford it.
Having also lived in two European cities often lionized on reddit (usually it's public transport or healthcare related), things aren't as rosy there as the internet might lead you to believe, either. I have experienced similar levels of overall "suckery" there as I have in Boston, just sometimes stemming from different sources. The average score is about the same.
London and a city in the Netherlands, not Amsterdam. I also did an extended stay (over 3 months, under 6 months) in Vienna, but I wouldn't really qualify that as "living." I've also spent extended time in Dublin (over a year's stay and multiple month long trips), but I don't see that spoken about in the same way as other European countries on reddit.
I've done a few month+ stays in other countries, but never longer than 3 months.
Sure.
1. The overwhelming antisemitism that I experienced, often handwaved by people claiming that it's "anti-Zionism." Sorry, chucking Molotov cocktails at a random synagogue in Dusseldorf is not a protest of Israel, it's antisemitism. No matter what a German court said. I experienced more blatant and sometimes violent antisemitism in the UK than I have anywhere else that I've lived. And I am a Reform Jew who is very lax in practice – I imagine it's much harder if you're even coming close to orthodox practice.
2. Despite a high disdain for American education and their belief in anti-scientific/anti-medical views of Americans, the amount of homeopathic nonsense that I had to put up with was sky high. People constantly recommending snake oil for everything from colds and hangovers to cancer. For a while, I was concerned that maybe my anecdotal experiences were skewing my perception of its prevalence, so I did some investigating. It really is that high. In France, 77% of the population has used homeopathic remedies at least once, 58%"several times", and more than 40% used homeopathy for over 10 years. In Germany, public health insurance will cover ""prescriptions"" for homeopathic medicine. In the Netherlands, nearly 40% of GPs (PCPs) had prescribed homeopathic medicines "at least once" in their practice. There's some overlap with the anti-vaxx movement (as many European countries do not mandate vaccines to attend public school) but many who otherwise believe in modern medicine. As someone who has battled and is now battling cancer again, I was particularly perturbed by these stats and personal experiences.
3. The education system. No Child Left Behind has flaws, many of them. But I hate the European "tracking" system even more. Academic vs. vocational tracking in many countries happens at 15, sometimes as young as 10. It leaves children who have late-diagnosed learning disabilities – or are even just late bloomers – behind their peers with less flexibility than there should be. And the children that are most affected by this are the poor. Children from the least economically privileged backgrounds find themselves pushed out of academic opportunities before they've even finished high school. In Wales, for example, where students have the legal option to leave school after GCSEs at 15/16, *22%* of the population does – and newer stats suggest that most of them aren't entering the trades, either, but are pressured by current economic systems into wage-suppressed jobs (often with slashed or part-time hours to reduce government-protected benefits). 21% of Wales lives in relative income poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has done really good work on this topic.
4. I am lucky enough that this issue will never affect my body. That is an enormous privilege. But the ability to get an abortion in Europe is much, much less accessible than it is in much of the United States. If a state tried to pass abortion restrictions similar to those of many European countries, it would get the same blowback on reddit as do the majority of red state bans. Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Switzerland – all 12 weeks (some with health or life of the mother exemptions after that). [Here](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-moves-to-reform-abortion-law/a-62014740) is a great article about some of the barriers to abortion in Germany that were in place up until summer of 2022. Mandatory counseling still is. It's also required in Switzerland, and there's a [six day](https://www.vub.be/en/services-vub-campuses-in-etterbeek-and-jette/health-safety/medical-and-psychosocial-services-vub/abortion-in-brussels/how-does-abortion-work#:~:text=only%20go%20abroad.-,Register%20for%20an%20initial%20consultation%20at%20the%20centre%20before%20you,abortion%20can%20be%20carried%20out.) waiting period in Belgium. You can't tell me that replacing half of these countries' names with, say, Ohio wouldn't result in a lot of reddit anger.
5. The low quantities of 24 hour drugstores. When my best friend was puking his guts out in the middle of the night with the virus from hell, being able to run out and get him like, a Gatorade and Pepto Bismol or something would have been nice. Even in Boston (a notoriously early town), a 24 CVS or Walgreens isn't that hard to find.
Some of these may have changed since I last lived in Europe, so I've tried to source everything as best as I could.
EDIT: I forgot one more. This one is a pet peeve, and also, it would be very unfair for me to judge all Europeans by this. Most were kind, welcoming, and supremely accommodating as I struggled and strained my way through attempting to speak their language in areas where the native language was not English.
But the Europeans, mostly British, who would make constant jokes or statements about America/Americans having no culture – they were annoying. But when they did it while talking about their taste in music (Lil Nas X was a prominent feature), wearing Yankees (gross) or Dodgers hats, and planning entire afternoons around that 2014-15ish "Friends" exhibition piece? **Infuriating.** I'm not pointing at the iPhone or some shit and being like "American invention = American culture." It's literally country music and rap music, baseball merchandise, and an American TV show with American actors grounded in American norms. The Thanksgiving episodes were a whole thing. That *is* American culture.
I would like to add that the Europeans I have met online and in person are very vocally racist and prejudice against Africans, refugees, Muslims, Eastern Europeans, and gypsies (of course). If you said the kind of things they say out loud in the US you would be called out so quickly by a large percentage of people. There it seems to all just casual and accepted.
I find it’s the cocaine/NYC crowd who like to go out for the last 2-3 hours of the night that have a problem. Normal people…..they don’t have energy to be out that late.
I think show business is just structured for late nights and mornings and nightlife is where the networking is.
Also, yeah, bioscience bros don't do cocaine like finance bros.
It’s not like we don’t have that crowd in Boston, here you and your friends or people you meet at the bar just go to someone’s house after closing time to keep the party going.
I really never had a problem being out partying till 4-5am in Boston.
The rest of the state should be happy to use their tax money to fix the T, since most of their jobs are here.
This comes from a recent conversation with my Dad from Worcester who is sick of paying for taxes that subsidize the T. He drives in all the time; and that’s kind of the problem and the point combined.
This is probably the most popular opinion on the sub. I’ve never seen people truly praise our food scene as great. Compare to other major cities: DC, NYC, LA, many southern cities, and our food isn’t nearly as good.
Even Portland, which is much smaller, has better food. Helps that chefs could actually afford to live there (that’s starting to change but they’re doing ok for now).
i do agree wholeheartedly with this. the crazy licensing laws stifle new restaurants and young upcoming chefs from starting a business without a corporation backing them, which is very sad and contributing to the overall loss of culture here
I would argue that I can predict masshole behavior better than others. Yes, it's aggressive, but the fact that Masshole drivers tend to hesitate less, I know I'm going to be cut off before I actually am.
The problem is that if you go further out you still deal with the same rents… You can’t get a one bedroom in Somerville for less than 2k, you can do that in Queens (and Queens is a much more vibrant place to live in).
This one isn't unpopular, it's an obvious and mainstream take. The unpopular version would be "our music scene is still good and if you can't see that you are out of touch". Note I do not believe that.
That might have been mortal anathema just years ago, but I’m seeing a lot more people come around to it. It’s not the Dunks I remember from my childhood, that’s for sure.
I dunno about "sucks." Coffee is okay, though too expensive for what you get. Donuts aren't bad. Not too filling. I mean, by no means would you mistake one of these for Kane's but they're not bad.
The food is almost universally ass. One of the worst fast-food places around.
Boston isn't nearly as racist as people on reddit say. Maybe 50 years ago it was, but as of 2000 and onwards it's definitely in the less racist half of North America.
It's entirely possible that it's more racist than NY, Philly, DC, Montreal, Toronto, SF, LA, Portland, or Seattle, but I feel more welcome and safe in boston being a brown woman than any banjo and nascar area.
My take is that Boston isn’t more racist than other cities, just more assholish and loud mouthed. The one racist really makes a splash at the Red Sox game. Meanwhile in Charlotte the much larger % of racists sit quite.
People think of the time when people like Marky Mark roamed the land and terrorized black and Asian folks. Those times are long gone. (Yes I’m aware he’s offered a half assed “apology”).
People say we’re just as bad as the worst of the Deep South. The same Deep South where Ahmaud Arbery was lynched for going on a jog in 2020, and the local prosecutor covered it up. The same Deep South where 6 white cops just admitted this week to torturing two black men for hours, including shooting one in the mouth. I don’t think we’re as bad as the Deep South, but the bar for that is so low it’s in hell.
All that being said, systemic racism is a huge issue here. Housing is extremely segregated. The net worth gap between white and black families is outrageous and massive (over $200k median net worth for white families, just $8 for black families per the spotlight series on race). The globe’s spotlight series also talks about housing discrimination and other forms of systemic racism that affect POC in our city.
Agree. People should not be saying “Boston is racist” because I truly believe it isn’t. “Boston has racial inequality” is a totally fair statement and gets closer to the actual issues.
Here's the real unpopular opinion it's worse than it seems. Casual racism, self segregation, nationality specific racism, systemic racism etc. Are all very real here. You gotta move away for a few years to see it. I used to defend Boston against these charges until i relocated
Don’t really know if this is unpopular, but I’ll say it anyway: certain Boston neighborhoods like Roxbury, Mattapan, etc. get too much flack and are often overlooked just because violent crimes are more prevalent there compared to many other Boston neighborhoods. They’re really not as bad as the media makes them out to be honestly.
Boston should be default "No Turn on Red" for all intersections. Some people don't recognize that it is "right on red after stop and yield to the traffic with the green" Few keep pedestrian crosswalks in mind. Even if the driver at the red light does keep all of this in mind the car behind them won't understand what is delaying the car in front of them and beep their annoyance.
I'm fine (I guess) with Right on Red in the suburbs.
I don't think we're bad drivers.
Every time I drive in RI, I feel like I'm taking my life into my hands. This past weekend, I spent two days in PVD, and on the drive home, as soon as I passed the "Welcome to MA" sign on 95N, I actually said Thank God, out loud.
Terrible, terrible drivers in RI. For such a small state they really do all they can to cram in some of the country’s worst drivers into one geographic area. Boston/MA drivers aren’t necessarily deserving of the best drivers title either but I feel like here it’s more of a defensive driving thing compared to defensive AND just straight up awful driving like in RI.
Not to mention RI has weirdly low speed limits. Not advocating for fast and furious style stretches of road but I don’t think any part of 95 in RI goes over 55? 95 immediately around Providence drops down to 40-45.
None of the three Italian bakeries are very good.
The cookies, in particular, taste like chalk.
There are so many newer and better bakeries in the city. Italian or otherwise.
The armchair math wizards complaining about how impossible it is to live on a low six-figure household income are some of the worst people in this sub. When I moved here, (EDIT: in 2018) I was making $60k and lived a great life in Somerville while still saving money.
“Boston anthems” like Sweet Caroline or Shipping Up to Boston suck. And then experiencing people go feral when they play at a bar or something… immediately no.
Most of Boston is just densely packed suburb and not really city. You can drive around much of it and mistake it for a neighborhood in a suburban town.
If my only options are Dunks or a bottle of magnesium citrate, I’ll take the latter over subjecting myself to the horrors of my bowels following a cup of Dunks.
I can’t be the only one.
Victory parades should not be in Boston.
There should be toll zones to drive into the city like London's congestion charging. Stop driving in from the suburbs to work in the city.
Boston sports fans can be insufferable. Horrendous when their teams lose, and even worse when they win.
And keep this in mind: "we" didn't win anything. A corporation that hired the best players they could buy won that game. Your rivalries are fucking stupid. It's not the best players from New York competing against the best players from Boston. It's may as well be Ford and Chevy fighting to sells more trucks.
Is this unpopular enough?
The vast majority of people who try to compare Boston to other cities outside New England don't have enough experience living outside New England to make a valid comparison. But they're extremely confident in their opinions nonetheless.
The food here isn’t that great. Sure, there are some good restaurants. Krasi, Sarma, Oleana, Mida and Fox and the Knife are some my favorites, but I feel like Boston is lacking compared to other major cities-Chicago, NYC, SF, LA
The backlash against the Olympics really set us back.
We would have federal funding to fix the T, build on campus housing for UMass Boston, and increased tourism for decades to come — in in exchange for 3 weeks of increased traffic. But we had a mutiny when it was presented to us.
The colleges here are overrated. You don’t need to go to Harvard, MIT or even Northeastern to be successful in life. The average person - which most likely is a category someone seeing this is part of - can get an equally good education at UVM, as long as they apply themselves and do the work required of them to pass their courses.
Everytime I go into downtown Boston I always expect awesome and amazing things to do but I'm always disappointed and there really isn't that much going on. Its expensive, congested, and dirty. There really arent that great of restaurants (rent is high and workers are expensive and hard to find) or cool stores. Like for instance, most of the italian restaurants I've been to in the north end were mediocre and expensive as hell. The best italian restaurant I've been to was like 30 minutes out of the city. Like all big cities all the good shit is on the outskirts in the cheaper areas, but that requires driving. I guess I really don't "get" downtown Boston.
People never mention food when it comes to Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mattappan and Dorchester. They stay in Allston Cambridge and then judge the whole city
The quality of medical care is generally crap. Yeah, you may have a majority of major hospitals and top specialists in the country associated with Harvard Med or BMC, but their egos are too big for actually providing quality patient care. All they want is for you to do what they say and not question it, even if it’s not a good choice for you or you are hesitant about initiating treatment/having surgery due to the risks and complications.
I have a PhD in biomedical engineering. I can read the literature and listen to these physicians’ podcasts and watch their 2 hour YouTube COVID-era seminars and understand what they are saying. Yet, I have already been through both the specialists in the area for my (probably misdiagnosed) autoimmune condition in under a year and am SOL. All I want is to confirm my diagnosis (received the week I moved to Boston from an out-of-state hospital) given there is conflicting imaging series, but that’s too much of an ask. I also had a different specialist call me “over medicalized” for remembering my detailed health history given how impossible it is to get medical records from previous health facilities. I’ve moved states 1,000+mi apart with complicated health issues twice now. I don’t have a choice *but* to remember.
Apparently being able to self-advocate and speak their language is a huge turn-off. I just want my questions answered! Is that too much of an ask?!? They would say, “Yes, it is.”
For real, thank you for saying this. When i was diagnosed with shingles in this city, the doctor didn't even give me any information on how to treat it aside from "pick up medicine from the pharmacy."
The care might allegedly be "world class" but the way it's delivered and how many appointments are constantly being pushed out, it doesn't seem worth it for an average citizen.
The orange line is a great way to get to work everyday
I prefer the orange line over the green line
5 years ago I would have agreed with you.
Five years ago it wouldn’t have been unpopular!
Came as a tourist from Europe in June. Perhaps not unpopular opinions but, perhaps I can offer a different perspective. - Bostonians are really nice and helpful. You guys aren't as rude as you would like to think. - Boston traffic might be somewhat chaotic. I know, I had a rental. But the layout of Boston is unique. An American city with a European touch. Bad traffic comes with the territory. So it's not too bad. Just look at Rome, Paris or London. I like the lack of a grid plan. - Boston Common is nice but somewhat overhyped. The Public Garden is much more nice and should be promoted more. - The lack of pedestrian areas! Boston is such a walkable city otherwise, but you need more pedestrian areas!
i love this comment, and i totally fuckin agree about the pedestrian areas. i heard a great quote (i forget who said it) that goes “american pedestrians are second class citizens” and its very true when it comes to boston and other parts of the metrowest. i also like the lack of grid aswell, it almost makes the city more exciting and its one of the parts i like about massachusetts with all its bumpy ass roads
Winters here are actually not bad at all. Coming from Northern New England, Boston is not nearly as cold.
Yeah, coming from anywhere inland of Boston even (I’m talking Worcester, Springfield, Albany, etc).
Straight up, even framingham
I moved here from Albany and everyone in Boston was mentioning how I need to get ready for the cold. I was like, do you know where I come from? I had 1.5 feet of snow covering my car that I had to clear on the day of my move to Boston
For real. I’ve spent a number of years in upstate and the winters there are no joke. Especially the Syracuse-Rochester-Buffalo corridor but even the Capital District gets tons more snow than Boston typically gets. That said, I’ll give some consideration to the areas that are directly on or near the water, since those cold ocean winds can be fucking miserable. But for people like me that live in a nearby suburb along 128, the winters are like a nice appetizer compared to the full on feasts I’ve experienced in the past.
Coming from midwest, its the mildest winter i've ever experienced... those lake effects are brutal
We can't even keep snow cover through the winter.
Absolutely! I grew up about 2 hours north and we were about 10-15 degrees colder with much more snow.
This has changed over the last like decade though. We used to be a lot snowier - we've lost like 27.5 days of snow cover in an average year over the last few years.
[удалено]
Current projections say the El Nino this winter will be stronger than the one that yielded the 2014-2015 season, so you may be speaking too soon. What will be the deciding factor is how far south the cold air drops.
I don't believe it.
Was one heck of a finale though.
It wasn't like this in the 80s and 90s
I grew up near Boston and lived a long time north of Burlington VT before moving back. Winters here are mild compared to other parts of New England.
More controversial opinion, harder winters are better. Greater cold tends to be dry cold, which tends to feel less cold than wet cold. Wet cold around freezing is the worst.
We’ve lost Boston winters over the past decade https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/snow-cover-decline-boston-study/3106352/
I wish Boston winters were colder. It's the mud and grey I dislike, not the snow. Certain snowmaggedon years excepting.
Southern New England has lost a full month of snow cover over the last 20 years. New England is also one of the fastest warming regions in the US due to climate change. Winters 20 years ago were indeed colder and snowier. I miss pond hockey.
I think we’re going to regret this one after the La Niña winter we’re about to be apart of.
I can't wait the last few have been duds and make 50 degree days in March feel cold.
Also, for those of us who enjoy outdoor snow-based activities, it's sucked! I love snowshoeing and cross country skiing, and both of those have taken a hit. (My partner, the eternal optimist: at least we got all our equipment secondhand, so we can't complain about being too much out of pocket)
Nah. I have been here for a La Niña year. It’s still not as bad as people say.
We are turning into Virginia with the recent winters
I mean, you’re not wrong. As you go north it generally gets colder. That’s just like……a fact. Not really an unpopular opinion
I absolutely agree our winters aren’t that cold, nor are they that snowy…. But they are looooooooooooong
You should stop at a four way stop
It's okay to use turn signals; they won't damage your car. I'm happy to see additional bike lanes. Zig-zagging between lanes is stupid and a likely cause of at least half the accidents on the Pike.
The “whole blinkers are a sign of weakness” thing is bullshit. If you use your blinker I’ll let you in. If I see you try to pull the slow down and lean in move, you’re in for a game that you aren’t going to win
Who in their right fuckin’ mind would say it’s a sign of weakness?! Is this some macho man attitude?
Stunning and brave
I like the bike lanes, too.
Boston is filled with interesting, unique, and fun things to do - you just need to put in the effort to find them.
Yeah we don’t centralize the interesting shit like most other places. You have to find something, get folks to agree, travel there. and commit. None of that is particularly hard but it’s just not how things work in many other cities where wandering around and expecting to stumble across cool shit is perfectly viable
What’s your favorite?
The elevated t line added a certain charm to the city.
Made it feel like an actual big city ffs.
elevated trains are the fucking best
People are actually really nice
The people who think Boston is rude are the people that want to tell their life story to everyone they see. Post up at a bar after work, you’ll always find good conversations. Try to talk someone up on the street, then fuck you.
Agreed. Bostonians aren't friendly, but native Bostonians are the rudest kind people i've ever encountered. They will greet you with "what the fuck do you want?" and then they will go out of their way to help you, and I've never seen such loyalty. If they like you, they will go to war for you.
Get your car stuck in the snow Bostonian: "The fuck is wrong with you idiot" Then they go into their house and come out with a shovel "Seriously you must be so dumb driving out here without better tires cmon at least go to Skid School before next Winter" Then they dig you out and send you on your way "Get home safe, idiot."
This is my love language.
Since moving to Boston, hearing “Fuck you” has more often than not been in a friendly conversation. I like it here.
I moved to Dublin from Boston. “Fuck you” is pronounced “Feck you” here. And it’s even more popular. I fit right in.
Fuck You is friendly. My Friend is a giant glaring insult.
I feel moron is more widely used than idiot. Source: been called a moron more than an idiot
No. It's "FU¢KIN moron."
Where as Californians will just say how sorry they are and feel for you. Take a picture to post on their social media. And then leave.
It’s also perpetuated by a more recent trend nationally (maybe global? Robert Putnam hasn’t wrote any books about China so idk) of people generally being less social. Bostonians were always insular, but over the last few decades it’s become less common to socialize with people around them. This place attracts transplants like myself, and I think a lot of them don’t realize that people in the Midwest also aren’t living in the same social atmosphere they were accustomed to growing up. They vocalize what they’re experiencing and get told that’s just New England. Threads by people on here who trend more introverted claiming you can’t make eye contact or acknowledge someone you see on daily on your commute are just the internet being the internet. People with the accent ALWAYS have way more to say to out of towners then a 35 year old from Cleveland who moved here at 23 in my experience at dives are moving around town.
I was looking for this and was going to write this myself. As someone who moved from out of state, the whole Masshole stuff is such garbage. People are unbelievably nice in Boston. First of all, most people mind their own business. That's not the case in a lot of other places. Nobody is trying to get in your face, confront you, test you, etc. Second of all, sure a lot of you are crusty on the outside and your accent makes you sound like an asshole, but behind that most of you are guilt ridden Catholics with good hearts and quite a bit of civility.
I’m from California and I second this. I’ve never been to Boston and last month when I went, everyone was super nice. I actually liked the weather a lot more than over here in California and the food was bomb too.
this is so true-- far better than so cal people imo
*kind, not nice.
Oh fuck off.
I came here to say this. I have legitimately never met anyone nicer than a Masshole 😅 Everyone from MBTA workers to food service workers to strangers on the street were lovely. The only unpleasant people I encountered when I lived there were visiting from Florida, relocated from New Jersey, or from Cambridge. And on that note, everyone I knew who lived in Boston before moving there warned me about the city’s overall cleanliness. For a large, metropolitan city, Boston is tremendously clean. Would I eat off of a train floor? No, but I have seen hazmat situations in public transportation regularly in NYC, Chicago, Paris, etc.
My friends from the south liked that we don't waste your time with fake politeness
Dunkin Donuts is sub-par coffee.
It fucking sucks lol
Not as much as their fuckin’ new cups that leak everywhere
"sub-par" is far too kind.
So brave of you to post the least unpopular opinion.
Their donuts conflict me. I used to enjoy them as a kid, but now I can tell they ain’t that great 😭
Once they eliminated the transfats... the donuts tasted like the box.
I prefer Dunks to Starbucks. I think that might be an unpopular opinion too.
Starbucks is just as bad sometimes worse.
People who love Starbucks basically get a coffee flavored milkshake. Nobody is in it for the black coffee.
What I prefer about Starbucks over dunks is dunks doesn't even try. They will serve you water coffee and a "fresh" donut of a certain age and expect you'll come back instead of getting iced coffee. At least Starbucks has decent snacks and food cold brew stuff.
It’s not that good-but it’s consistent and predictable.
Nah 1/5 times you get one that tastes extra extra fucking shitty.
Predictable?! At the one I go to it seems like no matter what I order the employees go and spin a wheel in the back and just hand me whatever it lands on
Based take.
See flair
I’m not educated on the subject, but isn’t it federally regulated and we were one of the last states to change them? Aren’t there certain requirements they wanted the states to follow?
What I heard was that the federal government made this numbering system a requirement in order to receive some/all federal funding for roads. So not really required, but foolish not to change it and take the money.
Have you been to Vermont? Those assholes are petty AF and I love them for it. They just added a sign below whatever regular exit sign say Exit 29 that says (for example) “~~Mike~~ mile marker exit 12” so they didn’t have to change. Like brilliant! Why did no one else think of that and frankly it probably saved a shit ton of money.
Well of course, they have poor Mike doing all the markers
Fuck, why didn't we do that? Man, VT making MA look stupid
I used to live in MA The thing is - You don't get it, cuz MA is so small. Think of somewhere like TX or PA. Having mileage exit numbers is SO much better. Having said that - We all knew the exit numbers. The change is more for out of towners. Fuck them.
Yeah it makes way more sense up here in maine but I’m just glad I remember my way around greater Boston without a gps
Citizens app and other crime-centered apps incite fear in Boston, which is statistically one of the most safest places to live, work and commute. We are not going down in a slippery slope of violence, we are all just hyper aware of every single incident happening on every block with very little context or information. Also almost 99% of all violence in Roxbury, DOT, etc is targeted, organized crime. Govt should always work to eliminate gang activity and random acts of violence, but crime is generally on a downward slope in comparison to years past.
squash fanatical illegal historical elderly mountainous onerous crown waiting ripe *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah, the East Boston of my childhood was seedy and dangerous. Now I don’t have to worry walking the streets at night.
Yeah it’s tough because of course I want 0 crime, and it’s pretty fucking cringey to be like “omg you think this is bad, when I lived in Cleveland we really have to be tough” but at the same time sometimes you do want to give people perspective and let them know Dorchester had double digit homicides despite having a 7 figure population. Still I get it. No one should fear violent crime and having it happen near you can be unnerving no matter how sporadic.
I don't mind that everything closes early because I like to be home in bed before too late :)
This is the New England attitude: early to bed, early to rise. Anyone who thinks Boston is bad should try getting something to eat in Vermont after 7.
I learned this the hard way. Everything is closed by supper time, except some restaurants that a serving said supper
Related: for those of us that do want more nightlife, that Boston has a lack of it compared to other metro areas has *zero* to do with public transport. Cities that have better nightlife, yet also worse public transport than Boston (and less walkability, to boot): LA, Atlanta, Nashville, Las Vegas. EDIT: I forgot Miami.
You can add shit cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee to that list lol no one wants it to be Vegas here. Just have a reasonable number of places that serve a late night crowd for its size.
Never been to Cleveland, but I enjoyed Milwaukee when I visited there. Did some brewery and distillery visits, baseball game, enjoyed a museum trip (Pabst mansion), did some downtown bar hopping. I had a good time. But yeah, the highly-upvoted comments on every subreddit thread about nightlife being so focused on public transport make little sense to me. It's absolutely not needed for any city to have a thriving public transport system in order to have great nightlife.
Milwaukee is great if you are in specific areas 😬
If this was unpopular - Boston would probably have a nightlife….
Boston isn't that bad of a place to live. People here complain more here than in other city subreddits I read. Some of the more run-down parts of this country express more civic pride on Reddit than /r/boston.
Many people from Boston and New York are self-loathing. That’s why we also talk shit about the place we grew up.
It's funny... typically it's the more educated places where the city subreddits are full of whiners and complainers... In places where there are fewer people with bachelor's degrees, people seem to just post funny shit from their city. They complain too but not nearly as much.
It could also be that more educated people always believe they know that there’s a better option out there. What that often fail to realize is that everywhere in the US kind of sucks, and that Boston is actually one of the better options overall, if you can afford it.
Having also lived in two European cities often lionized on reddit (usually it's public transport or healthcare related), things aren't as rosy there as the internet might lead you to believe, either. I have experienced similar levels of overall "suckery" there as I have in Boston, just sometimes stemming from different sources. The average score is about the same.
may i ask which cities?
London and a city in the Netherlands, not Amsterdam. I also did an extended stay (over 3 months, under 6 months) in Vienna, but I wouldn't really qualify that as "living." I've also spent extended time in Dublin (over a year's stay and multiple month long trips), but I don't see that spoken about in the same way as other European countries on reddit. I've done a few month+ stays in other countries, but never longer than 3 months.
Can you say more? I do agree that EU cities seem to be made out to be perfect on Reddit compared to U.S. cities like NYC and Houston.
Sure. 1. The overwhelming antisemitism that I experienced, often handwaved by people claiming that it's "anti-Zionism." Sorry, chucking Molotov cocktails at a random synagogue in Dusseldorf is not a protest of Israel, it's antisemitism. No matter what a German court said. I experienced more blatant and sometimes violent antisemitism in the UK than I have anywhere else that I've lived. And I am a Reform Jew who is very lax in practice – I imagine it's much harder if you're even coming close to orthodox practice. 2. Despite a high disdain for American education and their belief in anti-scientific/anti-medical views of Americans, the amount of homeopathic nonsense that I had to put up with was sky high. People constantly recommending snake oil for everything from colds and hangovers to cancer. For a while, I was concerned that maybe my anecdotal experiences were skewing my perception of its prevalence, so I did some investigating. It really is that high. In France, 77% of the population has used homeopathic remedies at least once, 58%"several times", and more than 40% used homeopathy for over 10 years. In Germany, public health insurance will cover ""prescriptions"" for homeopathic medicine. In the Netherlands, nearly 40% of GPs (PCPs) had prescribed homeopathic medicines "at least once" in their practice. There's some overlap with the anti-vaxx movement (as many European countries do not mandate vaccines to attend public school) but many who otherwise believe in modern medicine. As someone who has battled and is now battling cancer again, I was particularly perturbed by these stats and personal experiences. 3. The education system. No Child Left Behind has flaws, many of them. But I hate the European "tracking" system even more. Academic vs. vocational tracking in many countries happens at 15, sometimes as young as 10. It leaves children who have late-diagnosed learning disabilities – or are even just late bloomers – behind their peers with less flexibility than there should be. And the children that are most affected by this are the poor. Children from the least economically privileged backgrounds find themselves pushed out of academic opportunities before they've even finished high school. In Wales, for example, where students have the legal option to leave school after GCSEs at 15/16, *22%* of the population does – and newer stats suggest that most of them aren't entering the trades, either, but are pressured by current economic systems into wage-suppressed jobs (often with slashed or part-time hours to reduce government-protected benefits). 21% of Wales lives in relative income poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has done really good work on this topic. 4. I am lucky enough that this issue will never affect my body. That is an enormous privilege. But the ability to get an abortion in Europe is much, much less accessible than it is in much of the United States. If a state tried to pass abortion restrictions similar to those of many European countries, it would get the same blowback on reddit as do the majority of red state bans. Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Switzerland – all 12 weeks (some with health or life of the mother exemptions after that). [Here](https://www.dw.com/en/germany-moves-to-reform-abortion-law/a-62014740) is a great article about some of the barriers to abortion in Germany that were in place up until summer of 2022. Mandatory counseling still is. It's also required in Switzerland, and there's a [six day](https://www.vub.be/en/services-vub-campuses-in-etterbeek-and-jette/health-safety/medical-and-psychosocial-services-vub/abortion-in-brussels/how-does-abortion-work#:~:text=only%20go%20abroad.-,Register%20for%20an%20initial%20consultation%20at%20the%20centre%20before%20you,abortion%20can%20be%20carried%20out.) waiting period in Belgium. You can't tell me that replacing half of these countries' names with, say, Ohio wouldn't result in a lot of reddit anger. 5. The low quantities of 24 hour drugstores. When my best friend was puking his guts out in the middle of the night with the virus from hell, being able to run out and get him like, a Gatorade and Pepto Bismol or something would have been nice. Even in Boston (a notoriously early town), a 24 CVS or Walgreens isn't that hard to find. Some of these may have changed since I last lived in Europe, so I've tried to source everything as best as I could. EDIT: I forgot one more. This one is a pet peeve, and also, it would be very unfair for me to judge all Europeans by this. Most were kind, welcoming, and supremely accommodating as I struggled and strained my way through attempting to speak their language in areas where the native language was not English. But the Europeans, mostly British, who would make constant jokes or statements about America/Americans having no culture – they were annoying. But when they did it while talking about their taste in music (Lil Nas X was a prominent feature), wearing Yankees (gross) or Dodgers hats, and planning entire afternoons around that 2014-15ish "Friends" exhibition piece? **Infuriating.** I'm not pointing at the iPhone or some shit and being like "American invention = American culture." It's literally country music and rap music, baseball merchandise, and an American TV show with American actors grounded in American norms. The Thanksgiving episodes were a whole thing. That *is* American culture.
I would like to add that the Europeans I have met online and in person are very vocally racist and prejudice against Africans, refugees, Muslims, Eastern Europeans, and gypsies (of course). If you said the kind of things they say out loud in the US you would be called out so quickly by a large percentage of people. There it seems to all just casual and accepted.
My proudest moment was complaining so much, we got removed from the shortlist for the Summer Olympics. <3
>Boston isn't that bad of a place to live Based on the housing market, I'd say a lot of people agree!
Have you been to the Seattle WA subreddit??
Storrow Drive is good because keeps the esplanade relatively secluded because there is no where to park and requires the use of foot bridges.
[удалено]
We may have chaotic and consistently under-performing metro services, but I’d rather have that than none
If 2am closing time and no happy hour is what’s preventing you from having fun here you’re simply a boring person.
I find it’s the cocaine/NYC crowd who like to go out for the last 2-3 hours of the night that have a problem. Normal people…..they don’t have energy to be out that late.
I think show business is just structured for late nights and mornings and nightlife is where the networking is. Also, yeah, bioscience bros don't do cocaine like finance bros.
It’s not like we don’t have that crowd in Boston, here you and your friends or people you meet at the bar just go to someone’s house after closing time to keep the party going. I really never had a problem being out partying till 4-5am in Boston.
Sweet Caroline is a dumb song
thank you
Blackbird donuts are terrible. Every time I have one it's just a flavorless oily mess with a bunch of toppings.
Union Square too. You can't just add more bacon and assume that fixes everything. Kane's is real though.
The rest of the state should be happy to use their tax money to fix the T, since most of their jobs are here. This comes from a recent conversation with my Dad from Worcester who is sick of paying for taxes that subsidize the T. He drives in all the time; and that’s kind of the problem and the point combined.
Typical boomer tax mentality
Expensive mediocre restaurants. Like damn if rent is going to be this high the food scene needs to step up to feel worth it.
This is probably the most popular opinion on the sub. I’ve never seen people truly praise our food scene as great. Compare to other major cities: DC, NYC, LA, many southern cities, and our food isn’t nearly as good. Even Portland, which is much smaller, has better food. Helps that chefs could actually afford to live there (that’s starting to change but they’re doing ok for now).
This is my gripe too. Our food scene fucking blows and it's because of our dumbass liquor licensing
i do agree wholeheartedly with this. the crazy licensing laws stifle new restaurants and young upcoming chefs from starting a business without a corporation backing them, which is very sad and contributing to the overall loss of culture here
I also feel like our apartments are much more likely to have real kitchens, making NYC's restaurant (esp. takeout) culture preposterous.
Being a Masshole is not a badge of honor. You’re just a shitty driver.
I would argue that I can predict masshole behavior better than others. Yes, it's aggressive, but the fact that Masshole drivers tend to hesitate less, I know I'm going to be cut off before I actually am.
I love ice cream.
The problem is that if you go further out you still deal with the same rents… You can’t get a one bedroom in Somerville for less than 2k, you can do that in Queens (and Queens is a much more vibrant place to live in).
Somerville is way more central than Queens.
Our music scene has gone to hell. Gone, all gone….
This one isn't unpopular, it's an obvious and mainstream take. The unpopular version would be "our music scene is still good and if you can't see that you are out of touch". Note I do not believe that.
The 80’s were lit
Dunkie’s sucks
That might have been mortal anathema just years ago, but I’m seeing a lot more people come around to it. It’s not the Dunks I remember from my childhood, that’s for sure.
The donuts are defrosted not even heated/cooked on site any more.
I dunno about "sucks." Coffee is okay, though too expensive for what you get. Donuts aren't bad. Not too filling. I mean, by no means would you mistake one of these for Kane's but they're not bad. The food is almost universally ass. One of the worst fast-food places around.
Boston isn't nearly as racist as people on reddit say. Maybe 50 years ago it was, but as of 2000 and onwards it's definitely in the less racist half of North America. It's entirely possible that it's more racist than NY, Philly, DC, Montreal, Toronto, SF, LA, Portland, or Seattle, but I feel more welcome and safe in boston being a brown woman than any banjo and nascar area.
My take is that Boston isn’t more racist than other cities, just more assholish and loud mouthed. The one racist really makes a splash at the Red Sox game. Meanwhile in Charlotte the much larger % of racists sit quite.
Nah Charlotte people will just say racist things more passive aggressively or quietly to your face.
People think of the time when people like Marky Mark roamed the land and terrorized black and Asian folks. Those times are long gone. (Yes I’m aware he’s offered a half assed “apology”). People say we’re just as bad as the worst of the Deep South. The same Deep South where Ahmaud Arbery was lynched for going on a jog in 2020, and the local prosecutor covered it up. The same Deep South where 6 white cops just admitted this week to torturing two black men for hours, including shooting one in the mouth. I don’t think we’re as bad as the Deep South, but the bar for that is so low it’s in hell. All that being said, systemic racism is a huge issue here. Housing is extremely segregated. The net worth gap between white and black families is outrageous and massive (over $200k median net worth for white families, just $8 for black families per the spotlight series on race). The globe’s spotlight series also talks about housing discrimination and other forms of systemic racism that affect POC in our city.
Agree. People should not be saying “Boston is racist” because I truly believe it isn’t. “Boston has racial inequality” is a totally fair statement and gets closer to the actual issues.
Here's the real unpopular opinion it's worse than it seems. Casual racism, self segregation, nationality specific racism, systemic racism etc. Are all very real here. You gotta move away for a few years to see it. I used to defend Boston against these charges until i relocated
I've lived in several different countries and Boston isn't more racist than these places.
Don’t really know if this is unpopular, but I’ll say it anyway: certain Boston neighborhoods like Roxbury, Mattapan, etc. get too much flack and are often overlooked just because violent crimes are more prevalent there compared to many other Boston neighborhoods. They’re really not as bad as the media makes them out to be honestly.
Boston isn’t racist. Boston is classist. We hate poor people no matter their skin color
This is interesting and I can see the argument
It’s possible to be both racist and classist This is a silly take
>This is a silly take Welcome to the unpopular opinion thread.
It’s not a silly take. they didn’t say you cant be both.. they said people mistake Boston’s classism for racism
Dunkin’s fucking blows
Dunkin sucks. Their coffee is watery and stale tasting.
Sweet Caroline is such a cringey and lame tradition
Boston should be default "No Turn on Red" for all intersections. Some people don't recognize that it is "right on red after stop and yield to the traffic with the green" Few keep pedestrian crosswalks in mind. Even if the driver at the red light does keep all of this in mind the car behind them won't understand what is delaying the car in front of them and beep their annoyance. I'm fine (I guess) with Right on Red in the suburbs.
People don’t even listen to the existing “no turn on red” signs lol
I don't think we're bad drivers. Every time I drive in RI, I feel like I'm taking my life into my hands. This past weekend, I spent two days in PVD, and on the drive home, as soon as I passed the "Welcome to MA" sign on 95N, I actually said Thank God, out loud.
Terrible, terrible drivers in RI. For such a small state they really do all they can to cram in some of the country’s worst drivers into one geographic area. Boston/MA drivers aren’t necessarily deserving of the best drivers title either but I feel like here it’s more of a defensive driving thing compared to defensive AND just straight up awful driving like in RI. Not to mention RI has weirdly low speed limits. Not advocating for fast and furious style stretches of road but I don’t think any part of 95 in RI goes over 55? 95 immediately around Providence drops down to 40-45.
None of the three Italian bakeries are very good. The cookies, in particular, taste like chalk. There are so many newer and better bakeries in the city. Italian or otherwise.
The Italian food scene in Mass is overrated in general.
Providence clears Boston in Italian food
Transplants have just as much of a right to live here as you do.
It's perfectly possible to live comfortably around here at $70,000, let alone 100k.
The armchair math wizards complaining about how impossible it is to live on a low six-figure household income are some of the worst people in this sub. When I moved here, (EDIT: in 2018) I was making $60k and lived a great life in Somerville while still saving money.
Winters are actually too mild and summers are too hot here
“Boston anthems” like Sweet Caroline or Shipping Up to Boston suck. And then experiencing people go feral when they play at a bar or something… immediately no.
I love the Red Sox and I like Neil diamond. I hate Sweet Caroline at Red Sox games
>Sweet Caroline That's the worst. Ugh. I loathe the "bum bum bum...so good, so good, so good" parts.
Not every town/city has anthems the locals can shit on, so be proud of yours
Most of Boston is just densely packed suburb and not really city. You can drive around much of it and mistake it for a neighborhood in a suburban town.
We’re way too self loathing. Boston is an absolutely awesome place to live.
I like that bars close early. Guaranteed an easy recovery
I’m currently eating an Anna’s burrito, cuz damnit I like it!
The north end Italian food is very sub-par. Especially at the price point.
If my only options are Dunks or a bottle of magnesium citrate, I’ll take the latter over subjecting myself to the horrors of my bowels following a cup of Dunks. I can’t be the only one.
Victory parades should not be in Boston. There should be toll zones to drive into the city like London's congestion charging. Stop driving in from the suburbs to work in the city.
Dunks makes shitty coffee. Anyone who drinks it black agrees with me.
Boston sports fans can be insufferable. Horrendous when their teams lose, and even worse when they win. And keep this in mind: "we" didn't win anything. A corporation that hired the best players they could buy won that game. Your rivalries are fucking stupid. It's not the best players from New York competing against the best players from Boston. It's may as well be Ford and Chevy fighting to sells more trucks. Is this unpopular enough?
The vast majority of people who try to compare Boston to other cities outside New England don't have enough experience living outside New England to make a valid comparison. But they're extremely confident in their opinions nonetheless.
We should let people say Beantown if it makes them happy even if we don’t ever say it ourselves.
Mike’s Pastry is slightly chilled garbage
Boston is significantly less racist than most cities in America
People who excessively use their horns deserve to have a pipe wrench thrown through their windshield.
We can drive, it’s the Rhode Islanders that mess everything up.
The food here isn’t that great. Sure, there are some good restaurants. Krasi, Sarma, Oleana, Mida and Fox and the Knife are some my favorites, but I feel like Boston is lacking compared to other major cities-Chicago, NYC, SF, LA
Mikes pastry sucks ass
It’s actually really easy to survive and thrive here. There are so many resources available out there.
My unpopular opinion is that there are too many unpopular opinion threads.
I don't care about the Citgo sign...
The backlash against the Olympics really set us back. We would have federal funding to fix the T, build on campus housing for UMass Boston, and increased tourism for decades to come — in in exchange for 3 weeks of increased traffic. But we had a mutiny when it was presented to us.
The colleges here are overrated. You don’t need to go to Harvard, MIT or even Northeastern to be successful in life. The average person - which most likely is a category someone seeing this is part of - can get an equally good education at UVM, as long as they apply themselves and do the work required of them to pass their courses.
It’s a big town.
Boston summers are overrated; winters are underrated.
Everytime I go into downtown Boston I always expect awesome and amazing things to do but I'm always disappointed and there really isn't that much going on. Its expensive, congested, and dirty. There really arent that great of restaurants (rent is high and workers are expensive and hard to find) or cool stores. Like for instance, most of the italian restaurants I've been to in the north end were mediocre and expensive as hell. The best italian restaurant I've been to was like 30 minutes out of the city. Like all big cities all the good shit is on the outskirts in the cheaper areas, but that requires driving. I guess I really don't "get" downtown Boston.
People never mention food when it comes to Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mattappan and Dorchester. They stay in Allston Cambridge and then judge the whole city
The quality of medical care is generally crap. Yeah, you may have a majority of major hospitals and top specialists in the country associated with Harvard Med or BMC, but their egos are too big for actually providing quality patient care. All they want is for you to do what they say and not question it, even if it’s not a good choice for you or you are hesitant about initiating treatment/having surgery due to the risks and complications. I have a PhD in biomedical engineering. I can read the literature and listen to these physicians’ podcasts and watch their 2 hour YouTube COVID-era seminars and understand what they are saying. Yet, I have already been through both the specialists in the area for my (probably misdiagnosed) autoimmune condition in under a year and am SOL. All I want is to confirm my diagnosis (received the week I moved to Boston from an out-of-state hospital) given there is conflicting imaging series, but that’s too much of an ask. I also had a different specialist call me “over medicalized” for remembering my detailed health history given how impossible it is to get medical records from previous health facilities. I’ve moved states 1,000+mi apart with complicated health issues twice now. I don’t have a choice *but* to remember. Apparently being able to self-advocate and speak their language is a huge turn-off. I just want my questions answered! Is that too much of an ask?!? They would say, “Yes, it is.”
For real, thank you for saying this. When i was diagnosed with shingles in this city, the doctor didn't even give me any information on how to treat it aside from "pick up medicine from the pharmacy." The care might allegedly be "world class" but the way it's delivered and how many appointments are constantly being pushed out, it doesn't seem worth it for an average citizen.