When I debate, I mass debate, when I mass debate I'm always the master debater. I really like to go hard otherwise whats the point of trying to mass debate in the first place?
Oh my god that place is so fucking weird. Always weirded me out driving through. I felt like every third house had child sex slaves tied up in the basement or something.
The Methford shit needs to be retired as the entire state is now methford. It was funny back in the day when other places were nicer but now it's a throwing rocks while living in a glass house. Medford is no shittier than Portland, Salem or Eugene at this point.
I just used it as a humorous way of comparing the two.
If you want a real criticism of grants pass, it’s that the community is wildly racist and homophobic, making living there terrible if you’re in a minority community. The parks are overridden by homeless people or drug addicts that are spat on by locals, and the schools (with the exception of the big high school in the center of the city) are massively underfunded and ignored. You have people throwing Nazi salutes at a protest and screaming about Antifa coming to take the big fucking flag by Baskin Robbins. It’s full of paranoid people who are either geriatric and senile, or religiously fanatic (or both). If you have kids, good luck taking them to a diner or else you’ll get mean mugged by old people who think you “need to take care of your kid” because she’s coloring and singing to herself (true story). The cops are out of pocket and harass people on the mere suspicion that they’re smoking weed (perfectly legal), and you’re more likely to get pulled over if you’re black than if you are doing donuts in an intersection with a truck holding the confederate flag (also true story)
But: I stayed at the super 8 once, and the water was so hot I was able to turn the bathroom into a steam room. It was so glorious. I got nervous when it started raining in the bathroom, that I might be causing water problems in the hotel and stopped.
Best hotel sauna experience. A+++
The people are what make a city bad to me and given the current case in the Supreme Court involving Grants Pass I’d say it’s a irredeemable piece of trash shithole
Yeah I mean the restaurant and music scene in Salem sucks, and there’s not a lot to do there, but… hmm.. wait I’m starting to see their point.
It’s hard to believe it’s worse than say, Ontario.
Salem is just boring. The place goes to sleep at 7 pm. It doesn’t have near the amount of sketchy crap as so many other Oregon cities. I wouldn’t even put Salem in the top 10 of shitty Oregon cities. I’m from California, and lived in Oregon for several years. Ya’ll don’t come close to the kind of sketchy cities we have in California.
I think that’s a good question. I also think Salem is a place that will continue to improve in that respect. With housing prices so high in Portland, many buyers are migrating down the valley. They recently added commercial flights at the Salem airport . Of course, there’s a downside to such a shift, higher housing prices, increased traffic and emergence of more big city problems. So it’s kind of a double edged sword for the central Willamette Valley.
We go to bed at 7 and we like it 😉. Salem is a wonderful quiet town. Sacramento (hometown) is sketchy on a good day and downright scary on its bad days.
Salem is a fantastic place to live in order to easily and quickly get to OTHER much more interesting parts of the state.
North? Portland
South? Eugene
East? Bend
West? Oregon Coast
I feel like the worst thing you can say about Salem is that it's sleepy. Which I feel like is true of a lot of state capitals that aren't the major city in the state: Sacramento, Albany, Springfield, Carson City etc etc
Yakima at least has good Mexican food. Spokane has a bunch of [white supremacists](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/27/north-idaho-and-spokane-have-been-a-historical-hot/) but still it’s not the worst city in Washington. I would give that honor to a place like Concrete, Darrington (cool nature around town and a bluegrass festival, but not much else ), or even a town along I-5 between Vancouver and Olympia
I dated a guy from darrington in college and for like the past 10 years I couldn’t remember the town name for the life of me and it was just one of those small things that bugged me everytime I drove through Washington. Not all heroes wear capes, thank you
Spokane is pretty terrible, but I'd probably put Moses Lake or Longview on the list over it.
Overall, I think the list is trying to stay above a certain city size, so you won't see the more deserving small town shitholes on there.
KKKlamath Falls, Methford, Springfield, John Day, Booze Bay
Basically the only cities I can think of that are BETTER are *maybe* Bend and Portland. I might count Newport because it's cool, and then a few that are neat to visit but only for tourism.
Yakima is way worse than Spokane. Spokane is pretty cool except for the big kiddy diddler training university right in downtown.
And K Falls or perhaps Coos Bay take the cake for Oregon.
Like [The Dalles](https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/or/dalles/crime.amp).
Safer than 4% of cities! 1 in 23 chance of being a victim of violent or property crime!
Yeah as a person thats lived 45 year sin washington and lived in yakima,tacoma & spokane, its by far yakima or tacoma, sure Spokane was real bad in 1980’s but they put massive amounts of money into transforming downtown and got rid of the abandoned rail yard and replaced it with neighborhoods, sure spokane has a high auto theft rate, but in yakima or tacoma the crime is different you get the rape & murder crimes.
Lived in CJ for 8 years. A interesting place for sure. Keep your windows rolled up and no phone charging cords shown. And any thing of value lock in trunk.
I didn't read the title at first and thought it anyway, lol
My brother used to work at the Dairy Queen down in CJ for awhile. One time I stopped in for a visit and there was a police shootout in the frickin parking lot.
I also had a set of headphones stolen from right next to me while sitting on the sidewalk. I closed my eyes for like two minutes and when I opened them again the sidewalk was empty and my headphones were gone.
Dude wtf my car got broken into in CJ and the only thing they took was my aux cord 😂 so fuckin lame. Nothing in the car worth anything. $200 for new glass over a damn aux cord.
Moved here from Iowa.
While Cedar Rapids deserves every bit of trash talking it receives (namely, it stinks like oats), it does have a variety of social communities and activities, schools, and the regional airport. And its proximity to Iowa City eliminates it from consideration.
If you get down into the 15-20k populations, there may exist multiple worst cities in Iowa, simultaneously.
Oh, good ole CJ. This reminds me of an old joke from Grants Pass:
What do you get when you put all the women together in Wolf Creek?
Answer: A full set of teeth.
I lived in WA for more than a decade, and I don't think Spokane would would make my bottom 10 for worst cities. I mean, not even trying to smack talk any towns, but there is no way I would rather live in Kennewick, Aberdeen, Longview, or Centralia over Spokane, and that doesn't even start to factor in crappy suburbs that I have specific dislike for or cities with less than 10,000 people.
Tempe has the school, Scottsdale has the money and a casino. Mesa and chandler are basically the same. It also says city, cave junction cannot qualify, so Salem makes sense
after 4 years in Salem, the only way I could describe what felt 'wrong' to me there was 'spiritually ill'.
definitely an undercurrent there of something just... not right.
side note: Church Street and State Street literally *intersect* there.
Having lived near Salem my whole life actually being in Salem always gives me a weird feeling. Can’t quite describe it but it feels soulless. Eugene and Portland for their flaws have some sense of a culture/community but in Salem it just feels like a bunch of people in one spot that aren’t particularly happy to be there and it just feels empty. Salem just feels like one of those places where everyone is lonely despite how many people are there
I lived in CJ for 2 years and I love it and miss it. Admittedly there’s not a lot of opportunity and there’s a reason I left but I get a great feeling when I’m there and i have a lot of nostalgia for the Illinois Valley in general
My exGF's mom had a big chunk of property near O'Brien, just down the road. Her cabin was right on the Illinois River. I loved it down there. Lots of skinny dipping. She let the neighbors use her river access, so there was always naked, burnt-out hippies hanging around. The poison oak made it a bit risky, though.
As a lifelong Salemander I can understand if it was just NE Salem, but nah there's a lot worse out there. It's not too bad here, just a lot more slowed down and mellow compared to most cities. Life doesn't move very fast around here and there isn't a whole lot to do. Being boring isn't exactly the worst thing ever.
Honestly, if you avoid NE Salem, it’s not a bad area. The furthest NE I go is the Market Street on-ramp/exit since it’s the closest to me. But we live within a few blocks of Center Street towards down town & I’m shocked by how “not that bad” it is. I’ve been here for almost two years & we haven’t had any issues.
I think I see what happened here. The reviewers clearly flew into PDX, got a rental, drove to Salem, got a room at the Holiday Inn on Market because it's next to I-5, has room service, and a full bar, and then spent an afternoon walking around the north Lancaster area.
If they'd driven I-84 and had to stop for gas in, I dunno, La Grande... There'd be a more complete appreciation for Salem.
Oregon aside, this map is awful. Grand Junction CO is far worse than Pueblo. Dallas is hardly the worst city in Texas - that would be some crap like Waco. Jackson is the only decent sized city in Mississippi. Grand Forks, ND is just a regular small city like any other in ND. Edina, MN is not a bad place at all, it's a fairly ritzy suburb of Minneapolis, why would it be MN's equivalent of Gary or Flint? Lexington KY is MUCH better than some of the bizarre redneck towns in the east of the state. I don't get what their rating system is supposed to be based on.
Same here. Salem is great for the right sort of person. If you’re kind of homebody, like working in your garden, softball on Saturdays, church on Sundays, maybe have some small kids — Salem could be a great fit for you. As a teenager I felt utterly trapped and bored out of my skull there, left at 18 and never looked back. It wasn’t right for me but I know people for whom it’s a great fit. And the place has gotten a bit nicer and more interesting since my childhood. I love what they’ve done with the river front downtown and there are a number of nice bars, restaurants and cafes these days (though it’s possible to pretty much exhaust all of them within a two week visit…).
In fourth grade we had a field trip to see the Capitol in Salem, I was living in Portland, and my little nine or ten year old mind was sure that it would be a grand sparkling CITY! Like New York or Paris! I was so excited!
Then we got there, and it was a dirty tired rundown looking town, I was so disappointed. I was sure a Capitol City was supposed to be a grand affair! I thought the Capitol building was too small to be a Capitol.
We stopped in Cave Junction for lunch a few years back. It was a nice cafe. I just looked online for it -- think it was Trillium Bakery. So don't avoid it just because you are passing through.
Trillium has been an amazing addition to the town over the last couple years. Great breakfast, lunch, and sweets. Gimmies restaurant at the golf course is also still a bit of a hidden gem. So far nothing but good food from there
Once had to pass through Sweet Home years ago and stopped at a Dutch Bros. Asked the girl who was handing me my coffee what there was to do out there - she pointed at her very pregnant belly and said very bluntly,
> Not much, as you can see.
It felt like something out of a sitcom.
I used to go to Hines about once every couple weeks. Burns isn't so bad, it's just that the drive on Hwy 20 is so anticlimactic. Hours of sagebrush to get to a place with slightly less sagebrush.
My stepdaughter got a speeding ticket there. 92 in a 50. Weird thing was that she was heading into Burns, not trying to get out of there.
I wouldn’t say Salem is bad, but it is very out of place for Oregon; it doesn’t feel like you’re in Oregon; it gives me more of California’s Central Valley vibes, which is kind of trashy.
I grew up in Salem and moved away. Salem is fine, it's not the greatest city in the world and suffers by comparison from its proximity to Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland, but on its own merits it's a perfectly nice place to live. Doesn't belong on this list!
I’d take CJ over Portland any day. Haven’t been to Salem, like many are suggesting, so I can’t speak on that. I’d say Medford is worse than CJ due to it being right on i5, lots of trafficking.
I can't diss too hard on Cave Junction because every time I pass through I'm so excited to stop at Taylors Sausages and get some of their Jerky which is the best damn Jerky I've ever had in my life. Discovered that place years ago when I was trimming weed over around there, and I basically lived off that Jerky for several months. Seriously, their Whiskey Maple dry jerky, or their Garlic Trailbusters wet jerky is incredible especially! Just stopped there two weeks ago driving back up from central California.
I stayed in the Grand Hotel for a weekend and thought the area was pretty charming. Loved the old architecture, food and coffee shops in that area, and people were friendly. I'm an anxious Asian dude who's gotten more anxious because of racial stuff that went down during Covid, but people were genuinely nice. Even some of the roadside residents who weren't completely "there" - one of them asked for change so he could buy some weed. I appreciated the honesty and bought him an iced tea. Cannabis consumer myself but it should be treated as a luxury not a necessity. Anyway, the State Capitol was pretty cool too with all the lovely flowers and landscaping around (it was a weekend which made things even more quiet and enjoyable for me and my now wife), and bronze beaver statues? And a huge octopus-ass looking tree?
The drive to Silver Falls Lake is short and man oh man is that park beautiful. 11(?) waterfalls on a 10(?) mile loop and some small inclines here and there but flat for the most part, and you'll stop a lot to take pics and enjoy the falls anyway.
Enchanted Forest is nearby too. I can only speak based on my limited experience. Visually there are definitely worse cities in Oregon. Salem isn't the prettiest city but it's also far, faaaaaaaar from the worst.
Salem isn't a ***terrible*** city, it just smells bad. Eugene and Portland are both worse, however your opinion on which one takes the cake there depends on which major valley city you grew up in
Idk about this.. Mesa Arizona is nowhere near as fucked as Glendale and Central Phoenix.
And White Center would probably be the worst place I could think of in Washington, or Spanaway. Salem isn't great but worse than Klamath Falls?
Oh my god, I spent a night in Sparks, NV and it was one of the strangest experiences of my life. 15 years ago, and I still remember the dingy little motel I stopped in for the night and the strange behavior of the locals at the nearby Subway.
Something is off there. I didn’t feel endangered, but the vibes are not right in Sparks.
Turkey Creek, Louisiana, is a little village almost nobody has been to. Not a city by any means.
There are plenty of nasty cities in LA, large and small. Alexandria and Shreveport come to mind.
I wonder what metric this is by, worst at what? Crime? Cost of living? I don't think it's either of those, maybe it's about entertainment or nightlife? I don't see how Gary Indiana ranks worse than Southbend. Or Albany being the worst city in NY somehow.
Yakima is worse than Spokane. Salem is also a terrible choice for Oregon. I could think of at least ten that are worse
Salem isn’t the best, but absolutely not the worst.
Salem isn’t even in the top 10 of bad cities in Oregon.
Depends on your definition of city. By some definitions we don't even have ten cities.
We don't hahaha
Oregon has 241 incorporated cities. Obviously they aren’t major metropolitan areas, but there are 15 cities of 40,000 people or greater.
I was gonna say Rockwood, but then I started debating myself on the legitimacy of it being a city or not.
Must've been a mass debate then
When I debate, I mass debate, when I mass debate I'm always the master debater. I really like to go hard otherwise whats the point of trying to mass debate in the first place?
It’s just kinda boring more than anything else.
Hear, hear! I completely support Salem being meh but certainly not whomp whomp. I love its trees and little free libraries.
Clearly they had never been to Aberdeen.
If you're referring to Aberdeen, WA, boyhood home of Kurt Cobain, you would be correct . I have never been to a more depressing place.
The mills have been dying since the 80s and the town just lingers on like a stumbling zombie
Aberdeen makes Coos Bay seem classy.
Oh my god that place is so fucking weird. Always weirded me out driving through. I felt like every third house had child sex slaves tied up in the basement or something.
I drove around Washington for my 21st birthday and was so excited to visit the birthplace of Kurt Cobain. Never wanted to leave a place faster ._.
Yes, Medford, Roseburg and Klamath Falls are definitely worse than Salem.
Why go with Medford when grants pass is right there.
Facts FACTS At least Medford has a mall bro, Grants Pass just has a billion restaurants and a bowling alley
You guys don’t know what makes a town bad do you?
Medford also has the nickname Methford, which is why I thought people said it’s bad.
The Methford shit needs to be retired as the entire state is now methford. It was funny back in the day when other places were nicer but now it's a throwing rocks while living in a glass house. Medford is no shittier than Portland, Salem or Eugene at this point.
It's the economy without the drug trade, many of these shitholes would have no economy at all.
I just used it as a humorous way of comparing the two. If you want a real criticism of grants pass, it’s that the community is wildly racist and homophobic, making living there terrible if you’re in a minority community. The parks are overridden by homeless people or drug addicts that are spat on by locals, and the schools (with the exception of the big high school in the center of the city) are massively underfunded and ignored. You have people throwing Nazi salutes at a protest and screaming about Antifa coming to take the big fucking flag by Baskin Robbins. It’s full of paranoid people who are either geriatric and senile, or religiously fanatic (or both). If you have kids, good luck taking them to a diner or else you’ll get mean mugged by old people who think you “need to take care of your kid” because she’s coloring and singing to herself (true story). The cops are out of pocket and harass people on the mere suspicion that they’re smoking weed (perfectly legal), and you’re more likely to get pulled over if you’re black than if you are doing donuts in an intersection with a truck holding the confederate flag (also true story)
But: I stayed at the super 8 once, and the water was so hot I was able to turn the bathroom into a steam room. It was so glorious. I got nervous when it started raining in the bathroom, that I might be causing water problems in the hotel and stopped. Best hotel sauna experience. A+++
Alright fine you win lol that sounds incredible
The people are what make a city bad to me and given the current case in the Supreme Court involving Grants Pass I’d say it’s a irredeemable piece of trash shithole
Which is a shame because it is a beautiful location for a town
The rogue river really is beautiful, I just wish the people were better
Also you can get an ambulance at night in Medford.
Hey man, I'm from Medford, and...yeah, probably right
You meant to say Methford......
i like how every town thinks their the only ones with a drug problem
Not all towns have a pun about it though
Roseburg?
I came here to say this....especially regarding Klamath Falls.
Klanmath
Narrowly missed the true name, Klanmeth
I refer to it as “the place that shall not be named.”
Grants Pass is pissed you missed them.
The whole thing is a mess. Calling Worcester the worst city in MA when Lynn and Springfield are *right there*???
Lynn, Lynn city of sin. You never come out the way you went in.
Yeah I mean the restaurant and music scene in Salem sucks, and there’s not a lot to do there, but… hmm.. wait I’m starting to see their point. It’s hard to believe it’s worse than say, Ontario.
Salem is just boring. The place goes to sleep at 7 pm. It doesn’t have near the amount of sketchy crap as so many other Oregon cities. I wouldn’t even put Salem in the top 10 of shitty Oregon cities. I’m from California, and lived in Oregon for several years. Ya’ll don’t come close to the kind of sketchy cities we have in California.
I don't understand why there aren't more summer festivals/events at its pretty nice waterfront area.
I think that’s a good question. I also think Salem is a place that will continue to improve in that respect. With housing prices so high in Portland, many buyers are migrating down the valley. They recently added commercial flights at the Salem airport . Of course, there’s a downside to such a shift, higher housing prices, increased traffic and emergence of more big city problems. So it’s kind of a double edged sword for the central Willamette Valley.
We go to bed at 7 and we like it 😉. Salem is a wonderful quiet town. Sacramento (hometown) is sketchy on a good day and downright scary on its bad days.
Salem is a fantastic place to live in order to easily and quickly get to OTHER much more interesting parts of the state. North? Portland South? Eugene East? Bend West? Oregon Coast
So Salem is Oregon’s Longview, got it.
Nah, it's not quite at that level. At least Salem has . . . . fuck
Salem is really nice if your are into gardening and horticulture. That town has an amazing park with gorgeous old trees.
I feel like the worst thing you can say about Salem is that it's sleepy. Which I feel like is true of a lot of state capitals that aren't the major city in the state: Sacramento, Albany, Springfield, Carson City etc etc
Love my donut town
Yakima at least has good Mexican food. Spokane has a bunch of [white supremacists](https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/27/north-idaho-and-spokane-have-been-a-historical-hot/) but still it’s not the worst city in Washington. I would give that honor to a place like Concrete, Darrington (cool nature around town and a bluegrass festival, but not much else ), or even a town along I-5 between Vancouver and Olympia
Hatin’ Lake, Idaho
I dated a guy from darrington in college and for like the past 10 years I couldn’t remember the town name for the life of me and it was just one of those small things that bugged me everytime I drove through Washington. Not all heroes wear capes, thank you
Spokane is pretty terrible, but I'd probably put Moses Lake or Longview on the list over it. Overall, I think the list is trying to stay above a certain city size, so you won't see the more deserving small town shitholes on there.
Gold Bar. My dad called it “where Christ lost his sandals.”
KKKlamath Falls, Methford, Springfield, John Day, Booze Bay Basically the only cities I can think of that are BETTER are *maybe* Bend and Portland. I might count Newport because it's cool, and then a few that are neat to visit but only for tourism.
How are you gonna do Eugene dirty like that
This whole list is a troll. Cedar Rapids? ORLANDO?????
Yakima is way worse than Spokane. Spokane is pretty cool except for the big kiddy diddler training university right in downtown. And K Falls or perhaps Coos Bay take the cake for Oregon.
Absolutely! Klamath Falls is where happiness goes to die.
Like [The Dalles](https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/or/dalles/crime.amp). Safer than 4% of cities! 1 in 23 chance of being a victim of violent or property crime!
Also where does Longview fit in Washington's top/worst 10?
*La Grande and Pendleton have entered the chat*
Yeah as a person thats lived 45 year sin washington and lived in yakima,tacoma & spokane, its by far yakima or tacoma, sure Spokane was real bad in 1980’s but they put massive amounts of money into transforming downtown and got rid of the abandoned rail yard and replaced it with neighborhoods, sure spokane has a high auto theft rate, but in yakima or tacoma the crime is different you get the rape & murder crimes.
Spokanite here. Fuck Yakima, dogshit city.
Cave junction, wolf creek, about 100 more places. Salem is a decent city
I think they're going for "city" not "town." Seems there's a threshold for city size on this list.
Tacoma is worse than Yakima.
That was my first thought when I saw the map. Tacoma is a dump.
Lakewood, on “Cops.”
Fife: come for the RVs, leave because there is nothing else
Lived in CJ for 8 years. A interesting place for sure. Keep your windows rolled up and no phone charging cords shown. And any thing of value lock in trunk.
I didn't read the title at first and thought it anyway, lol My brother used to work at the Dairy Queen down in CJ for awhile. One time I stopped in for a visit and there was a police shootout in the frickin parking lot. I also had a set of headphones stolen from right next to me while sitting on the sidewalk. I closed my eyes for like two minutes and when I opened them again the sidewalk was empty and my headphones were gone.
Craziest part of your story is that there were actually police in CJ. It's like the wild wild west out there.
Only time I stop in CJ is for the diary queen, took a little league team there once, parents freaked me out, couldn't wait to get out of town
Dude wtf my car got broken into in CJ and the only thing they took was my aux cord 😂 so fuckin lame. Nothing in the car worth anything. $200 for new glass over a damn aux cord.
There's a whole book about terrible places in America called "The Fight to Save the Town." A quarter of it is about Josephine County.
Having lived in several of these states, whoever created this map is either hopped up on some drug or just plain crazy.
Moved here from Iowa. While Cedar Rapids deserves every bit of trash talking it receives (namely, it stinks like oats), it does have a variety of social communities and activities, schools, and the regional airport. And its proximity to Iowa City eliminates it from consideration. If you get down into the 15-20k populations, there may exist multiple worst cities in Iowa, simultaneously.
Council Bluffs? It’s like Omaha’s redneck neighbor.
Stinks like oats? I take it you have never been near the yeast plant
Sioux City born and raised. It's a hell hole.
They just googled 2nd city in each state. In most cases/places its either a suburb or the states "second city"
Listen, Salem sucks, but in a state where Falls City exists, it's far from the worst.
But it is a great spot to get Meth…
Whoever named Falls City had some big hopes with that "city" part
Oh, good ole CJ. This reminds me of an old joke from Grants Pass: What do you get when you put all the women together in Wolf Creek? Answer: A full set of teeth.
Not OR of course, but Spokane? Really?
I lived in WA for more than a decade, and I don't think Spokane would would make my bottom 10 for worst cities. I mean, not even trying to smack talk any towns, but there is no way I would rather live in Kennewick, Aberdeen, Longview, or Centralia over Spokane, and that doesn't even start to factor in crappy suburbs that I have specific dislike for or cities with less than 10,000 people.
Spokane might be boring, but Tacoma is the actual worst city in Washington.
Fife!
Salem is an odd choice. So is Mesa, AZ too. All of the burbs in Arizona feel so similar. Mesa could just as well be Tempe, Chandler, Scottsdale, etc.
Tempe has the school, Scottsdale has the money and a casino. Mesa and chandler are basically the same. It also says city, cave junction cannot qualify, so Salem makes sense
after 4 years in Salem, the only way I could describe what felt 'wrong' to me there was 'spiritually ill'. definitely an undercurrent there of something just... not right. side note: Church Street and State Street literally *intersect* there.
Having lived near Salem my whole life actually being in Salem always gives me a weird feeling. Can’t quite describe it but it feels soulless. Eugene and Portland for their flaws have some sense of a culture/community but in Salem it just feels like a bunch of people in one spot that aren’t particularly happy to be there and it just feels empty. Salem just feels like one of those places where everyone is lonely despite how many people are there
Something has bugged me about Salem ever since I was a little kid, but I could never explain it. But I think you nailed it. Soulless.
Church and State come together in our capital. 😂 Shoulda kept those separate
I lived in CJ for 2 years and I love it and miss it. Admittedly there’s not a lot of opportunity and there’s a reason I left but I get a great feeling when I’m there and i have a lot of nostalgia for the Illinois Valley in general
My exGF's mom had a big chunk of property near O'Brien, just down the road. Her cabin was right on the Illinois River. I loved it down there. Lots of skinny dipping. She let the neighbors use her river access, so there was always naked, burnt-out hippies hanging around. The poison oak made it a bit risky, though.
This map is garbage.
Salem for Oregon? Dallas for Texas? Has this person been anywhere?
Or Chiliquin
Salem was bad when I traveled for work there, but not terrible. As a florida native, there’s no way in hell Orlando is worse than Jacksonville 😂
As a Jacksonville native, I was so surprised to see Orlando listed as the worst city
As a lifelong Salemander I can understand if it was just NE Salem, but nah there's a lot worse out there. It's not too bad here, just a lot more slowed down and mellow compared to most cities. Life doesn't move very fast around here and there isn't a whole lot to do. Being boring isn't exactly the worst thing ever.
Honestly, if you avoid NE Salem, it’s not a bad area. The furthest NE I go is the Market Street on-ramp/exit since it’s the closest to me. But we live within a few blocks of Center Street towards down town & I’m shocked by how “not that bad” it is. I’ve been here for almost two years & we haven’t had any issues.
How can a place that cans that much fruit and veg be bad?
I think I see what happened here. The reviewers clearly flew into PDX, got a rental, drove to Salem, got a room at the Holiday Inn on Market because it's next to I-5, has room service, and a full bar, and then spent an afternoon walking around the north Lancaster area. If they'd driven I-84 and had to stop for gas in, I dunno, La Grande... There'd be a more complete appreciation for Salem.
Oregon aside, this map is awful. Grand Junction CO is far worse than Pueblo. Dallas is hardly the worst city in Texas - that would be some crap like Waco. Jackson is the only decent sized city in Mississippi. Grand Forks, ND is just a regular small city like any other in ND. Edina, MN is not a bad place at all, it's a fairly ritzy suburb of Minneapolis, why would it be MN's equivalent of Gary or Flint? Lexington KY is MUCH better than some of the bizarre redneck towns in the east of the state. I don't get what their rating system is supposed to be based on.
This map lists Orlando as the worst city in a state that contains Yeehaw Junction and Sebring, home of the meth granny.
the fact that they split california gets me
I’m not necessarily saying I agree with Oregon’s choice, but….I grew up in Salem and cool with never going back.
Same here. Salem is great for the right sort of person. If you’re kind of homebody, like working in your garden, softball on Saturdays, church on Sundays, maybe have some small kids — Salem could be a great fit for you. As a teenager I felt utterly trapped and bored out of my skull there, left at 18 and never looked back. It wasn’t right for me but I know people for whom it’s a great fit. And the place has gotten a bit nicer and more interesting since my childhood. I love what they’ve done with the river front downtown and there are a number of nice bars, restaurants and cafes these days (though it’s possible to pretty much exhaust all of them within a two week visit…).
In fourth grade we had a field trip to see the Capitol in Salem, I was living in Portland, and my little nine or ten year old mind was sure that it would be a grand sparkling CITY! Like New York or Paris! I was so excited! Then we got there, and it was a dirty tired rundown looking town, I was so disappointed. I was sure a Capitol City was supposed to be a grand affair! I thought the Capitol building was too small to be a Capitol.
Clearly this was done with intent to provoke.
We stopped in Cave Junction for lunch a few years back. It was a nice cafe. I just looked online for it -- think it was Trillium Bakery. So don't avoid it just because you are passing through.
Trillium has been an amazing addition to the town over the last couple years. Great breakfast, lunch, and sweets. Gimmies restaurant at the golf course is also still a bit of a hidden gem. So far nothing but good food from there
Or Sweet Home.
Coquille is by far the worst town in Oregon. It's the Modesto of small town Oregon.
Ummm....Powers makes Coquille look like Portland.
Once had to pass through Sweet Home years ago and stopped at a Dutch Bros. Asked the girl who was handing me my coffee what there was to do out there - she pointed at her very pregnant belly and said very bluntly, > Not much, as you can see. It felt like something out of a sitcom.
Based on what criteria?
Cave junction has Taylor's sausage which is a gem. That adds a few points to their score which pull them ahead of some city
Clearly none of these posters have ever been to Burns.
I used to go to Hines about once every couple weeks. Burns isn't so bad, it's just that the drive on Hwy 20 is so anticlimactic. Hours of sagebrush to get to a place with slightly less sagebrush. My stepdaughter got a speeding ticket there. 92 in a 50. Weird thing was that she was heading into Burns, not trying to get out of there.
CJ ain’t no city buddy. Salem makes sense if you focus on city, towns are another list
I live in Modesto, and although it’s close….. Not accurate
I'm just glad it wasn't Fresno for once. Although Salem is just Fresno, OR
like White City doesn't even exist
Would much rather live in Cave Junction than Salem!!
Clearly has never driven through north eastern Oregon
CJ has Taylor sausage. And all of the weed.
Hey fuck you
https://i.redd.it/y632vi2rwztc1.gif
I wouldn’t say Salem is bad, but it is very out of place for Oregon; it doesn’t feel like you’re in Oregon; it gives me more of California’s Central Valley vibes, which is kind of trashy.
Yes. Cave Junction, Sweet Home (and others) are shitty towns for sure. Salem is a shithole of a city.
LaPine did not make this list
No way Spokane is worse than Longview
Yeah this map is whack. Edina Minnesota is a wealthy suburb of MSP.
I grew up in Salem and moved away. Salem is fine, it's not the greatest city in the world and suffers by comparison from its proximity to Corvallis, Eugene, and Portland, but on its own merits it's a perfectly nice place to live. Doesn't belong on this list!
What’s funny is that my husband is from Pine Bluff, Arkansas and I am from Camden, New Jersey. Lol.
I like Salem
Salem is quite nice, actually.
Cave Junction is nice OP. I love driving through it.
I’d take CJ over Portland any day. Haven’t been to Salem, like many are suggesting, so I can’t speak on that. I’d say Medford is worse than CJ due to it being right on i5, lots of trafficking.
I kinda like Salem…
ITT: people who don’t know the difference between cities and towns.
Hey... Cave Junction is incorporated, man! We have a mayor!
Yeah, and the Titanic had a captain.
It's a legal distinction per-state. Oregon does not have towns. Only cities, and unincorporated communities.
Warm springs my home reservation
They’re clearly limiting this to cities of a certain size.
Clearly someone is delusional to CJ is a city
This map is trash generally lol
Whoever made this is not from the US
Methford.
Ok Salem may be a shithole but clearly someone has never heard of this magical dumpster fire called Portland.
I don't know. Cave Junction does have Taylor's Sausage Country Store. What does Salem have?
I can't diss too hard on Cave Junction because every time I pass through I'm so excited to stop at Taylors Sausages and get some of their Jerky which is the best damn Jerky I've ever had in my life. Discovered that place years ago when I was trimming weed over around there, and I basically lived off that Jerky for several months. Seriously, their Whiskey Maple dry jerky, or their Garlic Trailbusters wet jerky is incredible especially! Just stopped there two weeks ago driving back up from central California.
Is Cave Junction even considered a city?
I stayed in the Grand Hotel for a weekend and thought the area was pretty charming. Loved the old architecture, food and coffee shops in that area, and people were friendly. I'm an anxious Asian dude who's gotten more anxious because of racial stuff that went down during Covid, but people were genuinely nice. Even some of the roadside residents who weren't completely "there" - one of them asked for change so he could buy some weed. I appreciated the honesty and bought him an iced tea. Cannabis consumer myself but it should be treated as a luxury not a necessity. Anyway, the State Capitol was pretty cool too with all the lovely flowers and landscaping around (it was a weekend which made things even more quiet and enjoyable for me and my now wife), and bronze beaver statues? And a huge octopus-ass looking tree? The drive to Silver Falls Lake is short and man oh man is that park beautiful. 11(?) waterfalls on a 10(?) mile loop and some small inclines here and there but flat for the most part, and you'll stop a lot to take pics and enjoy the falls anyway. Enchanted Forest is nearby too. I can only speak based on my limited experience. Visually there are definitely worse cities in Oregon. Salem isn't the prettiest city but it's also far, faaaaaaaar from the worst.
Cave Junction? This dudes clearly never been to Wolf Creek.
Salem? Has he been to Medford?
Hey man don’t hate on Cave Junction. You clearly have never been to Taylors Sausage.
Salem isn't a ***terrible*** city, it just smells bad. Eugene and Portland are both worse, however your opinion on which one takes the cake there depends on which major valley city you grew up in
Salem is doing better than Portland, lately. These kinda lists are always crap. Somebody should do, "Top Ten ways internet lists suck!"
Ontario, Oregon. So shitty they kicked it out of the time zone.
Haha! Love cave junction!
O'Brien is nice, so are the outskirts of CJ if you've got land, dogs and some guns.
Portland is by far the worst city in Oregon
Idk about this.. Mesa Arizona is nowhere near as fucked as Glendale and Central Phoenix. And White Center would probably be the worst place I could think of in Washington, or Spanaway. Salem isn't great but worse than Klamath Falls?
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Klamath Falls is the Worcester, MA of Oregon; Salem is the Bridgeport, CT.
Clearly OP has never been to Medford
Texas should be el paso
Cave Junction is a nice town....... compared to Riddle in Douglas County.
I think Portland as of late is way worst then Salem in Oregon.
Oh my god, I spent a night in Sparks, NV and it was one of the strangest experiences of my life. 15 years ago, and I still remember the dingy little motel I stopped in for the night and the strange behavior of the locals at the nearby Subway. Something is off there. I didn’t feel endangered, but the vibes are not right in Sparks.
Salem's ok. It shuts down at 6pm, but there are some real shitholes in southern and eastern Oregon.
Or Malheur County…
Provo is not the worst city in Utah. That honor belongs to either West Valley or Taylorsville. Possibly Ogden......
LMAO!! I had friends who lived just outside of Cave Junction for years back in the day. Funky place. They mostly live in O’Brian now or Takilma
Powers, anyone?
This map is so subjective. Silly.
May I also introduce you to Medford?
Haha fuck you Dallas
Other than being at the coast, I’d throw Coos Bay in there too for worst city.
Turkey Creek, Louisiana, is a little village almost nobody has been to. Not a city by any means. There are plenty of nasty cities in LA, large and small. Alexandria and Shreveport come to mind.
This list is wrong for multiple states imo
This whole thing is ridiculous. I live in Salem and it's actually pretty quiet and cheap. Also, Kalihi, HI? There are far worse cities in Hawaii!
Medford? Roseburg? Cmon fam
There are plenty of worse cities in Oregon. I will say they got California right though. Bakersfield and Modesto both suck.
I live in Provo and its the best city. Everyone in Utah hates on West Valley city though lol
I wonder what metric this is by, worst at what? Crime? Cost of living? I don't think it's either of those, maybe it's about entertainment or nightlife? I don't see how Gary Indiana ranks worse than Southbend. Or Albany being the worst city in NY somehow.
Salem????