History Main / PlaceWorseThanDeath

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'' gives us Starbase 80. Not much is known about this place, but mentioning the place is certain to put people like MilitaryMaverick Beckett Mariner in line.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' has a [[TheAlcatraz prison called Impel Down]] where all prisoners are tortured with various methods. It's referred to as hell thanks to all the (mostly true) rumors floating around. The Hells are based on various interpretations of hell from the sharp and pointy crimson hell on level 1, the vicious beasts of level 2, the desert heat and drought while starving on level 3, the conventional interpretation of hell as hot with fire, brimstone and boiling lakes of blood on level 4 and freezing to death by frostbite in level 5, level 6, and anything that may or may not be in there doesn't exist and is removed from history by the government for their actions -- all you have there is utter isolation and waiting for death. The HangingJudge of Enies Lobby considers death sentence a compromise -- looking at Impel Down, it makes sense.

%%Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16722629670.14266600
%%Please don't add a new image without discussion in Image Pickin'

[[folder:Real Life]]
* New Jersey has more Superfund sites (basically sites so polluted with toxic chemicals they get designated as priority clean-up sites by the Environmental Protection Agency) than any other state. Keep in mind that New Jersey is the fourth-smallest state in the US by area.
* For many years, Camden was at or near the top of the list for highest crime rate in the US, especially violent crime. After a drastic overhaul of the city's police department which amounted to in essence firing every single officer and implementing new police procedures like having officers actually walk around on patrol to intermingle with the local residents instead of just sitting in their cars for their whole shift, the crime rate has fallen significantly, though the city overall still has a long way to go to get out of the "blasted urban hellhole" image in general public's mind.
* Lest you think nature is your refuge, South Jersey's Pine Barrens (named so because the sandy and acidic soil is so nutrient-poor that trying to farm here is futile) is eating the ruins of houses and includes carnivorous plants. Also, it's prone to being on fire, which spreads easily due to the kinds of trees that grow here: those that camp in the area are warned to be extra careful with campfires, as a negligent ember can set alight an underground vein of burnable material that has been known to cause ''bursts of flame coming up from the ground''. Oh, and it's said to be home to TheJerseyDevil, making the ''New Jersey is Hell'' jokes more poignant.
* Some New Jersey locales in the New York metro area also suffer this reputation, assuming they deign to remember that New Jersey is more than just one giant blob of Chemical Coast petro-smell (which for the record are just in and around Elizabeth, near the port). On a more ignorant note, East Rutherford, New Jersey is often considered by New Yorkers to be comprised of only three things: the Meadowlands Sports Complex, American Dream (mostly because of the severe DevelopmentHell it experienced before finally opening in stages throughout 2019-2020) and swamp.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* The 1950 US Census had Detroit as the fourth most populous city in the country with over 1.8 million people. A combination of suburbnization and the decline of US manufacturing (automobile manufacturing in particular with which the city is synonymous with for so long) meant that as of the 2020 Census its population has fallen to 639,111 and its rank down to 27th.
* A lot of the city is doing okay (run down, perhaps, but okay), if not better, as of 2022, although the city is still ridden with scars from its dark ages, such as crime, poverty, heavy taxation, and depopulation. Even so, it's not a WretchedHive by any stretch of the imagination, in contrast to how media portrays it.
* Back in the 1980s, actual Detroiters could be seen wearing a T-shirt that read: "Welcome to Detroit. Where the weak are killed and eaten."
* "Detoilet" is a common derogatory nickname for the city.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Staten Island. The butt monkey of the city's outer boroughs, willingly taking the ferry to head over to that chunk of the city is said to be the definition of madness if you're a native New Yorker. Indeed, if you live in NYC, you throw garbage at it... literally: for decades, Staten Island was the home of the Fresh Kills Landfill, the largest landfill on the planet. Throw in that parts of the island are actually ''radioactive'' thanks to both said landfill and a separate mid-20th century uranium spill, and that the borough's residents [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking vote]] [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets Republican]], and it's hard not to see why the place is a punchline to NYC natives. There were plans to expand the UsefulNotes/NewYorkCitySubway to Staten Island via the Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn and connect it with the SIRTOA at Grasmere (which electrified its lines and purchased subway cars similar to those on the BMT, and in turn, the BMT built provisions south of 95th Street-Bay Ridge should it ever be greenlighted), but that has been put on hold due to lack of interest and the subway's own funding issues.
* There is a location known as Hell Gate, where the East River diverges from the Harlem River. It is located across from Astoria Park, Queens, on Randalls and Wards Islands. The place was originally known by the Dutch as ''Helle Gadt'', which can be translated as "bright strait" or "clear opening", with the latter translation being ironic since it was originally full of rocks and considered a navigational hazard due to its strong incoming tidal currents from other waterways. By the time the English took over New York from the Dutch, Helle Gadt's name was corrupted and Anglicized into Hell Gate. It took about 70 years and tons of explosives to remove the rocks from the channel. Afterwards, a railroad bridge was built there, now known as the Hell Gate bridge.
* The Bronx has the upper-class Spuyten Duyvil neighborhood, located north of the Spuytin Duyvil Creek. The name's Dutch translation means "spouting devil", also translated as "Spuitende Duivel", or loosely as "Devil's Whirlpool" or "Devil's Spate" [[note]]A spate is a sudden flowing current[[/note]], a reference to the strong tidal currents found there.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* TruthInTelevision - Russia (both Imperial and Soviet) did send [[TheGulag political prisoners]] there for a reason.
** But it should be remembered that for every prisoner the Czarist regime sent to Siberia annually, the Soviet Union sent 50 to 100, and forced them to live and work in far worse conditions, and suffer far higher death rates.
** WesternAnimation/YogiBear was afraid of this place for a reason.
** By and large Siberia isn't all that bad, and a large part of it is actually very pleasant if you are Russian and thus don't mind the winters. Southern Siberia is, in fact, one of the main Russian grain-producing regions, just like Canada's Prairie Provinces. Its main problem comes from being so unbelievably ''huge'', and sparsely populated, which leads to the huge tracts of land where there's ''nothing''. If you end there with just the clothes on your back in the dead of the winter, then, yep, it might end not all that well. Otherwise, not so much.
** "Not minding the winters" entails a bit more than you might suspect. Southern Siberia ... for example, Novosibirsk ... can be quite pleasant in summer. However, even there, the average high temperature is below freezing five months out of the year (the average ''low'' temperature is below freezing ''seven'' months out of the year). In recorded history, the list of months in which the temperature has never dipped to freezing is: July. And the vast majority of Siberia is further north than Novosibirsk is (though, for obvious reasons, most of the large cities are either south of Novosibirsk or not ''much'' further north).
** Norilsk is the world's most northern city of at least 100,000 people, so far north that there are very few trees in the area -- it is mostly tundra in the surrounding landscape. It's built on permafrost, covered in snow eight to nine months out of the year, and experiences snow storms in four of them. Now, there is a reason for such a populated city to exist in such an inhospitable climate: mining the largest known nickel deposits in the world. This economic reason, however, also contributes to the massive pollution and subsequent smog and health problems the city now has: by some estimates, the city's mining and refining industries alone are responsible for 1% of the entire world's sulfur dioxide emissions. The city is very much a CompanyTown as far as the mining company Nornickel is concerned, with all the attendant economic, social, and political issues that go along with that as well.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Forbes magazine rates it as the [[http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/11/americas-most-miserable-cities-business-beltway-miserable-cities.html most miserable city in the USA]]
* Ask a Steelers fan where the biggest shithole on Earth is. Most will say Cleveland.
* In the 1980s, Cleveland's image suffered due to their declining economy and a river so polluted that it actually caught fire ('''thirteen times''', all told). In an effort to promote tourism, West Palm Beach took out national advertisements that showed the two cities' skylines side by side and asked businesses where they'd rather hold a convention. This outraged Cleveland leaders and West Palm had to name Cleveland a sister city as an apology.
* Isn't Cleveland one of those InherentlyFunnyWords?
* Cleveland has the semi-official nickname of ''The Mistake by the Lake.''
* Baseball player Jay Johnstone once said in an interview that he drove through Cleveland one day, but it was closed. Needless to say, he was booed the next time he played there. From the 1960s until the early 1990s, many baseball players considered being traded to Cleveland the baseball equivalent of being exiled to Siberia.
* Creator/{{ESPN}} once proclaimed Cleveland the most tortured sports city in America. Between the [[UsefulNotes/{{Baseball}} Indians]][[note]]Had a runner on 3rd in the 9th inning of Game 7 of the '97 World Series before losing in extra innings; Blew a 3-1 series lead in the 2007 ALCS; Last World Series win - 1948, and lost the 2016 World Series to the Chicago Cubs, who hadn't won the series since ''1908''[[/note]], the [[UsefulNotes/NationalBasketballAssociation Cavaliers]][[note]]The [[PointyHairedBoss Ted Stepien era]], "The Shot", "The Decision", holds record for longest NBA losing streak at 26 games[[/note]], and ''especially'' the [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball Browns]][[note]]"The Drive", "The Fumble", "Red Right 88", having the whole team relocated to Baltimore and then winning some Super Bowls; Last NFL championship - 1964. Also, noticed how all three teams have plenty of defeats that can be summed up with "The *"?[[/note]], there's very little contest for that title. This ''may'' change with the Cavaliers' 2016 NBA Championship (breaking a 52-year title drought), but only time will tell.
* An artist in Milwaukee realized his studio was directly under the path of incoming passenger jets. So what did he do? He painted 'Welcome To Cleveland' in giant letters on the roof. Cue 40 years and counting of horrified travelers.
* UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}} and UsefulNotes/{{Ohio}} have hated one-another for ''centuries'', so it should come as little surprise that, if you ask a person from either state, each ones' citizens view the other state as a [[HellOnEarth hellhole]], a [[WarIsHell warzone]], or a [[PoisonIsEvil toxic waste dump]]. No city bears the brunt of this more squarely than Toledo, OH. These two states' animosity stems from a long and bitter border dispute over a section of land called the Toledo Strip. Michigan (then only a territory) actually went so far as to ''declare war'' on Ohio over it. Ultimately, the folks in D.C. gave the Toledo Strip to Ohio, but the ''real'' loser of this war was Wisconsin because the Upper Peninsula was given to Michigan as "consolation" (At the time, Michiganders '''still''' felt they'd gotten the lousy end of the deal but that's because the Upper Peninsula's vast mineral wealth at that time remained undiscovered. And to this day, some Yoopers '''still''' want to become the 51st State and call themselves Superior, probably with Marquette as their capital).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Quite a bit of ''Literature/TheRoad'''s film adaptation was shot in Pittsburgh.
* The steel mills on which the city grew up on in the early-to-mid 20th Century were also a [[PollutedWasteland major source of the pollution that hung over the city]] when they were running and the most visible [[DyingTown testament to the decline of the city's economy, via their closures,]] when the decline of US manufacturing jobs in the latter part of the 20th Century hit the Rust Belt especially hard. Nowadays it's much nicer and cleaner as the city has shifted to a service-oriented economy (there are no steel mills left in Pittsburgh), but it's easier to shed the grime and soot off the walls than it is to shed decades of negative perception.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Near the end of his career, original Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach John "Dial-a-Quote" [=McKay=] incensed Packers fans by saying, among other things, "If a contest had 97 prizes, the 98th would be a trip to Green Bay".
* This trope in general was the reason the Green Bay Packers struggled to attract players for many years; not only did it mean moving to Wisconsin in general, but Green Bay in particular was a very small and homogeneous city (the latter was especially offputting to African-American players) compared to virtually every other NFL team city. It wasn't until a couple of players (most notably BadassPreacher Reggie White) took a chance on the team and began talking about it as a positive experience that more top free agents started coming in. Ironically, Green Bay is now considered a prime landing spot for NFL players, though that's likely in spite of the location rather than because of it (the Packers team is of a caliber that many players would want to play for no matter where that team is located).
* Among Wisconsinites, the capital city Madison is regarded as a barren wasteland filled with [[NewAgeRetroHippie New-Age Retro Hippies]], leftists and college frat boys, the end result of being home to [[StrawmanU the University of Wisconsin–Madison]]. One of the city's nicknames is even "77 Square Miles Surrounded by Reality".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* TruthInTelevision:
** There is actually a [[https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=15/63.4451/10.9023 Hell in Norway]], though it just means "Cave." ''"Helvete"'' is Norwegian for "Hell".[[note]] While [[BilingualBonus in French "Helvète" means "Swiss"]]. [[/note]]
** There is also a Hell, UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}}. According to the story, after the first few names were rejected, their postmaster declared, "You can name it Hell if you want to!" [[IWasJustJoking They took him up on it]]. Both regularly [[http://i.imgur.com/4Qf7MEE.jpg freeze over]].
** Also, there's a Hell on the island of Grand Cayman. Considering that the island is in the Caribbean (and has the typical climate/terrain you'd expect) it's a fitting name for a large expanse of warped, pitted, ugly, sharp-edged black limestone formations.
** The Netherlands has a town called Helmond, which translated literally into English is Hellmouth. The real meaning has nothing to do with hell however, as explained [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmond on The Other Wiki]].
** Scariest of all is the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darvaza_gas_crater Door to Hell]] in Turkmenistan, a natural gas fire that has been burning since 1971.
* There is a place named ''Lapin Helvetti'' ([[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Hell of Lapland]]) in Kolari, Finland. [[spoiler:It is an incredibly beautiful caldera lake.]]
** The name ''Kolari'' itself, while meaning "colliery", can mean [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace automobile accident]] in colloquial Finnish.
** ''Just like the Poles have Tartars, [[GrimUpNorth the Swedes have Finns]]'' - a German proverb from the Thirty Years' War.
* In Scottish humour, New Towns like Livingston are memetically boring and dreich, whilst former industrial towns such as Kelty and Wishaw are (not without justification, thanks to [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher Thatcher]] [[NeverLiveItDown closing down the pits]]) considered miniature Detroits with more general shittiness. Other targets are "the ring" of council estates around Edinburgh, [[ViolentGlaswegian all Glasgow (which itself is lost in its own legend)]], and Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens at nighttime.
* In England, the Hackney area of London has this reputation due to the crime in the area (in particular stabbings). However, it has gotten better in recent years.
* Britain has a reputation for this. It seems that everyone outside of London thinks the town they live in qualifies. When a book called ''Fifty Crap Towns'' was published, with copious reasons for its selections, people wrote in and complained. ''Because their home town wasn't in it''. The publishers obliged with a sequel, ''Fifty More Crap Towns''.
** Every British town and city has its less desirable areas. Londoners are not alone in pointing to Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Manchester has Wythenshawe, described as "the largest council estate in Europe". Wythenshawe and Hattersley were founded as out-of-town suburbs for working-class people with jobs to go to. Which worked fine as long as there ''were'' jobs to commute to. Take away the jobs and leave a residue of people who didn't have much to begin with and now have even less - and you get poverty-stricken ghettoes. The local joke is that no buses actually stop in Wythenshawe. They just slow down a little and you throw yourself out.
** As mentioned in the Live-Action TV section, Slough is considered not only so dire that it's worthy of being blown up and restarted, but it's generally seen as a very boring, run down and extremely 'grey' (referring to the amount of concrete) place, where local landmarks include row upon row of decrepit shops and dingy housing estates, a huge power station that supplies energy to the trading estate - which is essentially just street after street of warehouses and office blocks - vast corporate campuses, roads clogged with traffic jams, plus a healthy dose of violent crime and underage gangs thrown on top. Slough is generally looked down upon by people from the towns and villages surrounding it, to the extent that in 2009, residents of neighbouring Windsor [[https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/122239/One-s-new-view tried to block Slough's council]] from giving the go-ahead to the construction of a new housing project that would have rendered the skyline around Windsor Castle considerably more ugly.
** Luton, Milton Keynes, and Swindon are all considered memetically awful for various different reasons. In the case of Milton Keynes, it's partly because it was a planned town that had to steal a football team (MK Dons, formerly known as Wimbeldon FC) from London, and is considered legendarily boring, to the point of lampooning in ''Literature/GoodOmens''. Luton, meanwhile, was voted top of the ''50 Crap Towns'', and has shown little sign of improvement since, being associated with post-industrial decline, radical Islamic terrorism, and the likes of the EDL (English Defence League - basically, skinheads and often, Neo-Nazis). It was once memorably described as "multi-cultural without the culture." Swindon, meanwhile, is a post-industrial dump of a town desperately trying to clean up its image, something its populace undermine at every given opportunity often by pointing out just how ''boringly average'' the place is, with nothing to make it stand out whatsoever.
* TruthInTelevision: One of J. Edgar Hoover's ... idiosyncrasies ... was sending FBI agents who displeased him to New Orleans, a city he hated. Seeing as he was a well-known racist, you can probably imagine why he'd think that.
** Particular scorn was heaped upon it by Creator/HLMencken: "All other mammals would succumb quickly to what man endures without damage. Consider, for example, the life of a soldier in the front line--or the life of anyone in Mississippi." Indeed, the phrase "sold down the river" refers to slaves in northern slave states being sold to Mississippi farms, a terrible fate due to the much harsher conditions down there. Today the phrase is still used to mean "betrayed."
* Twain said about Cincinnati, "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times."
* In Argentina, during the first half of the 20th century, capital punishment was imprisonment in the infamous Ushuaia prison, in Tierra del Fuego, a frozen hell in the middle of nowhere in the most southern point of America. There were even not many guards, as it was understood that anyone so crazy as to escape would survive a couple of days, at best. A lot of them tried, anyway, with unsurprising results. Considering the kind of inmates [[FateWorseThanDeath you would share your cell with]], you may have ventured into the frozen woods without second thoughts too.
* In California the cities of Salinas, Bakersfield, and Fresno have this reputation, mostly spread by residents themselves.
** In the northern half of the Golden State, Yuba City, though less well known, also has image problems - partly because of its place as the hometown of the 1970s serial ax murderer Juan Corona, and also because the "Rand [=McNally=] Places Rated" quality-of-life ranking in 1985 placed the city 330th and last among U.S. cities.
** The Inland Empire[[note]]basically, the area around Riverside and San Bernardino in California[[/note]] is generally the butt of jokes in the Southwest and is usually viewed as a disgusting shithole full of meth labs, [[LowerClassLout desert bros]], sky-blackening pollution (among the highest in the country), foreclosed homes, wannabe gangbangers, sociopathic cops, and just about everything else you can imagine. Most locals say that all of those are largely exclusive to San Bernardino and Muscoy[[note]]A small community north of San Bernardino[[/note]]. Make of that what you will.
** Los Angeles has its own as well. The lovingly named Skid Row is home to a permanent homeless population of between 5000 and 8000 people and the average income of the area is $14,000 a year, about $10,000 less than the poverty line, and if you're unlucky enough to live in Skid Row, your chance of being victimized by a crime is 1 in 25.
** In the Bay Area, Berkeley is seen as a hotbed for radical far-left shenanigans, as well as being filled with a substantial amount of {{Hipster}}s, dyed-hair feminists and [[NewAgeRetroHippie New-Aged Retro Hippies]].
* In Mesa County in UsefulNotes/{{Colorado}}, Clifton is this, and it is routinely mocked. And sometimes Fruita.
** For many Coloradans, the only excuse for being in Pueblo is if you're driving through it on your way to or from UsefulNotes/NewMexico.
** When the community of Reunion was created, some residents lobbied for the development to get its own postmark. Why? Because otherwise their letters would be stamped "Commerce City," a UsefulNotes/{{Denver}} suburb notorious for crime, industrial decay, and general urban misery.
* The dirty secret among UsefulNotes/RhodeIsland expats: They know the state's population is made up of horrible, contemptuous people, especially as you get close to I-95. Problem is, most people don't even know Rhode Island exists, which makes Jersey comparisons difficult to swing. Within the state itself, Woonsocket, Central Falls, and Pawtucket all have particularly terrible reputations.
** Central Falls is also incredibly notorious for these reasons: It's 1.3 square miles, and a population of (by the 2014 census) 19,328 (meaning it's more densely populated than ''Boston'') it has rampant gang and violence issues (in 2015/2016 there was a ''shoot-out'' in the city over someone being short-changed on marijuana); It also has the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, which is a ''maximum security prison'', right in the middle of the city.
* Among Floridians, Gainesville is often referred to as a barren wasteland filled with hicks, poverty, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Gators fans.]]
** UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} itself tends to get a pretty notable reputation as one of these, especially due to the prevalence of the OnlyInFlorida trope.
* Uryupinsk, [[UsefulNotes/OtherRussianTownsAndCities Volgograd Oblast]] has a reputation of a memetically boring hicksville in Russia, mostly in the [[InherentlyFunnyWords name]]. It has a uniquely undignified sound to it. Kolyma and Magadan, on the other hand, are genuinely notorious for being the central hubs of prison camps in the USSR.
* When Nazi German forces invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 and broke the nonaggression pact, UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill when supporting the U.S. decision to send aid to the U.S.S.R. remarked "I have only one purpose: the destruction of Hitler... If Hitler invaded Hell, [[SympathyForTheDevil I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil]] in the House of Commons."
* In Greater UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}}, Surrey has this reputation; when people get more specific they usually paint it as being populated by hicks and/or trailer trash and petty criminals. (It ''is'' the car-theft capital of British Columbia.) Being the largest suburb by a good margin, it's sort of like the local equivalent of New Jersey. In Van proper, there's also [[TheCityNarrows the Downtown Eastside]], which has a reputation more along the lines of "if you go here you will die (or at least get mugged)" than mere lack of class.
* [[UsefulNotes/{{Minnesota}} Minnesotans]] think of the northernmost part of [[UsefulNotes/TwinCities Minneapolis]] as a gang-ridden, violent hellhole. The light rail ends at Target Field, and to most natives, that's where the city ends. That this is more or less the truth doesn't make this any less the trope. To a lesser extent, Lake Street has a reputation as the city's red-light district, with all the issues associated with such.
* Marylanders are weird about this in regards to UsefulNotes/{{Baltimore}}. It is, after all, a city that is nearly as corrupt as [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Got]][[WretchedHive ham]] but with no RichIdiotWithNoDayJob to help against that. There are only a few "safe" parts of town and gang violence is a regular occurrence. But Marylanders do generally love their city and its charm (it's even nicknamed Charm City). Yes, Baltimore is a horrible city, but it's our horrible city! That said, it has improved - somewhat - from the days when it was both the murder ''and'' STD capital of the United States. Now they have a football team. A ''winning'' football team.
* Among Wisconsinites, Waukesha, if not the entirety of Waukesha County, is quickly gaining a reputation as 'Wisconsin's Alabama', which manages to actually slam two places at once.
* UsefulNotes/{{Pennsylvania}} is sometimes described as being "Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other, and Alabama in the middle." (Or Mississippi, or Kentucky, or whichever state is ''your'' AcceptableTarget.)
* And on the topic of Pennsylvania, there's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania Centralia]], (alleged) inspiration for ''Franchise/SilentHill'', which has had an underground fire burning since ''1962''. Due to this, the majority of the town was abandoned by 1984, after Congress voted to give residents $42 million in aid for relocation. This even caused a neighboring town to need evacuation once the fire spread far enough.
* The British town of Corby, Northamptonshire, England has achieved memetic status as this locally, partly because it combines the worst aspects of Milton Keynes[[note]]hideous 1960s {{Zeerust}} architecture that wouldn't look out of place in a live-action version of ''WesternAnimation/TheJetsons''[[/note]] and any large town OopNorth[[note]]largest industry and sole ''raison d'etre'' for the entire city has gone to the wall so it's work in UsefulNotes/McDonalds, draw the dole until you're 65 or become a gangbanger[[/note]], but also because a lot of its residential property is built on land contaminated with toxic waste.
* In UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}, at least from the end of UsefulNotes/TheMexicanRevolution to the 90s, the Marias Islands were the Mexican equivalent of Siberia or Alcatraz, since it was (then) a desolated wasteland and most prisoners were (then) forced to work. Ironically, being sent to the Marias Islands right now is, for many prisoners, almost a gift, since the Mexican government took many years to change its nefarious reputation and now it has become a model, almost jail-less prison when the prisoners can live with their families just like when they were free in continental Mexico.
** Mexico's Northern States and '''very especially''' Ciudad Juárez. Not only are those states the most violent and dangerous of the country (due to drug-trafficking), the ValuesDissonance between those states with the rest of Mexico is so high, many outsiders prefer to return to their places of origin, that's it, ''if you can even survive living in those cities first.''
** El Paso, Texas, is roundly mocked by just about everyone in south Texas and New Mexico. Unlike [[EverythingIsBigInTexas the rest of Texas]], which you can at least mock affectionately, El Paso is the gutter end of both states. (A typical joke is that Texas tried to [[MexicoCalledTheyWantTexasBack sell it back to Mexico]] ''and were refused''.) However, El Paso itself is actually a very nice place, especially compared to many other cities; it has been consistently ranked the safest large city in the U.S. for many years and received an All-American City Award in 2010 and 2018. Jokes about El Paso are ''really'' more of a reference to the fact that it's directly adjacent to Juárez (and, for some, the city's more liberal politics).
** On a less serious level, telling someone in Mexico to go to la chingada (vete a la chingada) is the equivalent of telling someone "Go fuck yourself". However, there happens to be a villa in Mexico named "La Chingada", so being told to go there may not be so bad...
* Connecticut has Hartford, Waterbury, and Bridgeport, all of which are viewed as the state's answer to the Rust Belt, being former industrial hotbeds that later became crime-ridden, impoverished wastelands full of houses one step away from being condemned, storefronts comprised entirely of shoddy bodegas, liquor stores, bail bondsmen, and payday loan centers, and the rotting shells of former factories. They have lessened their horrible status in recent years and compared to other rust belt states they benefit from the nearby hedge funds, but they in general are the rougher parts of the state.
* UsefulNotes/{{Wisconsin}} in general has a distaste of Illinois, calling residents "Flatlanders" (Wisconsin is more hilly than most of Illinois) and "[=FIBs=]" ([[PrecisionFStrike Fucking]] Illinois [=Bastard/Bitch=]). People from Illinois call Wisconsinites "Cheeseheads" (Wisconsin is famous for its dairy production), which [[InsultBackfire hilariously backfired]] when they adopted the nickname quite fondly, including making hats of foam and other various items to look like cheese. The fact that the oldest rivalry in the NFL ([=Bears/Packers=]) is between the two states' teams doesn't really help matters much.
* Speaking of Illinois, the multi-faceted rivalry between {{UsefulNotes/Chicago}} and the rest of the state causes this on both sides. Chicagoans see the rest of the state as a [[DownOnTheFarm corn-filled barren wasteland]], aside from college towns like Normal/Bloomington, Champaign-Urbana and Carbondale, that's completely irrelevant and filled with rednecks [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking who vote Republican]]. The rest of the state sees Chicago as a [[GangsterLand crime-ridden hellhole]] filled with political corruption that takes the rest of the state's money, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking votes Democratic.]]
* Even worse than that is the contrast between UsefulNotes/StLouis and the rest of Missouri. On one hand, you have a steadily declining city filled with WretchedHive type GangsterLand neighborhoods and very vocal progressives, on the other you have some of the most violently backwards conservatives in all of America.
* UsefulNotes/{{Massachusetts}} has lots of these:
** Worcester, a rather unattractive industrial city with a bewildering highway system, is frequently described as "the armpit of Massachusetts." Most Massachusetts residents admit that they visit Worcester just to see a show at the DCU Center (formerly The Centrum). Revere ("Reveeeah"), just north of Boston, and Holyoke, just north of Springfield on the Connecticut River, also come in for a lot of abuse. (Revere has a "Jersey Shore"-like reputation; Holyoke is another depressed industrial city that has lost most of its industry and half its population. Holyoke actually has a real-life version of the [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers abandoned warehouse district]].)
** There's Lynn ("Lynn, Lynn, city of sin, you never go out the way you came in."), best known for its serious gang issues; Fitchburg, which was once a reasonably okay mill city but is now a depressing melange of dilapidated houses, abandoned mill buildings, and dwindling storefronts; Leominster, which most New Englanders only know for The Mall at Whitney Field; Cambridge, which is basically Harvard & [=MIT=] and nothing else; Chicopee, which is essentially Holyoke-lite; Pittsfield, which is a little slice of the more decrepit areas of northeastern NY; Greenfield, which takes all the trashiness of Western Mass' nastier rural areas (Athol, Orange, Millers Falls, etc.) and magnifies it... yeah, that's not even the tip of the iceberg.
** Athol gets bonus points for actually being the Athol of Massachusetts. When Creator/HPLovecraft wrote about decaying, degenerate rural New England towns home to {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, he was inspired by a visit to Athol. With sky-high unemployment, widespread poverty (most of the jobs that are available don't pay worth a damn anyways), rampant commercial vacancies, and rates of alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence, and teen pregnancy that are well above the state average, it's not hard to see where the inspiration came from. While it's not ''quite'' as bad as it once was, it's still a pretty miserable place.
** UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} has its problems with poverty and violence, but it's mostly okay by comparison with a lot of the places mentioned above... except for Mattapan. People from Roxbury and Dorchester sometimes call it Murderpan. Parts of the city like Charlestown and South Boston that were once essentially the hood for white people, with their notoriously violent and racist (and mostly Irish-American) townies, have long since been gentrified into something more civilized.
** There was a time, up until the mid-1990s, where Chelsea was objectively the worst municipality in Eastern Massachusetts, with a government so corrupt that the entire city had to be placed in state receivership and the school system turned over to Boston University to run. While Chelsea in its current form isn't really anyone's idea of ''nice'', it's greatly improved over the bad old days.
** Brockton, some 20 miles south of Boston, is a self-perpetuating disaster -- a largely immigrant-populated city with serious troubles with violent crime and constant turnover in demographics as anyone who can afford to move anywhere nice leaves for nearby suburban towns like Abington and Randolph. It has some illustrious history in local sports (especially boxers like Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Rocky Marciano), but other than that, almost no one who lives there takes pride in it.
** Lawrence, about 25 miles north of Boston, is a cramped, depressed former mill town that serves as Essex County's answer to Brockton, even more so than Lynn. It gained some notoriety in the 1990s for a spate of unsolved arson cases.
* For Iowa, Sioux City and Waterloo have this reputation.
* UsefulNotes/{{Nevada}}, a state known for little else other than UsefulNotes/LasVegas and (sometimes) Reno, is this in general. Even residents joke about how awful the state is. The rural areas are extremely popular for meth production, as police simply can't get there [[FailedASpotCheck or don't know it exists]], and unemployment is consistently high. However, in the state itself, Battle Mountain definitely has the reputation as 'The Armpit of America'. [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800704_pf.html This Washington Post article]] even names it as such.
* Naples, UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}, is considered to be this by many Italians (including Neapolitans). And if you think crime and corruption are not enough, the city also sits between a couple of very dangerous (currently dormant) volcanoes, including Mt. Vesuvius.
* For the Hampton Roads, UsefulNotes/{{Virginia}} area, either Portsmouth or the parts of Norfolk immediately surrounding NOB.
* Neighboring Tacoma, UsefulNotes/{{Washington}} seemed to garner this reputation in UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}}. Things were worse in the past, and arguably more justified, with the city's numerous paper mills contributing to the infamous 'aroma from Tacoma' (they also polluted Commencement Bay, so much so that at one point touching the silt would give you a chemical burn).
* In UsefulNotes/{{Sydney}}, UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, the entire western half is considered shady. Beyond Parramatta, Redfern is also considered unsafe.
* Philip Sheridan, a Union general in the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, said, "If I owned Hell and Texas, I'd rent out Texas and live in Hell."
* Generally, Iranians tend to think of their country as the worst place a person could have the misfortune of living in. It's not hard to see why:
** Politics: The most stable dictatorship in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic is one of the most oppressive, corrupt and outright incompetent regimes anywhere in the world. The only thing they're good at is keeping themselves in power, through the Guardian Council (which disqualifies "disloyal" candidates before every election) and the Revolutionary Guard (a special military force that answers solely to the Supreme Leader, originally designed to prevent coups from the actual military but over time grown into a full-on deep state that controls the biggest construction firm in the country along with the national phone company, several banks and media outlets). The bureaucracy is allowed to buy and sell organizations, which means any form of capitalism is actually controlled by the government in Iran, except most of these bureaus don't answer to the democratically elected branches (all those people are good for is being scapegoated). The economy crashes every two years, inflation rates are ALWAYS at an all-time high, the poverty line is above around 60 percent of the population and unemployment is out of control. Personal freedoms and all journalism-related subjects are a human rights nightmare, there are more activists (women's rights, ethnic, labor, religious minority, LGBT+, environmental, etc.) in prison than thieves. And then there's the foreign policy...
** Climate: Hot, cold or wet. Take your pick. Of course, thanks to climate change the last 20 years have seen cold parts grow dryer, hot parts get dustier and wet parts more insect-y. And hotter. And the less said about the enviromental issues, the easier it'll be to sleep tonight.
** Crime: Crime rates are ridicuolusly high all over the country, even the richest neighborhoods in the richest cities are never safe. Guns are hard to come by, unless you're a BlackShirt in which case you may be given firearms with live rounds for free, or if you know someone who lives along the western border. Drug addiction is treated as an acceptable character flaw on national television for a reason: every (extended in some cases, but still) family has at least one user.
* In UsefulNotes/{{India}}, being sent to the North-Eastern states of the country (Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, and Mizoram) is generally considered a [[ReassignedToAntarctica punishment posting]] by anyone who isn't from there. However, in an aversion of the usual reasons why (such as poverty - which is a problem, or violence - terrorism and separatist movements are a ''huge'' pain in the ass over there), the main reason no one wants to go there is the weather, climate and an unrepentantly hostile array of flora and fauna.
** With things such as [[BigCreepyCrawlies spiders the size of a human palm,]] [[NightmareFuel or leeches,]] or the [[IncurableCoughOfDeath diseases]], or the man-eaters in the jungles and....well, [[EverythingTryingToKillYou you get the idea]] - it's a [[HungryJungle tropical rainforest]] and the massive Brahmaputra River flowing through it has its own array of lethal things in it.
** Really, it'd be easier to list out the stuff that ''isn't'' lethal. Tourism, however, remains high, since (for some reason) foreign tourists ''love'' the unspoiled wilderness of the region. [[FunnyForeigner And then they wonder why the locals look at them funny.]]
** The people of the North East, in contrast, [[BoisterousBruiser are some of the friendliest and industrious in the whole country.]] And known for being some of the most legendarily ferocious warriors to ever exist. [[HadToBeSharp Considering the land, one isn't really that surprised.]]
* In UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}, the most widespread targets are Brasília (the capital, thus filled with corrupt politicians), and many a Northern state given living in the middle of UsefulNotes/TheAmazonRainforest is not very attractive (a widespread joke is that [[EskimosArentReal the state of Acre doesn't exist]], and a comedian said that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rond%C3%B4nia Rondônia]] has so many ugly people the Devil must have left some of his offspring there).
* Amongst Australians, Tasmania is stereotyped as a hotbed for incest. Amongst Tasmanians, that stereotype is narrowed down to the city of Launceston.
* A joke in UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} which pokes fun at the fact that current standard German is closest to the Hannover dialect goes "If you want to learn pure and correct German, you should go to Hannover. ({{beat}}) But then you'd be in Hannover." It doesn't help that the German equivalent of the British phrase "Sending somebody to Coventry" is "sending somebody to Hannover".
* One of the complaints many Germans have with regards to UsefulNotes/DeutscheBahn is the fact that its Intercity-Express high-speed trains stop "too often" and most cities below a certain size or touristic value are often treated to this. Probably the only cities for which this is averted are Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, and Berlin - the four cities above one million inhabitants in Germany. But don't get someone from Düsseldorf started on Cologne, or someone from not-Bavaria started on Munich or... Suffice it to say GermanHumor is full of jokes at the expense of other cities and regions.
** One of the cities that gets this the most is Wolfsburg. Firstly because the city is basically the Volkswagen factory and nothing else and secondly because ICE drivers regularly forget to stop there. In 2011 it happened four times in the span of a few months.
** Cologne has a reputation for looking inherently dirty, and its inhabitants also tend to be pretty rude. It also has one of the "ugliest cathedrals in Europe".
* Turku, the ancient former capital of UsefulNotes/{{Finland}}, is perceived by the rest of the country as being too xenophobic while ''at the same time'' as being "too foreign" (owing to the preponderance of Swedish-speakers in the area), and its citizens are often characterized as dumb or slow because of their distinctive dialect.
* UsefulNotes/{{Paris}}, of all places, is sometimes considered the equivalent of TheBigRottenApple by those French who don't live there, due to the pollution, high prices for everything, and DrivesLikeCrazy mentality.
* Canada:
** Ottawa, the capital city, isn't described as "The City that Fun Forgot" by its own residents for nothing. Firstly because the city is seen as being mostly comprised of government & diplomatic buildings and nothing else, and secondly because it's otherwise completely boring and unexciting. This is to the point where ''half'' the city's TV stations are repeaters of stations from Toronto.
** The ''entire province of Quebec'' also holds this reputation amongst some Anglophone Canadians, and is stereotyped as a hotbed for rude people (and not to mention that [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_French_Language language]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_québécois_de_la_langue_française laws]] and Quebec sovereigntism and nationalism are a ''huge'' pain in the ass over there).
** The city of Edmonton, located in the western province of Alberta, is called this by both locals and out-of-towners, earning the nickname "Deadmonton" due to its brutally cold winters, lack of nightlife, high crime rate, the aggressive homeless population and drug addicts that run rampant in all parts of the city, and its statistically high murder rate.
** The northern city of Fort [=McMurray=] in Alberta is regarded within Canada as being 90% oil fields and nothing else, and is regarded outside Canada as being "filthy" by left-leaning public figures and anti-oil activists.
* The British territory of Montserrat, formerly a Caribbean holiday destination for Brits, was mostly destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1995. This caused two-thirds of the island's population to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere relocate elsewhere]], primarily to the UK mainland, leaving fewer than 1,200 people on the island in 1997 (rising to nearly 5,000 by 2016)
* When Oliver Cromwell's forces conquered UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} in 1652, they forced thousands of Irish Catholics, mainly those who fought against them and particularly for Irish independence, to relocate 'to Connacht' - i.e. west of the River Shannon - and seized their land. The displaced Catholics were said to have been told to go 'to hell or to Connacht'.
* Huge distances, [[WeatherOfWar harsh weather]] and relentless resistance from the Soviets made the Eastern Front an absolute nightmare for the Germans from start to finish, as their blitzkrieg was ground to a halt, turned into a bloody stalemate for three years and then thrown back.
* In UsefulNotes/HongKong, mainland UsefulNotes/{{China}} as a whole often has a reputation of this. Within Hong Kong, Tin Shui Wai is usually stereotyped as this, and nicknamed as the "City of Tragedy" for this reason.[[note]]While popularly thought of as one city, Hong Kong is structured more like a small country with a big capital urban area, and many towns and villages dotting the largely untouched countryside. Tin Shui Wai's relative isolation from the more prosperous central urban area is often cited as one of its major issues.[[/note]]
* Among both Arkansas residents and those who don't live in the state, Harrison is seen as this due to being a hotbed for far-right xenophobic groups.
* Historically, UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell, when he was faced with people who had fought on his side in the Civil War who wanted the post-war settlement to be a more radical English Revolution than he was comfortable with, chose to deal with his malcontents by deporting them to the West of Ireland.[[note]]Australia not having been founded at that point, this was the most remote penal colony available to him.[[/note]] This had longer-lasting consequences; the English exiles were assimilated thoroughly into the Irish population so that names like "O'Higgins" became relatively commonplace. And that radicalism was never lost; a later Bernado O'Higgins emigrated to South America and successfully led revolutions there, for instance. And of course this exile fired a battle cry:
-->''To Hell or to Connaught!''
* In late 2005, Creator/JohnCleese went on tour in UsefulNotes/NewZealand. Discussing it later, he praised the communities of Invercargill, UsefulNotes/{{Auckland}}, UsefulNotes/{{Wellington}}, Napier, and Christchurch, but he was absolutely ''[[https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/basil-finds-fawlt-with-grotty-palmy/IJWFWTVH2LHOR5W7MD3V4LAFUI/?c_id=1&objectid=10371568 scathing]]'' towards Palmerston North: "If you wish to kill yourself but lack the courage to, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick." [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Bad weather, a decrepit theatre hosting his show, and an apparently confused audience]] were factors that turned Cleese off that town.
[[/folder]]

* Worcester, a rather unattractive industrial city with a bewildering highway system, is frequently described as "the armpit of Massachusetts." Most Massachusetts residents admit that they visit Worcester just to see a show at the DCU Center (formerly The Centrum). Revere ("Reveeeah"), just north of Boston, and Holyoke, just north of Springfield on the Connecticut River, also come in for a lot of abuse. (Revere has a "Jersey Shore"-like reputation; Holyoke is another depressed industrial city that has lost most of its industry and half its population. Holyoke actually has a real-life version of the [[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers abandoned warehouse district]].)
* UsefulNotes/{{Massachusetts}} has lots of these. There's Lynn ("Lynn, Lynn, city of sin, you never go out the way you came in."), best known for its serious gang issues; Fitchburg, which was once a reasonably okay mill city but is now a depressing melange of dilapidated houses, abandoned mill buildings, and dwindling storefronts; Leominster, which most New Englanders only know for The Mall at Whitney Field; the rural parts of Worcester and Middlesex Counties (Lunenburg, Sterling, Townsend, etc.) which are full of rednecks who vote Republican and contain nothing but average EverytownAmerica attractions and farmland; Cambridge, which is basically Harvard & [=MIT=] and nothing else; Chicopee, which is essentially Holyoke-lite; Pittsfield, which is a little slice of the more decrepit areas of northeastern NY; Greenfield, which takes all the trashiness of Western Mass' nastier rural areas (Athol, Orange, Millers Falls, etc.) and magnifies it... yeah, that's not even the tip of the iceberg.
** Athol gets bonus points for actually being the Athol of Massachusetts.
** When Creator/HPLovecraft wrote about decaying, degenerate rural New England towns home to {{Eldritch Abomination}}s, he was inspired by a visit to Athol. With sky-high unemployment, widespread poverty (most of the jobs that are available don't pay worth a damn anyways), rampant commercial vacancies, and rates of alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence, and teen pregnancy that are well above the state average, it's not hard to see where the inspiration came from. While it's not ''quite'' as bad as it once was, it's still a pretty miserable place.
* UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} has its problems with poverty and violence, but it's mostly okay by comparison with a lot of the places mentioned above... except for Mattapan. People from Roxbury and Dorchester sometimes call it Murderpan. Parts of the city like Charlestown and South Boston that were once essentially the hood for white people, with their notoriously violent and racist (and mostly Irish-American) townies, have long since been gentrified into something more civilized.
* There was a time, up until the mid-1990s, where Chelsea was objectively the worst municipality in Eastern Massachusetts, with a government so corrupt that the entire city had to be placed in state receivership and the school system turned over to Boston University to run. While Chelsea in its current form isn't really anyone's idea of ''nice'', it's greatly improved over the bad old days.
* Brockton, some 20 miles south of Boston, is a self-perpetuating disaster -- a largely immigrant-populated city with serious troubles with violent crime and constant turnover in demographics as anyone who can afford to move anywhere nice leaves for nearby suburban towns like Abington and Randolph. It has some illustrious history in local sports (especially boxers like Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Rocky Marciano), but other than that, almost no one who lives there takes pride in it.
* Lawrence, about 25 miles north of Boston, is a cramped, depressed former mill town that serves as Essex County's answer to Brockton, even more so than Lynn. It gained some notoriety in the 1990s for a spate of unsolved arson cases.

** Politics: The most stable dictatorship in the Middle East, the Islamic Republic is one of the most oppressive, corrupt and outright incompetent regimes anywhere in the world. The only thing they're good at is keeping themselves in power, through the Guardian Council (which disqualifies "disloyal" candidates before every election) and the Revolutionary Guard (a special military force that answers solely to the Supreme Leader, originally designed to prevent coups from the actual military but over time grown into a full-on deep state that controls the biggest construction firm in the country along with the national phone comany, several banks and media outlets). The bureaucracy is allowed to buy and sell organizations, which means the same capitalistic bs the rest of the world has to deal with is actually controlled by the government in Iran, except most of these bureaus don't answer to the democratically elected branches (all those people are good for is being scapegoated). The economy crashes every two years, inflation rates are ALWAYS at an all-time high, the poverty line is above around 60 percent of the population and unemployment is out of control. Personal freedoms and all journalism-related subjects are a human rights nightmare, there are more activists (women's rights, ethnic, labor, religious minority, LGBT+, environmental, etc.) in prison than thieves. And then there's the foreign policy...
** Climate: Hot, cold or wet. Take your pick. Of course, thanks to climate change the last 20 years have seen cold parts grow dryer, hot parts get dustier and wet parts more insect-y. And hotter. And the less we talk about the environmental issues, the easier it'll be to sleep tonight.
** Crime: Crime rates are ridicuolusly high all over the country, even the richest neighborhoods in the richest cities are never safe. Guns are hard to come by, unless you're a BlackShirt in which case you may be given firearms with live rounds for free, or if you know someone who lives along the western border. Drug addiction is treated as an acceptable character flaw on national television for a reason: Every (extended in some cases, but still) family has at least one user.

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/{{Toonhole}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/place_worse_than_death.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Okay! Okay! I'll behave!"]]

** The name ''Kolari'' itself, while meaning "colliery", can mean [[IDontLiketheSoundofThatPlace automobile accident]] in colloquial Finnish.
** ''Just like the Poles have Tartars, [[GrimUpNorth the Swedes have Finns]]'' - a German proverb from the 30 Years War.

* Truth In Television: One of J. Edgar Hoover's ... idiosyncrasies ... was sending FBI agents who displeased him to New Orleans, a city he hated. Seeing as he was a well-known racist, you can probably imagine why he'd think that.
* Particular scorn was heaped upon it by H.L. Mencken: "All other mammals would succumb quickly to what man endures without damage. Consider, for example, the life of a soldier in the front line--or the life of anyone in Mississippi." Indeed, the phrase "sold down the river" refers to slaves in northern slave states being sold to Mississippi farms, a terrible fate due to the much harsher conditions down there. Today the phrase is still used to mean "betrayed."

** Los Angeles has its own as well. The lovingly named Skid Row is home to a permanent homeless population of between 5000 and 8000 people and the average income of the area is $14,000 a year, about $10,000 less than the poverty line and if you're unlucky enough to live in Skid Row, your chance of being victimized by a crime is 1 in 25.

* In [[UsefulNotes/{{Vancouver}} Greater Vancouver]], Surrey has this reputation; when people get more specific they usually paint it as being populated by hicks and/or trailer trash and petty criminals. (It ''is'' the car-theft capital of British Columbia.) Being the largest suburb by a good margin, it's sort of like the local equivalent of New Jersey. There's also [[TheCityNarrows the Downtown Eastside]], which has a reputation more along the lines of "if you go here you will die (or at least get mugged)" than mere lack of class.

* Even worse than that is the contrast between St Louis and the rest of Missouri. On one hand, you have a steadily declining city filled with WretchedHive type GangsterLand neighborhoods and very vocal progressives, on the other you have some of the most violently backwards Republicans in all of America.

** When H.P. Lovecraft wrote about decaying, degenerate rural New England towns home to [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]], he was inspired by a visit to Athol. With sky-high unemployment, widespread poverty (most of the jobs that are available don't pay worth a damn anyways), rampant commercial vacancies, and rates of alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence, and teen pregnancy that are well above the state average, it's not hard to see where the inspiration came from. While it's not ''quite'' as bad as it once was, it's still a pretty miserable place.

* Historically, UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell, when he was faced with people who had fought on his side in the Civil War who wanted the post-war settlement to be a more radical English Revolution than he was comfortable with, chose to deal with his malcontents by deporting them to the West of Ireland. [[note]]Australia not having been invented at that point, this was the most remote penal colony available to him[[/note]]. This had longer-lasting consequences; the English exiles were assimilated thoroughly into the Irish population so that names like "O'Higgins" became relatively commonplace. And that radicalism was never lost; a later Bernado O'Higgins emigrated to South America and successfully led revolutions there, for instance. And of course this exile fired a battlecry:

* In the Disney Channel Original Movie, ''Film/TheLuckOfTheIrish'', BigBad Seamus makes a deal with Kyle to return the latter's lucky coin after losing a bet, and to "live forever in the land of [Kyle's] father, in Lake Erie." Seamus misinterprets Lake Erie as Kyle mispronouncing Eire, the Irish word for Ireland, and is horrified when Kyle corrects him that his dad's from Cleveland, and Seamus gets transported ''into'' Lake Erie.

* While ESPN Brazil transmitted the 2015 NBA All-Star Game, a comedian acting as a guest commenter went on to bash Milwaukee every time a Bucks player appeared ("I studied in Nebraska, it's a cold hell-hole with nothing to do! Milwaukee is a similar disgrace, only ice and fat women!"). A few times he [[CriticalResearchFailure called it a state]] to make his case worse.

* The 1950 US Census had Detroit as the fourth most populous city in the country with over 1.8 million people. A combination of suburbnization and the decline of US manufacturing (automobile manufacturing in particular with which the city is synonymous with for so long) meant that as of the 2020 Census its population has fallen to less than 650,000 and its rank down to 27th.
* A lot of the city is okay (run down, perhaps, but okay). However, as of July 2013, the entire city of Detroit has become financially bankrupt. It's not a WretchedHive by any stretch of the imagination, but hundreds if not thousands of residents are moving out of the city due to it drowning in debt.

* Staten Island. The butt monkey of the city's outer boroughs, willingly taking the ferry to head over to that chunk of the city is said to be the definition of madness if you're a native New Yorker. Indeed, if you live in NYC, you throw garbage at it... literally: for decades, Staten Island was the home of the Fresh Kills Landfill, the largest landfill on the planet. Throw in that parts of the island are actually ''radioactive'' thanks to both said landfill and a separate mid-20th century uranium spill, and that the borough's residents [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking vote Republican]], and it's hard not to see why the place is a punchline to NYC natives. There were plans to expand the UsefulNotes/NewYorkCitySubway to Staten Island via the Fourth Avenue Line in Brooklyn and connect it with the SIRTOA at Grasmere (which electrified its lines and purchased subway cars similar to those on the BMT, and in turn, the BMT built provisions south of 95th Street-Bay Ridge should it ever be greenlighted), but that has been put on hold due to lack of interest and the subway's own funding issues.

* ''Film/{{Hairspray}}'': "Good morning Baltimore! There's the flasher that lives next door, there's the drunk on his barroom stool; they wish me luck on my way to school..." (Most Creator/JohnWaters films tends towards an affectionate mocking of his hometown, though.)

* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', when Sam and Dean Winchester need to meet with Lucifer in person in order to implement [[IdiotPlot their ill-advised plan]], they find the Devil and his entourage in Detroit.

* Ottawa, the Canadian capital city, isn't described as "The City that Fun Forgot" by its own residents for nothing. Firstly because the city is seen as being mostly comprised of government & diplomatic buildings and nothing else, and secondly because it's otherwise completely boring and unexciting. This is to the point where ''half'' the city's TV stations are repeaters of stations from Toronto.

** Also in Alberta, the northern city of Fort [=McMurray=]. It's regarded within Canada as being 90% oil fields and nothing else, and is regarded outside Canada as being "filthy" by left-leaning public figures and anti-oil activists.

* In UsefulNotes/HongKong, mainland UsefulNotes/{{China}}
as a whole often has a reputation of this. Within Hong Kong, Tin Shui Wai is usually stereotyped as this, and nicknamed as the "City of Tragedy" for this reason.[[note]]While popularly thought of as one city, Hong Kong is structured more like a small country with a big capital urban area, and many towns and villages dotting the largely untouched countryside. Tin Shui Wai's relative isolation from the more prosperous central urban area is often cited as one of its major issues.[[/note]]

* ''Series/TheGoodPlace'': When Tahani finds out how she died (being crushed by a statue of her sister she was trying to knock down) her immediate reaction is horror to find out she died in ''Cleveland''.

* In ''WebVideo/Dimension20: The Unsleeping City'', while much of New York is celebrated, treating Staten Island like the worst place imaginable is a RunningGag. Whenever anyone who doesn’t live there talks of the idea of maybe going there, they come up with excuses not to do so.

* UsefulNotes/{{Wisconsin}} in general has a distaste of Illinois, calling residents "Flatlanders" (Wisconsin is more hilly than most of Illinois) and "[=FIBs=]" ([[PrecisionFStrike Fucking]] Illinois [=Bastard/Bitch=]). People from Illinois call Wisconsinites "Cheeseheads" (Wisconsin is famous for its dairy production), which [[InsultBackfire hilariously backfired]] when they took to the name, including making hats of foam to look like cheese. The fact that the oldest rivalry in the NFL ([=Bears/Packers=]) is between the two states' teams doesn't really help matters much.

* In Mesa County in Colorado, Clifton is this, and it is routinely mocked. And sometimes Fruita.
** For many Coloradans, the only excuse for being in Pueblo is if you're driving through it on your way to or from New Mexico.
** When the community of Reunion was created, some residents lobbied for the development to get its own postmark. Why? Because otherwise their letters would be stamped "Commerce City," a Denver suburb notorious for crime, industrial decay, and general urban misery.
* The dirty secret among Rhode Island expats: They know the state's population is made up of horrible, contemptuous people, especially as you get close to I-95. Problem is, most people don't even know Rhode Island exists, which makes Jersey comparisons difficult to swing. Within the state itself, Woonsocket, Central Falls, and Pawtucket all have particularly terrible reputations.

** Florida itself tends to get a pretty notable reputation as one of these, especially due to the prevalence of the OnlyInFlorida trope.

* Minnesotans think of the northernmost part of Minneapolis as a gang-ridden, violent hellhole. The light rail ends at Target Field, and to most natives, that's where the city ends. That this is more or less the truth doesn't make this any less the trope. To a lesser extent, Lake Street has a reputation as the city's red-light district, with all the issues associated with such.
* Marylanders are weird about this in regards to Baltimore. It is, after all, a city that is nearly as corrupt as [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Got]][[WretchedHive ham]] but with no RichIdiotWithNoDayJob to help against that. There are only a few "safe" parts of town and gang violence is a regular occurrence. But Marylanders do generally love their city and its charm (it's even nicknamed Charm City). Yes, Baltimore is a horrible city, but it's our horrible city! That said, it has improved - somewhat - from the days when it was both the murder ''and'' STD capital of the United States. Now they have a football team. A ''winning'' football team.

* Pennsylvania is sometimes described as being "Philadelphia at one end, Pittsburgh at the other, and Alabama in the middle." (Or Mississippi, or Kentucky, or whichever state is ''your'' AcceptableTarget.)

* Wisconsin in general has a distaste of Illinois, calling residents "Flatlanders" (Wisconsin is more hilly than most of Illinois) and "[=FIBs=]" ([[PrecisionFStrike Fucking]] Illinois [=Bastard/Bitch=]). People from Illinois call Wisconsinites "Cheeseheads" (Wisconsin is famous for its dairy production), which [[InsultBackfire hilariously backfired]] when they took to the name, including making hats of foam to look like cheese. The fact that the oldest rivalry in the NFL ([=Bears/Packers=]) is between the two states' teams doesn't really help matters much.

* Massachusetts has lots of these. There's Lynn ("Lynn, Lynn, city of sin, you never go out the way you came in."), best known for its serious gang issues; Fitchburg, which was once a reasonably okay mill city but is now a depressing melange of dilapidated houses, abandoned mill buildings, and dwindling storefronts; Leominster, which most New Englanders only know for The Mall at Whitney Field; the rural parts of Worcester and Middlesex Counties (Lunenburg, Sterling, Townsend, etc.) which are full of rednecks who vote Republican and contain nothing but average EverytownAmerica attractions and farmland; Cambridge, which is basically Harvard & [=MIT=] and nothing else; Chicopee, which is essentially Holyoke-lite; Pittsfield, which is a little slice of the more decrepit areas of northeastern NY; Greenfield, which takes all the trashiness of Western Mass' nastier rural areas (Athol, Orange, Millers Falls, etc.) and magnifies it... yeah, that's not even the tip of the iceberg.

* Boston has its problems with poverty and violence, but it's mostly okay by comparison with a lot of the places mentioned above... except for Mattapan. People from Roxbury and Dorchester sometimes call it Murderpan. Parts of the city like Charlestown and South Boston that were once essentially the hood for white people, with their notoriously violent and racist (and mostly Irish-American) townies, have long since been gentrified into something more civilized.

* Nevada, a state known for little else other than [[VivaLasVegas Vegas]] and (sometimes) Reno, is this in general. Even residents joke about how awful the state is. The rural areas are extremely popular for meth production, as police simply can't get there [[FailedASpotCheck or don't know it exists]], and unemployment is consistently high. However, in the state itself, Battle Mountain definitely has the reputation as 'The Armpit of America'. [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800704_pf.html This Washington Post article]] even names it as such.
* Naples, Italy, is considered to be this by many Italians (including Neapolitans). And if you think crime and corruption are not enough, the city also sits between a couple of very dangerous (currently dormant) volcanoes, including Mt. Vesuvius.
* For the Hampton Roads, Virginia area, either Portsmouth or the parts of Norfolk immediately surrounding NOB.
* Neighboring Tacoma, Washington seemed to garner this reputation in Seattle. Things were worse in the past, and arguably more justified, with the city's numerous paper mills contributing to the infamous 'aroma from Tacoma' (they also polluted Commencement Bay, so much so that at one point touching the silt would give you a chemical burn).
* In Sydney, Australia, the entire western half is considered shady. Beyond Parramatta, Redfern is also considered unsafe.

* In India, being sent to the North-Eastern states of the country (Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, and Mizoram) is generally considered a [[ReassignedToAntarctica punishment posting]] by anyone who isn't from there. However, in an aversion of the usual reasons why (such as poverty - which is a problem, or violence - terrorism and separatist movements are a ''huge'' pain in the ass over there), the main reason no one wants to go there is the weather, climate and an unrepentantly hostile array of flora and fauna.

* In Brazil, the most widespread targets are Brasília (the capital, thus filled with corrupt politicians), and many a Northern state given living in the middle of UsefulNotes/TheAmazonRainforest is not very attractive (a widespread joke is that [[EskimosArentReal the state of Acre doesn't exist]], and a comedian said that [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rond%C3%B4nia Rondônia]] has so many ugly people the Devil must have left some of his offspring there).

* A joke in Germany which pokes fun at the fact that current standard German is closest to the Hannover dialect goes "If you want to learn pure and correct German, you should go to Hannover. ({{beat}}) But then you'd be in Hannover." It doesn't help that the German equivalent of the British phrase "Sending somebody to Coventry" is "sending somebody to Hannover".

* Turku, the ancient former capital of Finland, is perceived by the rest of the country as being too xenophobic while ''at the same time'' as being "too foreign" (owing to the preponderance of Swedish-speakers in the area), and its citizens are often characterized as dumb or slow because of their distinctive dialect.
* Paris, of all places, is sometimes considered the equivalent of TheBigRottenApple by those French who don't live there, due to the pollution, high prices for everything, and DrivesLikeCrazy mentality.

* When Oliver Cromwell's forces conquered Ireland in 1652, they forced thousands of Irish Catholics, mainly those who fought against them and particularly for Irish independence, to relocate 'to Connacht' - i.e. west of the River Shannon - and seized their land. The displaced Catholics were said to have been told to go 'to hell or to Connacht'.

* In Hong Kong, mainland China as a whole often has a reputation of this. Within Hong Kong, Tin Shui Wai is usually stereotyped as this, and nicknamed as the "City of Tragedy" for this reason.[[note]]While popularly thought of as one city, Hong Kong is structured more like a small country with a big capital urban area, and many towns and villages dotting the largely untouched countryside. Tin Shui Wai's relative isolation from the more prosperous central urban area is often cited as one of its major issues.[[/note]]

!!UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} / Ohio

!!UsefulNotes/{{Milwaukee}} / Wisconsin

!!!'''In General:'''
* Many UsefulNotes/WorldWarII based series will have ThoseWackyNazis threatening to send a subordinate to "ze Eastern Front!"
** The threat was a running joke in ''Series/HogansHeroes''.
** In ''Series/AlloAllo'', many of the Nazi characters had a particular horror of being sent on covert missions to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bognor_Regis Bognor]]. And, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_V_of_the_United_Kingdom#Death Bugger Bognor]]!
** This has actual basis in real life. Huge distances, [[WeatherOfWar harsh weather]] and relentless resistance from the Soviets made the Eastern Front an absolute nightmare for the Germans from start to finish, as their blitzkrieg was ground to a halt, turned into a bloody stalemate for three years and then thrown back.
!!!'''By Series:'''
* From ''Series/{{Angel}}'':

** As mentioned in the Live-Action TV section, Slough is considered not only so dire that it's worthy of being blown up and restarted, but it's generally seen as a very boring, run down and extremely 'grey' (referring to the amount of concrete) place, where local landmarks include row upon row of decrepit shops and crumbling housing estates, a huge power station that supplies energy to the trading estate, which is essentially just street after street of warehouses and office blocks, vast corporate campuses, and not much else. Slough is generally looked down upon by people from the towns and villages surrounding it, to the extent that in 2009, residents of neighbouring Windsor [[https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/122239/One-s-new-view tried to block Slough's council]] from giving the go-ahead to the construction of a new housing project that would have rendered the skyline around Windsor Castle considerably more ugly.

** As mentioned in the Live-Action TV section, Slough is considered not only so dire that it's worthy of being blown up and restarted, but it's generally seen as a very boring, run down and extremely 'grey' (referring to the amount of concrete) place, where local landmarks include row upon row of decrepit shops and crumbling housing estates, a huge power station that supplies energy to the trading estate, which is essentially just street after street of warehouses and office blocks. Slough is generally looked down upon by people from the towns and villages surrounding it, to the extent that in 2009, residents of neighbouring Windsor [[https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/122239/One-s-new-view tried to block Slough's council]] from giving the go-ahead to the construction of a new housing project that would have 'blighted' the view from Windsor Castle.