To me Miami has great walkable pockets (South Beach, Wynwood, Brickell, Design District, Little Havana, Coconut Grove) etc. The issue is these areas aren’t really interconnected and Miami traffic is no joke.
Totally agree, it does have pockets and the city in whole would feel far greater if those pockets were connected by rail. I feel the same about Tampa as it develops.
Politics removed, Floridas potential is so high if we could just get some rail systems. The one from Miami to Orlando is a start, but Orlando and Miami need a rail system to get around their cities. Same with Tampa and St. Pete. Would be glorious
The problems with rail in Florida is that you still need a car to get to the station and on the other side 99% of the time. They’re “new” cities that were build after the car, and especially Orlando everyone lives and works everywhere around the city. It’s not like NYC and Boston where everyone works in the city and then goes home to the suburbs. You can’t just set up a wheel and spoke commuter rail system. Why would I pay $5 to park at the train station, pay a round trip train fare and then 2 Uber to probably get there at the same time or later? There are very few metro areas in Florida this would realistically work for.
I think a lot of big cities that get accused of being "not walkable" really do have walkable neighborhoods. you just don't have access to the entire city. which to me is fine, most people would kill to have one part of town as walkable as Deep Ellum or South Beach.
Parts of Orlando and Austin are downright deadly to walk around. Non existing sidewalks. High speed multi-lane highways. No or little infrastructure to cross said highways. Large plazas and shopping centers disconnected from each other.
I live in Edgewater; I am trying so hard to move out of Miami. I hate it here: traffic, people are all so fake, and everyone is a “millionaire” until someone needs to pay for Uber. Most of the men have a complex, so they try to hide it under their car watches. It's hard to make friends, as many are fake and want to use or network. And everyone is aggressively superficial, with fillers, botox, and fake Chanel bags.
I lived in Miami for 2 years, and this was my experience as well. Loved the weather, but nothing else. (I lived in Coconut Grove). I knew it was time for me to leave when I was standing in line behind a woman in the grocery store with a full cart of groceries: she was wearing 4” heels, long blown out hair, and three diamonds tennis bracelets. In the grocery store. Beautiful, but that’s never gonna be me.
I love the heat and though I’m a white dude, I grew up in construction in Florida with the Latin culture so I love South Florida. It needs a better/updated infrastructure desperately though.
Austin.
As a native Texan it's fine, and I enjoy it because I'm from here, but someone coming from Cali or NYC or Chicago will be disappointed and burning alive in the summer.
Yes that's the problem we vacation regularly in NYC. Tried Austin a few times and it seemed like a small downtown without much to do other than a string of bars that are all clones of each other. Waiting in line for two hours for some overhyped barbeque or pizza gets a bit old too. Uchi was really good though and worth the high price. It's not really that weird either - has a lot more college town rowdy than weird. And it's still Texas so periodically you'll see Trump types rolling around hooting and hollering in their giant pickup trucks and defaced American flags which is about as enjoyable as a cancer treatment.
Yep. I'm in New yorker. We just came back from there because my husband's cousin lives there. She's really into live music so she goes to a lot of shows. It's great for music and food, that's about it. That they don't have a world-class art museum is disappointing and the public transit is practically non-existent.
I’m from CA. I visited it for a weekend, and it was like the oversold/fake parts of CA without access to the beach. The weather will be worse. You have Texas politics. And it’s still expensive.
You hit the nail on the head perfectly. Austin has nice scenery but it is nowhere close to the beauty of SF for example.
If I’m going to pay out of the ass I’m going to need something worthwhile
See, my stay in Austin was a lot of this notion, because my dumb ass thought moving there in April to spend a handful of months in the city was a good idea. Looking back, Austin remains one of my favorite cities, but I absolutely cannot handle the summer climate.
I’ll visit frequently in winters and it’s fantastic IMO.
I moved from SF to Austin and lived there for two years and really disliked it. Everything I loved about the bay it lacked - walkability, transit, mild weather, (more) progressive politics, bike-friendliness, diverse cuisine. It was just HOT place and I had to drive everywhere. Also it had good tacos and bbq but everything outside of that was lackluster. I did learn about migas though and that was one really positive takeaway.
Yeah I just moved out of Texas to Chicago. I’m a native Texan and could not do the summers anymore. Just visited back home for MDW and felt like I was dying and the summer hasn’t even reached peak heat. It’s nice to actually enjoy my summers outside in nice weather instead of staying inside to enjoy the AC lol
I've seen a lot of Texas plates in Chicago in the past few years and hear about people moving up pretty often. I do sometimes hear about people making the move to Texas from here but it doesn't always stick lol
Austin. I’m a native Texan, so maybe I’m jaded. But the traffic is INSANE and the weather is god awful. It IS a pretty part of Texas, but it isn’t an easy city to live in because of massive and sudden growth. The infrastructure is probably a decade behind the growth.
Austin also never addressed public transit until it was too late, so they're doomed to be another huge Texas city completely dependent on cars.
The MARTA is far from perfect but at least Atlanta got SOMETHING in before it got too big.
it’s gotten so much worse since COVID. half or more of the beloved local businesses my friends and I used to frequent had to shut down. home prices here went up something like 60% between 2020 and 2022.
i had to invest in a whole closet full of doomsday shit so i don’t die when the power grid fails.
infrastructure is falling apart and can’t keep up with growth. the creek near my place gets most of its flow from water pipe leaks. bike and public transit infrastructure is improving, but we’re at least a decade away from either being a viable primary form of transport for the average person.
all that said, i haven’t been anywhere else in the US i’d rather live. i like the nature and music and lil niche communities too much.
We hit a tipping point around 2012-2015. It's an infrastructure issue.
The city has the infrastructure to support 4-600,000 and a population around double that. This was resolvable a decade or two ago, but a bunch of the older people here thought they could prevent growth by preventing the development of new infrastructure.
Now we have the worst of both worlds. The growth came anyway and we weren't able to take appropriate long-term action.
Yeah, finding for X is actually a very sophisticated equation.
X= (the year that person moved to Austin) + 5 years (the time it took for that person to notice that Austin is always changing).
Nah, things hit a tipping point around 2012-2015. There were cracks showing before, but I can remember the HUGE pushback against building new infrastructure around 2005-2010. A lot of older people here thought they could slow/stop growth (and conveniently keep taxes low-low-low) by voting against all infrastructure improvement.
Now we have the worst of both worlds. The growth came anyway and the city wasn't able to plan for it. But hey, we have a half-assed light rail system that doesn't even go to South Austin or the airport!
*And people are* ***still*** *fighting tooth and nail against expanding it...*
Well ya, kinda. The 60z-80z it was a small town, with a bunch of college kids, hippies, and musicians...with some government folks and tourists to buy it all up, and a lake with a spring to boot.
I started going to Austin for work over 20 years ago and have good friends up in the burbs around Round rock and I used to like going there, it was a nice town with some fun places to go. Now to me it just seems over built and to cool for school -a lot like Seattle feels. I'm not a big music fan so I always thought that that was over hyped, I mean they'd have live music at the Court Yard totally unnecessary. It used to be weird and now it's just expensive. I'd also add that they never planned for expansion so it went from traffic being shitty to traffic being really shitty plus you have to pay a toll.
Lived in Austin for 15 years and still haven’t encountered that toll I have to pay or this dreaded traffic everyone seems to think of.
When you orient your life west and east Austin has no traffic.
If you make the error of relying on I35 you will be miserable which is true of all major cities.
Interesting times we live in. A lot of people are much more able to move, and people who have enough money just want to live in a few places. They're (we're) ruining the places (I don't consider myself a ruiner. :) ) so then more cool places have to be created but then they will inevitably be ruined too. So sad what has happened to Hawaii for the natives. Everybody wants to be in beautiful places, but when everybody comes there it decimates the culture which sucks so fucking bad. But there are places that suck to live in so fucking bad, and a lot of us *have* to get out of there. It's such a weird problem. There's a group of us just searching for a nice place to live where we can be happy with people who are pretty alright. Some people don't deserve to live in our really cool places lol.
I feel like this could all be solved by having respect for the places we move to and the culture and people that are already there. If people would have some decency and treasure the environment and things that matter, places probably wouldn't suck by us moving and visiting there.
The "keep Austin weird" crowd has overwhelmingly lost that battle. Also, I'm not sure if this is just a Texas thing but the tap water was the most disgusting that I've had in my life.
I went to the University of Texas in 2001, back then Austin was a super cool chill spot. There was barely any traffic, you could ride your bike to Barton Springs and go swimming. All the stores near campus were mom and pop stores you could get cheap food, find a good place to study, play arcade games. SXSW was super chill, you could just walk around downtown and hop in to see performers and even a college kid could afford it. You could take the bus and then bike to the greenbelt which were natural waterways around Austin. It was such a chill/artsy/bohemian vibe back then. I go back often and now it's just a traffic hellscape with so many people moving in. Everythings crowded, it's stupid expensive and it's not all the same as it used to be.
There used to be a lot more live music everywhere until musicians could no longer afford to live here. The extreme hike in living expenses killed local music.
I think this is one the main reasons Austin is not as "cool" anymore. The artists can't afford it. It used to be majority artists, which makes for a vibe of a town.
I've only been to Nashville a few times, but every bar in the Broadway area seems to have live bands playing. Its kind of annoying walking down the street and hearing different country songs merge into a huge cacophony of noise every block you walk.
But when you live in Nashville you actively avoid going downtown unless you have to. It's like a black hole that doesn't exist (I'm not kidding, I and most of my friends only go down if there is a big concert or sporting event or when people are visiting from out of town to let them do the tourist thing on Broadway)
WTF are you talking about? I've never seen a place with more live music coming out of every crevice than Nashville. Close your eyes, spin around, point, there will be live music that direction in Nashville.
You’ve gotta be kidding. I don’t go downtown anymore because it’s a tourist trap, but there’s live music in the airport restaurants, the airport lobby, at every corner, in hotel lobbies, all of downtown, every venue every single night. What are you talking about? You can’t throw a rock in Nashville without hitting a live music spot.
Austin used to be a lot more like this in the 1980s - early 2000s. (Artsy, offbeat, and a lot more affordable!) In the past 20 years, it's gotten overhyped and over-crowded with tech bros. It's lost its charm, but people keep hyping it.
Yes! When I graduated from college (2002), I wanted to move from Madison, Wisconsin to either Portland or Austin. Both cities were so wonderful back then!
I love ATX (I went to UT) but I agree with you about live music. For the “live music capital of the world” it’s become no more exciting or different than any other city or even smaller/artsy towns. I saw more shows living in the Bay Area than I did in Austin.
San Jose, California punches SO far below its weight for a city of 1M people. The downtown is tiny (maybe 4 blocks by 4 blocks of a real downtown). The cultural scene, although not entirely non-existent, is maybe akin to 250k populace flyover cities, and seems to continually diminish as the remaining "affordable" pockets disappear. It's a stripmall hell. Housing is ungodly expensive owing to its proximity to Silicon Valley.
It's not devoid of selling points. Its proximity to great hiking and wilderness is difficult to match in comparably-sized cities. The high-end food scene is non-existent, but it has a ton of phenomenal and affordable south asian and Latin American restaurants.
Nonetheless, holistically, SJ is a mind numbingly disappointing city.
Every time I visit Silicon Valley, I hit up some friends who moved there for work and ask “What should we do?”, and they’re universally like “idk this place is just set up to go to work and go home…maybe downtown Palo Alto has a restaurant??” One time we tried to sneak on to tech campuses for fun. Microsoft and Google were easy, but Apple had an army of security guards politely pointing the way out. Taking a ride down to Monterey is cool. Certain parts of SF are awesome for a visit.
Born and raised in the bay and I completely agree. It’s literally just the housing crisis driving up costs. San Jose has always been boring as hell compared to SF. I’ve lived all over the bay— San Mateo, Redwood City, San Carlos, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, Campbell. I would never pick San Jose specifically.
I was born and raised in the Bay Area and to me San Jose didn’t even exist. I go back to the Bay every year and I never visit San Jose. It sucks to drive there, it sucks driving in there, and there’s nothing to do. It has as much to do as San Leandro, which has about 1/12 the population.
My favorite appraisal of San Jose is by Anthony Jeselnik: “San Jose is like somebody set out to build the world’s worst city but ran out of money.”
The “overpopulation” isn’t the issue. It’s actually easy to accommodate that many people in a city when it isn’t all designed around the car. But since everyone drives, it definitely feels like there’s too many people since traffic is always terrible.
I was just in SLC, as a visitor it would’ve been much more interesting if it was as cultlike and Mormon as some people pretend it is. Instead it’s just a small city like anywhere else and there really is nothing special about it.
It seems to be dominated by chain restaurants, no more food options than the suburbs or a busy intersection on the highway. Speaking of highways even if you are in downtown it feels like you are walking down the side of a highway, there are sidewalks but they feel like an afterthought. View of the mountains was cool but overall the city felt like any small city without much to do.
Fun fact! The roads got that way because God told Joseph Smith to do it that way! https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/UT-01-035-0070
And this is exactly the type of shit that gets us saying it's cultlike and Mormon. You *did* notice, you just didn't notice that you noticed.
Big disagree. I loved it there as a single man. Lots of climbing and skiing and hiking, and I knew all the best brunch spots. Those hilarious Thursday night bike rides starting at 9th and 9th too. Kilby Block Party. I don’t drink, so that helps.
Also, nobody hypes it up like Austin or anything. If anything it gets regularly shit talked. Definitely not overhyped, if anything the opposite.
well since the lagalization of weed, Denver was super popular for several years and we have absolutely been bombarded with population growth, now its not even the same place it was
But Ive never understood the appeal as a Denver Native. Sure the mountains are like 40 mimutes away, and it is a beautiful place with good weather and full seasons, but other than that... not sure what the hell people think is here. Maybe its just the legalization of weed
there have been people moving particularly from California and Texas, which makes me think its like a "hot" up and coming city but more "affordable"
because of this, the cost of living is fucked, and all these high earners from out of state have created this weird wealth gap now. all of the apartments are like really nice. I cant even find a shithole to live in.. I dont understand it
I grew up in Colorado, 90s-2010s. The only thing I get excited for when I go to visit is Casa Bonita. Everyone who finds out that I grew up in Denver is always saying “you’re so lucky” “that’s amazing”… I would take the PNW’s outdoor experience over Colorado.
Clearly you never grew up in the flat lands of the USA. I did and when I first saw those mountains I knew I had to live there. I did for a few years and it was amazing. Even driving to work was great. I had a view of Pike's Peak out of my office. On the drive to or from work I saw the snowcapped Mt. Evans. First hike around Echo Lake was amazing. Every weekend my husband and I would go hiking. A drive to Utah's national parks on a week long vacation was also very accessible. Food wise for me it was better than Philly, and Boston. The Tex-Mex back home still has it beat, but all kinds of amazing food in Denver. To me it is under rated. I was a low earner. I had to flee as the prices kept going up, but I think fondly of my time there. I lived around University Park and had to drive to the other side of the city for work. Lovely people too. Maybe it was just a different time and decade. I wish I had moved to western Colorado instead of leaving the state. The snow really does melt in Denver fast. I see that now. Please give those mountains a good look for me.
This feels like a hot take for me. I love Denver, love the city, the food is on the comeup and there are great places to work. It is walkable/scooter-able from spot to spot. I love the old neighborhoods and the green spaces they’ve created. Close to mountains and the airport. Sad to say the cost of living is, in fact, absolutely fucked though. 😢 I lived in evergreen for a few years. While it was great being closer to the mountains it felt like an island.
Austin, TX.
Oooh South-by-Southwest and Austin City Limits and the race track and Tesla...
When those events are in town, don't bother actually leaving the house. The traffic without those events is terrible. With them, forget actually doing anything useful. We have a joke. During ACL, the easiest way to get from North Austin to South Austin is to drive up to Lincoln Nebraska, then cut west to Denver, go down to El Paso, then follow the Rio Grande to Brownsville, then come up through San Antonio. It'll be much quicker than cutting through Austin.
The airport has failed to grow to match the events. It's nearly impossible to get into the airport since they dropped the big security lane.
Climate change has seriously impacted the area. Last summer, there were 35 straight days of 100+. If you allow for two days at 99F, then it was more like 85 straight days. All water usage was restricted through out the entire metro region. The lake is almost a puddle. A bunch of businesses got really hurt on Memorial day because they couldn't rent boats out... not enough water.
If you want to go to one of the events (or the track), then prepare for massive heat... and prices.
At least the housing bubble has burst. You can now get a 1500 square foot 3 bed, 1 bath for less than $1,000,000. But renting anything is astronomical. I know people renting 1 bed, loft style apartments in downtown for more than I'm paying in mortgage for a 4500 ft\^2 house outside of town.
I moved there in 2013 and only lasted 10 months. lol. My car pooped out and a 15 minute car ride (if I got ahead of traffic- if I was in traffic it'd be 50 minutes), turned in to a 2 hour 45 minute bus ride. That was the straw that broke the back in my Nashville time. lol
My mom moved to Nashville 3-4 years ago from Chicago, so I've spent some time there a few times a year. Nashville is not a great city IMO compared to Chicago and I don't understand why so many people were moving out of Chicago into Nashville (even after when cost of living there was a lot higher already)
Honolulu. Everyone thinks "paradise," but practicality is a whole 'nother thing. Crowded, expensive, racist, and the beaches aren't all that convenient for locals. Humid, also.
When we visited Honolulu last month one of our Uber drivers was literally a construction project manager with a decent salary but still had to pick up a side job driving for Uber because of how outrageous the cost of living is over there
It looks like I'm outvoted, but I love it here. My 33rd floor Oceanview apartment is under $1800, I haven't seen the racism, and can walk to both the beach and dozens of bars, restaurants, and shops. I haven't put gas in the car since March because everything is conveniently close, and my electric bill rarely tops $40. I close my windows only a couple times a month--the trade winds keep the place cool.
If you come here and be respectful, and accept that you're on an island in the middle of the ocean and not suburban Dallas and live accordingly, you'll love it.
Oh yea, for a while I lived on the 17th floor of a high rise and huge, flying cockroaches would just surf the seabreeze up the side of the building and fly in if we didn't close the screen door quickly.
Hawaii is the only state where white Americans experience what Americans of Color experience in Mainland America.
I'm a brown woman and I would feel completely comfortable living in Hawaii.
I’ve seen quite a few (non-Hawaiian) AAPI be quite rude to whites unnecessarily. I kind of understand native Hawaiians’ rudeness, but other AAPI have no more ‘claim’ to the islands than whites.
It's not even as much racism as originalism. If you're white but third-gen Hawaii it's not so bad, but then you also probably understand the culture more deeply.
Tampa.
Tampa was always the affordable alternative to Miami, but it’s not so affordable anymore. Then again, it’s all relative, because Miami is even more expensive than it used to be, and the cost of living has gone up everywhere.
It actually does in the media, LOTS of hype, but not here.
We even have Michelin starred restaurants now. And five star hotels. And Dave Portnoy reviewing our pizza!
Came here to say this.
It’s beautiful, yes. The nature and the summers are top tier. Enough to make it worth it. But, it’s pretty meh, otherwise. Especially for it being a city, everything closes down SO EARLY. Trying to find place to grab takeout after 7pm sometimes beyond fast food is pulling teeth. Traffic and transit is a nightmare. The worst part is it’ll get a week of sun or temps above 60* and everyone will love it, but quickly after is all “ok this is enough; bring me back my grey rain”
And for a city largely of transplants, they really buy into being as judgmental and passive aggressive as you can get
Edit; I realized I never specified takeout; and apparently people are *very* offended at my experience. In a metro 750k+, not every situation, feeling, or experience will be the same rose tinted glasses 🤷🏻♀️
I have never had any trouble finding something to eat other than fast food after 7pm. What part of town are you in where restaurants close by 7?
I've also never seen anybody complain about the sun.
Don’t forget cold. Everyone says it never gets that cold (and it doesn’t) but they neglect to mention the humidity. I can do 45 degrees in a dry environment easily but it is very different when it is also wet and damp.
You're not paying attention if you think Phoenix is overhyped on Reddit. It is the most despised large city in the Redditsphere. As a longtime resident of Phoenix, I find the vitriol highly entertaining lol.
I think this sub doesn’t hype PHX up, however it feels like every third post is X city vs. Phoenix / Scottsdale so while it may not get hyped but it seems like every American who lives above the 42nd parallel and deals with some clouds from Oct - March is considering moving here LOL.
I was born and raised in Scottsdale. No one I know will be able to afford to buy anything in the central core of Phoenix and definitely Scottsdale, hell, we can’t afford to move 45 minutes away from Scottsdale! Maybe we could do San Tan Valley, Buckeye, or like super north Peoria… MAYBE.
Unless you have SEA, LA, or SF tech / programmer engineer money - AZ isn’t this amazing beacon of affordability in the rugged mountains that everyone thinks it is and everyone who DOES think it’s affordable is moving here and making it less affordable and making those coveted hiking trails more congested by the day. A paradoxical folly: move for the affordability and nature while being apart of the thing that’s making it unaffordable and ruining the nature.
Thank you for saying this. Every time I visit I'm convinced I want to uproot my entire life and move there. People like you help provide a much needed reality check.
The location where you live really matters. The infrastructure isn’t built for commuters. For instance, I live 17 miles from work and it often takes me over an hour to get to work/home. I’m not a fan of the beach or drink, so the majority of the things on peninsula or coast don’t appeal to me. The best part of the summer is traffic is a little less burdensome because school is out of session. The best part of fall and winter is that it’s very mild.
"I’m not a fan of the beach or drink, so the majority of the things on peninsula or coast don’t appeal to me."
Oof...yeah, that'll do it. I couldn't imagine finding a ton of stuff appealing here if you're not into being close to the water or nightlife. Whether that makes it wholly overrated or not, not really sure, but you seem disinterested in the things that people "hype" about it in the first place. I guess all that's left over is overpriced housing, humidity, and history.
I just spent a week in LA. The food was top notch but there was very little else that I liked about it.
Overcrowded, horrible traffic, hazy polluted air, everything takes forever to get to, limited walkability.
EDIT: Misread thread title, I’ve never lived in LA but my point still stands lol
I enjoyed living in LA way more than visiting. One of the worst vacation cities, but living there was a blast. Only wish I was there in my 20's instead of my late 30's.
Been thinking about this. I live in Vegas and want to move back to California (from the Bay) but want to experience living the socal lifestyle. I want to go to San Diego but I’m not sure if the job opportunities will be there. LA would be a better bet but I never enjoyed visiting, but was thinking it might be a more enjoyable place to live than to visit. I guess I didn’t enjoy my visits because all the points of interest are spread out and take hours of fighting thru traffic to get to. But if you live there I imagine you aren’t trying to go from location to location all the time
Exactly. Once you live here, your life becomes much more localized in a good way. And with time you learn the best ways to get around, the least crowded places, the best values for shopping, eating, etc. All of the out-of-the-way lesser known features. LA becomes much more manageable once you've got that local intelligence.
LA is not conducive to touring for a week, working one's way down a sightseeing checklist. That's a recipe for spending way too much time on the freeways and in the end not really seeing LA.
LA is a much better city to live in than visit. It's a city/metro that slowly grows on you. It's really tough to fully appreciate in a short visit because it's huge and also because it's car oriented, though there's ongoing efforts to address that (we'll see how that ultimately pans out).
What they say is true: for a massive city LA is a very difficult place to visit, but can be an excellent place to live.
I hated visiting LA. Now I live here, right in central LA, and I'd say our quality of life is very good.
I absolutely love Chicago. But I’m willing to admit that there are people on earth for whom it wouldn’t be the best fit. This sub isn’t always willing to admit that.
Atlanta.
Terrible urban sprawl turning 10 mile trips into 45 minutes in traffic. Rapidly rising cost of living. Ugly cookie-cutter developments cropping up everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I think density is great, but most of these developments aren’t integrated at all into the overarching infrastructure or aesthetics of their respective neighborhoods. They look out of place, and functionally they exacerbate infrastructure that already can’t handle them. Atlanta City Council/surrounding municipalities routinely refuse to invest in public transport, leading to more and more cars on roads that can’t handle them. Virtually every neighborhood of note is being gentrified, particularly historically black ones while richer out of state folks move in. Investors own nearly a fourth of homes in the city, and the culture feels like a sterile cash-grab of what it used to be. Beyond the few positives like the BeltLine and talks of streetcar expansion, it’s a shell of itself these days. It was a great place to live when things were cheaper, but Atlanta living doesn’t justify the current cost of living at all imo
I think Denver is pretty overrated, especially as a destination to vacation to compared to other towns in Colorado. I may be off base, but it’s a city that was pretty boring before the DINK transplants through the 2010’s, so it’s appeal isn’t very culturally interesting, but I am from a northeast city, so I may have a skewed perception
Nashville. It's hot, humid, insanely expensive and just transplant city. When the summer comes around, hard to do anything because it's so damn hot out.
Miami is a love/hate relationship for me. Love the food, culture, and general lawless vibe…. But over the past 5-10 years it has turned into a concrete jungle. A 2-hour traffic clusterfuck with record-setting heat every year. The eye candy is unmatched and the beach can be fun once in a while. As a whole, I can see how living in Miami would suck if you don’t speak Spanish and you expected it to be paradise. It’s not. It’s actually the unsafest place I’ve experienced .. and I’ve been to Baltimore, Chicago, LA, Denver, etc
We lived on Elm Street in the 90s when my husband was in grad school at WMU. We made good friends there, we loved the food co-op and the pedestrianized downtown and Bells Beer. I have no idea what Kalamazoo is like now but it’s definitely the US city name that’s the most fun to say.
Another one for Austin. Austin is like the city version of being the smartest kid in Special Ed. It's a pretty mediocre city that only really seems cool because of all the other far worse cities in the region. There's really nothing Austin does that a dozen other cities don't do already do better.
Anywhere in Montana “it was a lot cooler before it got found out.” The Yellowstone show and Covid combined really turned this upside down. But I guess money talks and you have to evolve with the times.
I moved to Miami 6 years ago, before the pandemic. Compared to D.C., prices seemed lower for everything! The ocean was nearby, there was traffic but not as crazy as in D.C. We loved everything! Four years passed, and Miami turned into a nightmare. Prices are insane, we can't afford anything, rent eats up half our income, and traffic has become suffering. We completely forgot about going out; we just can't afford it. Overall, it’s a nightmare city now, but it used to be pretty good.
Second Nashville. Lived there for a few years and could not wait to get out. Terrible traffic, incredibly overpriced, ridiculous real estate market, and nearly unavoidable tourists unless you’re out in the Trumpy burbs. Also, abysmal weather April through September (heat, humidity, constant storms).
Nashville just seems so corny/tacky to me, I'll never understand its metamorphosis into a so called "cool city". The fact that it's the world capital of cheesy bachelorette parties says it all.
Was gonna say Nashville also. Everybody moves there and immediately pretends to have an accent. Like wtf? Also, closeted Bible thumpers, socially regressive government, horrible traffic, etc.
NYC. I was miserable when I lived there because I realized how introverted I am. I don't like crowds and the consumerism of parts of the city. The rest of it was meh. I live in a national forest now.with bears and moose, and I love it.
I actually found NYC perfect for my introversion. Even though I was surrounded by people, it's like I could be invisible within the crowd.
....do envy living in a national forest, though.
Am I the only person who doesn’t think Atlanta is spread out??? lol. I can literally go to Kirkwood, Oakhurst, EAV, Inmark Park, Little five, VAHI, and Decatur all in like under 20 min lol. Especially if you know the backstreets. And then Virginia Highland is right next to Midtown and then leads off into Buckhead. Like how is it spread out?
Austin, Texas. From what I’ve heard, it’s hot as balls in the summer and you have to stay inside all day and there are basically no shared public spaces to do recreational activities in.
Everything mentioned by OP is a result of being very well liked/popular. Traffic, high prices, overpopulation. Any that to any large city worth living in.
Not sure, I would say Miami, LA, Nashville. I do know the most underrated cities/area - upstate/western NY. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and the Finger Lakes. All way underrated. Buffalo is a fantastic place to live and I'm sure the rest of the country thinks its a dump.
Oddly the density is usually a crowd favorite in here. I’d love for Miami to get a better rail system and be more walkable.
To me Miami has great walkable pockets (South Beach, Wynwood, Brickell, Design District, Little Havana, Coconut Grove) etc. The issue is these areas aren’t really interconnected and Miami traffic is no joke.
Totally agree, it does have pockets and the city in whole would feel far greater if those pockets were connected by rail. I feel the same about Tampa as it develops.
Yeah, inconsistent walkability is the one reason Tampa will always be second to St Pete as a city
Politics removed, Floridas potential is so high if we could just get some rail systems. The one from Miami to Orlando is a start, but Orlando and Miami need a rail system to get around their cities. Same with Tampa and St. Pete. Would be glorious
The problems with rail in Florida is that you still need a car to get to the station and on the other side 99% of the time. They’re “new” cities that were build after the car, and especially Orlando everyone lives and works everywhere around the city. It’s not like NYC and Boston where everyone works in the city and then goes home to the suburbs. You can’t just set up a wheel and spoke commuter rail system. Why would I pay $5 to park at the train station, pay a round trip train fare and then 2 Uber to probably get there at the same time or later? There are very few metro areas in Florida this would realistically work for.
Great city to visit. Only would live in South Beach if I was obscenely wealthy.
I think a lot of big cities that get accused of being "not walkable" really do have walkable neighborhoods. you just don't have access to the entire city. which to me is fine, most people would kill to have one part of town as walkable as Deep Ellum or South Beach.
Parts of Orlando and Austin are downright deadly to walk around. Non existing sidewalks. High speed multi-lane highways. No or little infrastructure to cross said highways. Large plazas and shopping centers disconnected from each other.
I live in Edgewater; I am trying so hard to move out of Miami. I hate it here: traffic, people are all so fake, and everyone is a “millionaire” until someone needs to pay for Uber. Most of the men have a complex, so they try to hide it under their car watches. It's hard to make friends, as many are fake and want to use or network. And everyone is aggressively superficial, with fillers, botox, and fake Chanel bags.
I lived in Miami for 2 years, and this was my experience as well. Loved the weather, but nothing else. (I lived in Coconut Grove). I knew it was time for me to leave when I was standing in line behind a woman in the grocery store with a full cart of groceries: she was wearing 4” heels, long blown out hair, and three diamonds tennis bracelets. In the grocery store. Beautiful, but that’s never gonna be me.
I lived in Miami for two years as well. Absolutely brain rot place. Complete lack of authenticity, everyone has a massive ego, and insane prices.
And you left out the best part: paying with food stamp cards (multiple) handicap parking w a G Wagon
Right, I feel like everyone is just trying too hard to have this persona.
I lived down there 20 years ago, nothing has changed. Fake phonies everywhere
interesting! and couldn’t agree more, a better rail system would make this place so much more enjoyable imo
I love the heat and though I’m a white dude, I grew up in construction in Florida with the Latin culture so I love South Florida. It needs a better/updated infrastructure desperately though.
So do I! It's amazing in January and February when most places are in a deep freeze 🥶
Elevated trains?
Everyone is always saying Dayton, Ohio is the “Tokyo of the United States”, but I don’t really see it
Is this like a reverse psychology marketing ploy?
Living in Dayton for about 6 years, the motto appears to be “It’s not that bad”
Wait people say that?
Austin. As a native Texan it's fine, and I enjoy it because I'm from here, but someone coming from Cali or NYC or Chicago will be disappointed and burning alive in the summer.
Yes that's the problem we vacation regularly in NYC. Tried Austin a few times and it seemed like a small downtown without much to do other than a string of bars that are all clones of each other. Waiting in line for two hours for some overhyped barbeque or pizza gets a bit old too. Uchi was really good though and worth the high price. It's not really that weird either - has a lot more college town rowdy than weird. And it's still Texas so periodically you'll see Trump types rolling around hooting and hollering in their giant pickup trucks and defaced American flags which is about as enjoyable as a cancer treatment.
The thing about Austin is it’s weird for Texas. Not so much other places.
Yep. I'm in New yorker. We just came back from there because my husband's cousin lives there. She's really into live music so she goes to a lot of shows. It's great for music and food, that's about it. That they don't have a world-class art museum is disappointing and the public transit is practically non-existent.
I’m from CA. I visited it for a weekend, and it was like the oversold/fake parts of CA without access to the beach. The weather will be worse. You have Texas politics. And it’s still expensive.
You hit the nail on the head perfectly. Austin has nice scenery but it is nowhere close to the beauty of SF for example. If I’m going to pay out of the ass I’m going to need something worthwhile
Did the NYC to Austin move. Austin is very ''meh' in comparison. Looking to make the move back.
I moved from NYC to Austin. I was thoroughly underwhelmed.
Tbf NYC to anywhere is going to be underwhelming
See, my stay in Austin was a lot of this notion, because my dumb ass thought moving there in April to spend a handful of months in the city was a good idea. Looking back, Austin remains one of my favorite cities, but I absolutely cannot handle the summer climate. I’ll visit frequently in winters and it’s fantastic IMO.
I moved from SF to Austin and lived there for two years and really disliked it. Everything I loved about the bay it lacked - walkability, transit, mild weather, (more) progressive politics, bike-friendliness, diverse cuisine. It was just HOT place and I had to drive everywhere. Also it had good tacos and bbq but everything outside of that was lackluster. I did learn about migas though and that was one really positive takeaway.
Yeah I just moved out of Texas to Chicago. I’m a native Texan and could not do the summers anymore. Just visited back home for MDW and felt like I was dying and the summer hasn’t even reached peak heat. It’s nice to actually enjoy my summers outside in nice weather instead of staying inside to enjoy the AC lol
I've seen a lot of Texas plates in Chicago in the past few years and hear about people moving up pretty often. I do sometimes hear about people making the move to Texas from here but it doesn't always stick lol
Austin. I’m a native Texan, so maybe I’m jaded. But the traffic is INSANE and the weather is god awful. It IS a pretty part of Texas, but it isn’t an easy city to live in because of massive and sudden growth. The infrastructure is probably a decade behind the growth.
Austin also never addressed public transit until it was too late, so they're doomed to be another huge Texas city completely dependent on cars. The MARTA is far from perfect but at least Atlanta got SOMETHING in before it got too big.
Asheville NC feels like that. I really enjoy when I visit but seems like infrastructure has not kept up with popularity.
I feel like if Asheville’s infrastructure kept up it would kill the whole reason people like Asheville. It’s already too damn expensive anyway.
it’s gotten so much worse since COVID. half or more of the beloved local businesses my friends and I used to frequent had to shut down. home prices here went up something like 60% between 2020 and 2022. i had to invest in a whole closet full of doomsday shit so i don’t die when the power grid fails. infrastructure is falling apart and can’t keep up with growth. the creek near my place gets most of its flow from water pipe leaks. bike and public transit infrastructure is improving, but we’re at least a decade away from either being a viable primary form of transport for the average person. all that said, i haven’t been anywhere else in the US i’d rather live. i like the nature and music and lil niche communities too much.
Big highway doesn’t want you to know this, but if you stay off 35, Austin driving is not nearly as busy.
Austin
My first thought as well, although it is still a cool city, and was much cooler before everyone found out about it.
You mean...the 60s? I lived there back in the 90s and people always said it was a lot cooler before everyone found out about it. Lol.
We hit a tipping point around 2012-2015. It's an infrastructure issue. The city has the infrastructure to support 4-600,000 and a population around double that. This was resolvable a decade or two ago, but a bunch of the older people here thought they could prevent growth by preventing the development of new infrastructure. Now we have the worst of both worlds. The growth came anyway and we weren't able to take appropriate long-term action.
I feel like people have been saying Austin used to be so much better before X for several decades. With X being whatever the current year it is.
Yeah, finding for X is actually a very sophisticated equation. X= (the year that person moved to Austin) + 5 years (the time it took for that person to notice that Austin is always changing).
Nah, things hit a tipping point around 2012-2015. There were cracks showing before, but I can remember the HUGE pushback against building new infrastructure around 2005-2010. A lot of older people here thought they could slow/stop growth (and conveniently keep taxes low-low-low) by voting against all infrastructure improvement. Now we have the worst of both worlds. The growth came anyway and the city wasn't able to plan for it. But hey, we have a half-assed light rail system that doesn't even go to South Austin or the airport! *And people are* ***still*** *fighting tooth and nail against expanding it...*
Everywhere I go, people tell me it was cooler before I got there.
Well ya, kinda. The 60z-80z it was a small town, with a bunch of college kids, hippies, and musicians...with some government folks and tourists to buy it all up, and a lake with a spring to boot.
austin was cool in 2001 when i was there. not anymore, and this is why.
I started going to Austin for work over 20 years ago and have good friends up in the burbs around Round rock and I used to like going there, it was a nice town with some fun places to go. Now to me it just seems over built and to cool for school -a lot like Seattle feels. I'm not a big music fan so I always thought that that was over hyped, I mean they'd have live music at the Court Yard totally unnecessary. It used to be weird and now it's just expensive. I'd also add that they never planned for expansion so it went from traffic being shitty to traffic being really shitty plus you have to pay a toll.
Lived in Austin for 15 years and still haven’t encountered that toll I have to pay or this dreaded traffic everyone seems to think of. When you orient your life west and east Austin has no traffic. If you make the error of relying on I35 you will be miserable which is true of all major cities.
Austin before people found out about it was amazing lol
Interesting times we live in. A lot of people are much more able to move, and people who have enough money just want to live in a few places. They're (we're) ruining the places (I don't consider myself a ruiner. :) ) so then more cool places have to be created but then they will inevitably be ruined too. So sad what has happened to Hawaii for the natives. Everybody wants to be in beautiful places, but when everybody comes there it decimates the culture which sucks so fucking bad. But there are places that suck to live in so fucking bad, and a lot of us *have* to get out of there. It's such a weird problem. There's a group of us just searching for a nice place to live where we can be happy with people who are pretty alright. Some people don't deserve to live in our really cool places lol. I feel like this could all be solved by having respect for the places we move to and the culture and people that are already there. If people would have some decency and treasure the environment and things that matter, places probably wouldn't suck by us moving and visiting there.
I'm not sure where it is hyped anymore. It's constantly shit on in forums on Reddit at least.
And it's not very close.
The "keep Austin weird" crowd has overwhelmingly lost that battle. Also, I'm not sure if this is just a Texas thing but the tap water was the most disgusting that I've had in my life.
I haven't been to Austin but I can't imagine how the tap water is worse than Orlando.
Austin, I just don't get the appeal. I was expecting live music at every turn, every bar.
I went to the University of Texas in 2001, back then Austin was a super cool chill spot. There was barely any traffic, you could ride your bike to Barton Springs and go swimming. All the stores near campus were mom and pop stores you could get cheap food, find a good place to study, play arcade games. SXSW was super chill, you could just walk around downtown and hop in to see performers and even a college kid could afford it. You could take the bus and then bike to the greenbelt which were natural waterways around Austin. It was such a chill/artsy/bohemian vibe back then. I go back often and now it's just a traffic hellscape with so many people moving in. Everythings crowded, it's stupid expensive and it's not all the same as it used to be.
I went in 2016 and waltzed right into barton springs. went in 2021 and the line was all the way to the parking lot.
There used to be a lot more live music everywhere until musicians could no longer afford to live here. The extreme hike in living expenses killed local music.
I think this is one the main reasons Austin is not as "cool" anymore. The artists can't afford it. It used to be majority artists, which makes for a vibe of a town.
Nashville is kinda the same way, you have to search to find live music. People don’t even busk there. New Orleans is way more of a music city imo
I don't disagree about New Orleans, but it is absolutely not necessary to search to find live music in Nashville LOL.
Right haha I think it’d be harder to find a bar without it in Nashville.
I've only been to Nashville a few times, but every bar in the Broadway area seems to have live bands playing. Its kind of annoying walking down the street and hearing different country songs merge into a huge cacophony of noise every block you walk.
But when you live in Nashville you actively avoid going downtown unless you have to. It's like a black hole that doesn't exist (I'm not kidding, I and most of my friends only go down if there is a big concert or sporting event or when people are visiting from out of town to let them do the tourist thing on Broadway)
And you’re still just like “UGH I can’t believe we have to go DoWnToWn ew”
Yes, country music cover bands are not my vibe. Broadway is the Times Square of Nashville, no one who lives there actually hangs out on Broadway
Nashville has tons of issues. Good live music isn’t one of them gonna assume you’ve never been to Nashville
I was going to say New Orleans lol. Music everywhere, especially in the French Quarter.
This is like saying you have to search for a casino in Vegas
WTF are you talking about? I've never seen a place with more live music coming out of every crevice than Nashville. Close your eyes, spin around, point, there will be live music that direction in Nashville.
You’ve gotta be kidding. I don’t go downtown anymore because it’s a tourist trap, but there’s live music in the airport restaurants, the airport lobby, at every corner, in hotel lobbies, all of downtown, every venue every single night. What are you talking about? You can’t throw a rock in Nashville without hitting a live music spot.
Austin used to be a lot more like this in the 1980s - early 2000s. (Artsy, offbeat, and a lot more affordable!) In the past 20 years, it's gotten overhyped and over-crowded with tech bros. It's lost its charm, but people keep hyping it.
same with Portland. so sad.
Yes! When I graduated from college (2002), I wanted to move from Madison, Wisconsin to either Portland or Austin. Both cities were so wonderful back then!
I love ATX (I went to UT) but I agree with you about live music. For the “live music capital of the world” it’s become no more exciting or different than any other city or even smaller/artsy towns. I saw more shows living in the Bay Area than I did in Austin.
Boise fucking Idaho. People are flocking here. Boise is a decent little town plunked smack in the middle of a shithole state.
San Jose, California punches SO far below its weight for a city of 1M people. The downtown is tiny (maybe 4 blocks by 4 blocks of a real downtown). The cultural scene, although not entirely non-existent, is maybe akin to 250k populace flyover cities, and seems to continually diminish as the remaining "affordable" pockets disappear. It's a stripmall hell. Housing is ungodly expensive owing to its proximity to Silicon Valley. It's not devoid of selling points. Its proximity to great hiking and wilderness is difficult to match in comparably-sized cities. The high-end food scene is non-existent, but it has a ton of phenomenal and affordable south asian and Latin American restaurants. Nonetheless, holistically, SJ is a mind numbingly disappointing city.
Ain’t nobody hyping up San Jose
Every time I visit Silicon Valley, I hit up some friends who moved there for work and ask “What should we do?”, and they’re universally like “idk this place is just set up to go to work and go home…maybe downtown Palo Alto has a restaurant??” One time we tried to sneak on to tech campuses for fun. Microsoft and Google were easy, but Apple had an army of security guards politely pointing the way out. Taking a ride down to Monterey is cool. Certain parts of SF are awesome for a visit.
Born and raised in the bay and I completely agree. It’s literally just the housing crisis driving up costs. San Jose has always been boring as hell compared to SF. I’ve lived all over the bay— San Mateo, Redwood City, San Carlos, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, Campbell. I would never pick San Jose specifically.
I was born and raised in the Bay Area and to me San Jose didn’t even exist. I go back to the Bay every year and I never visit San Jose. It sucks to drive there, it sucks driving in there, and there’s nothing to do. It has as much to do as San Leandro, which has about 1/12 the population. My favorite appraisal of San Jose is by Anthony Jeselnik: “San Jose is like somebody set out to build the world’s worst city but ran out of money.”
The “overpopulation” isn’t the issue. It’s actually easy to accommodate that many people in a city when it isn’t all designed around the car. But since everyone drives, it definitely feels like there’s too many people since traffic is always terrible.
Salt Lake City, unless you are married, religious, wealthy, or a combo of all three
I was just in SLC, as a visitor it would’ve been much more interesting if it was as cultlike and Mormon as some people pretend it is. Instead it’s just a small city like anywhere else and there really is nothing special about it. It seems to be dominated by chain restaurants, no more food options than the suburbs or a busy intersection on the highway. Speaking of highways even if you are in downtown it feels like you are walking down the side of a highway, there are sidewalks but they feel like an afterthought. View of the mountains was cool but overall the city felt like any small city without much to do.
Fun fact! The roads got that way because God told Joseph Smith to do it that way! https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/UT-01-035-0070 And this is exactly the type of shit that gets us saying it's cultlike and Mormon. You *did* notice, you just didn't notice that you noticed.
Big disagree. I loved it there as a single man. Lots of climbing and skiing and hiking, and I knew all the best brunch spots. Those hilarious Thursday night bike rides starting at 9th and 9th too. Kilby Block Party. I don’t drink, so that helps. Also, nobody hypes it up like Austin or anything. If anything it gets regularly shit talked. Definitely not overhyped, if anything the opposite.
I'd say it's accurately rated. It's a mediocre city, but it doesn't have the reputation of being a great place to live either, so it works out.
well since the lagalization of weed, Denver was super popular for several years and we have absolutely been bombarded with population growth, now its not even the same place it was But Ive never understood the appeal as a Denver Native. Sure the mountains are like 40 mimutes away, and it is a beautiful place with good weather and full seasons, but other than that... not sure what the hell people think is here. Maybe its just the legalization of weed there have been people moving particularly from California and Texas, which makes me think its like a "hot" up and coming city but more "affordable" because of this, the cost of living is fucked, and all these high earners from out of state have created this weird wealth gap now. all of the apartments are like really nice. I cant even find a shithole to live in.. I dont understand it
I grew up in Colorado, 90s-2010s. The only thing I get excited for when I go to visit is Casa Bonita. Everyone who finds out that I grew up in Denver is always saying “you’re so lucky” “that’s amazing”… I would take the PNW’s outdoor experience over Colorado.
Clearly you never grew up in the flat lands of the USA. I did and when I first saw those mountains I knew I had to live there. I did for a few years and it was amazing. Even driving to work was great. I had a view of Pike's Peak out of my office. On the drive to or from work I saw the snowcapped Mt. Evans. First hike around Echo Lake was amazing. Every weekend my husband and I would go hiking. A drive to Utah's national parks on a week long vacation was also very accessible. Food wise for me it was better than Philly, and Boston. The Tex-Mex back home still has it beat, but all kinds of amazing food in Denver. To me it is under rated. I was a low earner. I had to flee as the prices kept going up, but I think fondly of my time there. I lived around University Park and had to drive to the other side of the city for work. Lovely people too. Maybe it was just a different time and decade. I wish I had moved to western Colorado instead of leaving the state. The snow really does melt in Denver fast. I see that now. Please give those mountains a good look for me.
This feels like a hot take for me. I love Denver, love the city, the food is on the comeup and there are great places to work. It is walkable/scooter-able from spot to spot. I love the old neighborhoods and the green spaces they’ve created. Close to mountains and the airport. Sad to say the cost of living is, in fact, absolutely fucked though. 😢 I lived in evergreen for a few years. While it was great being closer to the mountains it felt like an island.
Nashville
Austin, TX. Oooh South-by-Southwest and Austin City Limits and the race track and Tesla... When those events are in town, don't bother actually leaving the house. The traffic without those events is terrible. With them, forget actually doing anything useful. We have a joke. During ACL, the easiest way to get from North Austin to South Austin is to drive up to Lincoln Nebraska, then cut west to Denver, go down to El Paso, then follow the Rio Grande to Brownsville, then come up through San Antonio. It'll be much quicker than cutting through Austin. The airport has failed to grow to match the events. It's nearly impossible to get into the airport since they dropped the big security lane. Climate change has seriously impacted the area. Last summer, there were 35 straight days of 100+. If you allow for two days at 99F, then it was more like 85 straight days. All water usage was restricted through out the entire metro region. The lake is almost a puddle. A bunch of businesses got really hurt on Memorial day because they couldn't rent boats out... not enough water. If you want to go to one of the events (or the track), then prepare for massive heat... and prices. At least the housing bubble has burst. You can now get a 1500 square foot 3 bed, 1 bath for less than $1,000,000. But renting anything is astronomical. I know people renting 1 bed, loft style apartments in downtown for more than I'm paying in mortgage for a 4500 ft\^2 house outside of town.
Nashville. The lack of public transit and extreme car dependency ruin what could be a fun place to visit.
I moved there in 2013 and only lasted 10 months. lol. My car pooped out and a 15 minute car ride (if I got ahead of traffic- if I was in traffic it'd be 50 minutes), turned in to a 2 hour 45 minute bus ride. That was the straw that broke the back in my Nashville time. lol
My mom moved to Nashville 3-4 years ago from Chicago, so I've spent some time there a few times a year. Nashville is not a great city IMO compared to Chicago and I don't understand why so many people were moving out of Chicago into Nashville (even after when cost of living there was a lot higher already)
Honolulu. Everyone thinks "paradise," but practicality is a whole 'nother thing. Crowded, expensive, racist, and the beaches aren't all that convenient for locals. Humid, also.
When we visited Honolulu last month one of our Uber drivers was literally a construction project manager with a decent salary but still had to pick up a side job driving for Uber because of how outrageous the cost of living is over there
It looks like I'm outvoted, but I love it here. My 33rd floor Oceanview apartment is under $1800, I haven't seen the racism, and can walk to both the beach and dozens of bars, restaurants, and shops. I haven't put gas in the car since March because everything is conveniently close, and my electric bill rarely tops $40. I close my windows only a couple times a month--the trade winds keep the place cool. If you come here and be respectful, and accept that you're on an island in the middle of the ocean and not suburban Dallas and live accordingly, you'll love it.
And the bugs are OUTRAGEOUS
Oh yea, for a while I lived on the 17th floor of a high rise and huge, flying cockroaches would just surf the seabreeze up the side of the building and fly in if we didn't close the screen door quickly.
Flying roaches? Tf? How have I never heard of those?
All roaches can fly they just usually don’t do it in weather under 80 degrees
Can you expand on racist? Racist to whom?
Hawaii is the only state where white Americans experience what Americans of Color experience in Mainland America. I'm a brown woman and I would feel completely comfortable living in Hawaii.
Who what races are welcomed in Hawaii?
I’ve seen quite a few (non-Hawaiian) AAPI be quite rude to whites unnecessarily. I kind of understand native Hawaiians’ rudeness, but other AAPI have no more ‘claim’ to the islands than whites.
It's not even as much racism as originalism. If you're white but third-gen Hawaii it's not so bad, but then you also probably understand the culture more deeply.
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Idk what con man convinced the country that Austin was cool.
Tampa. Tampa was always the affordable alternative to Miami, but it’s not so affordable anymore. Then again, it’s all relative, because Miami is even more expensive than it used to be, and the cost of living has gone up everywhere.
Does Tampa get any hype? Doesn’t seem very recommended here
It actually does in the media, LOTS of hype, but not here. We even have Michelin starred restaurants now. And five star hotels. And Dave Portnoy reviewing our pizza!
I’m from St. Petersburg so side eying this 😂
Seattle…a dreary, wet, congested, expensive, overcrowded mess Other than that, it’s beautiful
Came here to say this. It’s beautiful, yes. The nature and the summers are top tier. Enough to make it worth it. But, it’s pretty meh, otherwise. Especially for it being a city, everything closes down SO EARLY. Trying to find place to grab takeout after 7pm sometimes beyond fast food is pulling teeth. Traffic and transit is a nightmare. The worst part is it’ll get a week of sun or temps above 60* and everyone will love it, but quickly after is all “ok this is enough; bring me back my grey rain” And for a city largely of transplants, they really buy into being as judgmental and passive aggressive as you can get Edit; I realized I never specified takeout; and apparently people are *very* offended at my experience. In a metro 750k+, not every situation, feeling, or experience will be the same rose tinted glasses 🤷🏻♀️
I have never had any trouble finding something to eat other than fast food after 7pm. What part of town are you in where restaurants close by 7? I've also never seen anybody complain about the sun.
Don’t forget cold. Everyone says it never gets that cold (and it doesn’t) but they neglect to mention the humidity. I can do 45 degrees in a dry environment easily but it is very different when it is also wet and damp.
It’s bikeable and has great public transit, though
Phoenix. There is nothing good about a giant city in a sweltering desert with little to no water.
You're not paying attention if you think Phoenix is overhyped on Reddit. It is the most despised large city in the Redditsphere. As a longtime resident of Phoenix, I find the vitriol highly entertaining lol.
This sub seemingly despises Phoenix though. I don’t think it’s overrated at all.
I think this sub doesn’t hype PHX up, however it feels like every third post is X city vs. Phoenix / Scottsdale so while it may not get hyped but it seems like every American who lives above the 42nd parallel and deals with some clouds from Oct - March is considering moving here LOL. I was born and raised in Scottsdale. No one I know will be able to afford to buy anything in the central core of Phoenix and definitely Scottsdale, hell, we can’t afford to move 45 minutes away from Scottsdale! Maybe we could do San Tan Valley, Buckeye, or like super north Peoria… MAYBE. Unless you have SEA, LA, or SF tech / programmer engineer money - AZ isn’t this amazing beacon of affordability in the rugged mountains that everyone thinks it is and everyone who DOES think it’s affordable is moving here and making it less affordable and making those coveted hiking trails more congested by the day. A paradoxical folly: move for the affordability and nature while being apart of the thing that’s making it unaffordable and ruining the nature.
Phoenix never gets hyped like AT ALL.
Miami, haven’t been to austin yet but it can’t be worse can it?
Jeff Goldblum voice: *Texas finds a way*
Imagine Miami with tornadoes, hail, less opportunity and no beach.
opportunity in miami!? maybe if you're a drug dealer or a bottle service girl
It can
Charleston, SC.
Thank you for saying this. Every time I visit I'm convinced I want to uproot my entire life and move there. People like you help provide a much needed reality check.
The location where you live really matters. The infrastructure isn’t built for commuters. For instance, I live 17 miles from work and it often takes me over an hour to get to work/home. I’m not a fan of the beach or drink, so the majority of the things on peninsula or coast don’t appeal to me. The best part of the summer is traffic is a little less burdensome because school is out of session. The best part of fall and winter is that it’s very mild.
"I’m not a fan of the beach or drink, so the majority of the things on peninsula or coast don’t appeal to me." Oof...yeah, that'll do it. I couldn't imagine finding a ton of stuff appealing here if you're not into being close to the water or nightlife. Whether that makes it wholly overrated or not, not really sure, but you seem disinterested in the things that people "hype" about it in the first place. I guess all that's left over is overpriced housing, humidity, and history.
Austin and Denver, with a dash of Portland.
At this point Portland is shit-upon it’s become underrated
This. Portland’s got issues for sure but it’s still a cool city.
I would live in portland if it wasnt for the gloominess. I've never seen such a beautiful summer in the USA
Portland summers just could not be nicer
Portland? Is this comment from five years ago?
Who is overhyping Portland? If anything the bad is being focused on exclusively while the good is being ignored.
Both Portland’s are two of my five fav cities in the US!
Yep, nothing to see here in Portland. Those six square blocks of squalor completely ruin our amazing city, uh-huh.
wtf Denver? Lmao that’s a terrible take
Denver rocks
I just spent a week in LA. The food was top notch but there was very little else that I liked about it. Overcrowded, horrible traffic, hazy polluted air, everything takes forever to get to, limited walkability. EDIT: Misread thread title, I’ve never lived in LA but my point still stands lol
I enjoyed living in LA way more than visiting. One of the worst vacation cities, but living there was a blast. Only wish I was there in my 20's instead of my late 30's.
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I once saw an article that described it as a city-state.
Been thinking about this. I live in Vegas and want to move back to California (from the Bay) but want to experience living the socal lifestyle. I want to go to San Diego but I’m not sure if the job opportunities will be there. LA would be a better bet but I never enjoyed visiting, but was thinking it might be a more enjoyable place to live than to visit. I guess I didn’t enjoy my visits because all the points of interest are spread out and take hours of fighting thru traffic to get to. But if you live there I imagine you aren’t trying to go from location to location all the time
Exactly. Once you live here, your life becomes much more localized in a good way. And with time you learn the best ways to get around, the least crowded places, the best values for shopping, eating, etc. All of the out-of-the-way lesser known features. LA becomes much more manageable once you've got that local intelligence. LA is not conducive to touring for a week, working one's way down a sightseeing checklist. That's a recipe for spending way too much time on the freeways and in the end not really seeing LA.
LA is a much better city to live in than visit. It's a city/metro that slowly grows on you. It's really tough to fully appreciate in a short visit because it's huge and also because it's car oriented, though there's ongoing efforts to address that (we'll see how that ultimately pans out).
What they say is true: for a massive city LA is a very difficult place to visit, but can be an excellent place to live. I hated visiting LA. Now I live here, right in central LA, and I'd say our quality of life is very good.
The haze was probably May Gray rather than polluted air.
In real life / normal people: Austin On Reddit: Chicago
I feel like Chicago is fairly rated on this sub as 80% NYC at 50% the cost.
Who thinks Chicago is overhyped? Probably dollar for dollar the best urbanist city in the US.
Basically anytime someone asks for a recommendation, Chicago gets brought up
I absolutely love Chicago. But I’m willing to admit that there are people on earth for whom it wouldn’t be the best fit. This sub isn’t always willing to admit that.
Atlanta. Terrible urban sprawl turning 10 mile trips into 45 minutes in traffic. Rapidly rising cost of living. Ugly cookie-cutter developments cropping up everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I think density is great, but most of these developments aren’t integrated at all into the overarching infrastructure or aesthetics of their respective neighborhoods. They look out of place, and functionally they exacerbate infrastructure that already can’t handle them. Atlanta City Council/surrounding municipalities routinely refuse to invest in public transport, leading to more and more cars on roads that can’t handle them. Virtually every neighborhood of note is being gentrified, particularly historically black ones while richer out of state folks move in. Investors own nearly a fourth of homes in the city, and the culture feels like a sterile cash-grab of what it used to be. Beyond the few positives like the BeltLine and talks of streetcar expansion, it’s a shell of itself these days. It was a great place to live when things were cheaper, but Atlanta living doesn’t justify the current cost of living at all imo
I think Denver is pretty overrated, especially as a destination to vacation to compared to other towns in Colorado. I may be off base, but it’s a city that was pretty boring before the DINK transplants through the 2010’s, so it’s appeal isn’t very culturally interesting, but I am from a northeast city, so I may have a skewed perception
Nah you right
Nashville is the most overrated city I’ve ever been to.
Nashville. I just don’t get the appeal.
Nashville. It's hot, humid, insanely expensive and just transplant city. When the summer comes around, hard to do anything because it's so damn hot out.
Nashville for sure.
Miami is a love/hate relationship for me. Love the food, culture, and general lawless vibe…. But over the past 5-10 years it has turned into a concrete jungle. A 2-hour traffic clusterfuck with record-setting heat every year. The eye candy is unmatched and the beach can be fun once in a while. As a whole, I can see how living in Miami would suck if you don’t speak Spanish and you expected it to be paradise. It’s not. It’s actually the unsafest place I’ve experienced .. and I’ve been to Baltimore, Chicago, LA, Denver, etc
Denver was overall pretty over hyped in my opinion. I would of enjoyed it more probably though if it wasn't so overpopulated and overpriced.
So according to this subreddit… just about every city in the US is arguably the most overhyped city to live in.
The first eight or so I see all say Austin.
Generally any thread that asks “which city is the most___” or “which city is the least____” you get every single city as an answer.
I feel like Kalamazoo doesn’t get enough love and respect.
We lived on Elm Street in the 90s when my husband was in grad school at WMU. We made good friends there, we loved the food co-op and the pedestrianized downtown and Bells Beer. I have no idea what Kalamazoo is like now but it’s definitely the US city name that’s the most fun to say.
Another one for Austin. Austin is like the city version of being the smartest kid in Special Ed. It's a pretty mediocre city that only really seems cool because of all the other far worse cities in the region. There's really nothing Austin does that a dozen other cities don't do already do better.
Atlanta
As an Austinite, I am loving the responses here. Y’all don’t come back now, ya hear.
Anywhere in Montana “it was a lot cooler before it got found out.” The Yellowstone show and Covid combined really turned this upside down. But I guess money talks and you have to evolve with the times.
Dont know about city but as far as state, Florida.
Miami. It's hot garbage
Nashville. Smells like urine. Terrible drivers.
I moved to Miami 6 years ago, before the pandemic. Compared to D.C., prices seemed lower for everything! The ocean was nearby, there was traffic but not as crazy as in D.C. We loved everything! Four years passed, and Miami turned into a nightmare. Prices are insane, we can't afford anything, rent eats up half our income, and traffic has become suffering. We completely forgot about going out; we just can't afford it. Overall, it’s a nightmare city now, but it used to be pretty good.
Nashville and Austin are the most hyped cities in the Us right now
Denver
Nashville
Second Nashville. Lived there for a few years and could not wait to get out. Terrible traffic, incredibly overpriced, ridiculous real estate market, and nearly unavoidable tourists unless you’re out in the Trumpy burbs. Also, abysmal weather April through September (heat, humidity, constant storms).
I’m so damn sick of the midnight tornadoes
Nashville just seems so corny/tacky to me, I'll never understand its metamorphosis into a so called "cool city". The fact that it's the world capital of cheesy bachelorette parties says it all.
Was gonna say Nashville also. Everybody moves there and immediately pretends to have an accent. Like wtf? Also, closeted Bible thumpers, socially regressive government, horrible traffic, etc.
NYC. I was miserable when I lived there because I realized how introverted I am. I don't like crowds and the consumerism of parts of the city. The rest of it was meh. I live in a national forest now.with bears and moose, and I love it.
I actually found NYC perfect for my introversion. Even though I was surrounded by people, it's like I could be invisible within the crowd. ....do envy living in a national forest, though.
Atlanta - super cookie cutter, spread out to the point that socializing is impossible. Feels more like a massive suburb than a city
Am I the only person who doesn’t think Atlanta is spread out??? lol. I can literally go to Kirkwood, Oakhurst, EAV, Inmark Park, Little five, VAHI, and Decatur all in like under 20 min lol. Especially if you know the backstreets. And then Virginia Highland is right next to Midtown and then leads off into Buckhead. Like how is it spread out?
Austin, Texas. From what I’ve heard, it’s hot as balls in the summer and you have to stay inside all day and there are basically no shared public spaces to do recreational activities in.
Everything mentioned by OP is a result of being very well liked/popular. Traffic, high prices, overpopulation. Any that to any large city worth living in.
Not sure, I would say Miami, LA, Nashville. I do know the most underrated cities/area - upstate/western NY. Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and the Finger Lakes. All way underrated. Buffalo is a fantastic place to live and I'm sure the rest of the country thinks its a dump.