Well Aren't They Shithole Countries ?

[eastofeden]

Having been to quite a few third-world places, I can say that US cities are as bad or worse than those that would be tagged as "shitholes".

San Francisco is one of the few places that I've been to where there was frequently the smell of urine and unbathed humans in a commercial shopping area frequented by tourists.

There are alot of shithole areas throughout the SF Bay Area...no doubt about it...

It cracked me up when we had the Super Bowl a few years ago....OMG...all the grafitti was gone from San Jose to Oakland..and north to San Francisco....

...for our "image"...for the guests..and for the media who cover the event....

Now THAT was a major feat....

...and this is why "images" shouldn't be trusted...go for the substance instead....

 

[Telstra]

because of Kara,
i have to google "San Francisco smell of urine"

Is that mean they don't have public toilets like Europe i was complaining about ?

"San Francisco has (arguably) the dirtiest downtown area in all of the Bay. The streets smell like urine, and if it's raining they smell like fresh urine. This is an almost undeniable fact, it is the third truth in life besides death and taxes; San Francisco's streets smell like piss. Smaller cities in the bay like Berkeley ...

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=...fox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=Q-ZiWvW6I5Tp8wed46lA

 

[Sausy]

Millions of immigrants came from shithole situations from their countries of origins in Europe for the hope of a better life here. The comment was racially based, just from the shithole of a mouth that Trump cannot help from opening up and spewing his ignorant thoughts. But poor European immigrants were mainly Catholic or Jewish and disparaged as unsuitable and nativists tended to target restrictions on the flow of poor European immigrants and often discriminated against them during the late 19th and early 20th century...until well into the 20th century, poverty was pretty much the human condition of most even in Europe. Trump was just being racist and mean.... trotting out "we should have more people from Norway" as an example... white, light haired, blue eyed in tendency...where else could he have been going with this? He knows nothing of context and understanding of history, has no empathy or compassion.

 

[belamyi]

It's a rather shithole's person's opinion to desire immigrants from a country whose people are the least interested in emigrating.

Apart from that, whenever I have seen tornado-ravaged towns which looked as scattered after as before the disaster, let alone people up to their necks with snow, I think "why don't those people go away from such shithole places"?

 

[Alistair]

Having been to quite a few third-world places, I can say that US cities are as bad or worse than those that would be tagged as "shitholes".

San Francisco is one of the few places that I've been to where there was frequently the smell of urine and unbathed humans in a commercial shopping area frequented by tourists. Needle Park in Vancouver was far cleaner and safer by comparison to Union Square in SF.

Ditto in near Boston Common, where I was nearly knocked over by a man chasing runaway poultry that was undoubtedly planned for dinner that night.

There's also Bed-Stuy in NYC, where it wasn't even considered safe to be on the streets in the daytime... or Center-City Philly where you had to know which streets were safe to walk down after dark...

I'm surprised you didn't mention Detroit. I've been through some of the worst neighborhoods. I couldn't believe I was in the US

 

[HoodedRat]

Could you point one of those slurs out?

This is JUB (not quite a shithole country ... yet). Terms like 'slur' and 'bigot' get thrown around here whenever someone seeks to censoriously disaprove of another's posts.

 

[rareboy]

I am looking at you Jamaica.

And you know why. #homophobia

 

[gsdx]

I am looking at you Jamaica.

And you know why. #homophobia

And this:

Canadian sun seekers in Jamaica are being urged to "exercise a high degree of caution" following a spate of violent crime in the popular winter getaway.

The Canadian government has issued a travel warning in the wake of a military lockdown in St. James Parish, which includes the popular tourist destination Montego Bay.

The government's safety note urges anyone staying at a resort in the affected area to "restrict your movements" to the property.

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadian-travellers-urged-apos-exercise-160731311.html

 

[Cormac135]

Has anyone mentioned Canada yet ?

 

[KaraBulut]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Detroit. I've been through some of the worst neighborhoods. I couldn't believe I was in the US

Detroit's a strange place. It's a donut hole city where all the wealth moved to the suburbs. The disparity between the affluent suburbs and the inner city is very dramatic.

What makes Detroit a little different from Chicago or NYC is that Detroit is a city for people who drive, so most people aren't subjected to the streets like in San Francisco or the outer boroughs of NYC. The locals did always say that when driving late at night, avoid getting off of the freeways and when driving on streets late at night, never stop at stop lights.

The same is true of certain areas of Miami/Dade, too.

 

[Nealm1]

love Mexico --go at least once or twice a year---never had a problem as a tourist---but you are right that the cartels prevent the great people of Mexico from starting a business ---because most business's will eventually be hit up by the cartel---and most of the good humble people of Mexico don't want to be involved with this corruption .

all of us have thought that country is a real shithole---just the president of the free world should not say such a thing---makes him look small and half a real man---which he is.

I have Mexican friends who say there are lovely safe parts of Mexico, I would love to visit Mexico soon and I am the worlds biggest coward!!

 

[Nealm1]

The majority of Mexico.

I bet you are wrong and there are more lovely safe places than shitholes

 

[belamyi]

What makes Chicago a little different is that it's a city for people who drive, so most people aren't subjected to the streets like in San Francisco or the outer boroughs of NYC. The locals did always say that when driving late at night, avoid getting off of the freeways and when driving on streets late at night, never stop at stop lights.

What does that mean, that Chicagoanites spend the nights driving around along freeways, or crashing against each other at traffic crossings?

 

[HoodedRat]

I'm beginning to feel like we live on a shithole planet ... of our own making.

 

[peeonme]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Detroit. I've been through some of the worst neighborhoods. I couldn't believe I was in the US

I have some good memories of Detroit. In the early 60's after the death of my dad my mother bought a house on the east side, about 1 1/2 miles south of 8 mile road. I remember the smell of leaves burning as I walked home from school with my best friend who was black. The family that moved in next to us, a black baptist family that took me to church with them.

The area had been heavily polish/catholic, now "the blacks" were moving in. Rumors of a pending race war were heard of often. White flight began. We moved a few hundred miles north to a truly shit hole hick, red neck town of in breeders. The whites left Detroit and the jobs followed, the tax base shrunk. Public services were underfunded, schools often times didn't have paper... either to write on or wipe your ass with.

The police department was mostly white and targeted the blacks. The riots broke out in '67, a self fulfilled prophesy caused by the actions of those who predicted it.

Today Detroit has 3/4 of a million people. In 1950 it had 1.8 million.
Shit holes are in the eye of the beholder, fear, repression and flight cause them. Today, I have high hopes for Detroit. Instead of just building another monument and proclaiming a renascence in the city, the current leaders are making the neighborhoods inhabitable again. Street lights, garbage pick up and plow the streets after a snow fall are things that only the elite saw for years.
Tearing down old houses, cleaning lots that were made dump sites by those in the suburbs and dealing with slumlords is a every day event now.

Jobs are returning, things are getting better, shit holes can be fixed.

 

[frankfrank]

^ I have always "rooted for" Detroit, and will continue to do so until I die.

Our activity the one time we met, I was so happy when the DIA (Detroit Institute of Arts) ended up being saved. I feel that losing that would have killed the Can Do motivation of those who are working to make Detroit great again, because when things like that disappear, what's left to save, and to draw people to your city?

for those who don't know, Michigan has a law which allows "bankrupt" cities to have their own elections overturned and invalidated by Lansing, where instead the state installs an Emergency Financial Manager who, in effect, is a KING who is gifted with a piece of Michigan to rule absolutely as his own personal fiefdom. Earlier in the 2010's, Detroit's EFM was threatening to dissolve the DIA and sell its assets because he wanted that money to allow Detroit to make sweeter offers to sports teams to have elegant new digs (or whatever other corruption they could use to advantage) while the schools are strangled and continue to cave in.

And this:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadian-travellers-urged-apos-exercise-160731311.html

The government's safety note urges anyone staying at a resort in the affected area to "restrict your movements" to the property.

What's so great about that kind of vacation? Might as well just wait until June and go to an all-inclusive resort in Cape May or Myrtle Beach. It will be a lot cheaper.

I mean, if you don't even leave the artificial environment of your resort, were you ever really in Jamaica at all?

Virtually all shitholery that exists in this world is due to corruption, the lust for political power even beyond the threshold of sadism, and boundless greed by those who have the power, be it political or corporate.

 

[belamyi]

I mean, if you don't even leave the artificial environment of your resort, were you ever really in Jamaica at all?

Virtually all shitholery that exists in this world is due to corruption, the lust for political power even beyond the threshold of sadism, and boundless greed by those who have the power, be it political or corporate.

Because the weather is nicer and, most importat, because you can say you have been to Jamaica if you go; tourists are very much the same, no matter where they go, because they are usually people who are so unaware of the world around them, that the mere fact of making the trip and being in a different place than they inhabit the rest of their lives, makes it THE worthwhile experience... it doesn't matter if you know better the places they visited, and can enlighten them about what they say they saw, even if you have never actually been there.

 

[Charon]

I bet you are wrong and there are more lovely safe places than shitholes

I didn't say all of Mexico, I said the majority. I know there are lovely places like Cancun and Puerto Vallarta.

 

[Latimer]

^
I doubt that the visitors to places like Round Hill in Jamaica are particularly interested in the island. The resort is the destination, not the island. Jamaica itself is an inconvenience. Ralph Lauren has a house here--previously it was CBS chairman William Paley's, where he and his wife would entertain the rich and famous from around the world. John Kennedy reputedly "wrote" his inauguration speech here.

http://www.roundhill.com/water-sports-en.html

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ralph-lauren-jamaica-home-article

http://www.traditionalhome.com/lifestyle/travel/caribbean-ralph-lauren-style

 

[KaraBulut]

What does that mean, that Chicagoanites spend the nights driving around along freeways, or crashing against each other at traffic crossings?

I edited the post since the phrasing was confusing.

What I intended to say is that Detroit is an automobile city. Chicago and NYC are places where mass transit is the easiest way to get around. There was a time went Detroit was the place to live- it was a beautiful, wealthy city once upon a time. Now, the nice areas are in Sterling Heights, Novi, Royal Oak, Ann Arbor- the affluent suburbs that require a car to reach.

Inner city Detroit... well, that's just a shame. It's going to take a while before gentrification happens there. I still wouldn't dismiss it as a shithole even though I wouldn't stop at stop lights after dark in Detroit, though.

Of course, if you really want to talk about irony... perhaps Trump should take his 6'3" 239 pound self for a walk around in Washington DC. He's got one of the highest crime areas in the US just down the street from his latest address.