what city do you not like?

I drove through it at night and thought it looked pretty cool, but all I really remember is that bridge lit in blue lights..or maybe it was green. It looked neato.

 

some neighborhoods are better than others in a city. Some neighborhoods suck for a variety of reasons. And just cuz it sucks to me doesn't mean it sucks to someone else, but some neighborhoods suck so hard that pretty much everyone agrees.

 

I'm not sure why football commentators use Stoke to epitomise everything bleak about football Stoke isn't as cold as the North/N East. But it does/did(?) have gaps around the stadium which let in strong, unbroken gusts of wind. Plus their team are usually set up very defensively.

Now Middlesboro, *that* would be pretty bleak in Winter hehe.

Stoke as a town isn't a Monte Carlo for its residents. But I wouldn't say it was Burnley, Blackburn or one of the most nightmarish parts of supposedly "multicultural" London.

Having said all that, most places in Britain have some terrific places for visitors. As an American, you'd find most of it very unique. And even the Stoke area (hehe) has some charming world famous places to visit. The whole area is called the Potteries, because it was one of the first places in the whole world to commercially produce chinaware. So your Mrs would probably love some shopping!

http://www.visitstoke.co.uk/

 

The guidebooks for Florida tourism have never listed anything to do there, the city has a reputation for being tough and mean, and I've wasted many hours in traffic jams there, trying to get around or through. It's the worst traffic problem on I-95 all the way from Washington DC to Miami. The beltway is no faster than going straight down through the middle. It's my main motivation for almost always flying when I go to Florida. My driving times through/around Jacksonville have been as long as four hours, but never faster than an hour and a half. Neither of the routes go through any areas where there appear to be any good places to stop for a while and take a mental break from fighting the traffic. I just wish that city didn't exist.

 

Vorkuta was made by slaves. Many apartment buildings have been made by german prisoners after second world war. It is a terrible place, so little to hope for these people that live there. Our government had plans to finish Vorkuta, and move people away (south).

My mother worked here in soviet times.

 

Pretty much all of them....

 

i took 95 through there and i don't remember any significant traffic coming or going.

it's true that i don't recall seeing any good places to stop, but that was also the view from the highway; it's hard to say what i would have found if i got on the surface streets.

the main impression i remember of it was that it looked like a city literally built on the water. really nice to look at as i was driving past anyway.

 

I'm not sure how it's possible to hate any city on first site. Especially Jacksonville since it's the biggest city in the contiguous US as far as square miles. What you see off of I95 is only a fraction. You see downtown, well parts of it, and then a few highway exits.

 

Lol, guidebooks. That's your first problem.. you're a tourist.

Jacksonville has slums like any city, but here's what you do. You avoid the westside and the northwest area.

North Florida has some of the most gorgeous beaches in Florida, including miles upon miles of undeveloped beaches you can run around naked and doing whatever you want.

North beaches



Then you have riverside, 5 points and King Street, Avondale, San Marco, and the downtown scene in town.

Jax Beach





And no shortage of this



Enjoy Miami, I'll keep enjoying the good part of Florida!

 

Really, I would have though Los Angeles would take that spot, but upon looking up the data Jacksonville beats LA at 874.6 sq. mi for Jacksonville vs 503 sq. mi for Los Angeles. For comparison all 5 boros of New York is only 468.5 sq. mi and the boro of Manhattan is only 33.7 sq mi. So I guess Jacksonville is bigger than all these, bigger than NYC and 25 times bigger than Manhattan.

But Jacksonville has a population 874,000 and Manhattan 1.6 million so while Jacksonville may have the largest land area...well it depends on how you wanna define things.

What if the entire world one day in the future was just one huge city, continuous in every direction. Maybe it wouldn't be "one' city but many cities close together with no separation so you basically couldn't tell when you passed from one to the next. I guess once National governments were consolidated the next thing would be to consolidate the city governments into one, much like the boros of NYC were originally separate cities just very close together with no separation. I guess there would have to be hundreds of boroughs and many many neighborhoods in each. I'd hope we'd have a good mayor, cuz he'd be the president of the world also.

 

Yeah, there's not a lot of density here only in a few areas. The beaches communities. Mainly jax beach, neptune beach and atlantic beach. And then riverside and the southside. That population doesn't include the beaches, it's actually like 1.3 million if you include those. But where I grew up there were 5 million people so I've never really considered this place a 'city'. It's kind of like nyc in that it's all jacksonville but there are distinct different areas with different cultures.

And I can't imagine that. I love urban cores but that would be one shithole of a world :2thumbsup:

 

Naked beaches? I thought that was just a Cali thing...I'm sold.

Also, it's very hard to believe Jacksonville traffic compares to D.C. traffic, at all.

Miami was very crowded and seemed really hostile to me. I don't look at cities from a touristic perspective. I always want to settle in or at least feel like I'm a part of things if I'm staying shortly. I like places that feel either inclusive or there's enough privacy to chill and do your own thing without people getting in your face...that almost always means there needs to be a good portion of natural land that's free to roam on.

 

It doesn't compare.. at all. I spent 22 years in the dc area and there is absolutely no comparison. And by far and away the worst stretch of the drive from dc to miami is from northern va to richmond.

Haha.. the funny thing about that is that in cali you can get sex offender status for that. In south florida there are designated nude beaches. The northside beaches here are just so private you can basically do whatever you want. And guana state park in ponte vedra.

The northside also has lots of land, for cheap. Northwest is bad, gangs, open air drug sales, street hookers, that kind of thing. And coming from dc I don't consider this place tough or mean at all, I've never had problems even in the rough parts. There's a lot more respect down here. Occasional drunken assholes and some people are quick to open fire over something stupid, but if you just do your own thing here you are fine. In dc the trouble finds you.

 

The girl on the left has a nice bod, btw.

 

Well there are some places in NorCal where people know it's perfectly fine to be nude...

And about that traffic from NoVA to Richmond absolutely, I've done that drive too many times. I may not have gone all the way down to Miami, but driving through Florida never compared to NoVA. Although traffic in Miami city can be...ugh. When you're going from NoVA to D.C. that's pretty damn bad too.

 

The main street bridge?



There are several that are lit up. Except a boat mast just ran into one of them.

 

Yeah, because they annexed the whole fucking county, including the parts that are completely empty. Most states have laws against that.

I've never seen Jacksonville make any effort to advertise or promote itself to visitors. It seems to be content to be mainly a business city, and an important seaport. Since I don't have business to do there, it has nothing to offer me. Everybody I talk to about it in North Carolina sees it the same way I do, as a giant obstruction on I-95.

Better sand and water conditions than Daytona and West Palm? More privacy than the NC Outer Banks? I don't think so. Climbing over driftwood isn't my idea of fun. Look at all that debris at the water's edge. Good place to get a serious foot injury.

Nah, South Beach is a little too pretentious for me, and the city of Miami has too much racial and ethnic stuff going on. I only pass through Miami on the way to the Keys.

 

if my memory serves me correctly I think it was that bridge! I passed through almost 10 years ago though so who knows.

My family just booked a beach house in St Augustine in June so I'll be in your neck of the woods. Isn't St Augustine just like 30 minutes south of Jacksonville?

 

Newark, New Jersey is the most rundown place I've ever been. They didn't even have trash cans along the streets just trash bags thrown in the street.

 

Middlesbrough
Travelled to it, and Passed trough it a.s.a.p.
People from the North East are fine folk - but just not a fan of the town/city