I’ve lived in a few cities throughout my life and I’ve always gotten the “this city has gone down hill in the last few years” or “this city was so much better a decade ago before x happened”. The only people to ever say these things are 35+. The cities are still great. Austin, Portland, Brooklyn, you name it. All still fun cities. The only reason you think this city sucks now is because you’re 38 and hate your life.
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It couldn’t be related to the mass influx of homeless people in most major cities over the last decade?
Things have for sure changed through the decades I bet but there is some truth to nostalgia and people having their standards risen compared to when they were 24
lil zoom is too young to understand that urban blight is a thing. sorry things were legitimately better before you were born
I would argue that perception comes from the city life in general having went to shit. Sense of community is an artifact from a bygone era.
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Chicago is definitely not the same
Mixed bag in most cities. For example, in LA the smog is 1000% better today than it was 60 years ago. But the crime, traffic, vagrancy, insanity, junkies are all infinitely worse.
Cities evolve over time. It just seems like they are getting worse instead of better. Covid def hit the fast forward button
Actually London is trash now. In the last decade it’s gone to absolute shit. And I don’t hate my life, it’s very enjoyable and a large part of that is down to moving out of London when it became an overpriced, crime-ridden mess.
Edit: and I’m not sure how old you are, but if you’re in your 20s you have no other time to compare to, whereas if you’re 38+ you can look at the city now compared to when you were younger and make a judgement.
Yeah, all the interesting shops / bars/ restaurants/ festivals / events that were reasonably priced with actual character are far better off being replaced by outrageously expensive corporate money grabs.
Disagrees in Orlandoian, where the mayor has actively worked to destroy the downtown for the last decade
Thanks for posting an actually unpopular opinion
Ehh, I don’t agree with this. Things change. The city I live in has changed pretty noticeably in the past 10 years. And by all accounts from people who 30+ years my senior, it has changed RADICALLY in the last 50 years
You said old and then said 38.. you outed yourself OP.
People with more years have a greater perspective from which to assess.
I subscribe to the mindset of “You can’t go back to a city you once loved”. Our minds create a rosy glow of memories that may or may not be true. Also what your values were when you were younger, usually change.
Portland though does in fact suck ass.
There’s also the classic hipster attitude.
I’ve been hearing newcomers in Bend say “it was cooler about 5 years ago (when they got there)” … for 35 years now.
It’s funny if you don’t take it seriously.
I think in many places people no longer have the income they had before that allowed them to enjoy what their city had to offer. Also people are probably not experiencing a better standard of living and it’s probably gotten worse and they have had to move to escape increasing rents.
Or maybe it’s because of rising costs of living, large amounts of homeless people, increased crime rates, or wage stagnation. Those are complaints I’ve heard
Plenty of cities aren’t as good as they used to be. It’s older people saying it because they actually experienced it when it was better.
That doesn’t always mean the specific city is “bad”, necessarily, just that it used to be better. “Better” is definitely subjective but it usually includes less homeless junkies, less crime/violence, less people drawing on resources like jobs and housing and, in some areas, less expensive overall before the trust fund folks moved to town because they heard it was cool.
Of course, there’s always going to be the loser who says that just because he thinks it makes him cooler somehow, to have experienced the city in a different way than you’re able to, but in general I think a lot of cities that used to be great have gotten worse.
Austin is ABSOLUTELY NOT the same as it was 20 years ago. If you think it is you’re lying to yourself. And I know someone who grew up in NYC and I cam assure you Brooklyn is also notbwhat it was 20 years ago.
My city has definitely evolved over time, and it’s just not the same. Drugs play a huge part in that, though in the past 12 years or so.
In my case, Brooklyn is legit different. Not as many Puerto Ricans as when I was growing up so it’s a completely different world. Honestly makes me sad.
No, Austin is objectively worse now than it was in the ’90s.
While this might be true sometimes, you can’t deny that some cities have taken a turn for the worst in the past 10 to 20 years. Being older allows you to have a perspective you didn’t have in your 20s and I’m not even 35+ yet.
Sorry, but that’s just not the case in so many places.
My city for example – there have always been homeless and drug uses on the streets, but for the most part they didn’t bother folks and kept to themselves.
Now things have gotten significantly worse. You can’t go downtown without stepping in human shit and being accosted by people looking for drugs, money or whatever.
The downtown core used to feel safe, random violence was limited to Saturday evenings when dude bros would beat eachother up outside bars after drinking too much. Now it happens in broad daylight.
Am I less willing to put up with it than I was when I was young? Maybe. Has it also gotten way worse due to a decline in social safety nets? Absolutely.
Nope. Austin just sucks.
Cities do, and have gone down hill though. It’s a thing that happens sometimes. You can’t act like it doesn’t happen and just yell “no! It’s bc you’re old and hate your life!” This is such an immature take.
Cities have actually changed though because of economics, shifting demographics, gentrification, and more.
This isn’t an unpopular opinion, it’s just wrong and uninformed.
I dunno, man, the city I loved in my 20s is Vancouver, BC. The homelessness and drug crisis has only gotten worse in keeping with the dismal housing situation.
It’s true, I’m 38 and I hate my life, but that’s nothing to do with the sad state of Vancouver.
I can tell you with absolute 100% certainty, despite a lot of contributing factors outside of most people’s control, New Orleans is an absolute shit show now and I will never under any circumstances set foot back in that terrible nightmare of a city. I live 10 minutes from there and I will NEVER go back in.
Counterpoint: you’re not old, the city always sucked and you were just too stupid and inexperienced to recognize it.
lives in KC metropolitan area all life
remembers first Friday shooting and being down the street from it
*also remembers Westport shooting next to the bar I was at
“No. It’s in fact more shit now than it was 15 years ago”
While I can safely say I never disliked the city I grew up in, I can objectively say it is in fact trash now. When you find out the board that runs the town is a bunch of a fucking crooks and criminals, it’s definitely not something to look at in a good light.
Gen Z detected
I paid 200pm for a room in a shared house, 15 years ago in the city I went to college in. It’s now 100 per week if you’re lucky. No one can afford to have fun there anymore.
Trash detecting abilities don’t kick-in until you turn 31.
No, I full heartedly disagree with ya on this one lol
The streets that used to be full of rowdy young people out looking for fun – which l would absolutely find annoying now – are now tent cities, fentanyl zombies, and crime. I’d say that’s worse. Be being old is only a small part of it.
Oakland left the chat
Nah, covid completely overfilled the massive city near me. They’ve spilled over into the suburbs completely now
Nope… absolutely everywhere has got exponentially worse from how it was “back in” what ever day it was..
not one single place is better than it was or even as nice/good/pleasent/or fun….even Antarctica.
Even the night sky is way worse due to light pollution and thousands of satalites…
And something as passive as radio reception is way worse due to LED lights and RF interference…
Edit– the only 2 things better these days is the internet….
And drugs.
I’m Greek. Athens has gone through basically 15 years of austerity. Trust me when I say, it’s much worse than it was – infrastructure suffers, empty stores, authoritarian policing… So no, your supposition is demonstrably wrong since you make a flat statement (and thus can be disproven by a single exception). Add nuance and you might get something that makes sense.
No my city actually did just get worse.
You must be young and stupid if you think 38 is old. News flash. The cities have turned to shit.
I get what you’re saying and I’ve definitely gone back to places and realized they haven’t changed, I have and they don’t hold the same magic they once did for me.
But also, some place have massively changed over the last 10-20 years. San Francisco is wildly different than when I was a kid. Covid really hit LA hard and I just don’t think places like Santa Monica have bounced back. Still great parts of LA, but wya more uneven than I remember it being.
I think this is more about people under 30 having zero frame of reference for the past and just accepting the current situation as optimal.
Hard disagree. Cities became zoos after COVID. Large homeless encampments and crime have made most urban areas turn into shit holes (literally)
I’d guess some cities around the world have genuinely gotten worse and some have gotten better.
I’m guessing you have a point to a large extent though. A lot of older people might just be grumpy and nostalgic for the past even if the present isn’t notably worse. But some of their grievances might be real and worth noting.
In my 20s I had an apartment that cost $500/month and access to great restaurants, bars, concerts, etc. In that city now you can’t rent for anything close to that price and half of the good restaurants have closed. I visited recently and went back to my favorite bar where I saw so many local bands play…they’ve renovated and totally changed the vibe, which maybe some people like but I miss when it had a big dance floor and everybody was rocking out. Everything is so expensive now and the increasing number of homeless people makes me sad. So ……no, I’m not “just old” and I didn’t hate my life. The city has changed and most seem to agree it’s not for the better. I really miss what we had… I had some amazing years there! I’d do crazy things for my favorite restaurant there to reopen just for a day so I could eat there one last time.
I can guarantee it is worse.
The trailer park I grew up in was full with probably 100 trailers in it. Now there are 5 and the lots are an overgrown mess. Buildings in town are literally falling apart and being torn down.
Businesses are closed. There used to be multiple places to eat in town, now all that is left is the Dairy Queen.
Totally bogus post.
Infrastructure is failing all over. People in cities rely more on infrastructure for survival than less-populated areas so when it is failing, dense populations make it worse. Cities often cannot afford to fix what’s wrong, so people who are mobile move away. It becomes a vicious cycle.
Add to that the many cities built on industry. As those industries have declined, so have populations, tax revenues, and housing. The city I call home has never pivoted away from the industry that gave it life, and is now a shell of itself.
Nah. Dublin has definitely gone downhill.
Disagree LA 2012 versus now completely different. But still better than the 90s
You would have had to have been in Austin in the early two thousands to understand. It was CHEAP, safe and actually held up to its standards of weird. Next to no traffic either. Then everyone else learned it was awesome.
I don’t know, I use to love San Francisco. I had so much fun there between 2003 and 2012.
Maybe. It’s also lost a lot of its independent eateries, venues, coffee shops, and bars. Many of them are now soulless corporate investments if they’re not just shuttered and empty.
Well done op, you actually ruffled some feathers
No. They turned the public lakeshore into a parking lot and there’s definitely a noticeable increase in homicide, including most recently a high profile torture case that stuck in the national news. It used to be the most desirable city around to live in and now no one even mentions it. Homelessness is rampant there. The signs of the fall were all there when I was growing up but it was still nicer then.
This is stupidass take. As recently as like 13 years ago I was living in a three bedroom house with my partner at the time for $1,000/mo. The downtown core of the city I live in had just been redeveloped. Malls were abundant and filled with stores. Crime happened but it was rare and usually targeted.
Now that same three bedroom house is $3,600 a month. Infrastructure is decaying. Those same malls are mostly empty and being kept alive by big box anchor stores. Random stabbings and shootings happen frequently. Junkies dying in the streets of overdoses is a practically a daily thing.
Society is kinda falling apart, man. Sucks for you that you’re too young to have seen better days.
EDIT: ALSO, back then it was easy to see a doctor. Nowadays you line up at a walk-in clinic for six hours only to be turned away. Or you go to the hospital and wait 12 hours only to get a doctor who is so apathetic they’ll mix up your chart with someone else’s, misdiagnose you, or will just dismiss you and send you home until you come back a few days later by ambulance needing emergency surgery for something that could’ve been fixed on your previous visit.
So young yet so wise. Lived life to the full and travelled extensively. Ibiza, London, New York? Ah no.
Thanks anyway for your ageist rant young one.
Skyrocketing rents have chased out anyone willing to take a chance on opening a cool new restaurant or bar.
Anywhere popular will attract the homeless crowd, who break in after hours and steal things/trash the place. Small business owners just have to eat that cost. The homeless also panhandle all your customers and sometimes worse (indecent exposure, sexual harassment and plain old assault).
Homelessness is not a crime. There are no easy answers to solve this. I am just reporting what I am observing living in downtown San Francisco, and how I watched businesses close and have no one move into the vacant spaces. Only a fool would pay top dollar rent to try and run a restaurant in a ghost town like now.
Boston was definitely better back when it was at least slightly less expensive, and the major shopping areas like Newbury Street and the Harvard Square Garage weren’t ghost towns.
However, some of New England’s third-tier cities like New Bedford and Lowell have come a long way in that same time period, and are now genuinely cool places to live or visit. Probably because of all the economic migrants who’ve been forced out of Boston.
Downtown Orlando has def gone downhill. It used to be a blast. Now it’s dead and bars need to close early cause violence and there’s shootings frequently
This is probably why London and New York are such great cities. As you age, there are still things for you to do no matter your tastes.
That depends, sometimes the city really has declined steeply in the last 20 years cough cough Jacksonville cough cough
Portland is definitely a shit city
>The only reason you think this city sucks now is because you’re 38 and hate your life.
Or just maybe the infrastructure of said cities have also aged so they are actually not the same. Bro.
Half the city is now boarded up and the homeless have tripled. Fun things for people to do have vanished.
I’m definitely old but I’m not a fuxking idiot. It absolutely IS trash now.
I grew up in LA, but I have to admit we’ve taken a beating.
I love kids (anyone under 30), and want them to have as much fun as I did.
Between the internet, social media, every part of their lives being monetized, and the lack of “third places” these kids cant catch a break.
You haven’t watched everything that you used to love about your city disappear while paying $2000 dollars more in rent per month.
I think us as a people just became trash.
SF took a pretty big hit and has since bounced back, Portland and Seatle though, ain’t no bounce back there
>The only people to ever say these things are 35+.
well duh. those are the people who’ve been alive long enough to see a significant decline. if youre in your early 20s or something you have no idea what the city you live in was like 10+ years ago, so you dont really have anything meaningful to input on the matter.
Nashville is now a literal cultural shell of what it used to be. There is little to no authenticity in this town. Every single aspect of it is to make the most money off of tourists as possible. We used to have tons of mom and pop restaurants and stores run by generations of families who have been priced out by large corporations or builders. I grew up here and I know maybe 3 people from my childhood who still live here. I can’t wait to get out of this phony ass city.
San Diego is litterally worse now than it was 5 years ago.
Counterpoint: you’re unhappy and unsure of who you are because you’re young and you’ve gaslighted yourself into thinking that the city you live in is ‘vibrant’ and ‘edgy’ when in fact, it’s lonely, you can barely afford to do anything but you’re too scared to move out because of FOMO/you’re worried you won’t find any matches online dating anywhere else.
What a stupid take
I lived in Memphis for 6yrs. When I first moved there, born and raised Memphians said that Memphis was just hitting the prime of its resurgence. Crime was down from about 20yrs before that time and things were coming back. Well in that 6yrs, I watched it go from its resurgence peak back to a taste of what it was like in the 80s and 90s. Crime rates keep breaking records and places are closing down/leaving the area.
I’m pissed off that it’s not the shithole it was anymore. All gentrified till it’s become a parody of the place I grew up.
When you see good food go downhill, prices double and triple to the same things, neighborhoods become cookie cutter and young kids flocking into watered down overpriced experiences. I think it’s a mix of both things.
No my town was trash when I was a teen and it was already going down hill then. Its just worse now.
Both things can be true. The city is trash compared to when I was younger, and I’m also older which makes the contrast even worse.
Grew up in Montreal in the 90’s it was awesome! Super safe, fun vibe and we knew the 22 homeless of the city..
Now…. thousand of holess, drug addiction everywhere, crime is insane, thiefs everywhere, businesses closing left and right…
You cannot say thats just me being old…
Nah, nothing is 24hrs since covid. It’s annoying.
Portland homeless problem is way worse than 20 years ago lol. This isn’t really an unpopular opinion it’s just blatantly wrong.
If you think cities went to shit, you might be a republican.
This is definitely an unpopular opinion because my home town is objectively worse than it was while I was growing up. Mom and pop stores have been replaced by corporate brands. The best restaurants have been replaced by corporate brands. Scenic areas have been bulldozed for strip malls.
Yes, I’m old, but that’s not why it sucks now.
Born and raised in boston and Massachusetts in general. Its so different its unrecognizable. 38
Drugs and homelessness is at an all time high. It’s trash. It wasn’t the murder capital last year as it previously has been but that’s about it.
Everything changes. It is not odd for a city to evolve in a direction you don’t like.
Mmm no they’re mostly trash since covid. These cities cater to more than 20 somethings spending every weekend at a rave or concert. You can still have interests and build a nice life at 38 but become more aware of and less tolerant to bs these cities keep wasting your hard earned tax dollars on while non stop cost of living rises and quality of life declines. Travel the world my friend, you’ll see people are happier with a lot less simply because of the geographic.
You mention Portland. Portland is way, way worse than it was even 5 years ago. The homeless population has exploded. Price inflation is ridiculous and most restaurants have had a huge quality drop because they now get cheap shitty Cisco ingredients. Really the only way I could see someone who has actually been around Portland not thinking it’s worse is if they are rich and completely out of touch with working class reality.
Edit- Oh I forgot about OMSI. It’s now an underfunded shell of what it was that struggles to stay open.
lol to be young and stupid. It’s night and day difference in Seattle, LA, and Portland now vs like 25 years ago. Not saying they aren’t fun but the city didn’t have homeless crisis, drug crisis, population crisis, housing crisis, and people still have memories of pre covid and pre 9/11. Good thing this is unpopular opinion since it’s a bad take.
You’re not only unpopular, you’re literally wrong. Every city in America has gotten more expensive, especially my city, Los Angeles. And my city in particular has had a rise in homelessness because rent is way too high, and it suffered the worst fire in our history.
>The only people who ever say these things are 35+
Because those people have lived to see things change. Obv no one in their 20’s is going to talk about how things were in a city 20 years ago bc they don’t know lol.
This take is hard to justify when measurable statistics (housing, homelessness, crime, education, etc.) get worse every year.
This is unpopular opinion for a reason.
You mean the only people who say these things were alive and around to remember what the city was like before? And you weren’t?
This isn’t an unpopular opinion, this is a factually wrong one, lol.
Most cities are more fun when you’ve got that 38 year old money, the fun just stops at 11 pm instead of 2 am and excludes heartburn foods.
This is the dumbest thing ever. How would someone know if a city has changed if they are not old enough to have lived then and now as an adult
Nope. Definitely used to be able to walk down the street and only get asked for money once or twice.
Now I walk down my driveway and get asked 3-4 times.
Portland, OR
Portland, OR used to be magic. Now it’s……not. Nothing to do with me getting older.
Saying this as a younger person but pretty much everywhere is worse now from a quality of life aspect then 10 years ago
I know, Cincinnati has been trash for my entire thirty years of life.
This is a wildly inaccurate take.