Your city's ugliest suburb

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by pizzaguy

Don't disrespect my hometown like that! Daly City is probably one of America's most beautiful suburbs. Hills and Doelgers and hills and Doelgers and hills and hills.

Blame Pete Seeger.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by IrishIllini

Most people from Chicago are totally unaware that there are suburbs of St. Louis in Illinois. Steely is not one of those people, but if you asked the vast majority of Illinois residents what the worst in state suburb was, you'd hear A LOT of people scream Schaumburg, lol.

haha. i honestly can't tell any of those I-90 corridor suburbs apart, and yeah they are pretty soul sucking, my company has an office in one of them. i think it took me like an hour to get from o'hare to my hotel RIGHT BY O'HARE in one of those suburbs (like arlington heights or something) once thanks to traffic.

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Blame Pete Seeger.

A petty bourgeoise turning up his nose at the homes of the inexplicably capitalistic American working classes.

[isaidso]

For Toronto: Scarborough

[TWAK]

Discovery Bay, CA
https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B054'31.0%22N+121%C2%B036'01.0%22W/@37.9092962,-121.6015351,5111m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d37.908611!4d-121.600278?hl=en
just seems like a bad idea

[Reverberation]

Spring:

Where you pay to take the toll road so you don't have to look at it. Where no roads lead anywhere, only to more roads... Some call it a town, other call it a settlement. I think there is a spring there too.

[The ATX]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

Spring:

Where you pay to take the toll road so you don't have to look at it. Where no roads lead anywhere, only to more roads... Some call it a town, other call it a settlement. I think there is a spring there too.

But Gentry St. in Spring is so interesting. Asian Antiques, German Gift House...

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0786...7i13312!8i6656

[softee]

Originally Posted by isaidso

For Toronto: Scarborough

Naw, some parts of Southern Scarborough near the lake are very attractive, and it also has some older, quite urban looking neighbourhoods -- besides, Scarborough is part of the City of Toronto.

Brampton or Ajax would get my vote as Toronto's ugliest suburbs, but even they have some pretty nice looking sections. There's no real hands down ugliest suburb in the GTA that I can think of.

[llamaorama]

I actually REALLY like Daly City for some reason.

Where else can you find midcentury/"googie" architecture in such a concentration, in a totally unusual quasi-urban format, surrounded by beautiful hills and water, and close to the city proper? Maybe a little bit of this exists in LA, sure. It's one of the most unique suburbs in the US.

Also there's a microclimate on that side of the penninsula that makes it extremely foggy, kind of ethereal. Just next door is Colma, another independent municipality with a niche dedication to cemeteries...there are more dead residents than living. In case of zombie uprising, well...

I also think the Sutro Tower looks badass looming menacingly above the fog,. Its' so delightfully evil looking, like some kind of cold war era eye of sauron that's going to form an energy ray between its three pronged crown and smite the Bay's NIMBY's.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by softee

Naw, some parts of Southern Scarborough near the lake are very attractive, and it also has some older, quite urban looking neighbourhoods -- besides, Scarborough is part of the City of Toronto.

Brampton or Ajax would get my vote as Toronto's ugliest suburbs, but even they have some pretty nice looking sections. There's no real hands down ugliest suburb in the GTA that I can think of.

Yeah, Scarborough is more like a suburban district of Toronto.

I don't know but for Toronto, Milton looks pretty bad and generic.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by The ATX

But Gentry St. in Spring is so interesting. Asian Antiques, German Gift House...

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.0786...7i13312!8i6656

Old Town Spring is pretty cool. The area around it is a crime ridden suburban hell.

[cabasse]

laval looks fairly ok to me. buildings built near the street. buried utilites.

schaumburg looks like troy mi or suburban dallas

earth city. that's irony, right?

daly city... oh just fuck right off.

pearland... now we're getting somewhere. some of it looks like a flat version of the worst of atl's older burbs with stupidly large front lawns. some of it looks almost undeveloped. the rest of it just looks like typical somewhat dense tx burbia.

fontainebleau. doesn't seem that bad, just mostly dense residential.

brampton for some reason strangely reminds me of suburban LA (¿?¿) that's after a few random pin drops

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by Reverberation

Spring:

Where you pay to take the toll road so you don't have to look at it. Where no roads lead anywhere, only to more roads... Some call it a town, other call it a settlement. I think there is a spring there too.

I have a cousin who lives in a very nice part of Spring, sort of like Kingwood. My great Aunt used to live there, too. The pine forest is nice. But I haven't seen all of Spring, so I don't know how it all looks.

[AviationGuy]

I think it's worth a reminder that people live in suburbia for a reason, and suburbs that we at SSP think are disgusting are perfectly fine for those who live there. Most people I know in Austin, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Chicago, etc. live in the suburbs we love to hate. But every single one of these people I know likes where they live. To each his own, I guess.

For suburbs of Houston, I don't like Pearland or Cypress, but I especially like Kingwood, The Woodlands, Sugar Land, and Cinco Ranch (which is like a huge resort). There are some bad ones, but also a lot of good ones.

In Austin, the only suburbs I like are the ones in the hills, like Bee Cave and Lakeway. The others, like Round Rock, Cedar Park, Pflugerville, and Manor, suck big time.

[Domer2019]

I have to strongly disagree with Schaumburg being the ugliest... more like biggest broad side of a barn target for SSPers' ire for what it represents regarding suburbanization and keeping density away from the Loop.

But any city that has the following (NA HQ of Zurich Insurance), and parking lots that (crudely) service one of the biggest malls in America and other various commercial hot spots doesn't really belong in the context of this thread. Might as well knock Rosemont for similar reasons. There are other easier and probably more boring answers.





https://chicago.curbed.com/2016/9/28...s-for-business

Here's what the rest of the Woodfield area looks like:



http://valentibuilders.com/project/r...-of-woodfield/



http://wikimapia.org/2522736/Woodfield-Corporate-Center

Busse Woods (forest preserve) more than makes up for the existence of parking lots



http://www.minitime.com/Schaumburg-I...ination-photos

[Barney Greengrass]

Northern NJ has some awfully ugly suburbs to be sure, but because Nassau County is only reachable via the crumbling highways of Brooklyn/Queens, and all the jams and tolls that come with such isolation, I believe we find our culprit somewhere there. May I suggest Baldwin for its hideous housing stock, lack of waterfront, and soul haunted by xanax zombie housewives who day drink maneschewitz.

[SlidellWx]

I'm going to have to go with Chalmette, LA for New Orleans.

[Spocket]

There's boring and then there's ugly. I think a lot of people conflate the two here.
Rusting post-industrial wastelands are ugly. Cookie-cutter houses on sterile streets are boring.

I grew up in a lower middle-class home in an older area of my city. I always liked the "suburbs" because to me they were newer, cleaner, and more peaceful. I liked the curving streets and well-managed leisure facilities. My neighborhood wasn't a dump or anything but it had its fair share of run down homes and rusting cars in backyards. And it doesn't help that it wasn't that far from that industrial wasteland I mentioned earlier. There is nothing more depressing to me than vast expanses of rusting steel, crumbling, empty buildings, and abandoned industrial infrastructure with weeds and grass growing up the side of everything.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Domer2019

I have to strongly disagree with Schaumburg being the ugliest... more like biggest broad side of a barn target for SSPers' ire for what it represents regarding suburbanization and keeping density away from the Loop.

I don't rip on Schaumburg because of what it represents regarding suburbanization and keeping density away from the loop, I rip on it because it's the most poorly planned place that I've ever experienced. I have nothing against suburbia in concept (in fact I greatly admire burbs like evanston and oak park), but Schaumburg is a wholly forgettable parking lot wasteland to me.

[chris08876]

In my town of Branchburg, there's a little tiny section, around 5 acres or so, thats a trailer park right next to a quick check. That's the ugliest portion of this suburban town. Other than that, its a nice area.

Some typical homes: https://www.zillow.com/branchburg-nj...MaAjxNEALw_wcB

Somerset County is generally really nice. I guess parts of Bound Brook and Plainfield qualify for run down and unappealing IMO. Although North Plainfield is very nice.