Article 18 cities in the US that are so bad you won’t want to visit

[C C]

Without looking it up, I'd bet every one of those is a long Democrat-run city, even if in a largely Republican-run state.
Some may be trying to turn themselves around:

Jefferson county voted Republican in the two most recent Presidential elections, after voting Democratic in the previous four.
- https://www.bestplaces.net/voting/city/t...ort_arthur

Not sure if I checked them all, but every Southern city on the list I did look up currently had a Democrat mayor (Old South voting traditions still linger locally in larger urban areas).

California-wise, less than 10% of the people in Huntington Park speak English. There might be tourist towns in Latin America and non-Anglophone countries around the globe that top that.

EDIT: Well, that's actually two-decades-old-plus census figures (but supposedly current demographic sources still maintain almost the same for Huntington Park):

"As of 2000, speakers of Spanish as their first language accounted for 90.77% of residents, while English was spoken by 9.17%, Chinese by 0.05% of the population."
_

[Yazata]

Extraordinary interview about the current state of Oakland and how it got that way.

The guy being interviewed is a journalist trained as a sociologist (Berkeley masters degree) who moved to Oakland when it seemed to be undergoing a renaissance pre-covid. He was a bit of a lefty to tell him tell it, but the recent collapse with crime spiraling out of control has made him reconsider.

Watch the interview, he really understands the devolution of a once hopeful and aspiring city and most of what he says strikes me as true.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/n2GMMA8W9rw

[C C]

Extraordinary interview about the current state of Oakland and how it got that way.

The guy being interviewed is a journalist trained as a sociologist (Berkeley masters degree) who moved to Oakland when it seemed to be undergoing a renaissance pre-covid. He was a bit of a lefty to tell him tell it, but the recent collapse with crime spiraling out of control has made him reconsider.

Watch the interview, he really understands the devolution of a once hopeful and aspiring city and most of what he says strikes me as true.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2GMMA8W9rw

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Oakland has become a a crime tourism destination. There's people coming in from outside cities specifically to Oakland to commit crime. ... who just prey on tourists stopping off at these businesses along the way to the airport. [...] They smash your window and pull out your luggage. They target tourists because the tourists tend to have big suitcases in the back. So they smash the windows pull out the luggage. Sometimes while the driver is filling up his car or while he's even sitting in the seat, or his kids are in the the car.

[...] Oakland's Police Department is radically understaffed for a city of Oakland's size [...] as much as 50% understaffed. Cops won't work for the Oakland Police Department for a number of reasons. Among them are the fact that there's been something like 15 police chiefs in the last 10 years or something. [...] You become a police chief, you know your lifespan is probably about a year before you get fired.

[...] The reason why there's such a high turnover ... one of the reasons is because the police department has been under a receivership from the federal government the last 20 years. There was a big scandal in the early 2000s ... a bunch of dirty cops...

There's two people who can decide whether to lift this. Well, there's really only one ... a judge. ... He's got every interest in the world to say we're so close to lifting this, but the latest thing happened, and it breaks my heart, but we're ... going to have to extend it indefinitely. Until the Oakland Police Department proves that it can police itself.

There's a built-in sort of this self-interest in perpetuating the receivership. Under that constant decree, officers don't want to work for the Oakland Police Department. It's like working with somebody looking over your shoulder, who has an interest in getting you into trouble all the time.

There's also rules for police conduct [...] some really strange rules ... For example, the fact that cops just can't pursue suspects. This is why people come to commit crimes in Oakland. The chance that you're going to be arrested or that a cop is going to intervene are minimal.

[...] Members of the city council are still committed to a sort of defund the police agenda...

[...] The standard for what would count as felony shoplifting went up to $950. So you can steal $950 worth of merchandise from a store before it's considered a felony. Until then, it's just a misdemeanor.

[...] Drug dealing throughout the state of California has been effectively decriminalized. So that's not just an Oakland thing, that's a statewide thing...

[...] If the police cannot guarantee your safety or the safety of your property, if thieves are just breaking into cars with impunity, there's going to be a certain number of people who are just going to go get a gun to defend themselves...