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techorules t1_j0cuz10 wrote

I think most people who say very bad things about Worcester, as in real hate, haven't spent much time there in last five to ten years. It's a good size city with real city problems. And it's slowly turning into a big city which will bring more problems but also more amenities and things to do. People in Worcester drive like drunken adolescents but other than that there is a lot to like.

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SmartSherbet t1_j0d15wd wrote

On the contrary, I moved to Worcester within that time period. Since I have lived in cities with actually functioning social services, real bus systems, safe and usable bike and pedestrian infrastructure, and at least some degree of enforcement of traffic and parking laws, I find myself really frustrated with Worcester.

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techorules t1_j0d1s8l wrote

LOL, you live in a place you hate? That's absurd and funny. Yeah I think when people put a post and say why the hate they're prob not talking about masochists who choose to live someplace they hate.

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SmartSherbet t1_j0d675g wrote

Never said I hate it. There's a lot to like here - the surrounding countryside and landscape, the diversity, the proximity to a ton of cool stuff in New England. But the shortcomings in the areas I mentioned are pretty frustrating for a city of this size that claims to be going through a renaissance. There's a ton of potential in Worcester, but the people in power can't seem to get out of their own way.

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techorules t1_j0dfrv5 wrote

Sure I dont disagree with that. Not sure why you originally replied to me because as I said I was talking about people who have real hate so evidently not you, despite your rant (ranting is cathartic, not criticizing you!).

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SmartSherbet t1_j0dyrlh wrote

I can see why my reply confused you. I think your premise, that people who moved here more recently are higher on Worcester than people who left long ago, may have some merit. But there are probably also quite a few people like me who are comparing today’s Worcester not to the Worcester of the 1990s, but to more functional similarly sized cities. Worcester does not come out looking good in those comparisons.

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WortownToker t1_j0cmcv1 wrote

Worcester is trying to gentrify, but the hood is still the hood.

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Oyadonchano t1_j0cw86s wrote

Walkable? No. And the bar/restaurant scene here is mediocre as hell. Same for the local music. Quantity does not mean quality. That said, Worcester is fine for what it is: a former mill town and current college town that's not too far from better cities and nature. But I wouldn't go talking about love. Worcester is tolerable.

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OrphanKripler t1_j0csugc wrote

Boston housing / rent rates

For 1920s built Springfield quality level housing in the hood.

It’s sad Worcester rent is $2000+ on average for a pest infested dimly lit dungeon that creaks and rattles with every step you take down your narrow hallway into your tiny living room that can barely fit a full couch, TV, and other furniture. With no off street parking, geto loud obnoxious neighbors playing trash music 20 hours a day.

The city itself is nice. I wish there were more things to do other than drink and eat. Woulda been coo to have a Dave and Busters type of place locally. Or more parks. It was nice riding my bike or walking and playing soccer until everyone kept bringing their dogs and walking with the leash stretched out 10 feet across the path so you have to stay behind them or wait for one to notice and move closer to each other. Or I kick my ball and it lands in dog shit

We need a dedicated dog park and we need more parking in residential areas. Since rent is out of control we may as well speed up the process and tear some triple decker houses down and build a mini parking lot driveway every few houses. Maybe this way pp can start rioting rent is getting too out of reach for the general population and they can regulate rent. Like keep it at a certain limit or not raise the rent for a number of years. It’s such a hazard when turning out of a street since ppl are forced to park on the very corner edge of the street. So visibility is terrible when pulling out.

I like Worcester though but it needs further logistical thinking with its infrastructure. The rotary on Grafton street by Pizza Hut is terrible it clogs up so much traffic. Ppl don’t know how to use a rotary and keep icing forward and stay inside. They block the inside so nobody can pass and stop the flow going, so everything is a stand still until the double traffic lights finally go green. Not to mention the school busses picking up the kids on the same street lol

There’s no room to pass anyone either. I remember a fire truck couldn’t pass by so it drove on the sidewalk. 18 wheelers do the same because they’re too big for the rotary.

I’ll stop ranting. But the city as a whole is very nice. Ask any local and they’ll say they been hearing the same thing for decades “Worcester has been on the up and coming”

Well I think it slowly starting to reflect that statement in the past few years. It’s gonna be constant progress I just hope they build and develop with more day to day use - type of thinking

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outb0undflight t1_j0d4ecl wrote

> I’ll stop ranting. But the city as a whole is very nice. Ask any local and they’ll say they been hearing the same thing for decades “Worcester has been on the up and coming”

I mention this every time it comes up, but the earliest I've ever seen the phrase "Worcester Renaissance" used is from January '05 when they started to push the Paris Cinema to shut down in earnest. I know they were using it before then because people in the articles talk about it like it's some ongoing process, but it's just so patently Worcester.

There's all these civil servants in the articles saying, "Worcester's a developing city! We're in the Renaissance! We can't have a porno theater right next to City Hall! It needs to be shut down so we can build something good there!"

So they shut it down. What happened to the property? It sat there, vacant, for twelve fucking years. And after twelve years what did they put in its place? The Beer Garden. Quite possibly the shittiest restaurant in Worcester.

I'd take the porno theater over that place any day, at least the Paris was honest about what it was. It wasn't a faux-gastro pub with sub-Denny's quality food.

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pok3ey3 t1_j0d59up wrote

Beer gardens great foh

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outb0undflight t1_j0d5zam wrote

Literally every restaurant on the Common has better food than Beer Garden, better atmosphere too. If Revolution Pie and Pint were still open then maybe Beer Garden would only be the second shittiest restaurant in the city.

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NovelNo87 t1_j0d15w7 wrote

Rent is ridiculous. Lots of people on Facebook laughed at my comments 5 years ago when I said this was going to happen when they built Polar Park, but look where we are now. Other than eating, drinking and baseball there isn’t much going on. I’d much rather live in Springfield where it’s not next to impossible to get a studio for under $1300, and they’ve got MGM, Basketball hall of fame, the Big E and Six Flags a few miles away.

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OrphanKripler t1_j0d86oj wrote

Exactly there’s not much for ppl to do here. Other than eat and drink. Even shopping has dwindled down but that’s a whole other topic

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NovelNo87 t1_j0er7di wrote

Not to mention a lot of shopping is done online today and most of the new places in the canal district aren’t easily accessible by car. So unless you’re a hipster who can afford to live near Union station a lot of it likely won’t be appealing.

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D2Foley t1_j0d4ymu wrote

> Since rent is out of control we may as well speed up the process and tear some triple decker houses down and build a mini parking lot driveway every few houses.

Your solution to the rent crisis to to tear down housing and replace it with parking lots?

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OrphanKripler t1_j0d6l8j wrote

Hahahaha well If you’re just gonna cherry pick it like that, then that’s how it sounds. The rest of that paragraph explains itself. I said tearing down the houses will make rent so high and out of reach for regular people that it’s gonna force city hall or whoever to step in and do something to regulate rent otherwise the masses will have to relocate out of the city and once their rent revenue moves away, then they’ll start to make changes to draw us back in.

I never called this a solution either. It’s just discussing and thinking out loud. Let’s face it they don’t care how high rent goes they’ll always just keep the space empty until someone who can afford it comes along and moves in. Happens all the time in Boston

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D2Foley t1_j0d6z5t wrote

The rest of the paragraph just advocates rent control, which doesn't work. It just benefits landlords and existing tenants.

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OrphanKripler t1_j0d7qmq wrote

So you’re saying existing tenants should be forced to move out?

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D2Foley t1_j0d8at6 wrote

I didn't even come close to saying that. Why are you trying to put words in my mouth? Sorry for pointing out your "thinking out loud" was not a solution. Hope you have a good one

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OrphanKripler t1_j0d95vv wrote

Lol you gotta relax. You were the one basically coming after me calling my thoughts a solution in the first place.

Coming in hot Lol looking like your eager for some heated debate or something.

It’s okay. Have a good weekend, and happy new year! I can’t wait for the vacation soon

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outb0undflight t1_j0cwury wrote

> however, the city has definitely improved an extraordinary amount over the past decade or two

In some respects, yes. In other respects, not so much.

>It’s walkable

Worcester is absolutely not a walkable city. Downtown and some other places, sure. But lots of places lack well-kept sidewalks, if they have a sidewalk at all. There's been multiple posts here in the past about it. Look at the heavily residential North Lake Ave. Your options are "walk in the trash-covered grass" or "walk in the middle of the road." And there's plenty of other places in the city like this.

>shows, events

The Hanover is fine and gets an okay mix of stuff, but it's hit or miss. Some years you get Morrissey or Elvis Costello, other years you just get Waitress & Shen Yun again. It's very rare that the DCU gets anything good for concerts, which isn't really their fault, the entire live event industry has changed, but still. I nearly shit myself when Maiden announced they were playing there. And The Palladium, while it'll always hold a special place in my heart, ropes off a bunch of the seating now, charges an arm and a leg for tickets, and yet still has the worst sound system I've ever heard. I don't love Providence by any stretch but every single concert venue I've been to there puts Worcester's to shame.

>and it’s being built up and invested in

Debatable whether or not that's a good thing.

>Literally every city has some crappy neighborhoods, homeless people, gang activity, and higher than normal rent, so that can’t be an argument against the city.

My dude, are you seriously trying to say that "high rent" cannot be an argument for why a city is a bad place to live? There was literally just a study about how crazy the rents in Worcester are getting And yet the city's solution continues to be, "build market rate apartments to attract Boston transplants rather than housing that the people who live here can actually afford."

Ultimately, whenever people make posts that are like, "Worcester's got all this stuff! How can it be as bad as people say!?" it leaves out two things: a) the bad shit about living in Worcester and b) the second half of the equation which is, "Does all the good stuff about Worcester outweigh the shitty parts?" Ultimately that's a personal question, and people are going to come down either way, but it's not as simple as, "Look at all this great stuff, how can you not like living here!?"

Yeah, there's some cool stuff to do in Worcester, but I'd trade fucking Polar Park for halfway decent trash pickup in a heartbeat.

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NovelNo87 t1_j0czaxw wrote

I agree that high rent is a good argument for a city being a worse place to live. Worcester rent is high relative to what it was 5 years ago and in comparison to similar cities like Hartford and Springfield, but it’s not really much higher than any of the surrounding towns where a lot of the complaints are coming from. It’s not like towns like Shrewsbury, Auburn and West Boylston have very different rents that haven’t gone upon the same amount of time. And honestly one of the only reasons so many people are moving from Boston and elsewhere east of 495 is because rents are rising even more there.

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outb0undflight t1_j0d2wr6 wrote

>Worcester rent is high relative to what it was 5 years ago

This is the issue, though. I've lived in Worcester for that five years. The city has really not changed that much, sure they've built some new shit, but day to day life in Worcester is no different than it was five yeras ago. But still the rents go up. Some good restaurants have opened, but other good ones have closed. The infrastructure still sucks, trash pickup is a fucking nightmare, the city's leaf collection policy is "push them all in the road, making the roads more dangerous, and we'll come pick them up in like a week," it'll snow 14" and the plows still leave 3" caked on the road...but we got a baseball stadium!

Like I said, the question is what are you getting in return for the money you're spending and is it worth it? In Worcester's case it's getting increasingly hard for a lot of people to justify spending the kind of money it takes to live here.

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dj_daly t1_j0d7i9o wrote

I don't know what Worcester is being compared to. I can't think of a single city in the US that is totally killing it and is a wonderful place to live, while also being affordable.

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YoooJoee t1_j0d0375 wrote

It’s always the older generation that lives in Worcester their whole lives. I never actually heard people in their early 20s hate on Worcester. It’s honestly getting so much better as a city that I really don’t understand where the negativity comes from sometimes. I run a housing group on FB and it’s always the people 40+ saying the negative remarks.

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lukewarm_sax t1_j0d28it wrote

I think because the 20 somethings who actually had the foresight to move elsewhere usually do so, the ones who stuck around don't mind the glitter covered shit, where as the older generations who had frustrations since the beginning didn't believe they had the option to move.

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YoooJoee t1_j0d2gnk wrote

To add to that, the young adults also see potential, while some people who lived there, their whole lives just have bad experiences

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lukewarm_sax t1_j0d4cqm wrote

true! I would say I've been fluctuating between 2 camps of thought as a late 20 something who just moved back here after living in Boston for the past 10 years. I see a lot of the potential in the city I was born in and would love to be a part of movements to create more robust culture here and advocate for better overall infrastructure, but I also am constantly frustrated at the speed of progress and how the aforementioned frustrated old fogies often block progress from happening, so then I end up researching apartments to rent in other cities across the globe that I'd gladly hop on a plane to and set up camp there because what I dream of in a city to live my life already exists elsewhere. Like, no one place is perfect and every city in the world has its problems, but idk, how much longer do I want to throw my energy into a place where the people on average might not want the same things I want out of life.

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Ladybuggturnip t1_j0d9qoo wrote

As a woman who’s lived in multiple parts of Massachusetts and is in my late 20’s I will say that Worcester is my least favorite place I have lived. The food scene is great and there’s always things to do which I like as well as the affordability of living compared to elsewhere in Mass. But I have never in my life felt less safe living somewhere. I cannot even walk down my own street as all the drug dealers and homeless people congregate at the end and recently have started making their way up and into the neighborhood. I know there are nicer neighborhoods but at higher costs. There is not much for nature that isn’t polluted with trash and I like to get outdoors. We tried going swimming in the summer and every time the pond was closed for toxic algae blooms. I noticed a difference in available fresh produce at grocery stores compared to nearby towns. I’ve also noticed a difference in the overall helpfulness and happiness of people who work in the retail industry, they are a lot more miserable and less likely to help. I’ve had friends sexually harassed at the gym and the male managers do nothing about it. Also the freaking fireworks every night in the summer scare the shit out of my cat. I’ve made great friends in the city and have had great experiences but I do not plan on buying a house or raising a family here. As someone who wasn’t raised in Worcester or a similar city/town it has been a bit of a culture shock.

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riek92 t1_j0cq1g0 wrote

I think people will always talk trash about their home town. I came from NJ and my family and friends down there feel the same way towards it just as the people of Worcester feel about Worcester. It's a love-hate thing haha.

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your_city_councilor t1_j0cryxe wrote

I've resided in a bunch of different places, and that's generally true, except for New York. I've never really heard a New Yorker trash talk the city. Chicago, yes; LA, yes; but NYC, no.

Worcester is weird, though, in that many people seem actively offended if you say it's a nice place.

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J-daddy96 t1_j0cvx82 wrote

Worcester has a great food scene

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jammer45 t1_j0dcaxf wrote

I think people who slam Worcester the most have never been out of it . Travel the country and the world . Expose yourself to other places and cultures . Then come back and tell me how bad Worcester is . Compared to other cities in the country it's fantastic. Worcester has everything you need . You can get anywhere in the city within 15 minutes . While also taking one of the best public transportation systems I've ever seen . It runs like clockwork. Most days. Schools , restraints and museums are plenty. Then if you need to get out you can be in the deep wilderness by driving 20 minutes in any direction . There's swimming , hiking and climbing . The ocean is 45 minutes to an hr away . This city has everything . And if you think your neighborhood is bad then you haven't seen a bad neighborhood . I've seen bad sides of town in FLA, Cal, LA , San Diego, Hawai and also Mexico . Trust me nothing in this city compares . It's a great place to live actually . Enjoy it .

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Zinski t1_j0dd19t wrote

I'll say this. I've lived in much better cities and I've lived in much worse cites.

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SnooDoubts1493 t1_j0dftr3 wrote

Bunch of local townies hating because they have nothing

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NaNoBook t1_j0d7o5p wrote

racism combined with ignorance from people who never lived in a city before

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