What city looks great in movies but in reality is much less appealing?

36 comments

1. Chicago

2. All of them

3. New York

4. New York. It’s towers of privilege above trenches of poverty, and it’s either cold as fuck and windy, or hot as balls. And don’t get me started on the smell. I’d rather have clap than spend a week in Manhattan, and it would be cheaper too.

5. For me it’s a toss up between NYC and London. NYC had trash and piss smell everywhere, people were aloof and seemed to be on edge all the time, and crowded/busy to ridiculous levels.

   In London I was surprised to see that theft and pickpocketing was the norm there (wallet stolen, also saw someone steal a luxury item in daylight in front of everyone and didn’t give a damn), and it’s much more centered on consumption and materialism than I expected.

6. Las Vegas

7. Los Angeles

8. San Francisco looks great in a wide shot of the bay and the Golden Gate. But zoom in and you see piles of human excrement and homeless everywhere. And movies don’t convey the smell of the city. Everywhere you go it smells like piss.

9. London

   What people see in movies (The bridges, nice buildings, skyscrapers, parliament, big Ben, etc) is limited to a small portion of the city, called Westminster and it’s surrounding north London areas.

   Go too north of that and you have an empty boring shithole.

   Go south of that, and you have south London which is like the new jersey of England. Utter shithole. Crime is rampant, gangs, graffiti everywhere, trash everywhere, and poverty.

   When people think “London” they think movie traditional classy central Westminster London.

10. Hollywood

11. All of them, cities are terrible living places.

12. Las Vegas. Used to live there and loved it! Just not as amazing as the movie’s make it seem

13. Nashville and Memphis.. you think oh hell yeah good music, good times, etc etc… sike complete shitholes

14. NYC can simultaneously look much worse and much better than what you see in the movies, but it always seems to stink everywhere.

    Same with LA, minus the smell part.

    Not that it features in that many movies, but they rarely show some of the truly awful areas of New Orleans, of which there are plenty.

15. I hear Paris is not that great

16. Everyone trashing cities I’ve found great when visiting: Chicago, NYC, London, LA…

    People have really weird expectations of cities.

17. NYC is over-glamorized

    -born and raised here

18. All. All of them.

19. London.
    What you see is the City of London borough which is a small section of the whole city. London is massive! And most of the city is never seen on screen.

20. Paris, I was really under whelmed.

21. Any big city in California

22. Hollywood is a turbo shit hole in real life

23. Seattle or San Fran. Shitholes.

24. Every one.

25. All of them.

26. All of them, LOL.

    Often, its the smell, not the appearance.

27. Denver. Bad smog at times, horrible traffic.

28. Miami. 90% of shots of Miami are of like a 1 square mile area and a few beach spots. The remaining 99% of Miami is actually kinda…awful.

29. LA. Even Beverly Hills is remarkably unremarkable.

30. Berlin

    Completely shithole except of one avenue

31. I’d vote Paris. Besides the history city centre is rows and rows appartment buildings. The people are trash but the food is decent enough.

32. Paris.

    This is a big trashy hole, overpriced, with tons of rats, rape gangs, carjackers and big slums, with the widely famous « crack hill » filled with half-dead lost souls…

    I would be curious to see Emily getting a road trip across the real capital, she would have some hard times, though…

33. Most majors cities. I think most of the 1s in Cali. Like it can feel like a movie if you hanging out in like 5 or 6 spots but the rest is just homeless people, warehouses, and prostitutes.
    The same goes for south FL.
    NYC delivers on what it advertises

34. Toronto.

    It’s basically Canada’s NYC

35. London, Paris and Los Angeles.

36. Rio de Janeiro