I had never experienced rural ghettos until I moved to North Carolina. They’re every bit as violent as urban ghettos but are as ignorant as any rural backwater. Scary.
Poor Lumberton never gets a break. My truck broke down there and the local mechanics went above and beyond to help me out. I knew what kind of town it was because I grew up in a dying mill town. Lumberton has the same sort of hopelessness. Too bad as there are some good folks there.
I was born and raised in Española. It's not a surprise that it appeared on this list. In fact, the reason I watched this was to see it listed. But it is a natural beauty. If only we could get rid of 70 to 80% percent of our small population and pretty much every building in the city as well. Mas feo.
Born and Raised in the Lowrider Capital of the World and although it has its negatives there are way more positives that outweigh the negatives. Love my home town.
taliesin halliday well I wouldn’t really call a bunch of Americans and British coming to kill you safe for the Germans and I think most people would consider shooting someone and act of aggression
I live in Spaña, it’s much krazier than he made it seem. It’s like tradition to go to prison and get validated. We are the Lowrider capital of the world. Everyone has at least one oldie too. My pops has a 48’ dodge coupe, my brother has a 48’ Chevy stepside and I got a 50’ Pontiac chieftain. This should be the capital of heroin overdoses. For being a small town, we got a two of three people that are addicted to black.
Open invitation to come visit scenic small town Iowa. I promise we won't roll out the blue tarp for you ... unless you don't act right. Then you'll be promptly blue tarped and fed to the corn field.
As someone from Lumberton, yes pretty violent and a really green building true, but I believe the lack of job opportunities and (at the time I lived there) the police force were actually committing more crime then most drug dealers there. If anyone's interested (all 3 of you) look up Operation Tarnished Badge.
I grew up an hour outside Anniston, Al. I can tell you EXACTLY what happened-the death of the Ft. McClellan Army base. Back 40 yrs ago when I was a kid, it was an ok small town. As the base slowly died, the town around it died.
@Katie Rae The 2 individuals that killed MJ's father were young criminals with lengthy sheets, whom were looking for someone to rob. They would target rest stop areas where they would find the most vulnerable. They happened upon Mr.Jordan while he was asleep, not even knowing who he was. Know what you're talking about before you speak.
Sometimes a town can change suddenly/unexpectedly;I lived in a College town in east tx from 77' to 81'.I moved away,then contacted a friend from that town in 83'.He told me that I wouldn't believe the changes that occurred,mainly due to a massive influx of Oil Field workers(and their families)moving to town.Drugs,Drugs,Drugs!!He gave me names of many once sweet,beautiful,popular girls,AND very popular guys that became druggies!THAT blew my mind!
Holly shit. I was randomly watching your video (I wasn't a subscriber, now I am) and I just saw that you used a picture that I took in Alaska! I almost had a stroke... Hahahhaha. Nice! p.s.: I made it free on pixabay, so this is not a complaint.
I went to basic training and Military Police school at Ft. McClellan, AL and still know people that live in Anniston. Ever since the base more or less closed it's been a downward spiral for the city ever since. Maybe it's a reaction to the chemicals that deemed the place toxic.
yep I grew up there when young then I joined the military and I did see after Ft McClellan left thing went to hell and mostly because of the drugs like most of these towns
“There were safer beaches in Normandy” 😝 You got me as a new subscriber just for that! 😝 Great video. I’m a full-time RV guy and just started, so this is nice to know. Thanks for sharing!
Go to Espanola for Good Friday and you will have a very rare and unique experience with the culture. 10,000+ people, not including the locals, will be out and about disp[laying the beauty of the Espanola Valley.
I love your "Ten Worst" lists, because so far, they haven't included anything major about the State I've chosen as my next home. I mean, I guess that's not your doing but still...it's nice to have affirmation that I'm making a good choice. Keep 'em coming!
My mother's loved in Anniston, AL for 25 years. She has never had any concerns for her safety living there. After about 4 years, she moved to the east side of town. It's a very nice area and extremely affordable. The new bypass is beautiful! I've been to Anniston no less than 30 times and never had a problem.
@@aprilhutchens2105 these lists only look at statistics and numbers and not the reality of the location or anything good. If the good was weighed against the bad the good would prevail and the town would be on the good over the bad list.
@@aprilhutchens2105 it consistently makes these lists because these lists are done by privileged white people who haven't seen anything lol. I live in Lawton Oklahoma and the white people from these small towns act like this place is like California or Chicago even though it's NOWHERE near like that lol.
I hate when people comment stupid mess like this. I grew up in Flint MI and never had a problem that doesn’t mean it’s not bad 😂😂it just mean you are blessed and protected also never once in the video does he say it’s a 100% guarantee you will be a product of crime. Shut up!
@@queenjanee6290 ikr its the logic of "im not starving and no one i know is starving therefore world hunger doesnt exist". someones anecdotes doesnt invalidate other people's experiences.
Briggs this is the most positive & uplifting video you’ve yet to produce... because most people don’t live there and most likely never will...praise be
That is definitely an exaggeration, and your video should not be compared to that day. You lost credibility with that statement. If you exaggerate on that unfortunate historical event for so many soldiers and families, I wonder then if you are not also exaggerating on many things in your video trying to achieve fame and money. Perhaps you are no better than the violent people in the small towns. Also, you don't go into trying to understand why they are that way. You've simply labeled them and broadcast it worldwide.
Delivered with a tractor trailer to many small towns. Many are Americana. Some are "get out of Dodge" asap. But be sure to stay at or under the speed limit while entering or exiting...!
You missed Belen New Mexico. Nightline did a special on Belen because at the high school there is razor wire over the barbed wire on the chain link fences. Armed guards with submachines patrol the grounds and needless to say there are cameras. Legendary radio host Paul Harvey called it "the worst town in the United States." Hollywood does shoot a number of movies there, but it is because of the run down buildings, which look good in a movie about corruption, crime, or alcoholism. A factoid about Espanola. In 1989 a position opened in the police department. Of the hundreds of the applications for the position, 99% failed because the applicants couldn't spell and some people even misspelled their own name.
A pair of hippie friends of mine we're literally run out of town by the locals there within three weeks of moving there. They were told in no uncertain terms that they would be hurt if they did not leave and they took it seriously. This was in the late 90s
@@kenmerriman4112 The same way that schools can afford to remain closed. The teachers are going to get paid if the school is open or if it is closed (unlike a business). I was with the volunteer fire department for a decade and saw the city do "creative financing" with their budget. Buying a cheap fire truck instead of one that will last 50 years. Keep the junior high overcrowded but not worry too much about the size of the high school because a significant amount of 10th graders drop out due to pregnancy, drugs or the realization that to work manual labor you don't need a diploma. That was then (the 1970's/80's). Anyway, Hollywood has shot a couple dozen movies and TV show episodes there. Hollywood people have taught the city manager how to write grants and city services are blossoming big time from that. The population, not so much. The high school band is half the size it was 50 years ago despite the town having a much larger population now and that's just one indication.
Story about Anniston Al.- Every fall a group of us would travel to Smyrna Ga. to ride the Rails to Trails project, Silver Comet Trail. At the Alabama state line it changed to the Chief Ladiga Trail ending in Anniston. All together both trails were 96 miles long, we rode west on Saturday and back on Sunday. We stayed at the Royal Inn in Anniston, I woke up at 3:00 AM covered in bed bugs. Habib wasn't at the front desk so there wasn't anywhere to go, all we had were bicycles. If you've ever ridden 100+ miles, had 4 hours sleep, and ridden 100+ back at those speeds (it's mostly flat) it probably isn't your finest hour. And yes we were carrying, those pockets on those jerseys aren't just for water bottles.
You are confusing Henderson NC with Hendersonville NC in the western end in the state. And you showed the sign at the SC/NC line for Henderson County. Henderson NC is most definitely NOT in Henderson County. Is the rest of your city information this inaccurate?
My hometown is 30min north of Henderson NC (12mi north of the VA/NC border). When the only good thing you can say about it is that it had a decent Honda dealership in the 1980’s, it definitely deserves its place on this list.
So sorry to hear about Lumberton, N.C. It seemed like a nice place when I was there. My father went to UNC. He had fond memories of the time that the Lumbee Indians in that town chased out the Ku Klux Klan during a rally.
Minnesota is such an incredible state to live in, but I will tell you that onamia Minnesota is pretty bad. I’ve had my tires slashed in a parking lot, my car stolen, and my house broken into while I lived there, and recently there was another murder. We have a bad drug problem on the Rez and Mille lacs lake is really poorly managed with a lot of corruption. The town has 500 people, this stuff really shouldn’t be happening. I recently moved to brainerd though and am so happy I moved.
how to improve this problem across the entire country is having service industry jobs at the bottom pay a living wage and affordable housing. you would be surprised how much more stable people get when they have some security in life.
There are many many towns across this nation which are MUCH poorer than the ones in the video, and which have far less crime. Go back and re-watch the video and see if you can find any common denominators for their high crime rate. Hint: it has nothing to do with your so-called living wage.
@Nat Turner my mom used to teach at Jasper County High School in Ridgeland in the late 80s? I think until 1999 when she retired. I haven’t been there since then. We lived in GA.
Here in North Carolina Henderson is known as that place that you don’t go to you just want to stay far far away from that place it is horrible it’s a disgrace to North Carolina
I have been there and it is a ghetto shit hole. I have a friend who has to go there five days a week to deliver meat to restaurants and I feel his pain.
Kotzebue Alaska's Police mostly live outside of not only Alaska but down in the lower 48. They work for 2 weeks straight then go home for two weeks. The town flies them in work. If you get a chance, the series Alaska PD does a couple of episodes about policing in Kotzebue.
I laughed when you mentioned Española, NM. Back in the 1980s, my husband and I were driving back to our home in Colorado after visiting his dad in Albuquerque and we drove through Española. We came to a fork in the highway and apparently took the wrong fork, because a short time later we are again driving through a small town and after realizing where we were, I started laughing and said to my husband "We’re in Española again!".😂
I felt this. I used to drive all over southern Colorado and northern New Mexico and I still got lost driving through Espie…such a small town, such confusing infrastructure.
We flew in in a private plane once - pretty sure that was the town. The local man we met was friendly enough but I felt like we landed in the Twilight Zone. Couldn't leave fast enough. The airport was trashed. We had been flying a Twin Comanche and ran into some very strange weather and landed for safety.
ROF&LMBO re Kotzebue! "Having a cold one, chewing whale blubber & watching people STOMP all over the graves of your loved ones...." OMG! Briggs, that's a classic!
Please do two videos: 10 small towns with the lowest violent crime rate, and the ten large cities with the lowest violent crime rate. I would really like to know. Thanks.
Awesome video! You should look into my hometown, where I still live, McCreary County Kentucky. There are very many unsolved murders here. People have joked that, "Go to McCreary County if you want to get away with Murder".
Henderson, Oxford, and surrounding areas do indeed suck. There are a lot of nice people though. I used to install cable internet and television there in 2002.
Love the videos. I'm actually from Anniston. My parent came here from the military and we were living on Fort McClellan. After the fort closed, my mom and dad both left active duty, and honestly I wish we could have been anywhere else. It's got good and bad but mostly bad. A bunch of knuckleheads and not alot of entertainment in the area.
Anniston, like many small and medium towns has fallen on hard times. Both agriculture and industry have faltered or fled and losing Fort McClellan had to be a blow to the economy. People who were stationed at Fort McClellan in the 1940's liked the town and its people but things change over time.
I know he’s talking about small towns but Birmingham, AL the Collegeville area took some L’s during the recession. Especially when you lose a hospital, you know it’s bad.
@@Hopeguz3 Lost a hospital!! That is either a bottomed out economy, hospital merger, or damned Alabama State government pretending they are still in the early 19th century. I am Southern and I love the South but I swear the damned place gives me a headache as often as not - and straight up heart ache as well.
@@Hopeguz3 Alabama has lost approx 20 hospitals! Physicians was 600+ beds and it is almost unheard of for a hospital that size to close. It appears that the majority of the problem is Alabama's refusal to accept expanded MedicAID money from the federal government. At best we are headed backwards to the Gilded Age or possibly more likely to certifiable third world status. Good luck to all of us.
As an Alaskan, I knew we would be somewhere on this list. Also, the moose thing, totally true. It's not a funny joke locals say to people to scare them, you really shouldn't mess with moose. They have no shyness about being aggressive toward humans.
The sign you showed was from Henderson County NC, the town of Henderson is four + hours away from Henderson county & Hendersonville but Lumberton NC is the worse town in the state for sure. I live in western NC in a touristy area so pretty good economy here.
Yeah this is true. Most of the images were the parkway and I26 but i own property in property in Yancey and Henderson counties. So the info was right just the images wrong. Lol
Salisbury, NC is murder capital of NC. Between Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Charlotte. All those bigger cities have shootings and murders every night.
The creepiest small town that I have ever been to is Mitchell, Oregon. It is very remote in a small canyon in the high desert of Central Oregon. People there live in old shacks and old trailer houses. It could be a location for a horror movie. I'm sure they make their own laws there.
GasH Clan I’ve said for over a decade that when I’m an old bitty, I want to throw eggs (boiled and uncooked) at people from my porch while screaming profanities. ❤️ I get that lady on a spiritual level.
Not to play on a cliche , but indeed alcohol abuse is big among Alaska natives ( and most Indian reservation ). But another factor for your Alaska picks . It's not just the population inside the city limits . By being the comparitive big town in wilderness areas , this is where people from a cpl hundred miles around " come into town " periodically , for shopping , and drunken brawls . And Dillingham has presence of commercial fishing fleets in season , and they often follow the work hard at sea , party hard on land lifestyle .
Odd why natives have a harder time handling alcohol than other races. On the other hand they are the best navigators on earth. I guess ya gotta take the bad with the good.
I’m surprised with the lack of Michigan cities on the list. Muskegon Heights would easily take #1. It’s only 3 square miles, but man, my police scanner goes off on that small area every hour of the day.
Saved you time 10. Henderson Nc 9. Columbus NM 8. Dillingham AK 7. Lumberton NC 6. Doniphan MO 5. Osceola AR 4. Espanola NM 3. Estill SC 2. Anniston AL 1. Kotzebue AK
Name has nothing to do with Dutch. Kotzebue is the surname of a Baltic German and Russian noble family. It got it's name from the Kotzebue Sound which was named after Otto von Kotzebue, a Baltic German in service with Russia who was exploring the sound during a search for the Northwest Passage.
Henderson, North Carolina, is not in Henderson County. Henderson is in Vance County; in fact, it’s the county seat of Vance County. Geography is a wonderful subject to study.
I'm shocked that Helena-West Helena, Arkansas was not on the list. This town keeps having to put their town in "Marshal Law" status due to the high crime. In fact just this year they were trying to put everyone in there most crime infested areas of town into a virtual house arrest (24-hour curfew proposal).
So surprised more South Carolina towns wasn't on this list Spartanburg,orangeburg ,winnsboro and Darlington just a few Orangeburg alone keep getting shot up
Hey Briggs, can you do a worst small cities list, meaning like under 100, 000? Wondering where places like Gary would be on the list, or some cities in my home state, NJ. Yes, that place. Not all of Jersey is a toxic waste dump, believe it or not. It is whicked crowded and traffic does suck. Wondering if Camden and Trenton would make the list.
I think they pronounce it O-see-O-la, Arkansas unless they’ve changed how they say it. Love your shows! My wife and I watch you while eating breakfast. lol exciting life here in the Mojave Desert.
I was curious about towns with steeply declining populations, especially those that are on track to lose all their residents. Please make a list like that.
I purchase 3 copies of the World Almanac each year. One for my son, one for me, and one for whomever is interested in the latest numbers. It would be your best source. They do offer an online downloadable version, But Like making my notes, and looking through past copies. However, it is another option.
I’m from Arkansas and Osceola is pronounced with a long o at the beginning. I grew up in the northeastern part of the state and my high school sports team played Osceola. It was a dangerous place back then as well. I moved to northwest Arkansas.
Chris E kotzebue is a great place to go fishing and hunting. Alcohol IS the major problem. Eskimos are fine without alcohol. Add alcohol and the whole place goes to shit. Happens in all Alaskan villages dry damp or not. Alcohol still makes it there through mail. Same with drugs etc. the villagers take trip to anchorage buy 30# of weed and dabs and ship it out there. As well as liquor heroin cocaine meth etc.
From 11:07 on, that 2 story building is old wanna- be hotel that is now occupied by a wonderful preacher. He is working very hard to make inroads into this troubled community. As other have noted, drugs/alcohol are the devil's tools. In 2019, they had a murder of a young girl by one of the locals. "Institutionalized" sexual assault is also a huge problem. It is literally a generational hand-me-down.
A town near where I live in Texas has extremely high crime (mostly related to drug trafficking) but the town police wont do anything about it. The net effect is that, since the local cops wont do their jobs, police reports almost never get written. Therefore, the town is 'low-crime' on paper even though the place is a nightmare.
Actually man, my home town is worse than your #1, and it's a small town (on it's own, not near a large city). Florence, AL is 49 violent crimes per 1000 people.
I expected this list to be dominated by small Alabama towns. I grew up in small town Alabama and now live in western Canada. The difference is phenomenal, like places on two different planets.
