Why is New Orleans so haunted?
It’s a common question for a traveller to ask a local: What’s {insert city} like? Whether they’ve lived there or not, the answer is always murky, and as helpful as any bit of advice you get from a stranger. So I posed it to Google instead, hoping for something a little more objective.
I found it was much easier to troll than to distill clear facts (in my time frame of 20 minutes). What follows are largely unpleasant adjectives, and are probably a reflection of the way that some Google users think or have heard others think about these cities, rather than factual statements.
Results were gathered via the top two or three results to the question “Why is (X) so….” I’m going straight for the juiciest stereotypes here, so please use your own knowledge and common sense to fill in the blanks. New Orleans wins the mildly interesting award for being (or being thought of as) a haunted city and Detroit’s (as I suspected) were the most depressing.
Portland: White and weird
Seattle: White and rainy
Boston: White and racist
San Francisco: Expensive and cold
New York: Expensive and dirty
New Orleans: Dirty and haunted
Los Angeles: Ugly and dirty
Houston: Ugly and fat
Dallas: Boring and cheap
Phoenix: Boring and hot
Kansas City: Boring and dangerous
Chicago: Violent and dangerous
Miami: Dangerous and ghetto
Detroit: Ghetto and poor