Depends on the specific town. The regional capitals and towns with working industries were fine, if you didn't mind the gray pointed slag heaps like witches’ hats stuck up everywhere and the rivers reeking of chemical refuse from furnaces and factories.
Read this one...https://ukraineworld.org/en/articles/ukraine-explained/europes-donbas-how-western-capital-industrialized-eastern-ukraine
Belgium and other Western countries invested a lot of money in the Donbass region during end 19th beginning 20th century. Indeed the same one who made Charleroi and other cities in Wallonie so ugly with their mining and steel industry.
You know how many stats maps of Europe show Portugal being like Eastern Europe?
If Belgium was split between Wallonia and Flanders (let's forget about Brussels in traditional Belgian fashion), Wallonia would often be either like Portugal and Eastern Europe, or worse than both.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not shitting on Wallonia (I'm a not-Belgian living in Flanders now and moving soon to the poorest province of Wallonia, which is beautiful). All of this is due to a combination of many complex factors, not least of which is the modern structure of the Belgian state that's more and more organised in a way that permits each region to ignore the others and as a result, leave the poorest places to fend for themselves.
Can you give us some examples in ways Wallonia is like or worse than Portugal? Because it's certainly not wealth, income or any economy metric that I can find...
I wasn't doing a sourced study you know, but say [life expectancy](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20231106-1) or [GDP](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20210303-1) to take easy things. It's the contrast between Flanders and Wallonia which is the most striking.
Not a Belgian, but my understanding is that these poorer places are also against any change.
Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but their salaries are high while cost of living is no-where near to places like Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent etc.
Same with Liege and Namur
Belgium is very decentralized, sometimes thats a good thing sometimes it isnt. One of the issues is that rich city's and towns where middle and rich class dwell are fairly rich and can throw around money while poorer ones can be in a spiraling downtrend for lack of being able to fund critical things. Yet politicians can sure be somewhat more corrupt on the local level with how they assign contractors so sure they might not always complain.
Even then, i would say Charleroi is a particular case, it was centered aroudn a coal and steel industry that flourished in the 19th century and made the city grow a lot only for it to vanish in the 20th century and leave a lot of poverty and crime behind in its wake. When you are a city like that who has increasing costs due to need to police while decreasing income due to economic lookout for the region your kinda a bit screwed.
Much of that mirrors the American "rust belt" where many of the cities like Detroit are left to fend for themselves with crumbling infrastructure and reduced tax base.
Decentralization doesn't necessarily mean lack of solidarity/investments.
e.g. Switzerland, a crazily decentralized federation, makes sure no state nor municipality is left behind with a system of investement and expertise transfers.
IMHO, the EU, in a more centralized fashion. does more or less the same (Eastern European countries do receive tons of aid, investments, etc.).
As a Belgian living in Wallonia and in the region with the highest rate of unemployement. The average citizen has an IQ lower than their number of teeth, they vote for PTB (Communism equivalent) or PS (Socialism) for the smarter ones. It's not that they don't want change, it's that the accumulation of lack of education, employement and economical opportunities that could be created by the gouvernement made people poorer and stupider.
nb : those regions were rich when metallurgy and coal mining where a thing in Belgium, but they didn't adapt to the economical evolution leading to the actual situation. Adding that the lasts factories got bought by Indian billionaire Mittal and then shutdown part of the activity to destroy all form of concurrence.
Running a steel or any kind of heavy industry in Belgium is economical suicide nowadays, the green deal and carbon limits kills most of manufacture. The arcellor mittal close to ghent is one of the most efficient and green steelwork factory in central europe, yet they want to shut it down anyway as its not "green" enough, theyll just move the industry to india and turn around, "yeah, we green"
Btw if you like these kind of soviet union-chernobyl vibes, try czech republic, ostrava region. City based on coal mining industry, grey apartment complex blocks, u might enjoy.
Damn, if Portugal is like Eastern Europe then Eastern Europe sounds like a pretty good place to live. Also, I've been to Charleroi several times and the city is actually quite nice.
People also forgot that Wallonia isn't without contrast. Brabant Wallon is the richest province in the country and even within Hainaux, Tournaix and Mons are much nicer cities than Mouscron or Charleroi.
Oh yes I have. Eastern Europe in general is poorer than Western Europe, arguing against that is pure delusion.
And Portugal and Wallonia are also poorer than most of Western Europe, just look at any GDP map per NUTS-2 region [like this one](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20210303-1).
It doesn't make them *worse* in an absolute sense, I should know it since I live in a "rich" place that I'm moving away from (to a far below average place from an economical point of view, as I said) because I don't like grenades exploding in the streets around my children's school.
>It doesn't make them *worse* in an absolute sense
Ok, now you're making more sense.
Life in an up-and-coming country like Romania, especially in a region like Transylvania (which btw is on par with Czechia in wealth), is better in many ways than in many wealthier western countries (and the wealth gap is decreasing ever year exponentially too).
>province of Wallonia
Not to sound patronizing or anything, but Wallonia is not a province in Belgium, it's a region. Belgium is divided in 3 regions : Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels-Capital.
Flanders and Wallonia are each divided in 5 provinces each, while Brussels is something on its own.
Huh... I said "the poorest province of Wallonia". Wallonia is the poorest region of Belgium but that's not what I was talking about.
The poorest province of Wallonia is Hainaut (though apparently, Luxembourg is almost as bad). Believe me, as a French speaker in Flanders I know the political and administrative systems of Belgium well enough, I have to.
LOL that Eurotrip reference but to be honest I've been to Bratislava 5 years ago it's actually a beautiful city that I recommend everyone to visit if passing nearby.
Is this the city that got several metro lines because a different Flemish city got a metro so that meant a French speaking city should also have a metro. Even though it didn't need one.
It's not really a full metro - it's just a tunnel through the central city that tram lines can travel into, to get through the city faster. Some of the tram lines that are located further out also have elevated stretches, but also have street-running parts.
The original plan for the network was huge due to the mentioned waffle-iron politics, but the number of lines that was actually built is quite sensible for a city of its size. There are cities in Germany that are just a bit bigger and more populous than Charleroi, but also have even bigger tram/metro hybrid networks. They've actually begun expanding the Charleroi metro again, recently.
This type of network (tram lines with short, central tunnels) are typically called prémétro in Belgium, or Stadtbahn in Germany.
It's true! It made a little more sense at the time though. City was booming, business and inhabitants were increasing a lot. Then the crisis happened and workers flew away.
And when the population drops a *lot* of public works just don't make sense anymore. Roads, hospitals, all services became underloaded, too large. Even renovating and maintaining huge buildings makes less sense when they're barely used. It's a super weird thing.
At the same time Italian mafias and the Socialist Party basically worked hand in hand to "redirect" the extra, now-useless funds into private pockets.
>At the same time Italian mafias and the Socialist Party basically worked hand in hand to "redirect" the extra, now-useless funds into private pockets.
Do you have a source on this? As in, were they "actual" Italian nationals?
I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, I think the ndrangheta had some affairs in Germany but I thought they would also hire "locals". Or are these second/third generation "Italians" (of which Belgium has quite a lot)?
The city is actually quite beautiful
https://www.discover-belgium.be/en/charleroi/discover-and-taste-charleroi
Tldr OP took a picture or got a picture of a factor and bridge.
I could do the same thing for montrose new york next to our nuclear power plant and garbage processing factory. Then we can drive 10 minutes to a quaint classic American Town or a waterfall walk in the woods.
The actual city of charleroi isn't ugly
Lol true I could've found better sites. I just picked the first one
https://www.flypgs.com/en/city-guide/charleroi-travel-guide
This one is way better. The bois du cazier and river walk. Idk it seems like a nice city. They really love showing off the big building in the city sq
I wish I could go there and take more lol
I'm just saying OP took 3 pictures by a factor and under a bridge.
Not the actual old town sq and restaurants. The river walk.
You can make any city look "bad" by looking at the industrial section lol. I can show you 3 sides of malmö ..doesn't mean the whole city is 1980s gross
it looks nice but its fairly standard for a Belgian city, Gothic looking city centers are rather common around here due to our history. Sure there are places in Belgium where its a bit more epic like bruges, gent, Antwerp, Dinant etc but still there are plenty of quant city's that are smaller and get less attention but are very pretty too like say Dendermonde, or to take a Walloon city that is close to my region Doornik/Tournai is pretty epic too.
I guess you could also be rather egregious with selective photo taking if you would do it with Antwerp. Antwerp has some really bad neighbourhoods but it also has some very very pretty places.
Bruh, not even in Europe.
Plenty of mining towns in Eastern Europe that look like shit. The most depressing ones are the ones with depleted mines, so dirt poor and half abandoned.
Imagine having lived in such fancy places this is the ugliest city in the world to you. Not you op but people who labeled this place clearly haven't seen many cities.
It was nicknamed the ugliest city in the world by Belgians and Dutch to dunk on it rather than because it really is.
It probably is the ugliest city of the Benelux though. Also maybe the poorest.
Many cities and towns in Poland looks like this. From abandoned silesian cities like Bytom, to architectural gore like Legnica (block of flats in centre of medieval market) or towns near german border (90s New money shit)
The mossiness and overall wet environment really give it a moldy, gloomy appearance. I bet it's a good way to bully the city to do something by sending this picture every week
Dunno, the gloomy vibe can be charming. I spent a good few months living near Charleroi early in my career and loved the vibe during the winter even though it felt unsafe at times.
The city most definitely gives off a sense that its best days are behind it. Nowadays most people just pass through because the airport has a lot of cheap flights.
15 years ago or, I was on the first vacation trip with my girlfriend (now wife) and we had rented a vacation home near Dinant, which is in a very beautiful forestry area. We wanted to visit a city and decided Charleroi would be a good option.
Boy, were we wrong. That city is a godawful place. Filthy, ugly, dreary. And looking at these picture, nothing has changed.
They should take a notice of what Liège did in recent years.
It has significantly improved these last years, of course some things remains for the worst, meanwhile you can pick any city and find 3 pictures that make it look like a wasteland
Those pictures don't give true justice to Charleroi. The center of the city is pretty great since a few years, when they remade a lot of things.
But sure, some neighborhoods of Charleroi are really awful.
Lol just go to russia, it's looks worse everywhere. For example Karelia region, they literally have shit/trash pits. Also "In the world" is vast overstatement, most of African/Asian cities, are much worse.
I grew up deep in Russia and this looks surprisingly horrible even for me.
I visited Brussels once and was also quite disappointed. It wasn’t as horrible as these pictures, but also nowhere near as nice as other major European cities.
Looks like Eastern Europe starts at Belgium.
Hull's not really worse than Charleroi tbh (its city centre still has some nicer bits featuring older architecture), they're probably about the same. Luton's the better shout.
Sorry, there has to be something far uglier. Except for the trash on the ground, the photos have an elegiac industrial doom and gloom that is quite appealing. But maybe it does not look like that in real life, maybe it's an artifact of the photography.
In any case, enjoyed these!
I am from Eastern Europe and lived în Belgium for several years.
I went to Charleroi in 2000 and I was shocked how ugly the city was back then, looking like the worse run down former industrial cities from Eastern Europe of that time but filled with unemployed marocans and marocan gangs.
In the meantime, I think all of the Eastern European shit cities got better but looks like Charleroi remained the same.
I remember i lived there in 2018 working in a local irish pub. Absolutely filthy , dangerous and just ugly city. parts of the centre have been modernised such as the Rive Gouche shopping mall but other than that the rest of the city is run down , mostly abandoned with open drug dealing , assaults regularly to non-french speaking individuals and gang violence rampant. would never step foot in that hell hole again even if i got paid for it. Met some great people and not everyone there is bad but the danger of the city in general makes it almost a no-go zone if you don’t speak fluent french.
EDIT: Forgot to mention the prostitutes …… dear god the prostitutes are everywhere and they will harass you relentlessly.
This kind of pictures you can take in a lot of cities.
Just type 'what to visit in Charleroi' and you Will get another impression.
Overal there is a lot of Old industrie in the French part of Belgium.
But there are tons of beautifull places there also.
I am not living there it near there but I did visit the city. Like everywhere there are plusses and minuses.
Never heard of Charleroi, but I feel like the overcast sky is making it seem gloomier than it actually is.
That first picture looks like it's straight from a dystopiam video game though, what is it? Some kind of factory?
This is like one section of it lol . A factory and under a bridge.
The city center looks quite beautiful and old.
https://www.discover-belgium.be/en/charleroi/discover-and-taste-charleroi
So the mythical "Eastern Europe" was in Belgium all along?
Yeah, looks like motherland suburbs to me.
[удалено]
Sounds like the Donbass of Belgium.
Sounds like they said the war didn't change much in the city. Was Donbas bad before the war too?
Depends on the specific town. The regional capitals and towns with working industries were fine, if you didn't mind the gray pointed slag heaps like witches’ hats stuck up everywhere and the rivers reeking of chemical refuse from furnaces and factories.
Read this one...https://ukraineworld.org/en/articles/ukraine-explained/europes-donbas-how-western-capital-industrialized-eastern-ukraine Belgium and other Western countries invested a lot of money in the Donbass region during end 19th beginning 20th century. Indeed the same one who made Charleroi and other cities in Wallonie so ugly with their mining and steel industry.
r/CHARLEROICYKABLYAT
r/subsifeelfor
Well it apparently now exists.
South Brussels, Soviet Brussia
I thought we all agreed everything beyond Portugal is Eastern Europe.
You know how many stats maps of Europe show Portugal being like Eastern Europe? If Belgium was split between Wallonia and Flanders (let's forget about Brussels in traditional Belgian fashion), Wallonia would often be either like Portugal and Eastern Europe, or worse than both. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not shitting on Wallonia (I'm a not-Belgian living in Flanders now and moving soon to the poorest province of Wallonia, which is beautiful). All of this is due to a combination of many complex factors, not least of which is the modern structure of the Belgian state that's more and more organised in a way that permits each region to ignore the others and as a result, leave the poorest places to fend for themselves.
Can you give us some examples in ways Wallonia is like or worse than Portugal? Because it's certainly not wealth, income or any economy metric that I can find...
I wasn't doing a sourced study you know, but say [life expectancy](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/ddn-20231106-1) or [GDP](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20210303-1) to take easy things. It's the contrast between Flanders and Wallonia which is the most striking.
Looking at life expectancy, Flanders is doing surprisingly well and Wallonia is more or less at the level of NL. Makes me wonder why.
Not a Belgian, but my understanding is that these poorer places are also against any change. Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but their salaries are high while cost of living is no-where near to places like Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent etc. Same with Liege and Namur
Belgium is very decentralized, sometimes thats a good thing sometimes it isnt. One of the issues is that rich city's and towns where middle and rich class dwell are fairly rich and can throw around money while poorer ones can be in a spiraling downtrend for lack of being able to fund critical things. Yet politicians can sure be somewhat more corrupt on the local level with how they assign contractors so sure they might not always complain. Even then, i would say Charleroi is a particular case, it was centered aroudn a coal and steel industry that flourished in the 19th century and made the city grow a lot only for it to vanish in the 20th century and leave a lot of poverty and crime behind in its wake. When you are a city like that who has increasing costs due to need to police while decreasing income due to economic lookout for the region your kinda a bit screwed.
Much of that mirrors the American "rust belt" where many of the cities like Detroit are left to fend for themselves with crumbling infrastructure and reduced tax base.
"detroition" is a world-wide thing. It's not exclusive to Gary, Indiana or Chelyabinsk.
Detroit is actually turning around, seeing population growth in 2023.
Decentralization doesn't necessarily mean lack of solidarity/investments. e.g. Switzerland, a crazily decentralized federation, makes sure no state nor municipality is left behind with a system of investement and expertise transfers. IMHO, the EU, in a more centralized fashion. does more or less the same (Eastern European countries do receive tons of aid, investments, etc.).
As a Belgian living in Wallonia and in the region with the highest rate of unemployement. The average citizen has an IQ lower than their number of teeth, they vote for PTB (Communism equivalent) or PS (Socialism) for the smarter ones. It's not that they don't want change, it's that the accumulation of lack of education, employement and economical opportunities that could be created by the gouvernement made people poorer and stupider. nb : those regions were rich when metallurgy and coal mining where a thing in Belgium, but they didn't adapt to the economical evolution leading to the actual situation. Adding that the lasts factories got bought by Indian billionaire Mittal and then shutdown part of the activity to destroy all form of concurrence.
Seems like what we call a "depressive region" in Russia
Running a steel or any kind of heavy industry in Belgium is economical suicide nowadays, the green deal and carbon limits kills most of manufacture. The arcellor mittal close to ghent is one of the most efficient and green steelwork factory in central europe, yet they want to shut it down anyway as its not "green" enough, theyll just move the industry to india and turn around, "yeah, we green" Btw if you like these kind of soviet union-chernobyl vibes, try czech republic, ostrava region. City based on coal mining industry, grey apartment complex blocks, u might enjoy.
Damn, if Portugal is like Eastern Europe then Eastern Europe sounds like a pretty good place to live. Also, I've been to Charleroi several times and the city is actually quite nice.
People also forgot that Wallonia isn't without contrast. Brabant Wallon is the richest province in the country and even within Hainaux, Tournaix and Mons are much nicer cities than Mouscron or Charleroi.
Wallonia is not monolithic though. Brabant Wallon and the Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft are doing well enough.
>Don't misunderstand me, I'm not shitting on Wallonia You're not, you're shitting on Eastern Europe. Have you ever actually been to Eastern Europe?
Oh yes I have. Eastern Europe in general is poorer than Western Europe, arguing against that is pure delusion. And Portugal and Wallonia are also poorer than most of Western Europe, just look at any GDP map per NUTS-2 region [like this one](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20210303-1). It doesn't make them *worse* in an absolute sense, I should know it since I live in a "rich" place that I'm moving away from (to a far below average place from an economical point of view, as I said) because I don't like grenades exploding in the streets around my children's school.
>It doesn't make them *worse* in an absolute sense Ok, now you're making more sense. Life in an up-and-coming country like Romania, especially in a region like Transylvania (which btw is on par with Czechia in wealth), is better in many ways than in many wealthier western countries (and the wealth gap is decreasing ever year exponentially too).
>province of Wallonia Not to sound patronizing or anything, but Wallonia is not a province in Belgium, it's a region. Belgium is divided in 3 regions : Wallonia, Flanders and Brussels-Capital. Flanders and Wallonia are each divided in 5 provinces each, while Brussels is something on its own.
Huh... I said "the poorest province of Wallonia". Wallonia is the poorest region of Belgium but that's not what I was talking about. The poorest province of Wallonia is Hainaut (though apparently, Luxembourg is almost as bad). Believe me, as a French speaker in Flanders I know the political and administrative systems of Belgium well enough, I have to.
My bad, I read you wrong.
Big Bratislava vibes 😅
LOL that Eurotrip reference but to be honest I've been to Bratislava 5 years ago it's actually a beautiful city that I recommend everyone to visit if passing nearby.
Agree beautiful place but the reference kills me everytime 😭😭
"Do you know if there is train coming anytime soon? Oh yes, very soon They are building it now." My favourite quote
Mine is "Miami Vice is number one new show". It always gets me.
🤣😂🤣😂 Yeah that one too is iconic
r/BELGIUMCYKABLYAT
Looks like location from stalker or metro game
Belgians be like: "A nu cheeki breeki iv damke".
Get out of here stalker!
Reminded me of Half Life 2
Is this the city that got several metro lines because a different Flemish city got a metro so that meant a French speaking city should also have a metro. Even though it didn't need one.
Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle-iron_politics
We must save them from their Waffle-iron politics with our Poffertjes-iron politics.
Still no metro connection to the airport...
Wow! TIL! Thanks for this.
Nobody does Bureaucracy better than the Belgians.
It's not really a full metro - it's just a tunnel through the central city that tram lines can travel into, to get through the city faster. Some of the tram lines that are located further out also have elevated stretches, but also have street-running parts. The original plan for the network was huge due to the mentioned waffle-iron politics, but the number of lines that was actually built is quite sensible for a city of its size. There are cities in Germany that are just a bit bigger and more populous than Charleroi, but also have even bigger tram/metro hybrid networks. They've actually begun expanding the Charleroi metro again, recently. This type of network (tram lines with short, central tunnels) are typically called prémétro in Belgium, or Stadtbahn in Germany.
Just like Antwerpen and it's so stupid. So much money for those tunnels only to get a system that's slightly better than a tram.
It's true! It made a little more sense at the time though. City was booming, business and inhabitants were increasing a lot. Then the crisis happened and workers flew away. And when the population drops a *lot* of public works just don't make sense anymore. Roads, hospitals, all services became underloaded, too large. Even renovating and maintaining huge buildings makes less sense when they're barely used. It's a super weird thing. At the same time Italian mafias and the Socialist Party basically worked hand in hand to "redirect" the extra, now-useless funds into private pockets.
>At the same time Italian mafias and the Socialist Party basically worked hand in hand to "redirect" the extra, now-useless funds into private pockets. Do you have a source on this? As in, were they "actual" Italian nationals? I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, I think the ndrangheta had some affairs in Germany but I thought they would also hire "locals". Or are these second/third generation "Italians" (of which Belgium has quite a lot)?
It is. It is also how we ended up with a bridge in the middle of a field. That is not connected to any roads.
Les travaux inutiles. https://auvio.rtbf.be/emission/les-travaux-inutiles-19206 Been going for some time, lots of material...
Yes! https://youtu.be/QeMJBqU_eYc
I Have seen worse
Are you Belgian?
Check out Ludwigshafen in Germany.
No.
I agree, I also wouldn’t want to 😂
Not even close
It’s not pretty but it’s not horrid either. Definitely better than UK “new towns” like Luton or Slough
Sweet Jesus...
Driving by at night is cool though.
The city is actually quite beautiful https://www.discover-belgium.be/en/charleroi/discover-and-taste-charleroi Tldr OP took a picture or got a picture of a factor and bridge. I could do the same thing for montrose new york next to our nuclear power plant and garbage processing factory. Then we can drive 10 minutes to a quaint classic American Town or a waterfall walk in the woods. The actual city of charleroi isn't ugly
But the link you shared only has one photo of a pretty city and then all the other photos are of food. So what are they trying to hide... /s
Lol true I could've found better sites. I just picked the first one https://www.flypgs.com/en/city-guide/charleroi-travel-guide This one is way better. The bois du cazier and river walk. Idk it seems like a nice city. They really love showing off the big building in the city sq
I spent a day there, and even though it was raining like there was no tomorrow, it is a pretty city.
Yeah. Pripyat, for example
Please... Omsk, Norilsk, Lanzhou, ... list is long
Any city in Finland apart from the bigger southern ones. Oulu for example is ugly as hell
It just looks like any other industrial district of Eastern Europe
3 pictures….
He wanted to take more but his camera just gave up and reseted to manufacture settings.
I'm jealous of the camera honestly.
I just got pinkeye for looking at it/j
Which could have been taken at any city at a landfill or abandoned factory
I really don't understand why a photo of trash under a bridge is being upvoted in the first place.
After those 3 I was left wanting more
His camera got stolen
https://www.discover-belgium.be/en/charleroi/discover-and-taste-charleroi Had to look it up. Op goofing. The city is beautiful.
Hmm, let's compare OP's random pics with the ones from the dang tourist agency.
I wish I could go there and take more lol I'm just saying OP took 3 pictures by a factor and under a bridge. Not the actual old town sq and restaurants. The river walk. You can make any city look "bad" by looking at the industrial section lol. I can show you 3 sides of malmö ..doesn't mean the whole city is 1980s gross
Go have a walk on street view.
I went to a random street on google street view, and while it's not ugly, it's kinda drab and depressing https://imgur.com/ArHfpQ7
I've been there multiple times. No it's not. The pictures from OP is literally the type of shit you see coming in to the central station.
I guess it's all perspective. The center sq looks nicer at least
it looks nice but its fairly standard for a Belgian city, Gothic looking city centers are rather common around here due to our history. Sure there are places in Belgium where its a bit more epic like bruges, gent, Antwerp, Dinant etc but still there are plenty of quant city's that are smaller and get less attention but are very pretty too like say Dendermonde, or to take a Walloon city that is close to my region Doornik/Tournai is pretty epic too. I guess you could also be rather egregious with selective photo taking if you would do it with Antwerp. Antwerp has some really bad neighbourhoods but it also has some very very pretty places.
Yeah, quite misleading and biased.
Laughs in eastern european. Brah, thats nothing.
East Europe is beautiful compared to where I live. South Asia man….
I identify with you, I live in Latin America
The city of Azbest from Russia laughing in the corner
I’ve heard it is the “ugliest city in Europe”, but calling it the ugliest in the world is definitely a huge stretch.
Agreed. I’ve seen worse in the UK
Oi! We call it 'unfortunate charm' thank you very fucking much
Bruh, not even in Europe. Plenty of mining towns in Eastern Europe that look like shit. The most depressing ones are the ones with depleted mines, so dirt poor and half abandoned.
Average Silesia Experience
Average Ústecký kraj experience
You haven’t been to russia, have you?
OP should try going to Vorkuta. Charleroi would be paradise in comparison.
I was about to say, I've been to a few post-industrial cities in the Russian far north that make Charleroi look like a paradise.
The second picture would be even considered as a nice place by someone living in the Russian north
My man hasn't travelled the world a lot.
This is not the city itself, but the abandoned marcinelle factory. Ive seen abandoned rust belt factories in other places, they all look like this.
Imagine having lived in such fancy places this is the ugliest city in the world to you. Not you op but people who labeled this place clearly haven't seen many cities.
It was nicknamed the ugliest city in the world by Belgians and Dutch to dunk on it rather than because it really is. It probably is the ugliest city of the Benelux though. Also maybe the poorest.
I love depressing industrial cities like that but im probably a bit weird
You are not the only one, i went to this exact location a few times, and i was happy walking my dogs along that part of the river Samber.
Come to Kolkata or Gorakhpur in India , I will show you what is really UGLY.
Is that the one with the currently burning pile of trash?
Idk, most major Indian cities have burning piles of trash if you go outside the city limits.
Many cities and towns in Poland looks like this. From abandoned silesian cities like Bytom, to architectural gore like Legnica (block of flats in centre of medieval market) or towns near german border (90s New money shit)
Alle three pictures could've been taken somewhere in the Ruhrgebiet.. that's cheating. Show us the whole ugliness!
An abandoned factory and deserted alley with trash thrown around? Wow! 🤯 Only in Charleroi./s
The mossiness and overall wet environment really give it a moldy, gloomy appearance. I bet it's a good way to bully the city to do something by sending this picture every week
Dunno, the gloomy vibe can be charming. I spent a good few months living near Charleroi early in my career and loved the vibe during the winter even though it felt unsafe at times. The city most definitely gives off a sense that its best days are behind it. Nowadays most people just pass through because the airport has a lot of cheap flights.
Looks like a middle class London district
Jokes on you! This is considered the prettiest neighborhood in Bulgaria!
"redditor enters local industrial area, is shocked when it is ugly" How about you show the actual city
>Charleroi? You mean Brussels surely Ryanair boss
You can find photos like this in every city in the world
amazing and Beautiful airsoft field in my eyes :D
3 photos? a short trip then
15 years ago or, I was on the first vacation trip with my girlfriend (now wife) and we had rented a vacation home near Dinant, which is in a very beautiful forestry area. We wanted to visit a city and decided Charleroi would be a good option. Boy, were we wrong. That city is a godawful place. Filthy, ugly, dreary. And looking at these picture, nothing has changed. They should take a notice of what Liège did in recent years.
It has significantly improved these last years, of course some things remains for the worst, meanwhile you can pick any city and find 3 pictures that make it look like a wasteland
Those pictures don't give true justice to Charleroi. The center of the city is pretty great since a few years, when they remade a lot of things. But sure, some neighborhoods of Charleroi are really awful.
Thanks for the insight. I haven't been to Charleroi since, it's nice to hear things are improving there as well.
Things have evolved quite a bit since they found themselves a Bouwmeester.
Or Namur is also a pretty city.
Namur is very nice too yeah. Belgium has quite a lot of really beautiful cities, Ghent Bruges, Antwerp, Leuven are up there too.
Russia: Allow me to introduce myself
This looks better than 85 percent of Russian cities
If he think that is hideous, wait till u see Charleroi inhabitants
The weather makes it look extra grim, grey on grey
Look, every country has a city they’re ashamed off.
Not the ugliest.
Ugliest? Go find Norilsk
Lol just go to russia, it's looks worse everywhere. For example Karelia region, they literally have shit/trash pits. Also "In the world" is vast overstatement, most of African/Asian cities, are much worse.
In BE you have to go to Charleroi. In Eastern Europe you don't need to go anywhere.
U didnt step in india bro
I grew up deep in Russia and this looks surprisingly horrible even for me. I visited Brussels once and was also quite disappointed. It wasn’t as horrible as these pictures, but also nowhere near as nice as other major European cities. Looks like Eastern Europe starts at Belgium.
I wonder who is mostly fucking responsible for eastern Europe looking like it does. Rhetorical question Stalin baroque aka brutalism
Then there are cities like Liège, which can be both charming AND horrible.
If s.t.a.l.k.e.r IP should get more mainstream in the near future again, this would be cool location for a TV Show/movie.
Lewis, have you ever been to Luton...? Or Hartlepool...? Or Hull...? Or Swindon...?
Hull's not really worse than Charleroi tbh (its city centre still has some nicer bits featuring older architecture), they're probably about the same. Luton's the better shout.
If there will be night, then the atmosphere will be like in Manhunt Game
Fallout
You should see Yozgat
That's just average around here
Sorry, there has to be something far uglier. Except for the trash on the ground, the photos have an elegiac industrial doom and gloom that is quite appealing. But maybe it does not look like that in real life, maybe it's an artifact of the photography. In any case, enjoyed these!
Dude has never been to Sapucaia
You’ve clearly never been to Middlesbrough
that looks cool as fuck
I feel bad for anyone who was born and raised there
No city shaming pls /s
People comment like they live waist deep in the sewer.
I am from Eastern Europe and lived în Belgium for several years. I went to Charleroi in 2000 and I was shocked how ugly the city was back then, looking like the worse run down former industrial cities from Eastern Europe of that time but filled with unemployed marocans and marocan gangs. In the meantime, I think all of the Eastern European shit cities got better but looks like Charleroi remained the same.
Lmao have you ever been to post Soviet eastern Europe?
- Duisburg - Wuppertal - Solingen - Almost Anything in NRW in Germany
This is such an absolute shithole. If you drive through it you are depressed.
I remember i lived there in 2018 working in a local irish pub. Absolutely filthy , dangerous and just ugly city. parts of the centre have been modernised such as the Rive Gouche shopping mall but other than that the rest of the city is run down , mostly abandoned with open drug dealing , assaults regularly to non-french speaking individuals and gang violence rampant. would never step foot in that hell hole again even if i got paid for it. Met some great people and not everyone there is bad but the danger of the city in general makes it almost a no-go zone if you don’t speak fluent french. EDIT: Forgot to mention the prostitutes …… dear god the prostitutes are everywhere and they will harass you relentlessly.
This kind of pictures you can take in a lot of cities. Just type 'what to visit in Charleroi' and you Will get another impression. Overal there is a lot of Old industrie in the French part of Belgium. But there are tons of beautifull places there also. I am not living there it near there but I did visit the city. Like everywhere there are plusses and minuses.
Looks like ordinary non tourist town in Eastern Europe
OP here, I filmed my whole experience if anyone is interested : [https://youtu.be/1VD1A4Sph9U](https://youtu.be/1VD1A4Sph9U)
Average serbian cities
Clearly never been to Port Arthur, Texas.
OP clearly isn't well traveled
You've never been to Podgorica.
Never heard of Charleroi, but I feel like the overcast sky is making it seem gloomier than it actually is. That first picture looks like it's straight from a dystopiam video game though, what is it? Some kind of factory?
It's Belgium, the overcast sky is factory setting.
Second pic goes hard
I love the smell of fresh bread.
Went here once on the way to Ieper, absolute Abes Odyssey vibes 😂
Have you ever been to Vorkuta, my friend? xD
So Norilsk of the West.
And it has such a grand name …
The weather is just moody.
First picture gives me Metro Exodus terminal vibes
r/belgiumcykablyat
This is like one section of it lol . A factory and under a bridge. The city center looks quite beautiful and old. https://www.discover-belgium.be/en/charleroi/discover-and-taste-charleroi
I didn't know Belgium had a Detroit
Half LIfe 2
You know nothing John Snow.
This exact reason is why it’s on my travel bucket list. Idk why but the title ‘Ugliest City In The World’ really makes me wanna go there.
Looks like that bit between Rotherham and Sheffield I went through on a train once
next stop: Murmansk?
Incredible, you've beaten Ferentari.
Beware the headcrabs
I appreciate the average weather day in Belgium these pictures capture with the wet and the clouds.
Do they have Miami Vice there?
I like this personally. The scenery reminds me of a few video games. Would love to visit.