Taken on its own, Grand Rapids is a nice enough city. A lot better than it used to be. It’s pretty clean and there are some decent areas downtown to get a bite and grab a drink. Unfortunately, it’s the people who make it a place to stay away from. It is the epicenter of one of the most extremely conservative, intolerant regions north of the Mason-Dixon line. If you can’t get enough of vitriolic hate speech disguised as good old fashioned “Family Values”, this place is for you. The saddest thing is that for all its cleaned up streets and downtown redevelopment, having a reputation for intolerance doesn’t serve a city very well in its efforts to grow and prosper. It’s why it continues to lose population. Because the kids these days just don’t seem to be in the mood for a good lynching the way they used to be.
over 6 years ago