# Any "bad" white neighborhoods in the US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 16, 2003, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068 "2003-01-16T21:35:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![rostfrei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7bcc69/32.png) [@rostfrei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rostfrei)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2003, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/41 "2003-01-19T04:47:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by syncrolecyne \* > \*\*I am assuming the OP has in mind urban areas - as most common stereotypes of big city mayhem involve a minority group of one sort or another. > > This was (old geezer voice) back in the 1980’s (/old geezer voice), but I remember visiting Atlanta and being told to avoid certain neighborhoods that were “hillbilly ghettoes”. I don’t know if this was an exaggeration but I pictured men in overalls swigging moonshine from the ninth floor balconies of dillapitated housing projects. \*\* …and making lewd comments about how pretty ones mouth is. ---
**Author:** ![percypercy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@percypercy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percypercy)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2003, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/42 "2003-01-19T05:08:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elelle \* > \*\ ***Grundy County, TN**. I recall a friend telling me of a cross-country bicycle trip, going thru Grundy County. When they were going to bed down for the night, the local Sheriff insisted on having them stay in the local jail. _Not_ because he wanted to keep an eye on them, but he was worried that the locals would hurt them. They’d had a bit of it that day, as a full beer can was hurled at them from a passing car, with a mean bruise on my friend’s back. And these were white guys, just bicycling thru. > > I’ve been to that county since, and it 's pretty rough. \*\* yeah, I was gonna mention Grundy county, it’s where my great aunt lives so it’s not a problem for me (I suppose I have my own 80 year old protection racket running, but my mom’s told stories of black families being run out of town just because of their skin color. Obviously this data is a little old cos my mom is sixty, but it doesn’t seem to have changed all that much. Warren county where my grew up apparently similar isssues with class warfare. -Lil ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/43 "2003-01-19T05:53:27Z")
I used to live in **Ocoee, Florida** , a middle to upper-middle class but Southern/Confederate culturally-oriented suburb of Orlando that was famous for [chasing all the black residents out of town in 1920](http://www.ocoeeproject.com/). African-Americans just started returning in the mid-1990s, but most live in newer subdivisions at the far eastern edge of town, close to the racially transitional Pine Hills neighborhood in Orlando. Areas built before the late 1990s are melanin-free. When the “FOR SALE” sign went up in front of my house, neighbors approached me and asked “You’re not going to sell to blacks, are you?” (I sold the house to a Mexican-American state trooper; he made the first offer.) Official signs reading “SUNSET LAWS ENFORCED” were supposedly displayed until about ten years ago. (A “sunset law” meant that blacks had to be out of town by sunset.) Many businesses in Ocoee display small Confederate flag stickers near the door; it’s supposedly a well-understood code meaning “blacks not welcome.” Strangely, the massive new shopping center in Ocoee, West Oaks Mall, has the most ethnically diverse clientele I’ve seen. Some local residents call West Oaks Mall “the UN,” and a few won’t shop there. Winter Garden, the town west of Oakland, is far, far worse, because its demographics are extremely blue-collar, and there’s a lot of working-class transplants from rural southern Georgia and Alabama. At least in Ocoee, folks don’t fly Confederate flags in front of their houses. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2003, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/44 "2003-01-19T06:35:58Z")
**tomndebb** , Collinwood sure had an evil rep when I was in high school in the 1970s. But the other evil white neighborhood you forgot to mention: Murray Hill. Infamous as the area no black would ever dare to set foot in lest he be beaten up by Italian hooligans. It got gentrified with all those art galleries in the 1980s, so I don’t know if the lumpen Italian toughs still rule it the way they once did. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2003, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/45 "2003-01-19T07:36:12Z")
Wisconsin… except for Madison. ---
**Author:** ![chauser4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b4bc9f/32.png) [@chauser4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chauser4)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/46 "2014-01-27T06:30:22Z")
Nah white people got it to good. They don’t act like animals. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/47 "2014-01-27T07:16:15Z")
> [@chauser4](#): > > Nah white people got it to good. They don’t act like animals. But do they act like zombies? ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/48 "2014-01-27T08:06:28Z")
Plenty of bad white neighborhoods…we call them trailer parks ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/49 "2014-01-27T08:08:37Z")
> [@martin\_ibn\_martin](#): > > Federal Hill in Providence, RI has a bit of a rep. As someone who used to lived there, the really “bad” parts of it stopped being predominantly white a long time ago(unless you consider Puerto Ricans white). By “bad”, I mean of course where you had a higher chance of your car getting broken into or your apartment broken into etc. I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry about people seeing you, and if you’re white going “Hey there’s a white boy, let’s beat his ass!” The question I’d ask the OP is does he consider trailer parks to be neighborhoods? If so, there are plenty of them. Also, parts of South Boston used to be notoriously bad though I don’t know if that’s still true. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/50 "2014-01-27T10:35:15Z")
Cabbagetown in Atlanta used to be a hillbilly ghetto, now it’s a hipster ghetto. No beatings of interlopers, just mirthful distain. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068/51 "2014-01-27T14:27:53Z")
This decade-old thread was bumped by someone making his or her only – so far – post here. I’m assuming this was a driveby – if that person or anyone else wants to start a similar thread, feel free, but I’m going to lock this one as being by its sell-by date. **twickster** , MPSIMS moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-bad-white-neighborhoods-in-the-us/149068.md?page=2)