# Areas of your city that people from the "nice" part of town are unreasonably afraid of **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 8, 2010, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152 "2010-01-08T13:30:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/21 "2010-01-09T03:15:26Z")
> [@RetroVertigo](#): > > Locals avoid north city (anything east of Goodfellow Ave. and north of Page Ave.) like the plague. Its not like I’d recommend walking down the street at two in the morning, but the have a unreasonable fear of it is ridiculous. Nitpick: People in the County avoid the entire City. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/22 "2010-01-09T03:30:40Z")
Oh, and let me add the Illinois Medical District area of Chicago, where a lot of area hospitals are. Adjacent neighborhoods aren’t necessarily the best, but it also borders on Greektown and Taylor Street (the Little Italy area), which are decent. A brother-in-law was in the ICU at Cook County Hospital there, quite possibly dying. One of my sisters-in-law (not the spouse of the BIL in question) asked my husband (her brother) to drive her to see him, rather than taking her own car, because she said that - paraphrasing only lightly - “a white woman from the suburbs driving a BMW\* would be a target there.” Really. I can’t for the life of me imagine what she thinks the doctors who work in those hospitals might drive or why they aren’t similarly “targets.” - I forget the exact car she drove at the time, this is close at least. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/23 "2010-01-10T20:21:42Z")
> [@Recliner](#): > > I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to think New York City is more dangerous, in general, than it is. This especially applies to the Bronx, which sort of got ingrained in a lot of peoples’ minds as Urban Hell due to the crime problems of the 70s and 80s. This isn’t to say the South Bronx doesn’t have a lot of poverty, but its hardly a place you wouldn’t feel safe walking down the street in. Harlem (which is in Manhattan) also has a bad reputation – I point out to people that Bill Clinton’s office is here (and indeed, this was considered a big indicator of Harlem’s having “arrived”). > > As NYC continues its upward mobility, I suspect this will change. In 20 years, nobody will be able to afford to live there 😃 The thing about New York is that some people think it’s either all gleaming skyscrapers, like what you see in Midtown, or one giant burnt out hellhole, like the South Bronx circa 1977. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/24 "2010-01-10T20:47:06Z")
> [@Red\_Skeezix](#): > > I live outside Albany NY, and there are two Neighborhoods that have a certain reputation. Hamilton Hill (Schenectady) and Arbor Hill (Albany). I guess they are rough neighborhoods to live in, but they’re more just impoverished neighborhoods. People I know refuse to even drive through these neighborhoods for some reason. I don’t think I’ve been in Hamilton Hill, but I go to and through Arbor Hill on a fairly regular basis. It’s not a place I’d like to live, but it doesn’t seem that bad. The South Valley in Albuquerque has a bit of a reputation. It is one of the older and poorer parts of the area. It also has a lot of the museums and historical areas. It seems like any time you’d see an episode of COPS shot in Albuquerque, most of the time they were filming on and around Central in the SW part of Albuquerque. ---
**Author:** ![11811](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/9d8465/32.png) [@11811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/11811)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/25 "2010-01-11T02:40:36Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Mind you, this store was in the best neighborhood in Philly only a couple of blocks from Rittenhouse Square. Too funny! I lived near Rittenhouse Square until about 2 years ago. And when I lived there I thought South Philly was a little scary. I’m living in Bella Vista, so not really South Philly, but South Philly in daylight doesn’t bother me so much. Now Kensington, or Girard Avenue, I think I’m rightly cautious of. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/26 "2010-01-11T05:27:45Z")
If someone in the Columbus area is shot, I can point to a map and be pretty close to the area on the first or second guess. There aren’t many seedy areas around, but when you’re driving through one, it’s quite clear. ---
**Author:** ![SanibelMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@SanibelMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanibelMan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/27 "2010-01-11T17:11:49Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Nitpick: People in the County avoid the entire City. And people in St. Charles County avoid everything with the word “St. Louis” in it! 😛 Here’s what I’ve learned in the 364 days I’ve lived in Madison: The “areas to avoid” include, of course, Allied Drive, but also most of the surrounding subdivisions, and basically the whole area surrounded by Seminole Highway to the east, McKee Road to the south, Elver Park to the west and the Beltline to the north. Which is odd, because a lot of it is suburban, tract-style housing built within the last 20 or 30 years. But some of the apartments and duplexes have been taken over by that horrible, scary phrase: Section 8! The same applies to the part of town I settled in, just on the other side of the interstate from East Towne Mall. In fact, most of the east side is avoided by the richer west side of town, and there’s a huge east-west divide in this city. On top of that, the closest suburb and the one my kids go to school in, Sun Prairie, is also looked down upon as the redneck, white-trash suburb of Madison. And residents of Sun Prairie think that the part of the school district that overlaps with Madison (which includes me and my family) has brought a “horrible gang problem” to their high school, and those who can are fleeing to other school districts. Meanwhile, a bunch of new construction has been rented out to Section 8 folks - there’s that awful phrase again! - and I can just see how a combination of declining real-estate values and white flight are going to make all of the horrible predictions about Sun Prairie’s future come true. So if I move to McFarland this summer, am I just part of the problem? ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/28 "2010-01-12T06:29:21Z")
> [@Mr.Excellent](#): > > For my own example - the Tenderloin, in San Francisco. After going to USC and living off-campus, I can take pretty much anything. Drug deals went on outside my window routinely, the area was a shithole, but the WORST was the time I broke up an violent assault by throwing eggs at the attacker. LAPD could not have cared less. I appreciate cops more than anyone else my age does. Anyways, the Tenderloin isn’t bad. I wouldn’t walk around drunk at night, but over spring break last year the SO and I stayed in a mediocre hostel there, and saved a bunch of money over staying in Union Square. Regardless, the SO, having not had the experience of living in South Central, was horrified at the Tenderloin, and swears when we return (in the next year), we’ll be staying elsewhere. The only thing that got me was the homelessness. The guy with rats crawling all over him had me beyond freaked. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/29 "2010-01-12T06:35:40Z")
My friends from Northwestern always freaked out when I invited them to come visit me in Hyde Park. Granted, parts of the neighborhood were legitimately dangerous, but anyone with common sense knew to avoid them after dark. One wonders how the 14000 students of UChicago managed to survive long enough to get their degrees, living in a neighborhood that everyone north of Chinatown seemed terrified of. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/30 "2010-01-12T15:31:36Z")
> [@Recliner](#): > > Harlem (which is in Manhattan) also has a bad reputation – I point out to people that Bill Clinton’s office is here (and indeed, this was considered a big indicator of Harlem’s having “arrived”). Harlem does have a bad reputation that is (mostly) unwarranted. I live in Harlem. I tell my mother I live in Sugar Hill so that she can sleep at night. We’ve never had a problem in this neighborhood and it is really affordable to live here. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/31 "2010-01-12T15:41:07Z")
Not really. \ ***Cordelia:** It’s in the bad part of town. **Buffy:** Where’s that? **Cordelia:** About a half a block from the good part of town. We don’t have a whole lot of town here. \* ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/32 "2010-01-12T23:35:38Z")
> [@11811](#): > > Too funny! I lived near Rittenhouse Square until about 2 years ago. And when I lived there I thought South Philly was a little scary. I’m living in Bella Vista, so not really South Philly, but South Philly in daylight doesn’t bother me so much. Now Kensington, or Girard Avenue, I think I’m rightly cautious of. I worked in Philly for a couple of years, coming from the UK. I got an appartment on 19th and Bainbridge, and folks in the lab were like ‘_You cannot do that! You’ve crossed the line, South St is the boundary that cannot be crossed_!’ To be fair, in the first couple of weeks I did get my appt door kicked in whilst I was in bed asleep. The villains ran off when I got up, though - the place was half renovated and I think they must have thought the place was empty. Other than that, the neighbourhood was fine - great place to live to walk into the centre. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/33 "2010-01-13T00:04:26Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Nitpick: People in the County avoid the entire City. +1. See location. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Kerrman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@Joe\_Kerrman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Kerrman)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/34 "2010-01-13T00:19:23Z")
Originally posted by **Mr. Miskatonic:** > [@](#): > > I had a friend who was a store manager in Center City Philadelphia. There was another store in the chain out in the burbs. My friend was the only manager in the CC store and was quite young. The store in the burbs had two managers and about twenty part timers vying for a managership job. The suburb managers and the part-timers always trash-talked my friend since he was a ‘kid’ (mid twenties). When you brought up that they could easily have a manager job in the city store they would hem and haw and moan that the city was soooo scary and full of negroes and such. One of them was made to work at the Center City store for a week for an inventory and when the day was done he just waited in the store’s foyer until his wife picked him up. He was afraid to even walk a 1/4 block to the convenience store but instead complained about being hungry and thirsty. > > Mind you, this store was in the best neighborhood in Philly only a couple of blocks from Rittenhouse Square. Originally Posted by \*\*11811 \*\* > [@](#): > > Too funny! I lived near Rittenhouse Square until about 2 years ago. And when I lived there I thought South Philly was a little scary. I’m living in Bella Vista, so not really South Philly, but South Philly in daylight doesn’t bother me so much. Now Kensington, or Girard Avenue, I think I’m rightly cautious of. Originally Posted by **Busy Scissors** > [@](#): > > I worked in Philly for a couple of years, coming from the UK. I got an appartment on 19th and Bainbridge, and folks in the lab were like ‘You cannot do that! You’ve crossed the line, South St is the boundary that cannot be crossed!’ > > To be fair, in the first couple of weeks I did get my appt door kicked in whilst I was in bed asleep. The villains ran off when I got up, though - the place was half renovated and I think they must have thought the place was empty. Other than that, the neighbourhood was fine - great place to live to walk into the centre. Yep, there are people unreasonably afraid of those parts of Philly. Even Girard doesn’t look that bad anymore, at least around the old prison. The rejuvenation of Center City is raising all boats, and South Philly is now the new Queen Village. I have a lot of co-workers who live there. But North Philly (not the northernmost point of the city but the area north of Temple campus, where the streets are named after Pennsylvania counties) and far West Philly (above 40th street or so) – be afraid of those areas. ---
**Author:** ![myskepticsight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/35 "2010-01-13T00:33:11Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Nitpick: People in the County avoid the entire City. I don’t. But I’m not going to North City ever or a lot of downtown at night unless there’s an event going on - I have no use for downtown outside sports and Washington Ave to dance to 80s music. But I go to various city areas on a regular basis and would love to live closer. With a large percentage of our reported violent crime happening in north city I think it’d be dumb to go there just because. ---
**Author:** ![RetroVertigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@RetroVertigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RetroVertigo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/36 "2010-01-13T00:53:28Z")
> [@SanibelMan](#): > > And people in St. Charles County avoid everything with the word “St. Louis” in it! 😛 Sadly true. I’ve had friends who refuse to even cross the Blanchette unless going to a game. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/37 "2010-01-13T03:10:37Z")
Detroit. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/38 "2010-01-13T03:16:09Z")
> [@RetroVertigo](#): > > Sadly true. I’ve had friends who refuse to even cross the Blanchette unless going to a game. Oh, tell 'em not to be a buncha nancies. You’re perfectly safe crossing the Blanchette; it’s getting inside of 270 north of [del]Page[/del] [del]Olive[/del] [del]Ladue[/del] Oh never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/39 "2010-01-13T03:20:43Z")
When I first moved to Charlotte, NC, I knew absolutely no one and nothing at all about the city. I rented a small but clean apartment just off North Tryon Street and got a data entry job. When folks there asked me where I lived and I said just off Tryon, they ,looked totally confused. A clean, educated white young woman couldn’t possibly live near that street. I told about my cute little apartment and they kept saying I must have the street name wrong, because there was nowhere a decent person could live near where I described. Now, this was 20 years ago and North Tryon Street could have gotten much better or much worse since then. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152/40 "2010-01-13T03:41:55Z")
Places where I’ve lived or worked that were nowhere near as shady as imagined: East Austin - specifically central East Austin, which is rapidly becoming gentrified. But in the mid 80s people were like, “OMG you are going to die out there,” and I think it’s the mellowest “inner city” I’ve ever seen Fifth Ward, Houston - definitely there are run-down and shady areas in the community, and you probably don’t want to roam the streets without street smarts after dark, but plenty of areas were perfectly nice working class homes with well-kept yards. Roxbury, Boston - again, sketchy in areas, but most of the community seemed pretty safe to me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/areas-of-your-city-that-people-from-the-nice-part-of-town-are-unreasonably-afraid-of/524152.md?page=3)