I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. It’s more blue collar, and now I live on the North Side, which is more white collar. Both sides have their problem areas.
On the South Side you don’t want to be anywhere east of the Dan Ryan Expressway by the projects.
On the North Side is where the scariest place in all of Chicago is: the Cabrini Green projects at 1200 N Halsted.
Ty Webb: I like you Betty.
Danny Noonan: That’s Danny, sir.
Also, I did some research in Miami for a security company and lemme tell ya, that town has a very disorganized “bad side.” It is all over the place. Particularly in areas like Coconut Grove, huge beautiful houses will be cheek by jowl with rows of depressing little tract houses (festively painted though).
Live a Lush Life
Da Chef
CK and ST777 - Having lived in Atlanta since 1976 I would say the south side is the bad side. (Specifically, anything south of I 20). Things do get better way south (Peachtree City comes to mind) and College Park isn’t bad, but working right around the airport I can assure you this isn’t a part of town I would spend a lot of time in if I didn’t work here.
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Ed, as was discussed to some extent in the message thread either here or in GD posted I believe by Nanobyte last month or so, it is hard to call ANY side of a city the bad side without making either exceptions to the general rule or noting the time frame under discussion.
As an example, in just trying to define the ‘side’ of LA is difficult. Remember, the damn city goes all the way up into the San Fernando Valley, and all the way down to the harbor. Most of the central portion around downtown is bad, no matter WHICH direction you head, especially the barrios of East LA and the more black sections to the south. But Hollywood would be to the north of downtown, and nevertheless, so would Van Nuys (ugh).
south dallas bad, north dallas good!
I’ve lived in the Phoenix area for 6 years and will confirm that the South side (counting Ahwatukee as a separate entity) is definitely the Bad Side of Town (had that one fingered before I even read the choices).
Having lived in the Atlanta area for 13 years (5 in Mid-Town) before moving to Phoenix, I’ll confirm that the South side there is pretty bad too, especially around East Point (which is South and a little West of Atlanta).
The point does seem to come up fairly often, that there may be “bad” areas (high crime, muggings, slums, drugs) and there may be blue-collar, lower-income neighborhoods that are not “bad” but are lower economically than the white-collar neighborhoods.
Having grown up in LA, I can confirm that the south side is definitely worse than the north side, but it’s generally more the SOUTHEAST portions of the city (for San Diego too) that suck. South in and of itself by the ocean or just inland is not bad. Parts of Torrance and Westminster are quite nice for example. But head east into Compton and Watts, and well, let’s just say I wouldn’t want to be white and driving my car through there at night.
It wasn’t on your list but in Buffalo, NY, South-West is the “bad” side and North-East is the “good” side. The is because most of the now-bankrupt industries were based in the SW to be nearer the lake and river.
As for Rochester, NY, it’s pretty much like Houston. No particular “bad side” just some poorer neighborhoods scattered throughout the city.
By “bad” I assume we mean crime, which is linked to poverty, which tragically in this land of plenty is linked to race, and oh what misery stems from that sweeping generalization…
Having lived in Chicago all of my life, I have come to view the WEST side as the really bad part of town (though pockets are slowly gentrifying – near United Center, or Ukranian Village). To say “the South Side” is far too general. As Stevie Rave On noted, there are two South Sides. The “white” south side, west of I 90, is largely blue-collar, insular, and safe for anyone who is white, straight, and a Democrat. The “black” south side, east of the expressway, has the projects, poverty, shootings, etc. It also has Hyde Park, a very nice place with the University of Chicago, etc., so there are exceptions. (The north side has Uptown, which is not pleasant after dark. I understand Chicago is the only city in which “Uptown” is a worse neighborhood than “Downtown.”)
I have also spent considerable time in LA, and I would agree that South CENTRAL and South EAST are the trouble spots. (The Blue Line from Downtown to Long Beach is quite a study in economic stratification.) Plus Hollywood, to the north.
My one visit to Houston supports the notion that the city has no “sides”.
The problem with Houston is that, as has been said, there are pockets. My personal opinion is that the East side of town is pretty bad, going from downtown out I-10 before you get to Baytown. Lots of gang activity, etc. And central Houston is pretty bad as well, excluding River Oaks. Which I always found odd that it was about 3 blocks from the late Alan Parkway Village (ghetto all the way for those of you that don’t know). My friend from San Antonio says that the South, East and West sides are bad, and the North is the only decent part of town.
“There are many sweeping generalizations that are always true” -Space Ghost
I live in the greater Los Angeles Area. (The city of Los Angeles itself is only a small portion of the greater urban agglomeration.)
I assume by “bad part” of town, you mean the areas with the higher rates of violent crime. Those would be South Central Los Angeles and East Los Angeles. (South Central is the area in which the Los Angeles riots occurred in April 1992, and the Watts riots in 1965.)
In general, the wind from the ocean pushes the smog inland towards the hills surrounding the Los Angeles basin, so when you go east, you encounter more extreme temperatures and more smog. Which makes those areas less desirable to live, hence lower incomes of the inhabitants of the eastern suburbs.
Of course, people that live in Los Angeles itself will tell you that the “bad parts” of town are the outlying suburbs where all the houses look the same and the population is homogenous.
J’ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Henri B. Stendhal
You think people in North Dakota warn people, “Don’t go down to South Dakota. Bad shit happens there…”
Yarster in his post about Los Angeles’ “bad” areas referred to the “south” part and said that parts of Torrance and Westminster are nice. That doesn’t make much sense and those two cities are in different counties. He could be referring to Westchester which is a neighborhood of Los Angeles which contains LAX.
According to LAPD statistics, the most Class I crimes (felonies basically) occurred in the Wilshire area. The Southwest Division and the 77th St Division (both perceived as the “bad” parts of town) didn’t have as many. However, the Wilshire area was slightly larger than others.
The number of offenses reported on the Eastside town made for an even smaller percentage of crimes.
My general experience with L.A. is that an old neighborhood usually is the least desirable, unless the neighborhood was originally built for upper class whites (such as cities like San Marino or neighborhoods like Hancock Park.)
I definitely agree that you can’t determine the “bad part” of a city simply by direction.
Here in St. Louis the area with the worst reputation is the east side, across the river in Illinois. But there are bad pockets scattered all over the place.
In University City (a suburb), the area north of the Delmar Loop, between Skinker Road and Big Bend Boulevard, is considered so dangerous that pizza places no longer deliver there. (A driver for Papa John’s pizza got shot there a few years back.) A fairly big apartment there may cost less than $200 per month. But less than a mile away you can find a very different area, with almost no crime, where rents are at least three times as high.
Similiarly, the Central West End (a neighborhood within the city) is in general considered a wonderful place to live; a lot of rich college kids have apartments there. But the long, narrow strip between Euclid and Kingshighway is very run down, with a lot of closed businesses and abandoned buildings.
A city map of crime rate or per-capita income would not be like a world map, where you could draw a line down the middle and say, “This part is Us and that part is Them.” It’d look more like a random spattering of paint, with a few large areas, but many more little spots and stripes.
Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.
While I agree with the previous statements about generalizing, I’m still going to vote for South side of Chicago being the bad part of town, although the West is no picnic either.
Oddly enough, I was always under the impression Cecil was a Chicago boy. Shouldn’t he know these things?
“I guess it is possible for one person to make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
Regarding Boston - yes, the south side is the “bad” side of Boston, but that’s true almost by default. Downtown Boston is about a 1 mile wide, roughly circular penninsula surrounded by the Charles River on the west and north and by Boston Harbor on the east. All the residential neigborhoods, both good and bad, stretch off to the south and southwest of downtown (except for Charlestown and East Boston, which are across the river, but are technically part of the city). The worst parts of Boston are probably areas of the Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods along Blue Hill Avenue, which runs south-southwest from downtown. Of course, if you happen to be black, the worst place to be is probably South Boston, the mostly-Irish neighborhood (remember the busing riots of the early '70’s?). By the way, the South End (not to be confused with South Boston) happens to be a very upscale, funky, desirable place to live.
“For what a man had rather were true, he more readily believes” - Francis Bacon
Unless the rewards are greater than I know, I would recommend Cecil back off this whole generalization. I know Baltimore very well and I would not feel comfortable saying the south side is the “bad” side. There are some bad areas in the south, and the west, and the east, and the middle, and the north.
I can’t think of any upscale neighborhoods on the west side (northwest maybe). The south side has Federal Hill which is Yuppie central. Also, the inner harbor and sports complexes have done a lot for the area. You notice the bad there because it directly abuts the nice with no transition.
Go up to the middle of town and head west. Things get gradually worse and then better and then worse again. Get off the main roads and things get really ugly in several areas.
The projects on the east side are the most dangerous as far as drive-by shootings etc., but most of the east is not too bad.
The North is probably the least bad. It’s less dense.
The Center of Bmore goes from bad to good to awful to wonderful every other block. The infamous “Block” (Strip joints and porn shops) is right next to the upscale Gallery at Harborplace.
There’s also a racial issue here. Bmore in the south east and to the far south, below federal hill, is mostly blue collar whites. There’s a lot of domestic violence and drunk and disorderly offenses, occasionally a rape. Most drug busts involve marijuana. Other “bad” areas are predominantly black and the associated crimes are more in the line of drive by shootings and crack houses. A black person would probably think of the white neighborhoods as a place to avoid at night while whites would avoid the black neighborhoods. The blacks have a little more sense about this and you almost never find a lone black walking in a white neighborhood. A white guy with a drug addiction will go wandering around where he shouldn’t and get himself killed.
If men had wings,
and bore black feathers,
few of them would be clever enough to be crows.
I grew up near Dallas and can definitely confirm that the south side of Dallas was PERCEIVED to be the “bad” side of town. (I assume Cecil’s interested in the perception of a city section and not its true nature.) As far as Dallas goes, there is an interesting fact about the south side: it’s the only place in the city it’s legal to buy alcohol. Back when Carrie Nation was destroying saloons, the Texas Legislature passed a law allowing each county to decide for itself if it would be wet or dry, or half-wet and half-dry. During Prohibition, every county was dry, but the old law went back in force after Prohibition was repealed. Dallas County elected to go half-wet and half-dry, using the Trinity River as the dividing line. (Texas Stadium, in Irving is on the “dry” side, and for twenty years, Dallas Cowboy fans could not buy beer at the game. [Maybe that’s why Dallas fans were once considered less rowdy than most football fans.] Recently, the Irving city council gave Texas Stadium a variance. Cowboy owner Jerry Jones has friends in high places…) Anyway, whether by coincidence or design, the poor part of Dallas is also the only place one can find a liquor store.
Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana
I lived in San Antonio most of my life. The South side was not too bad. It was dirt poor but overall not as bad as the far west side or the Southwest side. That was bad.
I lived in Baltimore recently, it was worse more on the Southwest side. The pure southern part went into Fell’s Point which is essentially a party type of area.