Ed: the first time I saw that North-South countries thing was in a book called The Third World War: August 1985 by General Sir John Hackett. It came out in 1979. If I remember correctly, Hackett sourced this idea to the guys who originally came up with the concept.
As for cities: in Kansas City, Missouri, the bad side is the east side. The public perspective is that the bad side equals the black part of town, which is anything east of Troost Avenue below downtown as far as about 75th Street. A few white working-class suburbs on the east and southeast sides like Independence and Raytown are also considered pretty crummy, as is all of Kansas City, Kansas. The crappiest part of KCK is its black neighborhood, Quindaro, in the northeast part of the city. Note that Johnson County, Kansas, in the southwest quarter of the metropolitan area, where most of the middle- and upper-middle class suburbs are, is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, rather than Kansas City, Kansas.
I’ll second what jab1 said a while earlier: in a lot of smaller towns in Central Texas (and throughout much of the South, I imagine–though not to imply that Texas is part of the “South” by any means) the “bad” side of town is (or was) synonomous with the “wet” side of town, and the boundry between the two is/was the county line.
IIRC, in Austin the east side is the “bad” side and the south side is the “poor” side. Blacks in the east, rednecks in the south, Mexicans in the strip bordered by IH-35 and Lamar Blvd. Funny thing, though, is that the most drug-riddled high school in town is (or was) located in the affluent northwest, and at least one or two drive-by shootings have occurred in that area as well.
I lived in San Antonio for a few months - the good part of town was the North quarter, ie. from N.W. to N.E. My observations were that the nicest houses in the city were there. Everywhere else was considerably poorer.
And you didn’t ask, but in St. Louis City/metropolitain area, the north side of town is the bad side but the area directly across the river in Illinois is pretty bleak too. Whether you include this in the “city” is your own decision. - MC
I live in Dayton, OH, which is the epitome of the “good side / bad side” city. Here, the bad side is definitely the west, while the good side is south.
You know, I spent my formative years in Uptown, Chicago. I was always told it was a terrible neighborhood, but it really didn’t seem that bad to me.
The library I work in in Huntsville, AL has a book called Uptown; Poor Whites in Chicago. It has pictures that are apparently supposed to evoke pity over the horrors of poverty, of little white kids lying around on abandoned furniture in an alley. But when I look at those pictures, I see my own childhood, and I’ve got to tell you, it wasn’t so bad.
I disagree with south side being the bad part of town. It is no where near as bad as the west side.
The south side has U of C. It has Chatham, Marquette Park, Hegwisch and lots of nice areas. Lots of bad parts too but I don’t think anything on the west side of Chgo is nice.
In the state of Missouri, the bad side of St. Louis is the north side (of the metro area; I don’t know right off if the area I speak of is entirely inside city limits). Across the Mississippi River in Illinois you have East St. Louis (Ill) and a few other smaller adjoining towns that are fairly dangerous places to get lost in. - I’d say that the Missouri side is worse; the east side of the river doesn’t seem to have the money flow the west side does (which, in a poor area means money involved in gangs, drugs and whores), so you generally don’t see the weaponry you do in the west side. On the other hand, the east side’s police and fire departments have been sorely neglected for a long time and are only now getting up to speed. I recall that at one point, E. St. Louis police had only one running department car and it had no working radio (for a long time most of the department cars had no working radios) - officers had to stop and use pay phones to contact the dispatchers. Officers protested when the police chief asked them to use their own personal vehicles until another solution could be found. - {East St Louis 1990 population: 40,990} - I also remember for a long time there was only one fire truck, and the water pump on it was broken. The hydrants were always open, so there wasn’t enough water pressure for them to be very useful. The firefighters just tried to get people out of burning buildings - they didn’t have any way of actually putting out the fire. Trucks from other districts had to come and do that. I think the city fire dept. has two or three “mostly” functional pieces now.
I do go places in East St Louis now and then; it’s not like everyone there is wreckless and bloodthirsty but I know where to go and where to avoid. If someplace is the best, then someplace else has gotta be the worst. - MC
Yay yay, I’m able to post today. The replies show that “bad side of town” mean many different, if not opposite, things to different people. Sure Chicago’s West Side is bad and parts of the South Side aren’t but “everyone knows” that classically the South Side is bad. Just as “everyone knows” that there is no good side to Detroit. (I can insult that wimply place, as I frequent the muder capital of the world, Gary, Ind.) I would add East Chicago, Ind., to Mojo’s definition of the bad side of Chicago. As Hyde Park was mentioned (way) earlier, I will interject that true Chicagoans (I did used to live there and I know plenty) all laughed when the pathetic short-lived tv series Chicago Story (or something like that) used “Hyde Park” to signify a desirable part of town. Ha! And now I know that it’s not only LA tv writers who believe the pap put out by the city’s film promotional board (though I do like their getting films shot there.)
I think my sister, who used to live in Boston, did say the South Side was the bad part of town. I looked on a map though and what I was thinking was the south side wasn’t really. Which brings up the matter of “the South Side” in name vs. the southern side in reality – of all these cities. They ain’t necessarily the same things, which seems to be part of why posters disagree so much. I assume Cecil is more interested in classically nameed areas and perceptions or reputations rather than 100% current realities, no? I’m surprised that Indy has a bad side, it’s such a sweet little burg, but if there is one (and I wouldn’t have thought it’d be the south), it must be an old named area, before unigov greatly increased the size of the city. Which brings up metropolitan areas. Those aren’t the same things as the cities themselves, people. The suburbs are rarely (though occasionally, such as East St. Louis) in the same leagues as the bad part of the cities.
The center/downtown area is the pits. The fringes of the city are the good parts.
An apple with a rotten core, that’s our state capitol. Embelimatic(sp?) of the worms in our legislature, I’m sure.
YO-HO, ME HEARTIES! ALL HANDS ON DECK FOR THE MUSICAL BATTLE AT SEA!
Ruadh: Where exactly is the Tenderloin district in SF? Would it be near City Hall? Anyway, i remember the last time I was in SF with friends, we were trying to find the Orpheum theater, and we had to walk down by City Hall and U.N. Plaza. I remember that once you got past Hyde, there was an almost amazing transformation from ritzy hotels and restaurants to what we thought was the ghetto. Don’t think i’d walk around there at night but I didn’t feel scared in that area (though we were probably not in the worst area of town). Another interesting phenomena was walking up Market St. towards powell, and seeing ghetto give way to nice stores and touristy areas up near Union Square.
In Sf at least the best parts of town (from what i have seen) are in the north where Pacific Heights, Nob Hill, and Russian hill are.
‘The beginning calls for courage; the end demands care’
I know nobody asked about Canadian cities snoot, but the “bad” part of Montreal is the east end, as well as Verdun and Point St. Charles, which are the southern parts of the island.
A possible alternative candidate is the area right around St. Laurent and Ste. Catherine streets downtown, which is the red light district.
However, I’d personally characterize the West Island, with its bungalows, bedroom communities, traffic, and mindless affluence, to be worse. It’s like Stepford. Brrrr.
Orlando, Florida has a bad side, which Disney would rather not talk about, since it would hurt their business. Therealbubba could confirm this: It’s mostly the part of town south of Colonial Drive and west of I-4 and/or Orange Blossom Trail. Lotsa strip joints, seedy motels and the like 'till you get near Florida Mall. From there on to Kissimmee, it’s more open and very new.
I think I just hit something here: It’s not necessarily location that determines “good” or “bad” but AGE. Generally speaking, it’s the OLDEST part of the city that’s perceived as “bad.” It’s certainly true in Orlando, Dallas and L.A., the three cities I know best.
Doobeious mentioned San Francisco. Try downtown L.A. West and north of Broadway is shiny and new, south and east is rundown and EVERY business has those steel shutters that roll down in front of the doors and windows.
Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to relive it. Georges Santayana
Jab: Well every business in the Tenderloin from what I saw (since now I know we walked through there), had those steel shutters. In fact every business in China Town in SF has those steel shutters too. China Town is also another place I wouldn’t walk alone through at night. I have a friend who used to live in Queens (IIRC) who said he used to hang out in all of the bad spots of NYC, and said if you looked like you were scared to be there you would get picked on.
Back to SF, it was interesting being around city hall, since the highest concentration of homelss people (as I saw that day) hangs around there at UN plaza. We also didn’t get hassled, and kept to ourselves.
Locally a good example of the east side of town being the bad side is in Salinas.The entire east side is the industrial area of the city and has low income housing and mostly apartment buildings. Most of the gangs are in that area of the city. The west side of the town is fairly nice residential homes with tree lined streets. Though, it’s not that scary to be in, since I used to tutor at an elementary school there every friday and never felt fear.