I’m currently living in my city’s “bad part,” and working nights. I have a 15 minute walk from my bus stop to my house. After dark, and in the bad part of town.
People’s jaws drop when I tell them this. I’m a skinny elderly person, and they ask if I am afraid. Hell, no. I walk fast and look mean at anyone who glances at me. I give them my “You do not want to fuck with me” look and they take the hint.
I have, however, seen some deer and ducks while walking home, and gotten a few “Good evening” wishes from strangers.
Two anecdotes, which might or might not mean a whole lot:
Much of the “bad part of town” crime that people fear actually occurs between people who know each other. Crime against strangers is not completely unknown, but is uncommon compared to crime between and against folks living in the area itself.
Simply catching the eye of a potential attacker from a distance is said to sharply reduce the probability of attack. There’s a sweet spot time- and distance-wise … this won’t help if an attack is imminent. But if a prospective perpetrator sees you looking at them from across the street or 50 feet down the sidewalk, it seems to reduce the likelihood of a crime being committed.
I never go to the S side, but periodically will drive through questionable parts of the West side. Always during the day and stay on main streets. Only place I go TO is the Garfield Park Conservatory.
I bought a house in what you’d call a “neighborhood in transition”. Not unlike the fight against ignorance, it’s taking longer that I expected :o It’s much better now - when I moved in there were crack houses and gunfire and all around thuggery - now just a few shady characters here and there. I never feel unsafe or anything, but it’s reputation never quite changed. The snobs in my office wouldn’t deign to drive through it.
I also regularly shop in the bad part of town. Because it’s much cheaper there. It’s unpleasant but the fact is I’m pretty financially challenged at the moment.
I worked in the garment district of L.A. when I was young. Not a nice place (my car stereo got stolen on my first day of work).
Well, according to the deer and ducks, it was after Annie-Xmas moved in that things really started to go downhill.
I put “bad part of town” in Google Maps and couldn’t find anything. But I think I’ve been there. I vaguely remember when I was driving taxi one guy jumping in the cab and saying, “Take me to the bad part of town–and fast!”
If you consider “my city” to be only the suburb I live in, I don’t think it has any truly bad parts. It’s one of the more affluent suburbs of Sacramento. Some of the snobbier residents of Folsom might consider the neighborhood I live in to be the “bad part of town”, but it’s still a quiet residential neighborhood. Just an older, more working class residential neighborhood.
If we’re talking about the entire Sacramento area, I work in North Highlands, which is generally considered to be one of the worst parts of Sacramento. I do see a lot of homeless people pushing shopping carts around during my drive in to work. I don’t feel unsafe simply driving through the area, and the office parking lot is fairly secure, but I don’t think I would want to live there or have to walk through the neighborhood at night.
Well, it* is* duck season. Got to stay away because deer are notoriously bad shots.
The park in my neighborhood can be dangerous for ducks(mostly gulls, herons, and egrets though). I have seen a couple of birds taken out by gators.
Anywho - My town doesn’t really have a bad section - just a couple of apartment complexes and trailer parks that have bad reputations. As Bordelon points out, they are almost always only dangerous to the people that live there.
As long as I have a destination in mind and know where I’m going, I don’t worry. I’ve gone to get ribs at Lem’s at 75th, just west of MLK, several times at midnight or one a.m. after photographing a wedding, dressed in my nice clothes, and I’ve never had any sort of issue. Same with places like Barbara Ann’s or (now sadly defunct) Uncle John’s, also in that general Grand Crossing/Greater Grand Crossing area. I’ve never particularly been worried about driving through any neighborhood, though I will generally stick to main thoroughfares.
As an EMT, I’ve had to go to whatever part of town the emergency was in, be it the insane asylum, the prison, the homeless shelter, the trailer park, or anywhere else dangerous. Luckily, if it’s determined to be a dangerous situation, police are dispatched and secure the scene before we get there, and I never have to head in there alone.
Though there was one time when we were dispatched to a diabetic emergency in a 7-Eleven. We showed up, and the guy initially seemed disoriented and harmless, but in the back of the unit he started making lewd comments and gestures and unbuckling his restraints. Not the first time that’s happened, but normally, the people doing that seem harmless, just a bit intoxicated. This guy, on the other hand, had a look on his face like he would take pleasure in restraining and hurting me, and it was terrifying enough that after we had turned him over to the hospital staff I started crying. When we Googled his name afterwards, it turns out he had a criminal history which included violence.
But when I’m not on duty? Nope. I have no desire to venture into the bad part of town.
Cordelia: The Bronze. It’s the only club worth going to around here. They let anybody in, but it’s still the scene. It’s in the bad part of town. Buffy: Where’s that? Cordelia: About half a block from the good part of town. We don’t have a whole lot of town here.
Jim Croce songs notwithstanding, “south of Roosevelt” isn’t a useful shorthand for “bad part of town”. You don’t really encounter anything even arguably “bad part of town” until maybe 26th Street (Dearborn Homes), and even there it’s patchy. Roosevelt through Cermak is downright bougie, in the South Loop area.
I live on the edge of Southwest Little Rock. That section of the city has a lot of shootings and crime. I avoid it at night.
I shop and eat in Southwest Little Rock. I’ve never had any problems. I don’t have any need to go into the apartment complexes or neighborhoods. Some of them are frequently in the news.