It’s not that any given neighborhood is always safe. I wouldn’t want to be moseying around South L.A. on foot after dark myself. But for some people that would only be the beginning of the anxiety. For them, just to drive on the surface streets for a few miles between the 10 and the Civic Center, even in the bright morning, is too risky to consider doing. I know someone who thinks GPS navigators are worthless, because they tell you to take routes that are contrary to this “wisdom”.
There’s definitely some areas around here where I wouldn’t feel comfortable at night, even if driving. But I can’t think of any that I’d be afraid to drive through, or even walk in, during a normal day.
Really? That would be news to me. Not saying it aint so, I just don’t know. I regularly read Baltimore news online, occasionally the Washington Post, but haven’t heard this before. Can you provide a citation or two please?
I believe She Who Is Never Wrong (at least in the past 36 years, as far as she will admit) was referirng to all schools she had access to, black, white, asian, and or/Other, and I was wrong. Mea Maxima culpa.
Okay, kids these days laugh at the distinctions that were forced on us back then. They really, truly, have no idea. When your parents and grandparents ruled the scene you were seen as ****, ESPECIALLY by those who had fought the battles.
Look it up. Otherwise you are pretending that nothing meant something.
And all of that was a century old. What thwy know is bull****.
The idea that someone from Loudon County is going to comment on what neighborhoods are good in DC makes as much sense as me, a resident of DC, commenting on what neighborhoods in Baltimore are good, or bad. It’s fine to be scared of the unknown, or different, but when you spout off your uninformed fear based “facts” about a community you are perpetuating stereotypes.
It’s also funny to me to read these stay out of SE comments for another reason. I live in Petworth (although currently in Kabul) and there are parts of SE that I find just unbearably pretentious and yuppified. My cousin lives down past the Marine Barracks and I can’t believe all the chocolate labs and yuppies with their baby stroller SUVS down there.
I stay out of SE because I can’t afford to drink there.
A white coworker once told me, after doing a stint at Georgetown, that she had learned never never EVER go into Prince George’s County. She never mentioned that she’d ever done so to find out for herself, but nevertheless she accepted this as conventional wisdom.
Just for those who don’t know, PG County is actually one of the most affluent counties in the state. And just happens to be 50% black.
I don’t doubt you. I’m just saying that being the wrong color can get you in a heap of trouble in many urban neighborhoods. (although I think that is often overblown and exaggerated)
Every city has a similar area that inspires fear among the suburbanites. When I lived in Houston I got an apartment on the southwest side of the city which is heavily immigrant Hispanic. I was new in town and didn’t know the good areas from the bad. But the rents there were fantastic and the complex I lived in was really nice and had 24-hour security.
When I told people at work where I was living, though, they all gave me a look like “Dude, you need to get out of there.” One supervisor even went so far as to circle some apartment ads in the classifieds and suggest that I seek out different living arrangements.
Granted it was the type of neighborhood where I wouldn’t go jogging at night, but you could say that of any number of urban areas even ones that have a good reputation. In the year that I lived there I never had any problems. A coworker who started about the same time I did and lived in a “nice” part of town, however, got their car broken into.
I’m not sure about majority white. I think it is going to be like California, where there is no majority. I was talking to someone in the DC government not long ago who said that the DC political establishment (codeword for most of the African-American city council) is going to go apoplectic when the 2010 census is done, because the current numbers on the shrinking black majority don’t fully account for the growth in the Hispanic population here; and that, in fact, the city could be less than 50% black next year.
Ah, the good old days. When Tompkins Square was ringed in chain link, ABC No Rio was still cool (and unknown), and plenty of record stores that didn’t sell any records.
Hi everyone, long time lurker on these boards (we’re talking many years), but this thread finally got me to register.
I’d have to say that, like so much in life, ‘it depends’. It depends on what you like, and depends on where in SE we’re talking about: Parts of SE (near the stadium and Navy Yard, Cap Hill, and soon possibly by St E’s what with the coming DHS HQ and therefore requisite gentrification) are, or will be soon, nice. But parts are definitely to be avoided, no matter your color.
Living in affluent, gated (and yes, very white) Western PW County, it may only be 40 miles but might as well be on another planet. Very very few people that I know, maybe 1%, would ever want to have anything to do with SE; either moving there, going to dinner there, raising a family there. Of course it’s not just crime: DC government is way too disfunctional (my brother lives in Cleveland Park so I hear the horror stories), parking is a pain, the schools suck, and long time one-party government has led to patronage and corruption.
I completely understand that to some, life out in braindead suburbia, with the strip malls, long commutes, and lack of constant action, is a fate worse than death. To each his own I suppose.
madmonk28, I’m not sure why you single my post from a thread several months ago out; I wasn’t saying that stuff because I’m personally averse to any of that stuff. Sometimes, you answer questions based on what the asker might have in mind, regardless of your personal feelings on the issue. To be quite honest, I’m closer to your side in this issue than you think. You’re painting with far too broad a brush, though, IMHO. My post then certainly was worded more harshly than I would have with more review, but I was trying to just lay the issue out there, not say “ooh, scary black people” or anything.
I do work in and hang out in DC, in some places many suburbanites and far-NW residents wouldn’t. It’s part of the experience of being in a DC band (we practice in my drummer’s basement, not far at all from Petworth, actually). The thing is, it’s getting better in lots of parts of DC, it really is. There are nicer things going up in areas I wouldn’t have dreamed of 20 years ago when I first moved here. So I absolutely have no qualms saying to somebody moving here “Hey, try Petworth” or something, but it depends on the person. But as often as not, I encounter folks who don’t seem game to the “Hey, try Petworth” gambit. That’s certainly worthy of some scorn, but it’s more about how folks are raised and educated that get us to this point; a larger issue than DC neighborhoods, to be sure.
I take your point, but I’m guessing that gentrification will ultimately force out much of the working class Latino population as well.
The hillside city views and old housing stock in Anacostia are amazing. It hasn’t really been affected by gentrification, but it will be. DC will be less of a black, Southern city, and more like Frisco on the Potomac. (No sexual connotations there, just pointing to demographics, economics and lifestyle.)
I linked to your post because I think it perfectly made my point. People are claiming that it’s not a race thing, but you had the courage of your convictions to say what you really thought.
One thing that really bothers me is when people try to be cute and talk in code with statements like “stay out of SE” and then when you call them on it, they try to pretend that I’ve misinterpreted their comments.
Anytime someone makes a comment about the south being racist or backwards, peole jump on the statement immediately and call them out on it, but people who don’t even live in DC feel perfectly comfortable writing off an entire quadrant without demostrating that they have ever even set foot in that quadrant.