Okay, Cecil admits (way back in 1999) that there’s too much knowledge in the world for even him to master, and he clearly calls upon the Teeming Millions (or is it Teeming Masses?) to do his job for him:
Okay, if Cecil can’t keep up, his minions will have to take it on.
What side of your town (or any other town you know of) is the baddest?
I’ll start: Paso Robles, Ca., smallish town in Ca. Central coast vicinity: North side is baddest. (With a small pocket of badness also near the middle, just north-east of city center, across the river.)
Chicago: South Side definitely has the baddest reputation, although the West may actually have more violent crime now. The North Side is conceptually yuppies, hipsters and working class Latinos, but of course we’re actually far more diverse than that.
In Milwaukee, the North Side is generally the rougher side of town. But, it should also be noted that what is called the “North Side” and the “South Side” are more like areas or parts of town then the actual Northern most and Southern most sides of the city. But I’d say a good 90% of the time you here “There was a shooting…” on the news, the next part of the sentence is “…on the North Side”. The North Side, East Side and South Side in Milwaukee have a lot more to do with demographics then geography.
Flint, MI, which I believe has the notorious title of being ranked the country’s #1 Most Dangerous City, has a northside that is by far the most lawless, poverty-stricken and crime-addled side of the city. It’s rivaled somewhat by the eastside but in sheer size, scale and numbers; the northside of Flint is the “bad” side of town.
Where I grew up in West Texas, the South side was the richest. The place was very segregated, with the poor, bad sides being the East (black) and North (Hispanic).
Here in Bangkok, it’s quite a mix everywhere. The worst slums are in the shadows of spectacular mansions. There are no bad or good sides. The part of Bangkok west of the Chao Phraya River, referred to as Thonburi, although within the city limits is often considered Bangkok proper’s poor cousin, but even there you have the side-by-side mix of rich and poor.
In Cleveland, it’s the east side that’s the “bad side”, meaning that it tends towards low socioeconomic status. Ironically, the east side also used to be home to Millionaire’s Row, which was probably at the time the most affluent neighborhood in the country, and still also boasts most of the city’s cultural attractions.
A few years ago I was driving somewhere with my dad and he mentioned that his parents grew up in that area and that it used to be a really, really nice part of town to which I replied “Yeah, and now there’s bars on second story windows”. I have to say, you’re in a really bad part of town when you’re worried that someone is going to put a ladder up to your second floor window and break in there. That’s going above and beyond crimes of opportunity.
It tends to depend on the geography. Most of Australia’s major cities are coastal so the poorer/badder areas are the furthest inland.
In Melbourne the south is on the coast and the first settled areas. The poorer and badder areas are the Western suburbs, in latter days the north west.
Sydney has the ocean on the east and the North and South are eitherside of the bay so again I’d suggest the “Bad” area is the west.
Suburbs in Melbourne that were “bad” 100 years ago are now prime real estate as they’re close to the CBD and the old factories are either demolished or developed.
eg, 100 years ago the suburb of Collingwood 1-2 miles north of the CBD was a dirt poor industrial area, now a renovated weatherboard house on a small block sells for over $1mil.
In London the poorer, crime ridden areas are south of the river (see last weeks incident for proof). Also the east side has a bad rep too. The centre and the west is where all the celebrities and wealthy live.
As my town (Bournemouth) is on the south coast, the dodgy side is towards the east with the wealthy area towards the southwest.
I’m gonna take a stab at the reason. I think in the northern hemisphere, towns are built on the river or gulf and in some cases expand north, so as you move further north (or east or west, depending on where the river is) you get more prosperous, and the older areas get more run down. Cities were built on ocean or river fronts because that was the means of transportation back then; one of my favorite riddles is why a state’s biggest cities are off in a corner of the state but the capitals are in the middle. It’s because the big cities are located where they could access commerce, while capitals are situated in the middle to give equal access to all citizens. In a few cases, like where I am in Little Rock, they’re one and the same because we’re on the Arkansas River.
I used to sell real estate, and my broker told me that generally speaking, the south side of town is the poor side of town. And the reason is: The water supply!
Water flows from north to south. Water on the north side of a community is coming in clean and clear, just entering town. But by the time it gets to the south side, it is filthy and polluted by all those northsiders.
And before we had public water works, this was pretty important. Clean water was highly prized, and it cost more to live where it was available.
Houston changed over time; when I was growing up, southwestern Houston was the relatively affluent suburbs, and the areas near downtown and pretty much anywhere east of a line corresponding to the West Loop, and south of a line corresponding to the South Loop was really poor and rough.
Now, SW Houston where I grew up is the really poor and rough part of town- I read about shootings and crazy violent crimes all the time very near to where I grew up, and the areas in near downtown that were really crappy are now revitalized (uptown, midtown).
I live not too far from the West side of Chicago and while I’ve never had any problem with going to the south side, I stay the hell out of the west side. Only time I ever get hassled is on the West side, I’ve walked into a Burger King in the middle of the day and had the cashier tell me I really should get out of there for my own safety.
No, water flows from uphill to downhill, which can be any direction at all on a map. In the Mississippi, it does flow basically north to south. But in the Ohio, Colorado, and Snake, it mostly flows east to west; in the Missouri, Platte, St. Lawrence, and Rio Grande, it flows mostly west to east; in the Yellowstone, it’s southwest to northeast, and so on.