For instance, The ‘slums’ of Anchorage are on the North-west part of town. In fact, The rich neighborhoods on on the south side!
Also, Alaska’s big towns are also on the south side of the state! Also, Hawaii has more money than we do.
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You may also be interested in reading this thread: The Baddest Part of Town
Unfortunately, the thread dates from before the SDMB software change and so it is slightly difficult to read.
And I’m sure you noticed that Cecil Adams said in his column that many contrary cases can be found to the “south side is the worst part of town” observation.
I’m sure it would be easy to come up with reasons for Anchorage not following the model. While I don’t care to do the work, I would suggest that the model basically applies to large cities which were shaped by industry prior to WWI. Anchorage doesn’t fit the mold, being a tiny non-industrialized spot in the road before WWII. It’s importance during WWII, and the 1964 earthquake and the oil bonanza and resultant growth caused it to grow differently.
Report from St. Louis: Just confirming that, yes, in the City of St. Louis at least, the North Side is the baddest part of town, in that it encompasses the most depressed neighborhoods. That includes some of the northern suburbs, too. As for Chicago (where I used to live), it’s got such a diverse and insular set of neighborhoods that it’s hard to generalize, but yes, a lot of the West Side is pretty bad, but the South Side has some pretty damn bad neighborhoods, too, especially right around, but not including, Hyde Park.
I heard that it was because towns tended to grow northwards, higher value housing had nothing obstructing the northern side of the buildings.
In Greenville, TX it is opposite, the north side is the ‘bad’ part of town, but that is because when they ran I-30 to the south of town the newer developments were all made closer to the interstate.