Liquor stores that sell “looseys”; single cigarettes and single beers.
Street names that are all named after states.
Chicken restaurants specializing in dark meat chicken.
Residential, city neighborhoods that have no sidewalks or curbs, just front yards of grass that go all the way out to the street.
Entire blocks that are deserted and abandoned, save one lone house.
Strange women (hookers) making eye contact as you pass them by.
Drive-thru beer stores.
Your girlfriend will sell you out to the cops.
And you immediately recgnize the crack pipe!
Just for the record, in Australia you can buy a single bottle of beer (either a longneck or a stubby) in any liquor outlet around the country.
Thriving barbershops.
The church signs are neon. They may or may not light up, but they’re neon.
As formerly the world’s largest prison cell, it’s arguable the whole continent is a ghetto! 
I’ve never been to Toronto, is it ghetto?
All signs point to “yes”.
Blue tarps on the roof. We have several in my neighborhood. Rent houses with owners too cheap to get the roof fixed. You can easily imagine the tenants they find.
Shops with those roll down blast doors-that look like they could withstand a hand grenade. Triple locks on doors; barred windows. and no foot traffic when it starts getting dark-the streets are deserted by twilight.
Ah, reminds me … newspapers instead of window shades. Permanent plywood rectangles as replacements for broken window panes.
Hey! That’s my town. Not a ghetto within 50 miles.
Maybe not grass, but the lack of curbs or sidewalks is a highlight of very upscale neighborhoods. We don’t need no stinkin’ curbs!
And this is true of some of the most upscale neighborhoods in Los Angeles. You know, the ones you didn’t know existed, but are right behind your house and sell for 10 times what you expect.
Doesn’t work in rural neighborhoods.
No. I think all big cities have some proportion of ghetto, but I would NOT describe Toronto as ghetto. Crack-smoking mayors are just a sign of ghetto, not a rule.
In Chicago, the code is you can’t sell 16oz or less in single beer bottles. So, a lot of the non-American beers come in 500mL sizes, which are fine. I’m pretty sure in the suburbs I’ve seen smaller bottles for single sale.
Just thinking about the rougher areas of my county:
*A laundromat on every block, whereas in the other half of the county I wouldn’t have any idea where to find one.
*Stores with placards in the windows advertising that they accept WIC and EBT cards
*You see someone shoved up against a police car being cuffed and searched once a week driving through
*60% of the signs aren’t in English
*Abandoned shopping carts strewn over various sidewalks
*Every third driver seems to be in a Honda Civic or Accord with at least 2 dents, a spoiler, and none of the panels are the same color
*One section of road always slows down because that’s where the side entrance to Valu Village is
Where else can you hope to shake hands with a Guinness Book of World Records holder?
“Longest time with broken car window replaced with dry-cleaning bag and duct tape”
Found a picture. It’s pizza, not Chinese, but I think it counts.
That looks suspiciously like the Pizza Hut near my DC rental house…
Bolding mine. Definitely agree with this. Also, lots of late teens and 20-somethings loitering outside said vacant buildings.