# South side vs. north side and "bad" neighborhoods **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2009, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901 "2009-09-13T10:07:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/21 "2009-09-13T19:54:25Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > North Philadelphia is a lot worse than South Philly. north philly has gangs, south philly has “the mob”. west philly on the other side of the river has the worst sections. ---
**Author:** ![AFer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f9ae1b/32.png) [@AFer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AFer)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/22 "2009-09-13T20:15:10Z")
The north side of Champaign, IL is the bad side. ---
**Author:** ![ginman999](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@ginman999](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ginman999)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/23 "2009-09-13T23:53:13Z")
Northside of Indianapolis has more crime. Outside the city limits and the northside is a little nicer ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/24 "2009-09-14T02:24:27Z")
> [@MerryMagdalen](#): > > Thanks guys. This is all really interesting. Any more “why” theories? I’m not sure there is a “why” answer. Just a bunch of local circumstances. However, you should do a search. We must do this question a couple of times a year so there has to be a dozen earlier threads. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/25 "2009-09-14T02:43:35Z")
It’s local circumstances, but some of them are common to many cities. Like normally the lakeside/oceanside is the ‘better’ part of town. That means in Chicago the south side it baddest, while in Miami the north side is baddest. In Thunder Bay, Ont it’s the west side. Different directions, but the side with the waterfront views is ‘better’. (New Orleans might be an exception, but when you have to look ‘up’ to see the water, it’s not much of a view!) In some cities, it also depends on wind direction. London’s east end is downwind, so it got all the smoke & ashes from thousands of west end chimneys back when coal fires heated most buildings. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/26 "2009-09-14T03:25:27Z")
Quoth **elmwood** : > [@](#): > > But … until the 1950s and 1960s, the East Side was originally the wealthier of the two sides; the East Side of Cleveland was once middle-class and upper-middle class, while the West Side was working-class to lower-middle class. And then you also had Millionaires’ Row on the east side, where Carnegie and his chums had their mansions. From what I heard, Carnegie originally settled on the east side so he’d never have the sun in his eyes going to or from work downtown, and once Carnegie settled there, the rest followed. That area is mostly non-residential now, and is where you’ll find most of the museums in town, plus Case Western Reserve University nearby. ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/27 "2009-09-14T03:31:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Thanks guys. This is all really interesting. Any more “why” theories? > Reply With Quote “Why” for what exactly? Sounds like youre suffering from confirmation bias. For every example you have of x side being bad, someone else has y side for being bad. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/28 "2009-09-14T04:03:23Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > It’s local circumstances, but some of them are common to many cities. > > Like normally the lakeside/oceanside is the ‘better’ part of town. That means in Chicago the south side it baddest, while in Miami the north side is baddest. In Thunder Bay, Ont it’s the west side. Different directions, but the side with the waterfront views is ‘better’. (New Orleans might be an exception, but when you have to look ‘up’ to see the water, it’s not much of a view!) > > In some cities, it also depends on wind direction. London’s east end is downwind, so it got all the smoke & ashes from thousands of west end chimneys back when coal fires heated most buildings. This is a “yeah, but” answer. There are common circumstances, but there are also so many examples and so many possible commonalities that it would impossible for certain ones not to pop up in more than one place. What works against this as an answer to “why” is that there are always not just a few, but many counterexamples. Does the waterside explanation hold up in Buffalo, Cleveland, or Detroit? I’m not an expert on those, but I don’t believe so from what I do know. And I’m really puzzled by your reference to Chicago. The superrich lived along Lake Michigan’s Gold Coast. Which is north of the Michigan River. And near the Miracle Mile, the ritziest shopping street. The south side is more than half the city, which means there are certainly nice areas, though nothing to compare with the Gold Coast, but these are probably outnumbered by a heavy blue collar population. And I can respond to your London example with the notion that after the auto age started, wealthy communities in eastern America developed on the east side of cities because that meant they didn’t have the sun in their eyes for either the morning commute (west) or the evening commute (east). I’m not sure that this is true or just a convenient after-the-fact explanation. At the same time, I’m pretty sure that the historic origins for London’s East End go back before coal was the predominant form of fuel. As elmwood and others have noted, wealthy areas are time specific and change greatly with the decades. Look at the gentrification of areas of NYC like Soho and Tribeca. I don’t exclude the possibility that there may be a succession of “why” answers for each era. It’s just that I’d have to see some solider evidence than ‘here’s a few cities with one thing in common’ before I gave those answers any credence. ---
**Author:** ![MerryMagdalen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@MerryMagdalen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MerryMagdalen)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/29 "2009-09-14T05:33:48Z")
[QUOTE=HorseloverFat] “Why” for what exactly? Sounds like youre suffering from confirmation bias. For every example you have of x side being bad, someone else has y side for being bad. [/QUOTE] No, I think everybody has given good examples of cities with different settlement patterns. I’m not trying to confirm that the bad neighborhood is always on one side. By “why” I meant the sort of things people have been suggesting about waterfronts or prevailing winds, etc., but even those seem sort of iffy. I’ll have to go search the old threads to see what people have said before. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/30 "2009-09-14T08:36:51Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Is this a quote from the play because they don’t use n\*\*\*\*\* in the film? Quoted from the novel. Obviously they couldn’t say the N word in the movie. Somehow visual media intended for mass markets get sanitized more than literature. In Tehran the OP holds true because of the topography. The north side, in the foothills of the Alborz mountains, is posh, while the south side, stretching out over the plains, is plebeian. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/31 "2009-09-14T08:44:01Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Charlotte has the bad part of town in the north. What? You mean like the N. Tryon area? I would still consider that the center of town. North Charlotte (like up near Harris Blvd) is really nice. The worst parts of Charlotte I’ve been to are Wilkinson Blvd. and Rozzelles Ferry Rd., both on the west side. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/32 "2009-09-14T09:21:12Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Frm the 1950s, North Las Vegas was the poor stepchild of Las Vegas. The whole of NLV wasn’t the “bad part” of the county, but the vast majority of the “bad part” of the county was within NLV. > > As the entire county exploded in the 90s, a bunch of ordinary middle class housing got built north of North Las Vegas in unincorporated county territory. > > I’ve since moved away, so I don’t know whether a bunch of this has been annexed by LV or NLV or some new town has been created. North Las Vegas accounts for everything built north and east of where you’re familiar with. The southern end of NLV tends to be the poorest, with most of the stuff in the middle and north being cookie cutter middle class new developments. So the south part of NLV is the poorest, but it’s north of the main section of Las Vegas itself. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901/33 "2009-09-14T12:30:25Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I think the ghetto in Kansas city is on the east side. A couple hundred miles east is St. Louis, and it has its ghetto on the east side too. > > No idea what that is about. But across the river, you could argue that the bad side of town is in the north, as KCK is less preferable to Johnson County to the south. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/south-side-vs-north-side-and-bad-neighborhoods/509901.md?page=1)