Just throwing in my two-cents on the “bad” part of town debate. Cecil correctly states that the poorer part of Cleveland, Ohio is the east side. I’m wondering if climate differences have much to do with that? Long story short, if Northeast Ohio gets hit with snow, the east side ALWAYS gets hit the worst (has something to do with the slope of the land). While the west side (especially the 'burbs) may get a “dusting” of snow, folks driving down from the Heights (where we do have some well-off areas) are covered in an inch of snow.
Driving and walking through slush and snow isn’t any fun today, so imagin how much worse it must’ve been back when you got around on horse. Since no one who could afford choices in housing locations would choose to live in such an inclimate area, the typical Cleveland winter may have helped to establish the east as the dregs of town.
WHOOPS! Let me clarify what I just posted…the CARS of the people driving down from the Heights are covered in an inch of snow, not the people themselves!
Some more snippets of data from a European reader:
The South of the UK (especially the SE) is generally wealthier than the North. But this wasn’t always so. Why? Well briefly the North was wealthier during the industrial revolution because the raw materials (coal, iron ore) were concentrated there. Trade was mainly long-distance international, so there was no disadvantange for northern ports like Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. Nowadays the South is richer because we do most of our trade with continental Europe and businesses want to locate close to it. Hi-tech industries also take advantange of the fact that our best universities and research institutions are in the SE.
Historically, there have been other switches of wealth based on both the climatic and political circumstances of the day.
Over here, the East part of town is generally reckoned to be poorer even in cities like London and Glasgow, which are on opposite coasts. These two cases support the ‘local access for ships’ argument. In Sheffield, however, the east is poorer because the traditional industry is (or was) steel and the prevailing wind blew smoke from the mills in that direction.
Regarding the Southern hemisphere, Australia has most of its cities in the South East. Surely this is because it was colonised by the British who found the climate in the South most like home. The economy of northern states like Queensland only grew quite recently with the emergence of the sun’n’surf holiday.
I always assumed the south was the bad part of town having lived in San Antonio, Austin, and Boston. So, hitchhiking in my younger days I passed through Amarillo (everything that I had was just what I had on). Making it to Amarillo by late-afternoon (I tried to make Amarillo by morning, of course ), I headed north to find a good place to lay my head, only to end up in crack-head heaven. Everything worked out OK – one crack head taught me how to ride freight trains which was a great delight – but my eyes were really opened by this inverted city and I tried not to make these assumptions again.
BTW, San Francisco is almost all one bad part of town – but I thought the South East Mission District was the lousiest, although maybe my mental map doesn’t have some suburban mecca further south of there.
Couldn’t the reason for rich/poor distribution be as much attributable to geograpy as any other factors? For instance, East L.A. is poorer because its furthest from the desireable ocean front areas? Oakland Ca. is further from the ocean than San Francisco, etc. Of course this doesn’t hold true for all cities, but I bet in most cases you can make a similar argument.
[[NanoByte
Member posted 11-10-1999 02:30 AM
DID YOU NOTICE THAT THIS COLUMN OF CECIL’S WAS NEVER PUBLISHED AT THIS SITE?! Next Friday’s column is featured here presently. How come? Does Cecil often skip a printed-page column at this site?]]
From today’s homepage (11/11/99):
[[The Straight Dope publishing schedule is scrambled because we published
Cecil’s two columns on the HUD “Creole” brochure ahead of schedule. Not
all of our subscribing papers were able to follow suit, so here are all the
columns published, or to be published, between October 26 and November
19:
Current Column #1: Did HUD publish a brochure in “Creole”
containing a parody of black speech?
Current Column #2: Rezedents Rights & Rispansabilities: The rest
of the story
Current Column #3: What is the historical basis of the Wicca
religion (modern witchcraft)?
Current Column #4: Is the south side always the baddest part of
town?]]
I have observed that there is a strong tendency for people to keep their relative directions when they move. That is, when people who grew up in the NW side of the city move to the 'burbs, they choose the NW ones; southsiders go out south, etc. (just the trend, not absolute) Similarly, poor blacks coming to Chicago from Southern states gravitated to the southside of town.
A further observation is that rather than N/S, I’ve always seen it as “the East is the least” and “The West is the best”. This is apparent within city, towns, villages as well as countries. Better here is defined as newer and well-maintained, not necessarily richer or of higher quality. The obvious explanation in the U.S. is the historical westward expansion, but it is also true here in Southern Bavaria, Germany!
Dublin is typically said to be divided between a prosperous southside and a more down-at-heel northside, in fact the distinction is far more evident between a wealthier eastern side and a poorer west.
We can quote examples at each other until the kine come home. The question is, is compass orientation in relation to the centre of an urban area an indicator of relative prosperity, cetebus parabis? I would suggest that the answer is no.
I think the baddest part of town is usually the part that was settled first. If the easiest area to build new housing was in a westward direction (as in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg), then the East side became the slums, as the more and more “used” housing was left to the poorer folk. Poorer folk (cheap labour) lead to influx of slum industry, an ever downward spiral.
Since the advent of easy transit (public and private), I think the era of “sides” being defined as bad has pretty much disappeared. Bad is now anywhere.
I am supprised that nobody is disscussing the country aspect that the big C mentioned. It is just not so in many cases. Italy is richer then most of the countrys directly north of it for instance. I past times, Greece and Rome were the most powerful empires around and the north and central parts of Europe were barbarous. At least they had nice hair.
The northern hemisphere is clearly richer then the south and has been for sometime. But I think that is not because of their location but their circumstances. Europe is a relatively small place with several natural barriers to close it in. I propose that this gave rise to population pressures and resource squables much more then most other places. If you didn’t like cheif Big Bear you could go about any driection and start over in North America, but in Europe there was no such space, so a more agressive attitude flourished.
To anticipate someone asking about why islands aren’t even more aggressive, They are generaly too small to support more then one culture or tribe and those that are big enough don’t have enough resources to be come much of a power.
Having said all that, I have no evidence to back this up and I can’t even claim to have thought of it myself. Of course I don’t remember where I’ve heard the theory before…
Those greater questions are answered in superlative detail in Jared Diamond’s book “Guns, Germs and Steel”.
There are a few reasons why Europeans conquered America and not vice versa. One, Diamond suggests, is that the Eurasian landmass is oriented east-west, and therefore agricultural technology can be transferred further, faster. By contrast, spreading teocinte/corn from the south to the north of North America was damned hard, because the climate, the day/night cycle over the year, etc., change dramatically as you go from south to north.
Also, the Americas have very few animals suitable for domestication, whereas Eurasia had cattle, horses, pigs, dogs, sheep, the whole lot.
But we’re a long way from the “wrong side of the tracks” OP here.
I note that Cecil ignored your wrong facts on San Francisco and stated the correct ones. . .well, improved on sort-of by someone that discussed SF after we did. The best answer is that the SE is the worst side of town. (Happens to be opposite from the source of the trade winds, whether that’s the cause or not.)
We have gotten data. True, more should also be gotten. But I don’t think anyone really disagrees that there is a signal in the all-NAmer-cities noise that says S or SE. . .for whatever reason.
I just thought it was Cecil’s job, as the smartest dude around, to do the “conclu[ding]” as to the reason for this phenomenon.
ruadh:
Well, jmullaney probably tried to ride the rails into SF. That ain’t easy. He was probably pretty messed up when he got off the bottom side of CalTrain on the N edge of SE SF, and never made it beyond the Tenderloin.
Cap’n Capri:
You mean: that the side of town that is poorest is that which is furthest from the nearest oceanfront?
No, look. You start with just finding out whether any particular side predominates over some large region. I appears that the S or SE does in temperate North America. So then what is common to all these cities of poor S or SE sectors? All I can come up with is that within that large general area, the SE is opposite from the trade winds coming from the NW.
ben, the heretic:
We’re not after “suggest[ions]”. And that’s not the question posed in the OP of the relevant GQ thread, which was:
“In North America, at least, it appears that in most cities, the north side is well off, while the south side is rundown. Is that generally true in the Northern Hemisphere and the reverse true in the Southern Hemisphere?”
This question claims data that indicates that in North America, at least, the sector of a city at the particular compass orientation of S is less well off thant that of N. You have either to substantiate or debunk this situation empirically, either one perhaps over the full Northern Hemisphere; and, if substantiated over all of that, to determine if the opposite economic polarity be the case in the Southern Hemisphere. Yours is not to simply “suggest” that there cannot be any such correlation. If you believe this is not true, then you must either debunk the claimed data or add enough contrary data to establish this belief.
Bookseller (seller of words, that is):
Well, would you agree that the “first-settled” part of town is, at least initially, the center of town? Then, if later, one side of town becomes less well off than another, [something must’ve determined which side of the initial center of town the new building was to occur, right? So we’re then trying to determine, if as claimed, that the S (or SE) part of town predominates as the worst side in North America, what could be a common cause of this throughout the continent.
[quote]
Bad is now anywhere.{/quote]
That all came about from people buying the wrong books you sold them. Shame on you! Go read your book and escape all that bad reality you caused.
Danno:
Let us know when you have some evidence or know your authority on the theory, at least.
heretic again:
So is Diamond then saying that this situation resulted in a greater number of well-nourished people, militarily well-supplied, and sophisticated in tactics, who were then in a better position to conquer another group of people?
I’d been avoiding this thread hoping some better data would come out (either conclusively dismissing and “side” or conclusively proving why “sides” show up).
However, beginning with his initial post, Nano has repeated this idea
without challenge on a couple of occasions.
I gotta problem wid it.
My experience of the prevailing winds and my memory of 4th grade geography both indicate that the prevailing winds over central North America are Southwesterly, (from SW to NE).
The only consistent pattern for most of the U.S. is the westerly aspect.
I am quite sure that this is locally variable. The pond to our north brings a fair amount of the NW winds that Nano relies on to Cleveland; winter supplies a northerly thrust for several months across all of the northern U.S. However, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Columbus have all demonstrated generally SW winds when I have lived in or visited them. In Indianapolis, the prevailing winds would simply be at right angles to a poor-rich access, but in Detroit the rich live downwind of the poor. In Cleveland, the wealthier inner suburbs are very close to the poorest neighborhoods–and both are downwind of the Cuyahoga valley and its remaining mills.
You may have a point, Nano, but your idea still needs some work.
I’m utterly amazed that no one has mentioned the most influential tome on this topic among city planners: The Death and Life of Great American Cities, by Jane Jacobs. Her basic argument: over the long term, the good side of town will gravitate to the place with short blocks and complex street grids, whereas simple grids and large blocks will tend to become poorer. Her examples all came from NYC, where the East Side with its shorter blocks has always been richer than the West Side. Then there’s Greenwich Village, with its short blocks, extremely complex grid and high-priced real estate. Other factors included a mix of uses for the buildings of an area, among residential, industrial, commercial, and public (education, government), and an increasing density of population surrounding the good area. She followed these up with The Economy of Cities and Cities and the Wealth of Nations, which move up from the neighborhood level to the city level and then to the national level.
Bad Sides of Town in Canada:
Halifax: east
Montreal: east
Toronto: east
Winnipeg: east
Regina: east
Calgary: east
Edmonton: east
Vancouver: east
hell, even Yellowknife: east
First off, I am not exactly alone in proposing unsubstanciated theories in these groups. But, I was thinking (yes, it hurt), where would I read this sort of thing, not being a student of history. And it dawned on me that it was from the Master himself. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/970620.html
Now I admit I twisted the argument somewhat. But if you care go see for youself.
I’m curious about his source for the claim that Buffalo’s poorest section is our South-West section.I think we usually regard the ‘East Side’ as the worst part of town, though I could easily be wrong, especially since I myself live in a(Northern, but not very prosperous) suburb. North Buffalo is, however, middle class and holding off collapse, which is quite prosperous by our standards.
Okay, Im gonna throw my two cents in:
In Copenhagen, the (relatively) bad parts of
town are the north and west. However, the northwest part of town is one of the best,
(central is the best), followed by the
northeast, with anything to the south
considered “decent”, but not “good”.
However, that’s just Copenhagen proper.
Drive twenty minutes out of town to the
burbs and it’s a different story. The burbs to the south and southwest are the
worst, and they get better as you go
clockwise, with the ones due north the most
prestigious, expensive, and presumptious.
There used to be a lot of industries to the
south, and the north used to be vacation
manors at the seaside. I dont remember why
the working classes settled by the north and
west gates in Copenhagen proper (they still
do), but the northwest used to be a large
park with the King’s summer palace in it.
When Copenhagen got so crowded that a new
summer palace was built further north, the
park was divvied up and sold off or
bestowed.
Kara’s Bizarre Movie Quote for the Day:
“Such as who we are, what we’re doing…” “…and why I have a picture of a burger on the wall.”
), I headed north to find a good place to lay my head, only to end up in crack-head heaven. Everything worked out OK – one crack head taught me how to ride freight trains which was a great delight – but my eyes were really opened by this inverted city and I tried not to make these assumptions again.