If you had to choose a city's ghetto to live in... (raise, states)

[Neworleansisprettygood]

Originally Posted by LongIslandPerson

Houston has warm weather so home heating costs wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is in the more northern cities.

On another note, I love the New Orleans architecture (even the so-called "ghettoes" have rich architecture). No matter how rundown those New Orleans ghettoes become, they will always have beauty and historical significance to them. But being realistic, I read the murder rate was #1 or near number one in the recent past and I can't live around that.

Re: Houston- you're forgetting about cooling costs. I live in New Orleans and had my A/C on this week- and New Orleans is actually cooler than Houston.

Really wish I had a way to upload pics. I live basically on the edge of one of New Orleans' ghettos and yes, the architecture is beautiful.

[j_cat]

Harlem, because it's not that bad anymore, and you have all the benefits of Manhattan.

[checkmatechamp13]

Originally Posted by pwright1

Seattle would be my choice. No real ghettos. If anyone tries to say Seattle is hard and has plenty of ghettos they are not telling the truth. The hardheads try to act like there's real tough hoods but there really isn't. I lived in many big cities and I can honestly say Seattle by far has the least amount of rough areas and ghettos.

I'd just like to point out that the number of ghettoes might not matter. You could have a city with one really bad ghetto and one with a bunch of small ghettoes that aren't as bad.

Originally Posted by Futcha

Los Angeles. They have yards, nice houses, and palm trees. Los Angeles could possibly pass for having the nicest ghettos in America.

NYC, Chicago, Philly, Detroit, DC, and Baltimore ghettos are dense, families are sharing rooms with other families, buildings are rotting, windows are broken, tarps replace doors, weeds grow in sidewalk cracks, potholes are on every square foot of the streets, streets and alleyways are eerie and infested with drug addicts and homeless people, cockroaches and rats are running freely, garbage is overflowing, cars are stripped, etc. Really depressing and yet it interests you at the same time.

I always thought that if a tarp replaced a door, that just meant the home was abandoned. I mean, if you're living in an area where everybody has bars on the windows for protection, you're not going to want to make it easy to get through the front doorway. Now if nobody's living there, it doesn't matter.

But eh, you might as well do it the ol' fashion way. With a piece of plywood and a few nails.

Originally Posted by goat314

I think you are right, but the characteristics you listed are typical of any ghetto. I think the word ghetto is very loosely used in America though. People think working class majority Black neighborhoods are ghettos, but anyone with half a brain knows that isn't true. Its safe to say that every major American city has a "hood", but not necessarily a "ghetto". Also I think St. Louis and Cleveland have pretty dense ghettos too considering their population densities rivaled that of eastern cities before white flight, but its more like dense ghetto....urban prairie.....dense ghetto......urban prairie and this goes on for miles. I know Detroit is like this too.

So what would be the difference between a "ghetto" and a "hood" in your opinion? A ghetto is really bad and a hood is just bad?

Originally Posted by SuperMario

And Future, East Harlem along with Bed-Stuy had the highest crime rates last year. So it is one of NYC most dangerous hoods. What do you expect from a neighborhood that is all projects.

You mean Brownsville wasn't at the top (as always )? It has more projects than Bed-Stuy.

Originally Posted by jessemh431

Wow. I didn't know NYC was that bad. I knew it was bad though and I would rather live in Compton, or almost any third world country for that matter, over an NYC ghetto. I thought Brooklyn had been getting better? Or was that only a certain area or only for a little bit?

All of it is getting better to a certain degree, but the areas seeing it the most are closer to Manhattan (areas like Fort Greene rather than Brownsville)

Originally Posted by NJ Chutzpah

i would live in the washington heights section of NYC becausse it is close to my home in jerz and

If I was gonna be poor or a young working professional just starting out and want to work my way up this is definitely the place because of affordability, VALUE, close to downtown and midtown, and I CAN SAVE MY MONEY

Isn't housing in almost all ghettoes low-cost?

And Washington Heights is actually not that much cheaper than some good areas in the outer boroughs.

Originally Posted by SuperMario

Meanwhile in camden, you're by your lonesome.

I don't think Camden has a lot of areas where there are widespread areas of urban prarie. It's more like 1/2 the homes on the block will be abandoned and half the homes are occupied, whereas in areas of Detroit, you'll have entire neighborhoods with urban prarie, and then there are areas with just a few abandoned homes per block.

Originally Posted by Futcha

Western Harlem got better, East Harlem is very dangerous. Like I said, neighborhoods in NYC go from good to bad extremely quick. You can be in a rich neighborhood, turn the corner, and catch yourself in the ghetto.

If NYPD doesn't dramatically raise the starting salary, we're screwed.

And one example would be the Upper East Side going into East Harlem. Somebody said the blocks in the 90s weren't as wealthy as the other parts of the UES, but still the difference between the areas is pretty large.

Originally Posted by SuperMario

Most of Harlem still is a ghetto. Where in Harlem were you? Most likely the good part. You wouldn't be saying that if you walked through the hood. The picture you show is a rare gentrified Harlem pic. You cant show an area that is not the hood. The sorrounding area yes, but that specific spot no.

I think that area was down by 110th Street. I think the park on the left is Central Park, though I could be wrong (I mean, it's a major street by a park, and that's the only one I can think of)

Originally Posted by neonwattagelimit

I'd like to point out that this whole "you're safer when nobody's there" argument has a flip side. If you are walking down the street in Camden and see one crazy person and that person stabs you, you die 'cause nobody else is there. If someone stabs you in Brooklyn, somebody else (who is likely not insane) will see you and get help. Furthermore, the presence of people acts as its own kind of deterrent. Not that I'd recommend walking past a group of menacing-looking types in East New York at 3AM, but I think the jury is out as to which is actually more dangerous. The only time I was ever a crime victim was on a desolate suburban street in an upper-middle-class neighborhood on Staten Island. Not that anyone should be afraid of that, but still.

Very true (but then again, the next person to walk by you could be a gang member and finish you off)

By the way, when you were mugged, was the street actually desolate (as in an industrial area or a park), or was it a residential area with some homes?

Originally Posted by WSH SF

Uhhh, those aren't the only bad areas in LA. What makes you think New York has more bad parts than LA? Unless you've lived in NY you can't really say that. There are just as many bad spots in LA. For starters, Hollywood, is pretty ghetto. Lynwood, Eagle Rock, North Long Beach, Inglewood, Van Nuys, Watts, San Pedro, Hawthorne, East LA, ...I can go on forever. I'd go as far as saying that most places out of the tourist spots (Coastal LA) is run down and ghetto looking. I don't know if they are dangerous, but they look dangerous. I don't have statistics.

Hollywood's a ghetto? (serious question)

And the thing is that there can be areas that look nice and have high crime rates. I remember when I visited Miami, I didn't want to wait for the bus to reach the MetroRail station (I missed it and the next one was 20 minutes away), and the area between the touristy area and the train station was ghetto. My mom noticed that and wanted to turn back, but I didn't even realize it was a ghetto until I started seeing people hanging out (though none of them bothered us), and even then I just thought it was a little run-down. It was only after we returned that I found out it was a ghetto (it wasn't the worst in Miami, but it was pretty bad)

In some ways, nice-looking ghettoes can be dangerous in the sense that you don't realize you've wandered into one until the bullets start flying.

Originally Posted by WSH SF

For being portraying the image of toughness, you New Yorkers do have and seems to attract one of the largest group of most fru-fru and prissy people I've seen and encountered in my life. I was told a lot of Brooklyn was a ghetto but when I went throughout, I remember saw were entitled stroller pushing moms, hipsters, luxury cars and SUVs, middle class houses, beautiful tree-lined streets, 6 million dollar mansions/brownstones in South Brooklyn (or is it SoBro ), luxury buildings, and Starbucks sipping yuppies. I was expecting most of it to be bad. Some of it was indeed crappy, but the good far outweighed the bad. The worst I remember seeing was East New York and it was nothing compared to the crap I've seen in Detroit. Even Bed-Stuy had the most beautiful buildings I've seen that have unfortunately been left to rot.

If I may add, American ghettos are heaven compared to the ones in third-world countries.

SoBro is actually what some people call the South Bronx.

And yes, ghettoes in third-world countries are much worse than any American ghetto, at least as far as poverty and "run-down-ness" (though not necessarily crime) go.

Originally Posted by KYLE1

I agree, a ghetto is a ghetto.

I don't see how a ghetto in one city is better than a ghetto in another city. They are all equally as disgusting and nobody should aspire to live in a hell hole.

Originally Posted by hillside

this is silly. this is how you can tell most folks on these crime forums never went through the struggle of being stuck in the hood. because if they did, they'd know the hood is the hood. it's all the same. people are struggling for primarily the same reasons everywhere. the amount of hoods and citywide impact will tell you about a city, but this topic on hoods is an oversimplification that can't be simplified this way. soon you get it in your head someone else's hood isn't as hard as yours, that's when you get proved wrong.

No, because there are different levels of ghetto. You could have an area with a high crime rate and an area with a really high crime rate.

Originally Posted by Mbenga

Please stop it already. Are you trying to tell everyone here that ALL of Los
Angeles looks like that!?!? Please quit it. and to top it off your posting pictures of places where nobody in Los Angeles lives! the LA river? who lives there? NO ONE. 99.9 percent of Los Angeles does not look like that. i have been all over the country and California "ghettos" if you even want to call them that are truly blessed! they are nowhere near and i mean NOWHERE near the level of decay and poverty of a detroit, a cleveland, oh and bronx etc. no where near it! and to top it off Los Angeles is not more dangerous than any top eastcoast ghetto a real ghetto i may add.

Decay no, but poverty possibly.

Originally Posted by StPete2Charlotte

If you truly ever hit hard times, you won't have the choice of moving anywhere. Thats why people in the ghetto live in the ghetto. Theres no way of them moving.

You might. You could have a choice between living with one relative in one ghetto and another relative in another ghetto.

Originally Posted by clean_polo

Man wtf is everyone voting for New York so much for? Trust me, you don't want to be HOMELESS in New York dead in the middle of winter. Chicago neither, matter fact I wouldn't want to be homeless in any midwestern or northeastern city, give me LA or Miami or something..This is one of the only times you'll see me talk negatively about NY, but c'mon, I'd rather do a little sweating than freeze to death.

This is talking about living in the ghetto, not being homeless.

In fact, a colder place might actually be a little bit easier to live in the ghetto because crime generally increases during warmer weather (more people are hanging out, and I'm sure the heat goes to people's heads)

Originally Posted by Neworleansisprettygood

Re: Houston- you're forgetting about cooling costs. I live in New Orleans and had my A/C on this week- and New Orleans is actually cooler than Houston.

Really wish I had a way to upload pics. I live basically on the edge of one of New Orleans' ghettos and yes, the architecture is beautiful.

Eh. Heat I can tolerate, but cold not so much.

In any case, my answer would be that if I had a choice (like I outlined a couple of quotes up, and assuming a similar crime rate), I'd pick a lower-density ghetto for the simple reason that it looks nicer and also the fact that it is low-density means that people are likely to own their homes and so have more of a reason to try and keep incidents from happening (if you own a home, you have a long-term stake in the community and are going to try and stop incidents from happening). Also, with more space you have room to spread out (you could put a basketball hoop in the backyard).

I mean, with the example from Miami, it was dangerous because I didn't realize it was a ghetto, but if I had to live there and knew it was a ghetto and had to take extra precautions I'd pick that over a dense Northeastern ghetto.

And also, not to sound racist or anything, but I'd pick a White or Hispanic ghetto over a Black ghetto of similar characteristics (density and crime rate) for the simple reason that, being a light-skinned Hispanic, I wouldn't stick out as much.

[west336]

^How much time did this take you?

[rnc2mbfl]

If you can tough it out in one of Miami's "ghettos", it's likely to turn into a hip neighborhood in the future. Just in the last ten years, some of Miami's worst areas have turned into rather trendy/hipster/artsy neighborhoods.

[RaymondChandlerLives]

Originally Posted by Miami305Kid

I chose NYC because Harlem is actually improving and has become a very nice place to live

Was there for the week of 9/11. Still very sketchy.

[goldenchild08]

Originally Posted by RaymondChandlerLives

Was there for the week of 9/11. Still very sketchy.

True. Just two years ago, a Harlem neighborhood made the top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in America list according to neighborhoodscout.com.

18. New York, N.Y.

The only reason most NY ghettos are so "safe" today is because there is literally an army of police in every hood in NY. I remember staying in a hotel in Brooklyn off Atlantic Ave and hearing police sirens every five minutes all night long. Corners outside of bodegas were still crowded with loitering young men acting wild and unpredictable. If all those police weren't there, these areas would be just as wild as they were in the 90's. Also, the NYPD has successfully locked up many of the bad apples in the Big Apple. It is surprising how completely dead the streets of NYC can be in many places during a weekday night nowadays.

[rah]

Originally Posted by goldenchild08

True. Just two years ago, a Harlem neighborhood made the top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in America list according to neighborhoodscout.com.

18. New York, N.Y.

The only reason most NY ghettos are so "safe" today is because there is literally an army of police in every hood in NY. I remember staying in a hotel in Brooklyn off Atlantic Ave and hearing police sirens every five minutes all night long. Corners outside of bodegas were still crowded with loitering young men acting wild and unpredictable. If all those police weren't there, these areas would be just as wild as they were in the 90's. Also, the NYPD has successfully locked up many of the bad apples in the Big Apple. It is surprising how completely dead the streets of NYC can be in many places during a weekday night nowadays.

I'm not debating this, but that 25 most dangerous neighborhoods thing is proven to be complete crap, much like most other "best/worst/most/least" lists that get published.

[goldenchild08]

Originally Posted by overunder12

San Francisco should be on the list as well. It actually has some pretty bad ghettos.

This is an understatement. SF has a higher murder rate for Blacks than Oakland, Baltimore, New Orleans and just about any big city in America. This is the reason why Black people are fleeing SF rather than moving there. While cities like Baltimore and Chicago demolished most of their worst public housing complexes years and years ago, SF is home to some of the worst housing projects in America like Sunnydale and Oakdale along with dozens of other decrepit still occupied project buildings scattered throughout the remote southern part of The City in neighborhoods like Potrero Hill and Hunter's Point. Hunter's Point is also located on the most toxic waste dump in California and has the highest infant mortality rate in the state.

[goldenchild08]

Originally Posted by rah

I'm not debating this, but that 25 most dangerous neighborhoods thing is proven to be complete crap, much like most other "best/worst/most/least" lists that get published.

Eh, I don't know about that. That North Ave. neighborhood in Baltimore NEEDS to be up there. It doesn't feel safe driving through there on a monday morning in January in 16 degree windchill. You make the wrong turn there even during working hours early in the morning in the dead of winter, the whole hood will be staring in your car and moving towards your vehicle pretty quick. Pretty much every Baltimore neighborhood they mentioned needs to be on that list. Take it from someone who lives in Maryland.