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To put it simply, America is a racist country and the social fabric is some crap. Black people in America are a permanent underclass unfortunately. The effects of slavery and jim crow will haunt this country for a very, very long time. Black people in Europe or Canada don't have to deal with this stigma. Everyday there are social injustices based on race. The blacker a city or neighborhood is the more negative the stigma becomes. For an example PG county MD of suburban DC is the most affuent county in America with a black majority but yet, its looked down upon in the DC area by other neighboring counties and even DC itself. Don't get me wrong there is a crime issue in a lot of the towns and subdivisions inside the beltway but even in the areas outside of the beltway with better schools and lower crime there is still a negative connotation because of the large black population. Most white people (and Asians) do not feel comfortable living around a lot of black people so they self segregate themselves because of fear based on stereotypes and/or fear of the unknown. A lot of non black people in this country think that black people are thugs, hoodrats, animals, welfare objects, and just underneath them.
Do you think "urban living" will ever become popular again in the US? Given the racist undertones of our society and the avoidance that our society has to "mix", I fear that fleeing into expensive homogeneous suburbs will continue to be the norm.
Philadelphia definitely has some terrifying places. I considered moving there last year just for a change and went and looked at some apartments that were advertised off of Craigslist. Most of the ones I checked out were okay there was one that took me to a different part of town and this whole neighborhood was crumbling and their were some drugged out ghetto people lined all up and down the streets. They stared at me too as I drove by in the cab. Why Do they have to stare with their scary faces?
Anyway. I begged the cab driver to wait for me to come out of the house. I could tell by his face he was thinking I was crazy. lol. I have never walked up and knocked on a door so afraid that after I went in I would never come out. Thankfully, it was all fine, but it made me scared of ever using craigslist to check out apartments ever again.
I can say that all of my years of living and partying in the major cities of Florida I never saw a neighborhood as scary as that.
Poor, ghetto white people tend to live in smaller towns and cities that transplants aren't flocking to. Poor ghetto blacks tend to live in large cities where lots of other people live. Consequently, black poverty is on display to a wider array of outsiders and it scares them. I guarantee, if you take a middle class black person and drop them off in a trailer park or a rough working class white neighborhood, they'd feel just as uncomfortable.
Poor, ghetto white people tend to live in smaller towns and cities that transplants aren't flocking to. Poor ghetto blacks tend to live in large cities where lots of other people live. Consequently, black poverty is on display to a wider array of outsiders and it scares them. I guarantee, if you take a middle class black person and drop them off in a trailer park or a rough working class white neighborhood, they'd feel just as uncomfortable.
I'm sorry, but that is nonsense. Poverty among whites even in the poorest of areas comes no where near what can be found in black ghettos across America. Violent crime, in poor rural white communities, is also almost non-existent (though other non-violent crime exists). Poor, rural, white America is also vanishing with each passing year because of the low numbers of kids being born, where black ghettos have some of the lowest median ages in the country and have crime prone youths running all about them.
I'm sorry, but that is nonsense. Poverty among whites even in the poorest of areas comes no where near what can be found in black ghettos across America. Violent crime, in poor rural white communities, is also almost non-existent (though other non-violent crime exists). Poor, rural, white America is also vanishing with each passing year because of the low numbers of kids being born, where black ghettos have some of the lowest median ages in the country and have crime prone youths running all about them.
Don't think it's about the presence of black people. Very few people are afraid of NYC or Washington or Atlanta and those are very black cities...the cities you mentioned are known for high crime rates, rampant drug abuse, poverty and when I hear "Cleveland" or "Baltimore" my mind conjures images of abandoned row houses on streets littered with dirty needles. I've never thought of philly as scary and the nasty part of Chicago is easy to avoid because it's centered on the South and West sides, but all the cool stuff is in the loop (downtown) and north side, you won't encounter ghetto in Chicago (at least not enough to warrant being scared of the whole city) unless you get off the wrong stop on the train or go actively looking. In Cleveland and Baltimore blight is endemic, widespread and unavoidable making it scary.
Like it or not, a lot of conservative white folk are made nervous by some of the more urban and younger black people, especially in these bigger cities.
Detroit, New Orleans, Memphis, and yes...much of Atlanta, all get a bad rap for being dangerous cities, and all have a high black population. Chicago's problems are blown way out of proportion, yes the murder rate is high, but the raw number of 500 only seems high because Chicago is the 3rd largest city in the country, the murder rate per capita is only a little bit above average.
I think that some of the more sheltered and less traveled people think of these cities as "scary" or crime ridden, because they are older cities, they are more dense, lots of tight living, more blight and decay showing on the buildings.
I'm sorry, but that is nonsense. Poverty among whites even in the poorest of areas comes no where near what can be found in black ghettos across America. Violent crime, in poor rural white communities, is also almost non-existent (though other non-violent crime exists). Poor, rural, white America is also vanishing with each passing year because of the low numbers of kids being born, where black ghettos have some of the lowest median ages in the country and have crime prone youths running all about them.
That's nonsense. Poverty is poverty, no matter how you slice it. How are poverty-stricken blacks any worse off than poverty-stricken whites? Neither have any money. That's just a stupid thing to say. I don't know about murder rates but a meth smoking hillbilly certainly isn't any better than an inner city, black crack smoker.
I'm sorry, but that is nonsense. Poverty among whites even in the poorest of areas comes no where near what can be found in black ghettos across America. Violent crime, in poor rural white communities, is also almost non-existent (though other non-violent crime exists). Poor, rural, white America is also vanishing with each passing year because of the low numbers of kids being born, where black ghettos have some of the lowest median ages in the country and have crime prone youths running all about them.
I do think that impoverished black inner-city communities experience more crime. Honestly, though, that's because they live in proximity to wealthier communities and surround amenities that cater to wealthier individuals. When you have a small hicktown in the middle of nowhere and everyone is poor, there aren't going to be any robberies or burglaries because there's nothing to steal, whereas someone from a poor inner-city community can walk over to the nearest gentrified hotspot and walk out with someone's TV. So it comes from their locations, not their race.
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