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Most of the cities some people call them scary doesn't look scary to me at all. They think all of those cities celebrate Halloween everyday. There are no ghosts in any city and no haunted houses too.
Each of those cities is at least 25% black, and all the sheltered, snotty people who derive a significant chunk of their self-worth from where they live think black people are scary.
Each of those cities is at least 25% black, and all the sheltered, snotty people who derive a significant chunk of their self-worth from where they live think black people are scary.
I think this is an overstatement, if not potentially insulting. But the reality is that cities like Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Baltimore place in plain view, blight, poverty, and inequality that while adding character to an area, does not leave a comfortable impression. Some cities like San Francisco and arguably, the DC, NY and Chicago of 2014, do a good job of hiding their inequality because the affected areas are further off from high-traffic touristy areas. Equally, in Philly and Baltimore the most seriously blighted areas are also hidden from tourists, but the "elements of blight," like graffiti (not murals), panhandlers, and trash are still plainly visible throughout. As humans do, we then impute the entire area with whatever overblown idea or explanation we can make, assuming that these cities are more dangerous, poor and crime-ridden than any others, even if it is not so true on the whole. $0.02
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.
It's a shame that so many wonderful, historic cities in America are filled with nasty people who have no respect for others or their neighborhood. American cities would probably be a lot more vibrant, a lot more dense, and a lot less sprawling if only certain ghetto folk living in our urban cores hadn't ruined things for everyone by causing crime and graffiti, which is a huge reason why so many people fled into the suburbs in the first place.
It's a shame that so many wonderful, historic cities in America are filled with nasty people who have no respect for others or their neighborhood. American cities would probably be a lot more vibrant, a lot more dense, and a lot less sprawling if only certain ghetto folk living in our urban cores hadn't ruined things for everyone by causing crime and graffiti, which is a huge reason why so many people fled into the suburbs in the first place.
It's easy to complain from our comfy houses in nice areas about that stuff but the reason that these cities/neighborhoods (which all happen to very black) are like this is because a generational cycle of anger, poverty and lack of education. Nowadays this translates itself in gang violence and drug abuse and anti social behavior. It's really the fault of white America because we started this cycle with slavery, Jim Crow etc....it's not that all black people act this way. Go to Britain and you'll see that black and ghetto aren't intertwined concepts and the black people there integrate into society just fine . But 100 or 200 years ago we Americans bestowed all this negativity into black people that has been passed down generationally and had led got things like....Englewood Chicago or the current state of the city of Detroit.
This is my observation, I haven't lived back in the states in years but I doubt the sociology has changed drastically in 5 years.
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.
I think Detroit, St.Louis, Memphis and New Orleans are more scary.
They're scary if you're in the wrong places. That's the case with most big cities with crime issues-they're only scary in the bad parts, and you usually shouldn't have any reason to go to those parts.
Now, on the other hand, there are smaller cities that have crime everywhere. I'm thinking Camden, Flint, East St. Louis, etc. Those kinds of places evoke fear. Like all places, there are certainly honest, good people living there, but they've been scared into hiding by the criminal element.
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