Is Pico Rivera ghetto (South Gate, Whittier: middle-class, houses, neighborhoods)

[traveler guy]

Do you think Pico Rivera and Southgate are rough or nice areas. Let me know what you think.

[Chowhound]

Originally Posted by traveler guy

Do you think Pico Rivera and Southgate are rough or nice areas. Let me know what you think.

Major ghetto IMO, but I guess that could be subjective.

[EscapeCalifornia]

South Gate is definitely a HOLE. Pico might be a small step up but still a place most people wouldn't want to live.

[traveler guy]

I was just wondering cause I stayed there with a friend for the summer and he showed me his"hood" of southgate and pico rivera and said talked about how bad it was there but when I was there it looked safe to me at least safe compared to some areas I've seen around Texas/DC/Biloxi which were just plain ghetto.

[Slauson Rosecranz]

South Gate is worse than Pico Rivera, but ultimately, there are nicer suburbs than those two.

Whittier is right next to Pico, it's pretty nice, for the most part.

[katenik]

Originally Posted by traveler guy

I was just wondering cause I stayed there with a friend for the summer and he showed me his"hood" of southgate and pico rivera and said talked about how bad it was there but when I was there it looked safe to me at least safe compared to some areas I've seen around Texas/DC/Biloxi which were just plain ghetto.

i don't know pico rivera except by reputation (not a good one), but you should bear in mind that undesirable parts of the greater LA area do not necessarily announce themselves as such at first glance. LA's brand of urban blight is a much more subtle animal than one finds in other parts of the country. instead of rows boarded up tenements or row houses and downright filthy streets, we have tree-lined avenues with older (but seemingly livable) single family homes on small lots with their own front lawns. you could drive through one of these neighborhoods on a rainy day and the only indications you'd have that you were in the 'hood are the burglar bars on the windows, the nature of the commercial establishments on the boulevards surrounding the residential tracts, and the grafitti scrawled thereon. LA's 'hoods tend to look like the neighborhoods of the working class, rather than the under-class, and you have to get a little closer to see what lurks beneath the facade.

bottom line: if someone who knows an area tells you that it is dangerous, despite appearances, trust him.

[traveler guy]

I know that but, I was there for half of June and all of July and for the most part it was a area that I would consider nice. I did notice the burglar bars but it wasn't bad at all.
Why is that the city is all nice in the way the planned all these streets with palm trees and stuff. If you go anywhere in the south and even the nicest suburbs don't look as nice as LA.

Don't get me wrong there were some real rough areas around the city but I think that some people overdo it when the say how rough the city is.

[NYSD1995]

Originally Posted by traveler guy

I know that but, I was there for half of June and all of July and for the most part it was a area that I would consider nice. I did notice the burglar bars but it wasn't bad at all.
Why is that the city is all nice in the way the planned all these streets with palm trees and stuff. If you go anywhere in the south and even the nicest suburbs don't look as nice as LA.

Don't get me wrong there were some real rough areas around the city but I think that some people overdo it when the say how rough the city is.

That's just how LA is. It was once almost all nice. Lots of those bad areas were middle-class in the 50's. The south is different. Lots of those poor areas have always been poor, since before the civil war.

[katenik]

Originally Posted by traveler guy

I know that but, I was there for half of June and all of July and for the most part it was a area that I would consider nice. I did notice the burglar bars but it wasn't bad at all.
Why is that the city is all nice in the way the planned all these streets with palm trees and stuff. If you go anywhere in the south and even the nicest suburbs don't look as nice as LA.

Don't get me wrong there were some real rough areas around the city but I think that some people overdo it when the say how rough the city is.

"nice" is relative, obviously, but neighborhoods do change in character over time. some of LA's most notorious areas were once middle class and exclusively white. a lot of LA's older housing stock is post-war vintage. these are not places that were built as housing projects to cage the poor; they were built for returning GI's and their families. as the demographics changed, no one uprooted the palm trees or tore up the paved sidewalks. that's why they can still look "nice".

also, as a population center, LA is a relatively new city, so we don't have neighborhoods that have been poor for over a hundred years. older cities have places where they have herded the immigrant poor and otherwise downtrodden for generations. unless and until gentrification takes hold, those neighborhoods will continue to be neglected, and they will look like exactly what they are. LA hasn't caught up yet, and probably won't, since we tend to tear down any structure that's more than 70 years old.

[traveler guy]

yeah that's true I was just wondering why the area was so nice but that clarifies it so thanks for that answer.