U really call Compton a ghetto? (Los Angeles, Orange: middle-class, real estate, apartments)

[Mach50]

Hey even the Chicago "ghetto" don't look that bad:

s oakley ave chicago il - Google Maps

Bronx:

2700 Marion Ave, Bronx, NY 10458 - Google Maps

Doesn't look that bad to me.

Newark:
Newark, NJ - Google Maps

Newark (yikes compare this to Compton)
Newark, NJ - Google Maps

[Mercedes-Benz]

Originally Posted by stolpioni

I was visiting LA a couple of months back..
All my life I've been hearing about "the worst ghetto in the US" called Compton in south central LA. I went there to check it out. I drived through alot of streets including the whole Compton Avenue and I just gotta ask if Compton has looked like this all the time or it has just gotten alot better over the last few years?

I mean, we have tons of hoods in SWEDEN (EU) that is far worse than Compton and the whole South Central, and many of them we don't even call ghettos.

Maybe it's because of a stereotype against black people. Those who are not black want to feel better about themselves so they make black people appear worse than they really are. The bias continues for ever and ever.

Compton back in the day used to be a middle class Caucasian neighborhood and they had factories of all sorts in and near the area. Slowly but surely the area changed when migrant workers from the South settled in to find work at these same factories including a Firestone tire factory. What then happened was that the economy went bad and the Firestone factory closed down causing many thousands of workers to become unemployed almost overnight. Compton continued on a downward trend until more recently. Slowly but surely things are starting to change in Compton. Will it ever be like before? Never. But at least they can still try to improve conditions as best they could.

[the one]

wish i could rep you.

this is true.

people forget (or dont know) that compton and inglewood were very nice "suburbs". filled with white people. then the 5o's, 60's and 70's changed that. the area was still nice, but by the time the crack 80's came, a lot of LA (and its surroundings) took a dive.

all in all, compton is not bad. it has its pockets of bad, but its not like other parts of LA, historic south central particularly. and it defintely does not compare to detroit or St. Louis.

just remember, looks can be deceiving.

Originally Posted by TheRealAngelion

It's all relative. By LA or Southern California standards, Compton would be the ghetto mostly due to the high crime rate and history of gang violence. However, based on aesthetics alone what's considered ghetto here might look more like a working/middle class neighborhood in comparison to the ghettos in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, and NYC, etc. Ghettos in East Coast and Midwest cities typically don't include single family homes with nicely manicured front lawns.

Appreciate your perspective. You wouldn't believe the number of silly Americans on this forum who claim LA looks third world. They have no idea what they are talking about because they haven't traveled out of the country in most cases and don't realize that even Europe has slums far worse than anything one would see in Southern California.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Mercedes-Benz

Compton back in the day used to be a middle class Caucasian neighborhood and they had factories of all sorts in and near the area.

A couple years ago, I posted a bunch of photos that illustrate this.

http://www.city-data.com/forum/2603690-post9.html

[Naomi Manischewitz]

I always considered it a ghetto area not by how it looks, but by the violence, gang activity, and the drug dealing that always goes down there. That being said though, it probably isn't as bad as it used to be since a lot of the riff raff types of LA, moved out to Antelope Valley and San Bernardino.

[pbergen]

Originally Posted by Mach50

Hey even the Chicago "ghetto" don't look that bad:

s oakley ave chicago il - Google Maps

Bronx:

2700 Marion Ave, Bronx, NY 10458 - Google Maps

Doesn't look that bad to me.

Newark:
Newark, NJ - Google Maps

Newark (yikes compare this to Compton)
Newark, NJ - Google Maps

there are far worse areas of the bronx than the address you listed. the bedford park neighborhood, where marion avenue is located, is considered a respectable area (certain streets more than others), especially in comparison to much of the rest of the borough. try looking through the south bronx, northeast brooklyn, the south jamaica section of queens, or parts of harlem in manhattan for some extremely rough hoods that have no aesthetic comparison in southern california.

i'm also confused by the google maps link to newark that you included. unless the link didn't work correctly for me, what i saw is the intersection of broad and market streets in the city's downtown. this is actually a pretty lively and relatively safe area during the day, with plenty of white collar workers, students, and professors walking around due to the proximity of several universities, government buildings, and the city's many office towers. try looking along springfield ave, especially in the western end of the city near irvington, for some truly decayed, scary-looking hoods.

getting back to the OP, i agree that compton doesn't have the outward appearance of blight that is typical of low income, high crime areas in the midwest and east coast. that was one of the things that shocked me the most when i first visited LA in the late '90s. because my initial visit was only a few years after all of the iconic dr. dre/snoop dogg/ice cube videos came out, i naively assumed that compton/south central would look like a total war zone, perhaps as bad as the bronx of the '70s/'80s/early '90s.

perhaps the scariest-looking hood i've seen in the greater LA area is certain sections of westlake, just west of downtown. it has plenty of older, grimier, poorly-maintained buildings and a generally disheveled look which is typical of slums in the eastern u.s.

parts of downtown can be pretty derelict-looking, too, especially in the areas that are heavily industrial and thus abandoned-looking at night. a buddy of mine once drove me and several other friends to a "gentleman's club" near the southeastern edge of downtown, and the route that he took (surface streets from ktown through westlake and southern downtown) passed through some scary areas that i would NOT want to walk through at night. i thought this area looked far more forbidding than anything i'd seen in compton/south central.

[2Easy]

I never use the term ghetto, but the reason that Compton looks nicer than some of the east coast and midwest cities is that it's newer and more suburban. Still it has as much poverty as those places. It has less non-violent crime, but as much or more violent crime. But even the violent crime as in much of the country is way down over the last decade.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by the one

wish i could rep you.

this is true.

people forget (or dont know) that compton and inglewood were very nice "suburbs". filled with white people. then the 5o's, 60's and 70's changed that. the area was still nice, but by the time the crack 80's came, a lot of LA (and its surroundings) took a dive.

all in all, compton is not bad. it has its pockets of bad, but its not like other parts of LA, historic south central particularly. and it defintely does not compare to detroit or St. Louis.

just remember, looks can be deceiving.

You are partially right, by the 60s Compton had started to go down hill, way down. Until the mid 50s it was a basic city, close to L.A. pretty much working class and middle class. Inglewood, on the other hand was actually pretty much middle class and upper middle class until the 70s. then it started downhill as well. There was a time (early 60s) hubby and I wished we could afford to buy in Inglewood, we could only afford Gardena. Then, as years went by we were glad we didn't buy there.

Nita

[LadyKLO]

I'm from Memphis,TN but I've been in southern California for 9 years now. Compton is beautiful compared to the projects of Memphis like Hurt Village, Walker Homes, LeMoyne Gardens and whatnot. It's about what happens at night that is the issue in many of these places. Driving through a city in the daytime in your locked car is one feeling but actually getting out of the car at night, walking down the street might put some things in perspective!

[Mach50]

Originally Posted by pbergen

there are far worse areas of the bronx than the address you listed. the bedford park neighborhood, where marion avenue is located, is considered a respectable area (certain streets more than others), especially in comparison to much of the rest of the borough. try looking through the south bronx, northeast brooklyn, the south jamaica section of queens, or parts of harlem in manhattan for some extremely rough hoods that have no aesthetic comparison in southern california.

i'm also confused by the google maps link to newark that you included. unless the link didn't work correctly for me, what i saw is the intersection of broad and market streets in the city's downtown. this is actually a pretty lively and relatively safe area during the day, with plenty of white collar workers, students, and professors walking around due to the proximity of several universities, government buildings, and the city's many office towers. try looking along springfield ave, especially in the western end of the city near irvington, for some truly decayed, scary-looking hoods.

getting back to the OP, i agree that compton doesn't have the outward appearance of blight that is typical of low income, high crime areas in the midwest and east coast. that was one of the things that shocked me the most when i first visited LA in the late '90s. because my initial visit was only a few years after all of the iconic dr. dre/snoop dogg/ice cube videos came out, i naively assumed that compton/south central would look like a total war zone, perhaps as bad as the bronx of the '70s/'80s/early '90s.

perhaps the scariest-looking hood i've seen in the greater LA area is certain sections of westlake, just west of downtown. it has plenty of older, grimier, poorly-maintained buildings and a generally disheveled look which is typical of slums in the eastern u.s.

parts of downtown can be pretty derelict-looking, too, especially in the areas that are heavily industrial and thus abandoned-looking at night. a buddy of mine once drove me and several other friends to a "gentleman's club" near the southeastern edge of downtown, and the route that he took (surface streets from ktown through westlake and southern downtown) passed through some scary areas that i would NOT want to walk through at night. i thought this area looked far more forbidding than anything i'd seen in compton/south central.

It was my point in include areas that aren't that bad, people tend to generalize an entire area (Bronx, South Chicago, Newark) as being bad, but they actually can look (and be) pretty nice.

The last link of Newark I found on some "Top 10 scariest streetviews", maybe it didn't map correctly for you.