Places to stay away from in South Philly (Philadelphia, Washington: middle-class, section 8)

[Dutiespunx77]

Moving there in a few months, wondering what are some areas in South Philly to stay away from

[GMonkey]

South Philly is a very dynamic area right now. Very generally speaking, East of Broad is considered to be more desirable. Really, so many places are getting better and better, though. Unfortunately, you can't judge S. Philly by the amt of litter on the streets, as even many of the nice areas have garbage on the streets. Actually, there were community service people out cleaning up Passyunk today, so maybe the garbage will subside.

[solibs]

It really depends on you and where you're coming from and what sort of place you're used to living in. Moving to Philly from another city will be tough enough. Moving straight to South Philly is jumping straight into the fire!

The bad parts of SP are small and shrinking. The area east of Broad that has problems runs between 4th & 7th Streets from Tasker down to Oregon. 5th & 6th are the rough spots and it spills over from there. It's improving rapidly on the northern end but I would still avoid it at night anywhere along 5th & 6th from Christian all the way down. The rough parts also spread to 8th St. as you go south.

West of Broad the area between 18th & 25th and between Wharton & Snyder is generally pretty rough. The northern end (Ellsworth & Federal Streets) are changing quickly as all of the scaffolding and dumpsters testify to. Things are also changing quickly along 15th & 16th Streets and all the little streets in between. 17th & 18th are best near Washington or Snyder but can get dicey towards the middle.

Anyway, if you live a typical middle-class life (and stay away from drugs and the drug trade) it will be pretty easy to avoid most of the problems in this city. You just have to be careful at night and not walk home, alone, drunk at 2am on Saturday, down the side streets with your headphones on, oblivious to the world around you, with cash hanging out of your pocket, while texting on your new iphone.

Anyway, the best parts of SP more or less follow Passyunk Ave. South of Snyder Ave. the nicer part is south of Passyunk Ave. North of Snyder the nicer part is west of Passyunk Ave.

And if you want the insider trick to judging good from bad to in-between neighborhood is to go on google maps and the neighborhoods with the most silver/gray rooftops are the wealthier, more stable neighborhoods. The neighborhoods that have none are the poorest. Having your roof silver-coated is part of the regular maintenance of a rubber roof. Lots of black roofs are a sign that the houses still have tar or cinder roofs. Just keep in mind that many of the photos on google are two years old. A lot has changed since then.

[GMonkey]

Interesting tidbit regarding roof color, solibs!

[loose cannon]

Washington Avenue always looked rough. The neighborhood by the old ECW Arena on 2nd and Ritner was hit or miss. Some nearby blocks looked ok others looked rough. We would walk around there all the time in the 90's before bell time. It was not really a smart thing to do.

[solibs]

Originally Posted by GMonkey

Interesting tidbit regarding roof color, solibs!

i should add though that it's only accurate for rowhouse neighborhoods.

It doesn't really work in West Philly where you have varied housing styles and where many of the twins have hip roofs that are shingled.

[MrPointy]

Also have a look at (for homicide data):
The Philadelphia Inquirer

and (for crimes in 30 day windows)
Search Crime

[solibs]

Also from Inqy and perhaps a little more useful.

Philadelphia Homicides | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/20/2008

The murder rate in the city as a whole is about 22 per 100,000. For non-hispanic whites it's 6.3 per 100,000.

I'm not trying to make a racial thing of it, I'm just saying that if you're judging your personal safety on murder stats, unless your poor and black and you're moving to a poor, black neighborhood I wouldn't worry much about it.

If you're white or mexican you don't have much more to worry about here than if you were in any other big city.

[MrPointy]

Originally Posted by solibs

, unless your poor and black and you're moving to a poor, black neighborhood I wouldn't worry much about it.

.

I would think the "and" should be "or"
I dont expect criminals to not shoot someone just cuz he/she is not black.

[solibs]

Originally Posted by MrPointy

I would think the "and" should be "or"
I dont expect criminals to not shoot someone just cuz he/she is not black.

First, there aren't career criminals who walk around looking for random people to shoot. 90% of murder victims know the perp. In most of those cases in Philly the victim and assailant both have criminal records. If you hang out with people who settle disputes through violence chances are you're going to be a victim at one point or another. IIRC there were about 12 stranger murders in Philly in the last year. That's actually below the national average.

My second apartment in Philly was in a poor, black neighborhood. 18th & Carpenter in 2002 - not a nice place back then and not really all that now, either. Sometimes I heard gunshots at night. There were a lot of fights on my block, drunken or otherwise, always over stupid stuff and someone invariably picked up a chair or some other blunt object and either hit or threatened to hit the target of their aggression. By the time I left everyone recognized me but no one ever said much more to me than "how you doin' today?" I never tried to ingratiate myself with them because I knew they were trouble. I'm not going to invite them over for beers because I know how it will end. Me being a young white guy they had little interest themselves in getting to know me and there were no accusations of me "being a snob" or "acting all bourgie" . . . which would've been a problem if I were black.

When I lived east of Broad in the so-called "nice neighborhood" that was mostly Italian/Vietnamese with a few mexicans I had a poor, black family living two doors down. They were section 8. They weren't loud or rowdy, they kept to themselves, went to school/work. They didn't bother anyone in the neighborhood, no one bothered them. They seemed to be upwardly mobile and will eventually get on their feet.

Now I live west of Broad again, this time in a mostly blue collar, mostly asian neighborhood, there are an equal number of black households and white households but we're both minorities here. Around the corner is a section 8 house, a black family, that invites trouble over on a regular basis. They'll be gone soon and the trouble will follow them. They fight with each other. Not with anyone else. If their neighbors were more like them I could see them fighting with the neighbors.

My point is that the vast majority of violence in the city has very little to do with where you live and almost everything to do with your socio-economic status and your desire to avoid it. I'm assuming that someone posting on this site is looking to avoid trouble regardless of their color or economic situation. There's a strong correlation between violence and geography because poor people cluster together but it's not causality. If you're poor trouble will probably be looking for you. It doesn't mean you can't avoid it. If you're middle-class you might bump into trouble but it isn't looking for you and if you keep an eye out you can usually spot it before it spots you. But regardless of who you are if you see trouble and you call it out it's going to come right over and get in your face.