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Street view is a camera on top of a car. It's not selective and it doesn't airbrush.
There's nothing wrong with rentals, and if it has a "rental vibe", that's the fault of the landlord responsible for the upkeep, not the tenants.
But whatever, a rental vibe doesn't make me roll up my windows and lock my doors in terror, as you suggested we should do.
Street view very well does air brush pedestrians, it's a known fact. It also doesn't show detail very well; like that chipping paint, trash floating around yards and the street, those Colt45 bottles left on the porch from the previous night...
Or maybe that 737 that decided to land in the driveway...
I don't care whose fault it is, that doesn't make it any less of a sh#$hole.
And this conversation had turned into the various urban parts of RI, when did I say anything about rolling up your windows in terror!!?
Get a grip.
Last edited by CaseyB; 04-25-2014 at 04:20 AM..
Reason: rude/off topic
It was definitely an insult. If I told you that you couldn't possibly recognize white trash because you were so used to being surrounded by it in Seekonk, you would take that as an insult. There's no other way to take it.
It doesn't matter whether the top photo is decades old or from yesterday. It's an illustration of a ghetto. That's what a ghetto looks like. Not Gansett Ave.
Street view is a camera on top of a car. It's not selective and it doesn't airbrush.
There's nothing wrong with rentals, and if it has a "rental vibe", that's the fault of the landlord responsible for the upkeep, not the tenants.
But whatever, a rental vibe doesn't make me roll up my windows and lock my doors in terror, as you suggested we should do.
It's difficult to tell whether you have inflated standards since you won't define them. When I hear ghetto, I think of where the Nazis confined the Jews, or parts of the Bronx or Detroit, places of extreme deprivation and misery. Slumdog Millionaire. I think of this:
NOT this:
I mostly agree with sandsonik in this thread and think that the terms "slum" and "ghetto" are being used to apply to way more of the Providence area than is warranted.
That said, be careful judging from neighborhood appearances, too. My parents home is a late 1960s suburban neighborhood on the west coast, traditional "brady bunch" split and raised ranch homes. Upper middle class when built, think Dean / Garden HIlls.
In the last 20 years, that west coast city has been a hotbed of inner city gentrification, such that the poor have largely been displaced to the inner suburbs. Inner city areas that in 1990 were 80% minority and poor with homes all under $50,000 are now 80% white, professional, with those same houses rehabed and going for half a million and up.
Meainwhile my parents neighborhood still *looks* like upper middle class suburbia: good size ranch homes on wide sweeping streets, and most still in good exterior shape. But inside those homes, income is now below average for the metro area, the % of rentals is high, several cases of houses converted to weed or meth production on the inside, property crime is becoming a major problem, and the elementary school has gone from a snob reputation to one of the poorest 10% of the city. It's not drive-by bad, and its certainly nicer than the cheap apartment complexes in other parts of the inner suburb ring, but it's not "good". You'd never think it just driving through.
I mostly agree with sandsonik in this thread and think that the terms "slum" and "ghetto" are being used to apply to way more of the Providence area than is warranted.
That said, be careful judging from neighborhood appearances, too. My parents home is a late 1960s suburban neighborhood on the west coast, traditional "brady bunch" split and raised ranch homes. Upper middle class when built, think Dean / Garden HIlls.
In the last 20 years, that west coast city has been a hotbed of inner city gentrification, such that the poor have largely been displaced to the inner suburbs. Inner city areas that in 1990 were 80% minority and poor with homes all under $50,000 are now 80% white, professional, with those same houses rehabed and going for half a million and up.
Meainwhile my parents neighborhood still *looks* like upper middle class suburbia: good size ranch homes on wide sweeping streets, and most still in good exterior shape. But inside those homes, income is now below average for the metro area, the % of rentals is high, several cases of houses converted to weed or meth production on the inside, property crime is becoming a major problem, and the elementary school has gone from a snob reputation to one of the poorest 10% of the city. It's not drive-by bad, and its certainly nicer than the cheap apartment complexes in other parts of the inner suburb ring, but it's not "good". You'd never think it just driving through.
Agreed. Many people still look at Federal Hill in Providence as a "slum" while that was true 50 years ago it couldnt be farther from it today with all of the great restaurants in the area. Probably the most interesting section of Providence in my opinion.
Street view very well does air brush pedestrians, it's a known fact. It also doesn't show detail very well; like that chipping paint, trash floating around yards and the street, those Colt45 bottles left on the porch from the previous night...
Or maybe that 737 that decided to land in the driveway...
I don't care whose fault it is, that doesn't make it any less of a sh#$hole.
And this conversation had turned into the various urban parts of RI, when did I say anything about rolling up your windows in terror!!?
Get a grip.
Excuse me, when did I sign up to take orders from you?
Maybe you talk to your wife like that, but you won't talk to me like that.
I don't get to tell you to shut up, you don't get to tell me to get a grip. It's a public forum; be civil.
To re-cap, you said "Gansett Ave is ghetto. " Several people disagreed with you, then another poster agreed with you, saying "Take a drive through, make sure your windows are up and your doors are locked." So, you're right, it wasn't you who suggested we should be scared - though you didn't counter the notion, and you did continue to insist it was a ghetto, with all the scariness that implies.
By the way, Google doesn't airbrush. They blur license plates and faces. They're not otherwise touching up neighborhoods, though they have colored out some sensitive government buildings, at the government's request. You can't see Dick Cheney's or the roof of the White House, for example.
Except that it's too bad that neither of you do ... Both William Blackstone and Roger Williams were Puritans who left MA to live in what is now RI. Sorry to once again have to inject facts into your RI "bubble."
Look up in the sky! Is it a bird? A plane? No, it's Holly's joke sailing high, high over your head!
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