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If you'd like to see for yourself that is fine. But don't ask if it would be dangerous to do so. As stated, it is very rare that anyone gets assaulted while they are driving in their cars. And there is no neighborhood in Atlanta IMO that anyone should not feel safe driving through.
As stated earlier, I am a female and as such I am cautious about walking around after the sun goes down in any neighborhood. I think people too often feel safe or unsafe based on a reputation of an area whereas, it is always good to be cautious of one's surrounding no matter how good or bad an area is.
Also, I think it important to not buy into the perception of an area based on someone else's input on via the media so I do think it is good to go out and experience neighborhoods where you don't usually travel. But if you make up your mind to do it, you should just do it and not be afraid. If you are afraid, then you don't need to go IMO and the fear factor is what made me think that one would like to go poor gawking at people.
In regards to the bold, I'd also think there was a poor and racial component to those comments. I've never been to LA (don't want to go) or Compton but I know people from Compton and they also say it is nothing like what the media portrays it to be.
In regards to the "south side" of Chicago, my husband is from Chicago so I go often. He grew up on the south side. The stuff you hear in the news is ridiculous IMO in regards to the "south side." The "Southside of Chicago" is a majority of the city of Chicago and includes many middle and upper income neighborhoods (it would probably take you 30-60 minutes to drive through the southside depending on traffic). The majority of the neighborhoods in the south side of Chicago look better than higher income neighborhoods (even ones that are considered "poor" look very nice) in Atlanta so you would probably be disappointed in not seeing anything you may think you will see there.
I've only been to the Westside once, but it wasn't bad either. Chicago gets a bad rap. It is never a top 10 crime city but you would think it was the most criminally prone city in the country due to the mostly conservative media focus on every violent crime that occurs there.
1000x agree with this!
Especially the bolded.
This should be reposted on every thread about crime in City of Atlanta, and crime in Chicago.
The answer to the original question is yes. That should go a long way to showing you the truth about these areas. Also, there are some nice old houses in English Avenue.
Or Downtown after 6 PM. Its just you, the homeless and the tumbleweed. It is a truly depressing sight.
Perhaps you would be happier in Montana or Wyoming. Less 'stuff' that seems to offend your sensibilities to put up with...
Less people that don't look like you, and no urine smell on public transportation. I'm convinced it would help with your bitterness towards the world around you.
Perhaps you would be happier in Montana or Wyoming. Less 'stuff' that seems to offend your sensibilities to put up with...
Less people that don't look like you, and no urine smell on public transportation. I'm convinced it would help with your bitterness towards the world around you.
Then he would complain about the coyotes and snow.
I remember a while ago, you posting a similar thread whereas you drove through the neighborhood.
Pray tell, how many people jumped on your car and tried to attack you in the bluff. How do you know that there was a house that was "shot up" in the neighborhood.
As stated, I lived in the neighborhood for 7 years. I saw a lot of abandoned and burned out houses, but none that were "shot up." There are heroine addicts in the neighborhood but the majority of people who live in the area are not addicts and are either renters or long term owner occupants.
It is pretty sad IMO how scary and prejudicial Americans are when it comes to the poor and especially to black poor people.
There are many people who drive through Vine City and English Avenue every day and nothing happens to them. You are more dangerous driving on Spaghetti Juntion or on various freeways in Atlanta where there is a high chance you will be killed or maimed in a car crash.
i thought my comment was pretty fair. i said it was unlikely you'd get hurt, but people are going to try to sell you drugs if you look like you don't live in the neighbourhood. ashby, simpson, bankhead, northside, those are perfectly safe streets to drive down; but when you get up in the middle where the streets get tiny, around the corner of north and chestnut, i have had people step out in front of the car and try to stop me.
if you look at the homicide stats, essentially nobody is getting killed except for people who get involved in a drug or weapons deal gone bad, so it would be a pretty large level of hyperbole to say you're likely to die just driving through. but you WILL have people try and flag you down and be jumping out in front of the car and whatnot. "shot out houses" doesn't literally mean they have bulletholes across the front, and if you find a place like that it's probably the APD's doing. i just meant that the windows are knocked out, doors are gone, totally abandoned homes.
the poor and black get a **** deal in this country and i know that; but you've got to be straightforward about these sorts of things. while there are a lot of good people trying to make it by (including some junkies and drug dealers who just ended up in the wrong place in life), anytime you have an black market for drugs and weapons operating in your neighbourhood, it makes it a more dangerous place to live; that's just a fact. the bluff is one of the few places in the nation that is a major hub for hard drugs like heroin. there are plenty of poor black neighbourhoods all around atlanta that don't meet that description, so don't conflate this with race.
i thought my comment was pretty fair. i said it was unlikely you'd get hurt, but people are going to try to sell you drugs if you look like you don't live in the neighbourhood. ashby, simpson, bankhead, northside, those are perfectly safe streets to drive down; but when you get up in the middle where the streets get tiny, around the corner of north and chestnut, i have had people step out in front of the car and try to stop me.
if you look at the homicide stats, essentially nobody is getting killed except for people who get involved in a drug or weapons deal gone bad, so it would be a pretty large level of hyperbole to say you're likely to die just driving through. but you WILL have people try and flag you down and be jumping out in front of the car and whatnot. "shot out houses" doesn't literally mean they have bulletholes across the front, and if you find a place like that it's probably the APD's doing. i just meant that the windows are knocked out, doors are gone, totally abandoned homes.
the poor and black get a **** deal in this country and i know that; but you've got to be straightforward about these sorts of things. while there are a lot of good people trying to make it by (including some junkies and drug dealers who just ended up in the wrong place in life), anytime you have an black market for drugs and weapons operating in your neighbourhood, it makes it a more dangerous place to live; that's just a fact. the bluff is one of the few places in the nation that is a major hub for hard drugs like heroin. there are plenty of poor black neighbourhoods all around atlanta that don't meet that description, so don't conflate this with race.
So someone stepped in front of your car and that means they tried to sell you drugs?
Every time I drive in Atlanta and people are standing on corners, including downtown and the light turns these people (idiots IMO) step in front of my car like the light didn't just turn. If I stop at a stop sign, people walk in front of the car as well. It happens all over Atlanta.
Stepping in front of a car doesn't mean someone is trying to sell you drugs. It means they are an inconsiderate, dumb pedestrian.
Did anyone flag you down? Or did they just look at you? I have had people look at me as well driving through every neighborhood in Atlanta. I didn't think they were trying to flag me down or sell me drugs.
And you are the one who said there were "shot out houses" as I red/bolded above. There is blight, which means there are abandoned houses. Due to CoA not having an active code enforcement policy whereas they go out and board up abandoned houses, you see a lot of blight in English Avenue and in the Bankhead neighborhood and on the fringes of Washington Park. Blight doesn't mean a house it "shot out." And blight is all over metro Atlanta.
I did not bring race into the mix in regards to indicating that you have a problem with race. My point was, why are you so fascinated with poor black neighborhoods. I don't see posts in regards to driving out to the exurban areas to look at poor whites. The point was that you all are buying into a media perception that is not true. And I do remember you speaking of how you drove through the neighborhood. I don't remember you saying anyone tried to sell you drugs or flagged you down.
As stated, I lived in the neighborhood for many years and never had anyone flag me down to offer to sell me drugs. If you are walking around, you may be asked. My husband was asked if he sold drugs by a white guy once when he walked to the store, he was with an elderly neighbor outside near our house. Drug dealers don't have to flag anyone down. Anyone who live in a neighborhood with drug activity or who grew up in "the hood" know this. People go over drug dealer's houses/apartments. They have regular customers. Their customers tell people where they live or what locations they sell out of. You would be hard pressed to have anyone flag you down to sell drugs in any neighborhood. But you would have people like you, mostly white people, who come to English Avenue in particular due to the "reputation" and who approach black people standing on corners, especially black males (and even old looking black males like our neighbor who is in his 60s and my husband in his 40s) and ask them if they sell drugs because that perception is that all black men in the neighborhood sell drugs. This was why as a neighborhood, we asked police to stop and question the non-resident white people. Most of them come in the neighborhood due to the perception of drug activity looking to buy drugs.
And FWIW, there are a lot of drug houses in suburbia. You just don't know they are. I have seen many a story on the news in Atlanta regarding suburban meth houses in particular. So every neighborhood is dangerous in a way. If you are looking for or selling drugs then you will be in greater danger. If not, you aren't in any as they don't care about you.
But as stated before, if you drive through "the bluff" (which is inclusive of both Vine City and English Avenue and has no particular boundaries), you will not be approached by "Snow" and no one will flag you down to sell you drugs or shoot at you. We don't live in a sensationalized ghetto movie. But people probably will look at you and inconsiderate people will step out in front of you because they are just idiotic like that (FWIW, when people did that I revved my engine and started driving, they jumped back on the curb, as stated in my first post, I don't fear people when I'm in my car, I can run them over. I have been called a b rhymes with witch many a times at Lowery and Boone in particular when people do this but they were not trying to sell me drugs, they were just being inconsiderate a-holes who need to learn how to follow pedestrian rules/laws).
ETA: I think I have been pretty straight forward. As stated in a previous comment, people will believe your view of a neighborhood I live in over mine because your's is more sexy and sensationalized. I know for a fact that 99% of the time, anyone driving through "the bluff" will have nothing happen to them. I went to school at the AUC back when West End and its neighboring communities were much worse neighborhoods. I saw prostitutes (male and female and transsexual). I saw drug addicts. I even walked around at night with friends back when I was more fearless than I am now and when crime was much worse in Atlanta (this was the late 1990s). I have driven through every ghetto community and every public housing location in Atlanta and have never been approached to buy drugs in the past 10 years. I have never had my car flagged down by anyone in the past 10 years. I have more experience in this arena than you and due to that, I am VERY straight forward about the sensationalization that people attempt to place on specific communities and neighborhoods. I do this in an effort to get people to think outside of a media induced panic about groups of people. And FWIW, I would think that since you did drive through the neighborhood and nothing happened to you or your passengers, that you would not continue to try to make people cautious or afraid of driving through themselves. I thought the point was to see and "experience" yourself. Since you are still alive and if no one jumped on your car or yelled at you trying to sell you drugs and all you "experienced" was blight and people walking across the street and/o standing around, then that is indicative of the fact that the neighborhood isn't as dangerous as you think.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 10-07-2015 at 10:20 AM..
Perhaps you would be happier in Montana or Wyoming. Less 'stuff' that seems to offend your sensibilities to put up with...
Less people that don't look like you, and no urine smell on public transportation. I'm convinced it would help with your bitterness towards the world around you.
So someone stepped in front of your car and that means they tried to sell you drugs?
Did anyone flag you down?
yes!! that's what i'm saying! i have driven up in that neighbourhood 4 times over the past couple of years, and three of those times i drove in there either an individual or a group stepped out in front of the car, waved their hands and started yelling at me to pull over. i feel like you're putting words in my mouth and judging me; you have no idea who i am in real life and what i stand for, and you're kind of tossing me in with a bunch of other posters who said pretty damn racist things that i don't tolerate or agree with.
mind you, i am not scared of atlanta. i have walked all over west end, college park, east point, adair park, capitol view, washington heights, vine city, east lake, belvedere, edgewood, kirkwood, south downtown, and under the viaducts where homeless people live, and i have never encountered a problem or been mugged or anything, knock on wood. but everytime i go even driving inside that ashby-bankhead-simpson-northside rectangle, trouble comes out.
maybe they didn't try to sell to you because they knew you were an employed woman who lived in the neighbourhood and clearly didn't have any interest in that; i don't know, but this is a pretty common occurrence and denying that there's a serious heroin problem in the bluff is delusional.
I did not bring race into the mix in regards to indicating that you have a problem with race. My point was, why are you so fascinated with poor black neighborhoods. I don't see posts in regards to driving out to the exurban areas to look at poor whites.
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