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Chicago,
Detroit?
Gary, IN
Cleveland and parts of St Louis are kind of ratty.
parts of Norleans are horrid.
Dayton, OH could be codified as a suburban ghetto of sorts.
There are quite many Dayton's out there waiting to blow.
Hurricanes have been working on Louisiana and East Texas.
Gary and STL top my list, although Detroit is up there too. I haven’t really stopped in Baltimore but for once, and the neighborhoods I passed through, though obviously struggling and poor, weren’t filled with uninhabitable shells or brown fields from cleared houses. Chicago similarly has some questionable neighborhoods, but it’s rare to see anything close to Gary/STL levels of sadness. STL kind of hurts as I always loved its brick architectural vernacular. Truck stops just on the other side of the freeway from north side residential areas had regular reports of gunfire on TruckerPath, though who knows how regular gunfire actually was. Places I thought would be much more like the worst of the worst, and aren’t, include a whole host of rust belt cities from Toledo through Rochester.
Camden overall as a city is more continuously "ghetto", with far far fewer safe and polished neighborhoods than Philadelphia. However, when comparing Camden's roughest/worst looking "ghetto's" and 'hoods" to Philadelphia's, Philly wins that by a mile.
Harvey IL: 60-80% of the city is beat up and many of the street lights are non-functioning, but the worst is what was known as "The Village", the area from Loomis to Center Ave and 151st-158th St. and pockets of the west portion of town. This suburb has been through somethings almost like no other: gang infiltration and white flight in the 60s-80s, de-industrialization, crack epidemic leading to homicide violent crime rates unusual for 99% of suburban Chicago(Gary doesn't really count) in the 90s, and the war on drugs leading to many house raids and evictions that plays a part in some of the high vacancy. Also, political corruption.
Harvey IL: 60-80% of the city is beat up and many of the street lights are non-functioning, but the worst is what was known as "The Village", the area from Loomis to Center Ave and 151st-158th St. and pockets of the west portion of town. This suburb has been through somethings almost like no other: gang infiltration and white flight in the 60s-80s, de-industrialization, crack epidemic leading to homicide violent crime rates unusual for 99% of suburban Chicago(Gary doesn't really count) in the 90s, and the war on drugs leading to many house raids and evictions that plays a part in some of the high vacancy. Also, political corruption.
I remember seeing a really bombed out block of East Cleveland OH. The city has fewer than half of its peak population.
I actually didn't know that Harvey was that blighted - I've driven around the east side of town (over around 159th & Halsted) a couple of times and it seemed alright, so I figured the reputation was overblown, but the pictures you showed of West Harvey are just depressing. Do you figure those blocks are going to continue to sit there and rot, or will they be demolished en masse a la East Chicago Heights? I'm also keeping track of the Amazon warehouse being developed just across the border in Markham. Hopefully that can at least boost local employment, if not revitalize the immediate neighborhood.
Speaking of Chicago Heights, what a weird place! It's crazy how regimented it is for a relatively small city of 30,000 people.
Camden Nj is still definately a "ghetto" "hood".. 2019 violent crime rate still very high at 1,582 per 100k, 34 homicides/ 100k.... still the hood, far from some Mayberry town.
Camden's worst ghetto's still can't compare to Philly's roughest and ugliest hoods/ghettos. I grew up right off of Waldorf.
I agree. Others have stated the difference. Camden is a much much smaller city. The amount of pure blight is not really that comparable. I am pretty sure in 2015, new removal programs also were created to remove empty properties.
personally, I find the architecture of a lot of the rough areas of North/West Philadelphia to be very fascinating albeit in bad shape. Makes me wish I could see what things were like more in their heyday.
I am unsure of how many cities could serve as a backdrop for a black cowboy movie set in contemporary times and it still make sense and be believable lol..
No infrastructure, no history, no architectural value, etc.
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