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Right! South San Fran is the rough side of San Fran. Although, you keep further south and it gets really nice in Menlo Park and Redwood City... Still, South San Fran is rough.
Nah man... Can't deny little cousin across the Del! They are still Philly metro, out of state or not...
Just like St. Louis can't disown East St. Louis, Chicago can't disown Gary and Kansas City can't disown Kansas City...
But that's all beside the point. You say in Philly, Southside is the more affluent area?
So, so far, Philly and Minneapolis are 2 cities where the Southside is more affluent. But generally (Philly's past included) most cities claim South side as the bad side... Anyone have insight into WHY the South side is usually the rough side???
No, he was talking about the southern part of San Francisco, proper. Neighborhoods in the southern half of SF are just as rough as anywhere in the worst blocks of East Oakland, or any inner city in America, in terms of ghettoization, poverty, pollution, crime and violence. And its not just southeast SF that can be bad, the whole southern half of SF is markedly poorer, spottier and more dangerous than the wealthy northern half of SF. Most of SF's black population and worst projects are in the southern half of the city. I'm from a neighborhood in the southwestern fringe of San Francisco known as Oceanview. Historically, Oceanview can be just as bad as Sunnydale or Hunter's Point. Just a year ago, local Oceanview residents were begging for the police substation on Broad Street to be reopened because there had been nine homicides in the neighborhood that year in 2012. That accounts for a huge percentage of the homicides for the entire city of San Francisco in a relatively tiny area. But the police refused to re-open the substation unless it was encased in bulletproof glass.
Okay okay okay... That's enough with the EPA bashing... Goodness...
I really had NO idea it was ever THAT bad. I didn't even know other people looked at EPA as being that bad... It felt a whole lot better to me than the other places I had lived prior.
And for the record, I was only there for a short time in my youth. My "official" hometown is still Atlanta... Let's not mistake that.
A lot of California hoods are like that. Especially EPA which boasts the Compton/East Oakland-esque detached split level single family homes with front yards and palm trees. Its really deceiving. In many California ghettos, you have to actually hang around the streets long enough to know how bad it is and learn the hard way like Ricky in Boyz 'n the Hood. I live outside of Baltimore now and you easily can tell that a neighborhood is messed up because every other house is filthy and or boarded up, tons of people are loitering everywhere all hours of the day and night and there are huge flashing blue police lights above every other street sign. But ironically, pretty Cali hoods can be just as bad. In some ways, Cali hoods are worse because of California's trademark inner city street crime like drive by shootings and gang banging.
If Lakeview were an independent city instead of a small black majority neighborhood in southwestern San Francisco, Lakeview would also be a top contender for murder capital status in the early 90's as well. Dudes from Lakeview and EPA always got along and rappers from both areas always collaborated on the music tip. I never knew Lakeview was that bad growing up either since the streets were pretty dead most of the time. I had a happy normal childhood and never lived in fear. A lot of times, it just looked like people were partying and having a good time outside of the liquor stores on Randolph Street. People looking like extras from N.W.A. videos. I just knew that no one in family under any circumstances ever walked a few feet down the hill onto the infamous Randolph Street, ever. In retrospect, the whole neighborhood was unwalkable for average people. I didn't realize people stayed inside their homes there in the late 80's and early 90's because they justifiably feared for their lives.
Brazil and Chile are doing better than Zimbabwe or Jamaica though.
And one is landlocked in the poorest region in the world.
The other is a small island with few resources and was mainly used as a place for slaves to farm sugar crops, which are no longer as marketable as they were.
Brazil on the other hand is a huge territory ripe with resources and the descendents of Europeans with some measurable wealth, even if it is from one of the weaker European countries. However, it is positioned further from the old economic power from Europe and never got the investment countries like Britain aggressively put into their large colonies.
Even though there is a good amount of affluence in South Miami (places like Coral Gables, Kendall, Pinecrest, etc.), there is still a good amount of poorer areas. Especially in the southern areas close to the airport.
Yeah, there are poor areas in South-Dade. Like parts of Homestead, West Perrine, Richmond Heights, Goulds, etc.
There is no North/South or East/West dynamic in SF/Bay Area, except perhaps in Oakland, but that city generally follows the OP's stereotype.
What? Both SF and SJ have the stereotypical north/south east/west dynamic as well.
And Oakland doesn't even follow the stereotype to the same degree as SF and SJ, seeing as "east" Oakland is actually in the south of the city, while the literal eastern part of Oakland (the hills) is the wealthiest part of town. I addition to that, Oakland also has rough areas in the west and north, which is the direct opposite of the stereotype.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nineties Flava
You forgot Lakeview and SOMA.
They also forgot the lower Haight and Hayes Valley. Neither are that rough anymore as they've seen heavy gentrification, but he did say areas that are "historically" seen as bad. Hayes Valley didn't gain the nickname "death valley" for no reason, and it was only several years ago that there were regular shootings in the lower haight, for example.
Though I guess if you wanted to get really historic you could also include Chinatown, the north beach projects, all of SOMA, and the Barbary Coast area of downtown/north beach/telegraph hill.
In Minneapolis the south side is where most of the scenery is (lakes, river,parkway,forests) hence those neighborhoods were the most desirable. North and Northeast Mpls were mainly industrial early on. Slums don't really exist here because neighborhoods never decayed to that point. The roughest areas of North Mpls look like regular neighborhoods.
Well, large swathes of St. Louis' North side are in ruins , so by default the South side is more affluent and lively. Not to say that the North side doesn't have some serious potential, though.
East-West seems to hold far more water than north vs. south, possibly due to prevailing winds/pollution...
There's three "parts" of town in St. Louis with their own stereotypes, and this includes St. Louis City and County. North (poor, abandoned), South (working/middle class), West (upper middle, upper class). Both north and south St. Louis were/are industrial to an extent, as industry followed the rails/river. Industry doesn't move as far west, though there is still a little south of Forest Park.
Off the top of my head, here are cities that have as nice or more affluent South than North sides:
-Milwaukee
-Minneapolis
-Detroit
-St. Louis
-Philadelphia
-Portland (I think)
-Cincinnati (in fairness though there really isn't much of a "southside", but if there was it'd be downtown)
I'm sure there's others. What I was once told in a real estate class in college is that most cities were built so that the poorer areas were downriver of the richer ones (which makes a lot of sense). That being said, and since most of continental America's watershed flows southerly, most cities have poorer south sides. I'm not sure what changed for the cities listed above, or if that's really an accurate primary driver of where poor U.S. inner-city neighborhoods lie. The correlation is definitely weak.
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