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"See My Blog Entries for my Top 500 Most Important USA Cities"
(set 5 days ago)
Location: Harrisburg, PA
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This is a very difficult question, to which there is no exact approximation. I'll go with Baltimore, Chicago, or Detroit, just on a much smaller scale compared to NYC.
If you consider the pinnacle of a city to be one that provides creature comforts and uniformity to the very wealthy and a receptive welfare and public housing situation for the very poor, then NYC is certainly approaching its golden era.
For the 80% who occupy the strata between those two extremes, NYC is quickly becoming a foreign country with no place for them.
NYC in your described 'nadir' was indeed a hellhole. However, it was also home to a fantastically creative population who were stimulated by the sheer diversity (and I am not talking the mere ethnic diversity of immigrants) of its residents and neighborhoods. It was a city that literally had a place for everyone who was willing to put up with the downsides. Musicians, entrepreneurs, financial, firemen, chefs, aspiring designers, cab drivers, artists, policemen, craftsmen, nurses, and so on.
It is true that all of the above occupations can still be found in NYC, but now they don't live there. They commute 2-3 hours a day to some dumpy suburb in NJ or upstate.
Now NYC is for people able to afford astronomical rent or willing to live in the projects.
Probably the best post on this whole thread. I had to stop reading it over and over because it's so fvvked up and true and its depressing.
I wonder when all the cities decided that leaving broken and burned out cars on the street was a bad idea lol. You always see old pictures of cities with shells of cars on the street, like that definitely doesn't exist anymore. Maybe somewhere far out in the hood but not near commercial areas or anything.
Detroit. 1970s New York was a rotten apple, people were leaving the city in packs. My parents moved to NYC in the early 1980s when it was still rough and left early in the 1990s. The city really didn't change much until about 1994 and onwards. They lived in a nicer part of town but it still had break ins/robberies. I remember reading how dangerous and how high the murder rate were for certain areas in the city during the crack epidemic. Some documentary, a former street ball player said heroine was bad for the city but crack bought crime and danger to NYC like no other. Also organized crime was far more evident back then and more in the open (think 5 families).
Sadly Detroit is run down and has been for years. High crime rate and a dropping population trend... they are most similar to the 1970s NYC.
I wonder when all the cities decided that leaving broken and burned out cars on the street was a bad idea lol. You always see old pictures of cities with shells of cars on the street, like that definitely doesn't exist anymore. Maybe somewhere far out in the hood but not near commercial areas or anything.
This depends on the city. Some Northeast and Midwest northern cities chose to clean out its blighted areas. Older pre-1990 photos show areas looking like a war zone and bombed out look. Some cities cleared whole neighborhoods especially around their cores if major declines.
- Cleveland - I believe leveled whole neighborhoods that were primarily Row-homes in decay. New hosing will fill in. Some see this as terrible to this degree of complete removal. But once renewed it just becomes a new neighborhood.
- Chicago - Chose to remove the Blighted beyond repair housing in many neighborhoods on its Notorious Southside. But left the better kept and still solid housing. Where housing was removed, grass-land replaced it till infill reaches it. The result is cleaner and more small Midwest town look in places with most cleared housing. Sadly, it did not slow gang crime or continued housing needing to be boarded up by the city. Their Failed High-rise Housing Projects were removed too. As for Abandoned cars on streets? I do believe the city does quickly tow it. But in backs of homes on their back lots you might see them off their alleyways. The city still has Street-Sweeping in all neighborhoods. Some get one only twice a month. Some areas more. Of course not in winter.
- Philadelphia - I do not believe had any major removal of decay or whole neighborhoods. I believe the city did very little to remove blight? Now gentrification slower does. But renewed housing and infill still can have old blight among the renewed. I don't think abandoned vehicles are allowed to remain on Philly streets. As parking is at a premium in Tight Row-housing areas. But you can see them in backs lots of lost housing.
- Baltimore - Baltimore Harbor area saw great renewal. They did a great job. But you can still see decay in other areas. Probably not as far along in gentrification as other cities. But improving for sure. Baltimore has a lot of neighborhoods not awful with a lot of lost homes. But just have degrees overall of signs of decay and in need of repair blocks overall with most as Row-homes.
Either way our major cities are cleaned up or still cleaning up compared to the past few decades for sure. Definitely not claiming I know all bout these cities. Surely correct my responses if totally misrepresenting a city.
What NYC did in heading to Bankruptcy in the 70s? Is drastic cuts in city services like Fire and Police, the had crime sky-rocket. I don't think any major city has did any drastic cuts in Police or Fire. Some got government grants to add more even. Time Square was basically a flop-house, Sex shops with even prostitutes then too. I do not believe our cities have areas clearly openly like this today.
1970s Manhattan was a whole different animal than it was even in the 1990s. 42nd and Time Square eventually became a safe place (heck I know someone who lives in the vicinity of this area). I forgot which documentary I watched it in but 42nd and Time Square was a huge hub of danger/crime/prostitution. I think Manhattan highest reported amount of murders was in the 1970s. 1970s Harlem/South Bronx - not sure how dangerous it was back then but in terms of purely violent crime, that region was one of the worst in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Even Queens from the 1980s-early 1990s in certain areas that are still can be seen as "shady" were legitimately dangerous ghettos back then (like Jamaica/South Jamaica).
In terms of pure violence/murder, I don't think any city of today can rival that of late 80s Washington DC or certain years for New Orleans in the early 1990s. I often feel the NYC tag as being a "rotten apple" for many years is often overhyped. Even back then, you can reasonably say only 10-15% of the city was reasonably dangerous to walk around at night if alone or around random housing projects that you're not familiar with etc. My parents never felt particularly in dangerous although being in very close vicinity to one of the "rougher" neighborhoods in Queens at the time. I lived in Philly for 4 years and nothing in NYC in terms of walking around spooked me as much as walking alone a few times very late at night in deep West Philly or parts of North Philly.
1970s Manhattan was a whole different animal than it was even in the 1990s. 42nd and Time Square eventually became a safe place (heck I know someone who lives in the vicinity of this area). I forgot which documentary I watched it in but 42nd and Time Square was a huge hub of danger/crime/prostitution. I think Manhattan highest reported amount of murders was in the 1970s. 1970s Harlem/South Bronx - not sure how dangerous it was back then but in terms of purely violent crime, that region was one of the worst in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Even Queens from the 1980s-early 1990s in certain areas that are still can be seen as "shady" were legitimately dangerous ghettos back then (like Jamaica/South Jamaica).
In terms of pure violence/murder, I don't think any city of today can rival that of late 80s Washington DC or certain years for New Orleans in the early 1990s. I often feel the NYC tag as being a "rotten apple" for many years is often overhyped. Even back then, you can reasonably say only 10-15% of the city was reasonably dangerous to walk around at night if alone or around random housing projects that you're not familiar with etc. My parents never felt particularly in dangerous although being in very close vicinity to one of the "rougher" neighborhoods in Queens at the time. I lived in Philly for 4 years and nothing in NYC in terms of walking around spooked me as much as walking alone a few times very late at night in deep West Philly or parts of North Philly.
My mother grew up in NYC during that era and it didn't sound like chaos from what she described. Her neighborhood wasn't bad and neither were the neighborhoods she frequented even if they had more grime than today.
My mother grew up in NYC during that era and it didn't sound like chaos from what she described. Her neighborhood wasn't bad and neither were the neighborhoods she frequented even if they had more grime than today.
Where did she grow up? My gf grew up in Williamsburg in the 90s, and she could definitely hear gunshots at night fairly regularly. This is not the case even in the worst hoods in NYC today. "only 10-15%" of the city was dangerous at night is complete bs. Huge swaths of the Bronx and Brooklyn were no-go areas. A good chunk of Queens had crime rates comparable to Brownsville today. Manhattan was dangerous as well, not just upper Manhattan, but areas like Alphabet city and LES, Meatpacking was seedy as hell too, as well as Hell's Kitchen.
Looking at the 1990 murder map of NYC, even Upper East side had murder rates similar to 2016 East New York... think on that.
Look at this pic posted in the other thread and compare first picture to last: //www.city-data.com/forum/46281070-post1567.html
Last edited by Gantz; 11-24-2016 at 12:38 PM..
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Definitely not claiming I know all bout these cities. Surely correct my responses if totally misrepresenting a city. 
