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Yes, especially the early 90's. Peoples image of L.A. in the 90's was mostly riots, gangs, hoods of South Central, and what they saw in Boyz N The Hood or Menace II Society. Today's image of Los Angeles seems to be more focused on Hollywood and Beverly Hills, and the glam life of celebrities (Paris Hilton, etc.).
I believe some of those are still fairly dangerous cities. The 1990s wasn't that long ago so some cities may not have changed that much in the intervening time.
Los Angeles, particularly Compton, were very worse in the 1990s. I recall hearing about people in Beverly Hills getting mugged and shot in broad day light. I don't know what was worse, LA or NYC. But I know Los Angeles was really bad. My cousin lived there briefly in the late 80s and early 90s and when I went to visit her in 1992 she told be not to look at anyone in the cars next to us in certain intersections because it was a good way to get shot. She left in 1994 after someone broke into her apartment and held a gun to her head. When she lived there she broadcaster for CNN and someone disagreed with something she said, I don't quite remember the story. I moved to LA in 2008, just fyi.
I would say La even the music was about Riots and gang bangin for Example NWA, Tupac, Easy-E Etc. Gangsta Rap was the main street music in the 90's here.
Yeah, I remember Atlanta being really bad around 1993 or so. It seems to be headed back in that direction in the recent years. Atlanta was a lot safer in the late 90's after the olympics, which boosted the economy along with the tech boom. I'm hoping that things will turn around in the upcoming years and become like the Y2K era once again. One interesting thing is that Atlanta is supposed to demolish the last of its housing projects in 2010, becoming the first major U.S. city not to have any projects.
There is no way on earth Atlanta will ever get how it was in the late 80's and early 90's, the crime that happens in the city now is nothing compared to the days when you had projects like Eagan Homes, Herdon Homes, John Hope Phase 1 & 2, Harris Homes and University Homes all within 3 miles of each other, and that was just the Northside Dr. corridor, not even touching the projects that were in the Eastlake area, Carver/ Joyland area, or the Westside (which still is bad). I somewhat am jaded to all the media hype about how Atlanta is in the midst of a crime wave having grown up in the late 80's and early 90's in Atlanta and I can remember the days when places like Techwood, Eastlake, and Carver Homes used to have mulitiple murders a day in just one housing project
San francisco's violent crime rate in the early to mid 90's (and especially the 70's and early to mid 80's) was actually pretty high. Like as high, nearly as high, or even higher than some cities that today have a reputation for being very dangerous. Violent crime rates for select US cities from 1990 to 1994:
1990
Chicago - 2,842.2
LA - 2,404.6
NYC - 2,383.6
New Orleans - 2,259.2
Long Beach - 1,956.8
Cleveland - 1,817.6 San Francisco - 1,711.1
Oakland - 1,570.2
Memphis - 1,488.0
Houston - 1,388.3
Philadelphia - 1,348.8 1991
Chicago - 3,092.5
LA - 2,525.8
Oakland - 2,495.8
NYC - 2,318.2
New Orleans - 2,190.3
Long Beach - 2,100.7
Cleveland - 1,831.9 San Francisco - 1,645.4
Houston - 1,599.9
Memphis - 1,422.3
Philadelphia - 1,406.1 1992
Chicago - 2,840.4
Oakland - 2,626.4
LA - 2,459.5
NYC - 2,163.7
New Orleans - 1,981.6 San Francisco - 1,821.3
Cleveland - 1,661.6
Long Beach - 1,554.8
Memphis - 1,552.6
Houston - 1,465.1
Philadelphia - 1,191.2 1993
Chicago - 2,717.4
Oakland - 2,601.6
LA - 2,374.3
NYC - 2,089.8
New Orleans - 2,039.0 San Francisco - 1,815.0
Cleveland - 1,643.2
Memphis - 1,633.8
Long Beach - 1,605.4
Houston - 1,453.8
Philadelphia - 1,255.2 1994
Chicago - 2,684.5
Oakland - 2,193.9
LA - 2,059.0
New Orleans - 1,886.9
NYC - 1,860.9
Memphis - 1,568.3
Cleveland - 1,529.7 San Francisco - 1,461.4
Long Beach - 1,416.7
Philadelphia - 1,322.5
Houston - 1,307.5
During that time, SF's murder rate was never all that high compared to many cities (it peaked in the 90's at 17.5 murders per 100k residents in 1993, with a total of 130 murders...the previous record was 142 murders in 1977). SF did have a pretty high robbery rate however. Here are all of those cities I listed, with their robbery rates from 1990 to 1994 averaged out (and with their 2007 robbery rates for comparison):
Chicago = 1344.3 (546.1)
New York = 1221.24 (265.0)
New Orleans = 1099.2 (523.1)
Oakland = 1065.4 (875.1)
Los Angeles = 1040.82 (348.3) San Francisco = 1013.6 (513.9)
Cleveland = 893.0 (914.3)
Long Beach = 863.08 (317.7)
Philadelphia = 792.3 (714.6)
Memphis = 783.36 (727.7)
Houston = 694.9 (529.1)
Houston was pretty bad in the 80's and 90's. Houston's record murder count was 702 in '81 and it peaked again at 608 in '91. In the early 90's, we had an infamous Northside vs. Southside rivalry that would turn pretty violent at times. Southsiders were being robbed and shot by Northsiders so Southside would retaliate against Northside and from that point, it blew up into a major rivalry. Folk stealing each other's cars, etc. It really started from the rap scene here in which Southside was getting all the shine. Southsiders were seen as the fly/get money type folks, whereas Northsiders were seen as broke and poor; Southside rappers made it a point to emphasize this in their songs. I had some family members that would steal cars from the Northside and spraypaint Southside and that would escalate everything; vice versa for my family on the Southside on my dad's side. It wasn't uncommon for shootouts to go down between both sides. I did lose a few friends and acquaintances behind the Northside/Southside rivalry. It's all but dead now which is good.
Oh, and everyone knows about 5th Ward aka Bloody Nickel. 5th Ward got the Bloody Nickel name due to highly publicized violent incidents that took place in Houston. It's also called Bloody 5th because of the violence that goes on there. It's calmed down A LOT since the 80's and 90's but it still goes down from time to time.
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