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In DC proper, the southeastern part is definitely the hood, but the suburbs to the south--NoVa--probably constitute the most affluent part of the whole metro.
There are affluent suburbs north into Maryland as well ie Potomac, Bethesda, Chevy Chase.
San Francisco is another city that has its wealthiest suburbs in both directions; Mill Valley, Sausalito, Tiburon and Belvedere to the north and Hillsborough, Burlingame and Atherton to the south.
Last edited by Iconographer; 07-07-2013 at 11:43 AM..
In Charlotte, the South side is where it's at. The north side is pretty run down and ghetto until you get up into the suburban areas like Huntersville and Mooresville.
Oklahoma City, where I live now, it's all on the north side. The south side is one of the most ghetto places I've ever seen. Here is a typical thoroughfare in South OKC.
Grew up on the Northwest and north sides of Galesburg, IL and now live in the Northeast side of Peoria, IL. The theory definitely holds true psychologically as "North" is the first direction I look for a place to rent. Plus here the South side really is the more dangerous side, same thing applied in my hometown as well.
That's why I find cities like St. Louis to be interesting as it seems to be the exact opposite.
The southside being the worse part of town for a lot of US cities evolved from the fact that in general ports and industrial areas would often be downriver or near where the river entered the ocean or lake--and since most major rivers go north to south in the US(the Mississippi basin flows south towards the Gulf--as rivers like the Sacramento, Delaware, Hudson and many rivers in the South and New England) often times the poorer working class neighborhoods would be on the southside near the industrial areas and ports.
However--there's plenty of cities where this doesn't really ring true. And as many cities enter a post-industrial age, where the port is often less important than other factors.
A place like Los Angeles has poorer neighorhoods to the south near the port and industrial areas--however at the same time, the split is more true for the wealthy westside vs. the rest of Los Angeles in many ways--in general Los Angeles is too big to really just divide in North/South--it's a split between north(San Fernando Valley), south, east, and west parts of the city. A place like New York is far too large as well to just be divided into north and south as well--the Upper Westside turns into Harlem and past that the Bronx to the north...
Portland has a lot of port and industrial facilities and working class neighborhoods on the northside of town--where the Willamette flows north-towards the Columbia--however the worst neighborhoods are on the far eastside of town--and the biggest split is considered to be east-west. San Francisco's best neighborhoods are generally on the northern part of the city(with hillier areas throughout the city being more expensive)--though this was in part due to the fact that the most spectacular scenery is closer to the Golden Gate and the coast--though the old ports and industrial areas built further on the Bay to the south did influence the south side as being the poorer part of town.
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