How do the bad parts of Phoenix compare to other rough parts of the country? (Scottsdale: middle-class, apartment)

[Java Jolt]

Suddenly I'm hearing an altered version of Elvis Presley's In the Ghetto song running through my head.

On a warm and sunny Phoenix morning a little gangbanger child is born in the ghetto
In the ghetto
And BIG CATS cries
'Cause we don't need more tattooed thugs
Peeing in public and pushing drugs in the ghetto
In the ghetto

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by Java Jolt

Suddenly I'm hearing an altered version of Elvis Presley's In the Ghetto song running through my head.

On a warm and sunny Phoenix morning a little gangbanger child is born in the ghetto
In the ghetto
And BIG CATS cries
'Cause we don't need more tattooed thugs
Peeing in public and pushing drugs in the ghetto
In the ghetto

If you get Elvis' worst song stuck in my head, Ill have to hunt you down and blowtorch your ears off.

[SMG]

We agree to disagree on this one Big Cats, that's all. I do not consider any of this a ghetto.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

One thing that makes the rough areas here or LA different from the east coast is our street heiarchy. Here, the worst areas are on the side streets. I've been on side street areas off of 31st Ave&McDowell and 47th Ave&Camelback (Phoenix side) that I felt pretty sketched out in. Another area I try to avoid is the stretch of 48th St between McDowell and Roosevelt and the side streets there like Brill and Willeta etc

[sargeant79]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

I havent been over there in 2 weeks, but that area is shady as eff. In fact, that's where I saw all the gangbangers hangin out on the street corner, up to no good.

And why is that funny to take a picture of a delapidated, spray-painted ghetto dive? Is it funny to you that they tore down Cabrini-Greene and replaced it with nice housing, too? It doesnt matter if something nicer and newer has replaced it, its still in a crappy area. I wont mention the horrific drug issues over there either.

It's been longer than two weeks since you snapped that pic because the hotel has been torn down for a couple years now. That area is completely, 100%, not the ghetto.

[ScottsdaleMark]

This thread inspired me to take some detours on my way home yesterday. Checked out some of the ongoing gentrification in the Coronado district. The Green Gables neighborhood had less activity, I guess it is still transitional but is perhaps next in line for what happened/is happening in Coronado. As I headed further easy I did not see too much activity in the near-east until I got more Arcadia-adjacent, e.g. over towards 36th or 40th Street which is a remarkable amount of construction and renovations.

I do believe eventually that whole east side north of McDowell or at least north of, say, Oak, will gentrify. FirebirdCamaro is correct that there are some pockets closer to the freeway that are not very nice, but that's in part because they're tucked back in there next to a freeway and aren't particularly big so not an easy target for gentrification. Not just 48th and but also 52nd have some of the same mix of nice and not-so-nice, just how the geography and lay of the streets and freeways worked out. You have these odd little parcels tucked in amongst the grid system and the curve of the freeway and so it's just hit-or-miss how those areas turned out and which ones got redveloped, e.g. the huge, newer apartments and condos at 52nd/Van Buren and 52nd/Washington that are much nicer than a lot of the immediate surroundings. It is an ongoing process.

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by sargeant79

It's been longer than two weeks since you snapped that pic because the hotel has been torn down for a couple years now. That area is completely, 100%, not the ghetto.

Meant to say years, not weeks.

[sargeant79]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Meant to say years, not weeks.

Fair enough.

I remember another thread where we had a similar exchange on this subject as it pertains to certain areas in Phoenix. We certainly do appear to have drastically different opinions on what constitutes a bad area. I don't think there's any dispute that some parts of south and west Phoenix are not very safe, but I appreciate that people have different comfort levels in different situations. What I struggle to understand is how some areas that have come up in the conversation like those around 16th St and Bethany Home or Cave Creek Rd and Desert Cove get lumped in with some of the dicier parts of Sunnyslope or Maryvale.

Honest question and I'm not judging or anything, just trying to understand the thought process: What is it about an area that makes it a bad area to you? Is it a safety concern or is it more a characterization of appearance/cleanliness of the area? If safety, what about an area's appearance make it seem unsafe? Are the concerns more along the lines of worry about violent crime, property crime like having your car stolen, or just being harassed by aggressive panhandlers?

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by sargeant79

Fair enough.

I remember another thread where we had a similar exchange on this subject as it pertains to certain areas in Phoenix. We certainly do appear to have drastically different opinions on what constitutes a bad area. I don't think there's any dispute that some parts of south and west Phoenix are not very safe, but I appreciate that people have different comfort levels in different situations. What I struggle to understand is how some areas that have come up in the conversation like those around 16th St and Bethany Home or Cave Creek Rd and Desert Cove get lumped in with some of the dicier parts of Sunnyslope or Maryvale.

Honest question and I'm not judging or anything, just trying to understand the thought process: What is it about an area that makes it a bad area to you? Is it a safety concern or is it more a characterization of appearance/cleanliness of the area? If safety, what about an area's appearance make it seem unsafe? Are the concerns more along the lines of worry about violent crime, property crime like having your car stolen, or just being harassed by aggressive panhandlers?

Id say its a good mix of all you described. Bums are the least of my problems, its the gangbangers and gangbanger wannabes that bother me the most. I have zero tolerance for those scumholes. If I see a neighborhood with homes and businesses that have bars on the windows, spraypaint everywhere, gangsta types wandering around, groups of thugs hanging out, trashy yards and homes, etc, thats a ghetto to me. I believe most would classify that as a ghetto, too, despite the fact that PHX's ghettos havent had the time nor massive economic downturn to transform them into a place that looks like Memphis' ghetto. PHX also never experienced white flight or anything of the sort. I hate to stereotype, but thats when the ghettos started. Low-income people moved in, chasing out the middle class, and crime and poverty and gangs erupted. My family saw it in Chicago first hand. Its sad, but true. PHX hasnt had that happen. If we do, I believe PHX's ghettos will take on an even worse look. Ive already started to see tiny pockets of abandoned homes in and around South Phoenix. Im talking, you know, 1-3 homes on a street that are boarded up. Nothing like you see in Detroit or Miami, but still downtrodden as can be. I wouldnt classify the old hotel area as ghetto (Cave Creek Rd), I would just classify that as rundown. Lots of drugs and weirdos over there, its definitely ugly. No offense to anyone who lives over there, but I dont see much effort to keep things clean.

[sargeant79]

Thanks for the honest response. A few comments...

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Id say its a good mix of all you described. Bums are the least of my problems, its the gangbangers and gangbanger wannabes that bother me the most. I have zero tolerance for those scumholes.

Agree on the gangbangers. But I've noticed since moving out here 5 years ago that the gang situation and the behavior of the gangbangers is drastically different out here compared with Chicago. I think a lot of that is a function of the differences in the housing stock and density. To me, when you have a dozen gangbangers holding down a corner, that's a dangerous neighborhood. I just don't see that anywhere in Phoenix. Here, you see people that are clearly gang members, but they're really only worried about other gangbangers, something that is a big difference compared with back East. I'm a white guy in my mid-30s...I've had gang-bangers hold the door open for me walking in or out of the Circle K. It seems like if you aren't involved in any shady stuff yourself, your chances of running into trouble and/or being the victim of a crime are pretty slim out here. Back east, the threat of random violence in some areas is very real.

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

If I see a neighborhood with homes and businesses that have bars on the windows, spraypaint everywhere, gangsta types wandering around, groups of thugs hanging out, trashy yards and homes, etc, thats a ghetto to me. I believe most would classify that as a ghetto, too, despite the fact that PHX's ghettos havent had the time nor massive economic downturn to transform them into a place that looks like Memphis' ghetto.

True, but I think the word "ghetto" is often overused and I think your last sentence kind of sums up my take on it here in Phoenix. There are plenty of low income neighborhoods in Phoenix, but I don't really see those types of ghettos you refer to here except for a couple scattered blocks here and there in parts of South or West Phoenix.

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

PHX also never experienced white flight or anything of the sort. I hate to stereotype, but thats when the ghettos started. Low-income people moved in, chasing out the middle class, and crime and poverty and gangs erupted. My family saw it in Chicago first hand. Its sad, but true. PHX hasnt had that happen. If we do, I believe PHX's ghettos will take on an even worse look. Ive already started to see tiny pockets of abandoned homes in and around South Phoenix. Im talking, you know, 1-3 homes on a street that are boarded up. Nothing like you see in Detroit or Miami, but still downtrodden as can be.

Good point regarding never seeing white flight in Phoenix. While there have certainly been population shifts in many of the older neighborhoods in Phoenix, most of the city is too new to have experienced a rapid and mass exodus of one particular population in a certain area. One of the things I mentioned in another post in this thread was how Phoenix neighborhoods are divided on economic lines more than racial lines. For that reason as well as just how drastically different Phoenix and Chicago are in terms of density, income, cost of living, etc, I don't really see a situation like that happening here. The closest we probably came was at the low point of the real estate crisis in 2010-2011, when half the houses on many streets in town were vacant. Things have actually rebounded rather nicely however, especially in many parts of town that looked to be doomed 4-5 years ago. If it didn't happen then, I don't think it will ever happen, at least not to the extent that you saw in Marquette Park or other parts of Chicago's south side in the 60's and 70's.

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

I wouldnt classify the old hotel area as ghetto (Cave Creek Rd), I would just classify that as rundown. Lots of drugs and weirdos over there, its definitely ugly. No offense to anyone who lives over there, but I dont see much effort to keep things clean.

No offense taken as a former resident of that area up until last year. I'll acknowledge that you certainly see some of that on Cave Creek south of about Mountain View. But north of that is a different ballgame. The neighborhood is 100% safe and there are a lot of really cool older (albeit smaller) homes mixed in with a lot of newer houses built in the last 20 years or so. There's an entire city block of brand new construction that was built in the last couple years bordered by 12th and 14th, Shangri La and Mescal. There's also a gated community with million dollar homes a couple blocks north of that. Most of the properties keep the natural desert landscape at the core of the style, so it's not like you have a bunch of well-manicured lawns over there or anything, but most of the homes are very well taken care of. You should turn off Cave Creek Road and check out the neighborhoods over there sometime, especially as you get into the foothills.