What do you love/hate most about San Antonio? (Spur: retirement, gas)

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by huckster

Chicago, Detroit, cities like those these have true urban blight, and have true ghettos

Ghettos were the areas of cities where black people could live during the decades of segregation.

So no, there's no ghetto in any city in the United States.

[L210]

I think the east side would be considered more ghetto than the south side these days. Houses are falling apart on the east side and the whole area is in desperate need of business development. There are a bunch of drug addicts and prostitutes just east of downtown. The problem is spreading to Perrin Beitel and Nacogdoches where businesses are shutting down left and right and the crime rate is going up. Hopefully the next city councilperson for district 10 will get the city to stop ignoring the problem until the crime gets out of control.

I can tell some of you have never lived in the projects. They do exist in San Antonio and the areas surrounding them usually have high crime rates. It doesn't even have to be the projects, there is an area of several apartment complexes with a high rate of Section 8 residents off of San Pedro. I don't know if the area has gotten any better, but when my family lived there 20 or so years ago, you would see crackheads, drug dealers, and gang members everyday. The Sunrise subdivision by Converse and Kirby used to be nice, but my aunt had to move out of there about 15 years ago because the gun violence had gotten so bad. The houses in that neighborhood are starting to deteriorate. Our bad areas aren't as bad as those in Chicago and Detroit, but they are still places you wouldn't want to live and San Antonio used to be known as the drive-by capitol.

In the early 90’s San Antonio was known as the “capitol” of gang activity and drive by shootings in Texas. Gangs, drugs, crime, and other unimaginable conditions were the driving force in creating Youth Against Gang Activity (YAGA), the first teen-led initiative in the State of Texas and a program of Family Service Association.

United Way of San Antonio eNews

According to the GRAASP Project Director, “San Antonio was the gang drive-by capital
of Texas in 1993" (Kansas City meeting transcript 1995). The SAPD Gang Intelligence Unit had
identified 5,485 known gang members and gang associates in the city, and 137 gangs or subunits
of gangs, of which 25% were located in the originally-proposed larger program area (First-Year
OJJDP Funding Application, September, 1994).

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/209189.pdf (broken link)

Most of the gangs used to be concentrated on the south side, so there has been much improvement there.

By 1993 San Antonio was suffering 1,262 drive-bys but by 2001 only 89 drive-bys were reported.

Texans for Peace Issues Gang VIolence

The definition of ghetto continues to evolve.

a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.
2.
(formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.
3.
a section predominantly inhabited by Jews.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ghetto

[learning_towalk]

This weekend was my first time coming to San Antonio (moving from Nashville in June)...here's what i found in my time while I was there.

Likes: sweet people, tons of eating/shopping options, downtown area was really nice

Dislikes: no lane markers on a lot of the roads...just "wide roads" and "narrow roads" also I saw a drive through margarita stand (how in the world is that legal?)

[huckster]

The word ghetto, to use it properly or not is just semantics- watch the you tube video "A Tour of Detroit's Ghetto". If you watch this, and afterward you still cannot see it- then well, O.K , Dopo. The video has three parts to it and is available on DVD for purchase.
Once two million people, Detroit is now at 800,000 population. 87 total acres
now are overgrown and littered and vacant with many, many more entire neighborhoods and factories etc. abandoned, within the city limits. Homes can sell for as little as $500.00 to as little as one dollar. That is no mistake $1.00 per house. In all fairness there are some areas that are thriving and have the manicured lawns and the look of prosperity. But...watch the video.
This isn't the abandoned mattresses, trashbags, bikini carwashes etc, the eyesores that are sensationalized here in San Antonio, locally, for a lack of newsworthy stories. There is a genuine unspeakable human tragedy, suffering, that goes on in Detroit daily and there is nothing to do about it. The city is decaying and dying.
It is not gloating to say, Life is good in San Antonio, not so good sometimes, but good. It is luck. Count your blessings San Antonio.
YouTube - A Tour Of Detroit's Ghetto

Originally Posted by Dopo

Ghettos were the areas of cities where black people could live during the decades of segregation.

So no, there's no ghetto in any city in the United States.

[Buffyfan]

what's with all the abandoned boats in the Detroit ghetto? weird.

[HillCountryHotRodMan]

Originally Posted by Buffyfan

what's with all the abandoned boats in the Detroit ghetto? weird.

There's 2 lakes.... Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair.

[Dopo]

Originally Posted by huckster

There is a genuine unspeakable human tragedy, suffering, that goes on in Detroit daily and there is nothing to do about it. The city is decaying and dying.
It is not gloating to say, Life is good in San Antonio, not so good sometimes, but good. It is luck. Count your blessings San Antonio.

Let's go and celebrate that there's 1 city more ghetto than San Antonio!!!!! (sarcasm)

Detroit's got nothing on East St. Louis where I have been several times.
Besides, you don't have to go to a big city to see that kind of poverty, I saw plenty of it in the Ozarks.
People just tend to think is worse when they see a lot of people of certain .....

[huckster]

If the boast- Everything is Bigger in Texas is true, well the boast in Michigan
is- If you are in Michigan you are never more than 9 miles from a lake. It is true
there are lakes everywhere and unlike in dusty San Antonio- Drilling a waterwell for a new house is nothing, nothing. The water table can be as shallow as six feet if close to one of these lakes. Usually 35 deep feet is normal depth, easy, and can be a do it yourelf project,if one rents a drill. However it is a very polluted state, a result of all of the manufacturing and the shallow water table.
That said- life it is much better here in San Antonio, I believe. By far.
Nice summers up there but winters are pure hell and it is almost always cloudy,
260 days per year, average. No matter what they say, noone likes the winters.
People have abandoned all the boats in Detroit because they are flat broke and have been evicted and can't afford a boat anymore. They require storage and therefore are abandoned. You should have seen the abandoned cars---many times the number of the abandoned boats- abandoned automobiles were like litter,everywhere, there until the City of Detroit made a sweep and towed all of them, that were left on the streets- that is.

Originally Posted by Buffyfan

what's with all the abandoned boats in the Detroit ghetto? weird.

[Traveler37]

I like that its spread out and all the choices in food.
The weather but when there is no rain its brown and ugly.
What I HATE is the crappy drivers that tailgate and have little respect to other drivers.
I have to agree with CJH about the ( small mindedness of SA residents.) and have to remember alot here and have heard this before that SA is made up of transplants and those who grew up and have never been outside of SA.
But again it could be worse as I have lived in Wa state where everyone feels your out to get them(this comes from a life long resident of the state) also they are rude rude rude there.
For everything said I missed the for most part the friendly nature of those who are real Texans as I am.

[thenewtexan]

Love: weather, cost of living, diversity
Hate: 90% ghetto (was 80% when I moved here), fattest, dumbest city in the U.S.