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See despite living in Chicago, I have never had a bad experience here resulting in violence. The only time was like a few weeks ago when I was wearing a Lakers hat at the Parade for the 'Hawks Stanley Cup win, where some guys comes up to me and goes like, "around here we support Boston for the 'ship, got that? Go to LA if you like them so much..." and I just left because idiots like that are not worth the time. Plus I thought it was going to get violent.
Anyways the summary of that story is, the city acts like two different cities, downtown, north end, outer west end, and most of the suburban communities are roughly safe. The Southend, and inner west end are not. But I have never been to southend, and only taken the train through the inner west end, so never experienced Chicago's so called "notorious crime".
Yeahhh I believe that's the area, it was scary man, because it was probably the first real 'hood I have ever seen- that's why. And the only semi-real one at that.
Hopefully, if all goes well when I'm visiting other cities- I will never have that kind of brief tourist experience again!
Please note- I'm not trying to bash your city. It's beautiful and I'd love to live there some day, just sharing the experience!
You r the only person i have seen who has ever reffered to the south side as the "south end" and the west side as the "west end"......
To my understanding, the areas you listed are rapidly transitioning. I rarely go to South, but I've heard that those neighborhoods are quickly gentrifying.
I would say the overwhelming majority of Philadelphia neighborhoods fall into the "gritty" category. This would include nearly the entire Northeast and also neighborhoods such as West Oak Lane, Cedarbrook, E. Mount Airy (especially Chew Ave), Overbrook, and Roxborough. These areas are not "ghetto" by any stretch of the imagination, but you won't find yoga classes, organic cleaners, Subaru station wagons, bike lanes, and outdoor seating at coffee shops either.
I agree that Northern Liberties is not gritty. But I find it a bit odd that all of the Philly posters, you included, did not make any mention of the greater Northeast. Perhaps my standard for "grit" is lower than most, but the neighborhoods along Roosevelt Boulevard don't exactly look welcoming to SWPLs to me. The Northeast is a bit of a mix between Staten Island and random neighborhoods in Queens. Very working class. Very gritty. There won't be a Whole Foods going up in that area anytime soon. I think people there are just happy to have a K-Mart and some Wawas.
You could definately argue parts of the NE are gritty and not ghetto but much of N Philly would be more ghetto than grit.
Maybe Frankford and Mayfair are getting more gritty, even some areas of th far NE closer to Woodhaven and above Roosevelt mall are actually getting more gritty as areas closer into center city that were more traditional gritty are becoming less so. Also areas like upper Darby or Cheltenham might qualify as welll.
Most of Pittsburgh's neighborhoods and first-ring suburbs qualify as "gritty, but not ghetto." The only real ghettos in Pittsburgh are Homewood, Lincoln-Lemington, Mt Oliver, Hill District, Larimer, and a couple others. There are probably 100 neighborhoods in the city.
all of the crime in toronto is isolated to small community housing developments and their surroundings. Some small communities have up to 4 murders a year which is alot when the population of your community is under 10,000. crack and prostitution are also a big problem in Toronto. places like regent park, alexandrea park and pelham park are all small "ghettos" were crime and police brutality happen on a constant basis. The difference with canada and the Us is that canadian ghettos are always hidden. and i mean i know alot of run down grimey areas in the city that noone has mentioned, st clair and old weston, sherbourne and dundas, queen and vanaully, king and dufferin, king and lansdowne. ghettos and crime are much mroe centralized here in canada so if your not in one of these housing communities you really have no idea what its like to live there.
SW Detroit has some gritty neighborhoods that aren't slums. There really isn't any part of Detroit that is "gentrified". Maybe downtown is to some degree. Midtown is also a pretty gritty, but is relatively safe. Corktown and Woodbridge would also fit the gritty neighborhood descriptions.
A lot of the poorer parts of Minneapolis and St Paul fall into the gritty, not ghetto category. In Minneapolis this would be Powderhorn, Phillips, Cedar Riverside, parts of the North Side; in St Paul the East Side, West Side and Midway.
I was visiting Toronto, Canada, a city with essentially no "ghetto" areas, but what stuck out was the abundance of blue-collar areas, full of grit, grafitti and old posters stapled to power lines. These areas looked lively, racially diverse and livable (albeit "lived-in" and well-worn"). Alot of the houses had visible signs of aging, but still were occupied and often decorated eccentricly. Nearly every mailbox was tagged in grafitti.
There were lots of mom and pop corner fruit markets, hamburger diners, old time inner-city hardware stores and some signs of maybe the start of gentrication, although some parts looked like what i would call skid-rows, not ghetto, but still rough around the edges, with lots of bums, street kids and old bag ladies, all of which tend to be caucasian.
Does America still have any inner city areas like this? I can tell you Chicago does'nt (from my experience). To me, Chicago just has nice gentrified/yuppified/Disneyfied (call it whatever you want) white hipster neighborhoods in the north and segregated African-American areas where no white dare tread in the south and west. There might be some in-between areas in west town, pilsen, wherever the white and latino areas border each other, but nothing like i saw in Canada.
I was in Vancouver several years ago, and noticed the same trend as in Toronto...the area east of downtown was diverse, blue collar, grungey and was home to lots of rough-looking white people. Are rough blue collar inner-city caucasians only a Canadian thing these days?
I recall seeing alot of movies set in New York during the 80s and 90s (like "the fisher king", "ghost" and Larry Clark's "kids") and they seemed close to the atmosphere i was describing in Canada. Is NYC still like this in some areas, or is it all monocultural nonwhite ghettos contrasted with ****-and-span glitzy white areas?
This has all but disappeared from the US. Any neighborhood with this type of character tends to be quickly gentrified nowadays (see South Boston). And the former residents of these hoods have gradually shifted to suburbia, sometimes by economic force, but often by personal choice.
I must say, though, that grit does not always disappear just because the demographic changes. In New York, for instance, the East Village and Lower East Side still have interesting graffiti and old, weathered slum-like buildings and a healthy dose of cultural weirdness, in spite of their greatly increased wealth. And there are still housing projects nearby if you need something more "authentic."
Jersey City still has a good amount of grit. Safe areas but not for the weak at heart. Ive always admired grit and it does feel as if America has lost it. Philly does have grit too, making it a very beautiful city.
I know exactly what you mean.. Toronto has a certain feel to it, really reminds me of Queens in most aspects. Not-so ghetto areas with old established architecture, graffiti, vibrant streets, streetcar wires in abundance, wooden telephone poles etc.
I was doing some searches around google maps and found some really astounding street scenes I never really witnessed the last time I went down there. And these shots are relatively close to the central business district of the city (where all the main office towers are). Toronto really finds a way to do things right. The thing is these streets are live with people flourishing around and living their life. Not like the depressing abandoned streets of Cleveland, Detroit, Camden etc. Gotta love it, it's like being in the movies and not feeling threatened for your life.
I also visited Pittsburgh last summer and it does make me recollect some of what Toronto has in terms of Victorian housing stock and the Midwestern blue collar lifestyle.
stunning!
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