what metropolitan area that you've been to has the most poorly define ghettoes?

[freepcrusher]

By that I mean an area where a tony neighborhood is only a few blocks away from a blighted slum.
In my opinion, it is largely a sunbelt phenom.

I would say that LA, Houston and the Tri County region in SoFla have the worst. I guess you could also say the IE is like that but I'll lump it in with the same region as LA.

[lowtech redneck]

I don't know, but Savannah was pretty bad about that while I lived there in the early 90's.

[memphis]

Seems to be a defining characteristic of every city I've visited. Which is why people move to the burbs. Gotta get some socio-economic homogenaity.

[Adam Griffin]

Maybe it's not a metropolitan area on par with NYC or LA, but Macon, GA has some of the most blended areas I've ever seen. You have to leave Bibb County entirely and travel well into Peach or Houston Counties in order to find homogenization. Within two blocks, you'll easily find someone driving a BMW and someone being shot by someone else driving by in a BMW.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Indianapolis struck me as like this when I was there.

[Seattle]

A good candidate for this would be Seattle... but there aren't really any true ghetto areas in the city. Regardlessly, there are some neighborhoods with million dollar homes on the top of a street (the ones with views) and houses with window bars only a few blocks away (no view).

[TJ in Oregon]

The east side of Cleveland has a lot of areas where you'll have really nice old houses with manicured lawns and only a block away burnt-out tennement houses with broken windows. This is particularly common along the Cleveland-Shaker border. The neighborhood changes fast around there. The rich areas are super-rich and the poor areas are super-poor.

[Torie]

NYC has some areas like that. The bluffs along the Hudson in the Bronx are chic, and you go a few blocks to the east, and you are in the barrio. And then there is Williamsburg in Brooklyn (the hipsters on one block, the Hispanics on the next, the blacks on the third, and the orthodox Jews on the fourth).

In Chicago, you have Oak Park (parts of which have gracious homes, a fair number designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), and it is right next to one of the roughest neighborhoods in the US. When I lived in Hyde Park in Chicago, between 60th and 61st street, south of 61st was one of the worst ghettos in the US (Woodlawn). That neighborhood largely burned down while I was there (it dropped in 5 years from about 60,000 in population to 20,000).  Every night you could listen to the fire engines racing around.  About once a week you heard gun shots. I remember walking two blocks south to 63rd street to go to a Chinese restaurant with about 8 guys, and it was like walking through a Fellini film at night. About 200 teenagers and young adults were on the street, smoking dope and drinking, with broken glass everywhere, and about half the apartment structures burnt out hulks. I remember that two block walk like I did it yesterday. The images will be forever etched in my mind.

In LA, the most dramatic change that I can think of is from Los Feliz to Hollywood. North of Franklin it is million dollar homes, or two million dollar homes, and on the Cecil B. DeMille hill behind gates, homes worth quite a bit more than that (I once was privileged to tour an 8,000 square foot art deco home up there that is probably the most magnificent exemplar of that style in the world bar none - owned then by a famous gay photographer, exquisitely furnished in a Japanese themed decor which goes very well with the art deco style), and then you have two blocks going south to Hollywood Blvd, and it is OK apartments, and then south of Hollywood Blvd, Hispanic apartment blocks. And Santa Ana, CA has north of 17th street (where the OC gentry once lived), and south of 17th street  (totally Hispanic).

[Del Tachi]

Washington, D.C.

I lived there for five months and literally you could be perfectly fine in a well-lit, clean neighborhood and then when you cross one street over you're in danger of being mugged, raped, and shot. 

[memphis]

From what people are saying, it seems to be true in every major city. For whatever reason, in my home town, railroad tracks frequently serve as the boundary between the haves and the have-nots. Perhaps the trains create some kind of forcefield that the poors and blacks cannot cross.

[LastVoter]

A good candidate for this would be Seattle... but there aren't really any true ghetto areas in the city. Regardlessly, there are some neighborhoods with million dollar homes on the top of a street (the ones with views) and houses with window bars only a few blocks away (no view).

I think SE Seattle(Beacon Hill) is sort of a ghetto. Also Belltown. West Seattle and Del ridge have a huge contrast.

[Seattle]

A good candidate for this would be Seattle... but there aren't really any true ghetto areas in the city. Regardlessly, there are some neighborhoods with million dollar homes on the top of a street (the ones with views) and houses with window bars only a few blocks away (no view).

I think SE Seattle(Beacon Hill) is sort of a ghetto. Also Belltown. West Seattle and Del ridge have a huge contrast.

Ehh, Beachon Hill isn't that ghetto (well by Seattle standards I see your point, but maybe Im biased since I know the area pretty well). The difference between some points in High Point and the ridges in Del Ridge are pretty huge.

[LastVoter]

A good candidate for this would be Seattle... but there aren't really any true ghetto areas in the city. Regardlessly, there are some neighborhoods with million dollar homes on the top of a street (the ones with views) and houses with window bars only a few blocks away (no view).

I think SE Seattle(Beacon Hill) is sort of a ghetto. Also Belltown. West Seattle and Del ridge have a huge contrast.

Ehh, Beachon Hill isn't that ghetto (well by Seattle standards I see your point, but maybe Im biased since I know the area pretty well). The difference between some points in High Point and the ridges in Del Ridge are pretty huge.

Yea I know North Seattle neighborhoods a lot better. I guess Beacon Hill is very gentrified now.

[phk]

Fresno