Have you lived in the ghetto?

I actually did, but I don’t think anyone would believe it.

Yes. I saw someone getting arrested at gunpoint right across the street. I would always double check that the doors were locked and I'd never walk anywhere.

The worst neighborhood I ever lived in was in 7th grade and I started becoming a little hoodlum. Got in a lot of trouble, thankfully with my family and school not the law. I had a lot of fun and it was one of the best years of my life.

Twice, actually. The first time was in 1987 when I moved in with my boyfriend in an area in San Diego known as University Avenue. Really not a safe place at all, but we didn't end up staying there long.

The second time, I didn't realize when I moved there, but I figured it out after i lived there for a year or so. It was in Vista, CA in the early 90s. Huge cockroach problem in all the apartments there, such that they would come in and do bi-monthly spraying in all units.

Oh, and then there were the gunshots at nights maybe 2 or 4 times a week.

Not great places, either of them.

My early childhood, I grew up in a bad neighborhood but I have little memory of it. I remember the apartment being broken into and I had a fear of open windows because as a child, that’s how I thought they got in.

Vaguely remember loud domestic violence over my head in the apartment upstairs.

By 7, I had moved into a nice house in a better neighborhood.

But I grew up in a city so I saw all sorts of shit. I’ll never forget falling off my bike when I was 8 or 9 and going into the ER waiting room and a man walked in with a couple of cops and he had patches of blood soaked all over his shirt and he was pacing back and forth and angry. He had been stabbed multiple times.

I didn't account for the time in the mid Aught's (2007-2009) i lived in San Francisco in the Haight. People squatting outside your house, or worse yet, witnessing them shitting right across the street from your bedroom window. It was a ghetto of a sort back then because of all the homeless.

I hear it's even worse now.

Back in the day, many of the 'gayborhoods' were hood-adjacent.

They didn't call it the gay ghetto for nothin'!

I used to party with my straight Latino friend at his house in South Central LA. It's not as bad as white people say. Haha.

Once I was sitting in my car waiting for him and some little black thug came up to the window and reached in and tried to grab my dick. To this day I don't know what that was all about.

I lived in roachy ghetto apartments in relatively safe neighborhoods. The rent was really cheap, but it didn't cover roach spray or my clothes that were stolen from the dryer in the dungeon laundry room.

Not sure if that counts...

[quote] I didn't account for the time in the mid Aught's (2007-2009) i lived in San Francisco in the Haight.

This is sooooo 🙄🙄🙄. It was expensive back then still.

Yes, I was born a poor black child...

I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1982, when it was a Dominican/Puerto Rican slum, long before it was discovered and overrun with hipsters. There were armed gangs roaming the streets at night. I looked like the marshmallow in the butterscotch pudding in that setting, and eventually was hounded out of the neighborhood by a threatening street thug, so I don't have fond memories. But when you're in your early 20s and dirt poor, what options do you really have?

Once. On a cold and gray Chicago morning.

A few years on the UWS when I first graduated, then I moved back to the right side of the park.

I live "in the hood" according to most of my friends. My house is paid for, so I'm not aspiring to someplace else.

I visited the East Bay once.

^ OMG, weren't you scared? 😳

The Oakland Hills are a downright favela!

Yes, we were so poor that we imported Janet Jackson from Gary, Indiana to help us out in the Chicago projects

^ I forgot how hot Thelma’s man was!

Yes, late 80s, on the far edge of a gentrifying neighborhood in Brooklyn. I was mugged twice, once at gunpoint, harassed a few times on the subway. I was often the only White person on the train. Had a roommate who would die within a year from HIV, he was mugged also. Lots of abandoned buildings, spooky streets. It was a depressing place during a very depressing time.

R6 Oh man. When I lived in the Haight, I looked out my window and saw someone shitting in the street in front of my house, too. Turns out it was just Janis Joplin. Again.

^ Janis was such a cut-up, always mainlining and pooping, mainlining and pooping...

I lived at Hoover / Adams in the late 80s while at USC - weird mix of rich college kids and poor Mexicans. That part of the neighborhood was fine - it got more dangerous west of Vermont.

Not the ghetto, but a really bad neighborhood. My teacher mom decided to buy the biggest nicest house because it was cheap—and we were instantly hated by everyone around us. Murders, drug busts, and extreme child abuse (sometimes resulting in death) were the norm. If you forgot to lock your car, everything would be stolen from it. Break-ins were pretty much expected. People would just walk into our yard and steal our bikes or balls until my mom put up a giant fence around the whole property. She moved over 20 years ago. During one visit a few years ago, I decided to drive by the old house. I had a full on panic attack. I wasn’t expecting such an extreme reaction and I couldn’t get away fast enough….

Worcester, MA in the early-mid 70's. Public housing (we qualified going to school) in a then-shitty neighborhood with semi-weekly police and fire visits. But the building was new and the rent was $160 a month for two of us. It was about 15-20% white residents and everyone else was POC. Lots of cars there got trashed but they weren't stupid: I had a Chevy Vega and nobody touched that. Our Haitian neighbors next door were nice people but talked like they're screaming - they're weren't, that's just how they talk - and roaches were often an issue but I never felt particularly nervous about living there. We were told it was safer than a lot of the neighborhood. Back then the whole city was more or less a ghetto because the local economy sucked as jobs disappeared. It looks a lot better there now.

But the Jamaicans who lived down the hall sold the best pot and a black dyke who lived in the building was also the bouncer at the gay bar in town so we never paid a cover there. Plus I had a thing going with a kid who lived there and went to Holy Cross. He'd do anything if he had enough drugs onboard and he usually did. It was an education for me because I grew up in lily-white suburbia, but sex can take the edge off of pretty much anything when you're 20 or so.

r10 - yes, San Francisco is and was expensive. I didn't say it wasn't. But the Haight area is where a ton of homeless hang out because it's at the mouth of Golden Gate Park, where they would sleep and congregate to do drugs on Hippie Hill. Very common to find people slumped over on the streets, syringes scattered around, feces, trash, drunken or drugged out people rampaging, etc. I'd say that's the definition of ghetto (although obviously the Tenderloin and parts of the Financial District were much worse, I won't deny that).

That said, we lived in a rent-controlled apartment - the top story of a Victorian with 2 bedrooms and 2 (smallish) bathrooms, high ceilings, beautiful details, really old fashioned kitchen though and no laundry room. The windows were paper thin and you could hear a person's entire conversation as they walked by as if they were in the room with you. It was $2250 a month. My partner at the time made upwards of $200k at his commercial banking job and I made a lowly $65k at Del Monte in the Legal Department. We still lived somewhat frugally, didn't have a car and would rent Zipcars if we needed to get out of the City. Good times, but I'd never move back there in a million years.

I’ve been ghetto-adjacent

NY: East Flatbush in the early 90s. Briefly, as a skinny white boy it was a mistake. 11th Street between B & C, 1987. Grim, not hip.

Paris: Goutte d'Or, early 90s. It was OK.

Cairo: a couple sketchy areas, early naughts.

Have I ever!

I have, several times in my 20s when I was incredibly poor and often unemployed. I lived in a few "rust belt" cities. It was affordable. Sometimes it was OK, sometimes there were bad neighbors.

I remember living in a building where the downstairs neighbors constantly left the front door open, ostensibly so that their friends/drug dealers could come in and out all the time. This was in a town that gets over 100 inches of snow in the winter time, mind you.

I also lived in what is now a very trendy, gentrified neighborhood, but when I lived there in the late 90s/early 00s it was a mix of ancient old couples and poor white and black folks. There was a black bar near us that was always crowded and I used to say "JK's Place - DJ at 11, Gunfire at Midnight!"

I marvel at how far I've come since then. But honestly, none of those neighborhoods were truly terrible. I don't think I could have done something like Englewood in Chicago or the like. There's "transitioning" or mixed neighborhoods that have some good and bad.... and then there's just horrible ones, where people will shoot at you for anything, or nothing.

Most of the neighborhoods I grew up in NYC and DC, flyover whiteys would consider the ghetto.

Yes.

The local name for the neighborhood I grew up in is "The Hole." Do with that what you will.

I did when I was very young and got taught a brutal lesson when they burgled me and even stole my boiler. And I don't understand why people in the ghetto target other poor people instead of people who actually have money? It's so shitty and like crabs in a bucket mentality.

R34 So you grew up with a bunch of fags.

R35 It’s a crime of convenience. They broke asses know if they gon on the Upper East side with that bullshit they will be locked up or worst shot. In fact they do target them rich whites when at night or on the subway , especially in the early 90s.

At the beginning of the pandemic we wanted to get out of Manhattan and looked at buying this beautiful huge historic house in Newburgh, NY. We had never been there before but heard it was gentrifying.

There was a drug deal going on in broad daylight in the front yard and it looks decades away from gentrifying.

I grew up in what is as close to a ghetto as there is where I'm from. It was definitely an economically challenged pat of town and had a fair bit of gang violence.n

It’s pronounced GHE-TTO

I was raised next to it and it somewhat slowly crept in in the 90s into our town. Many pearl clutchers sent their kids to private schools or moved away. My broke ass parents either didn’t care or didn’t have the funds to move. So high school was like “Dangerous Minds”.

In 1982, I bought a four-story brownstone fixer-upper in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for 70K. Now an upscale, desirable neighborhood, back then, it was viewed as Bed-Sty and just another ghetto place to avoid. My friends from Manhattan wouldn't visit me.

I bought it because I was tired of paying exorbitant rent in the Upper West Side, and I wanted something where I could build equity. Surprisingly, it was my parents who thought it was a good idea because of the quality of the housing stock and its relative closeness to Manhattan (one subway stop away from Canal Street, four stops from Times Square). At the time, a lot of gays had begun buying and renovating the beautiful brownstones in the 'hood, so I was not a pioneer by any means. But it was a dangerous place, and my new boyfriend and I were both mugged once, at different times.

Jump ahead 35 years to 2017, when my now husband and I decided to retire and move to a warmer climate. We put the house on the market on Friday, had an open house that Sunday, and on Monday, received five bids, all over the asking price. We sold the home for $3.25K—the best investment I ever made.

R42, I think you meant M not K. I went to Tech for two years in the mid70s. What a shithole of a neighborhood than. I'm glad you and your husband made out well.

I live in the Karen ghetto. Very demanding and exhausting.

Thanks, R43. Yes, I meant $3.25M.

To get to work every day, I used to cut across Fort Greene Park and then walk down DeKalb Ave past Brooklyn Tech to the Subway. I felt that once you reached the school, you were 'safe.'

R27 I spent the better part of a year in the Haight in that exact same timeframe and while there were homeless people, there were also organic markets, fusion restaurants, a bunch of banks, expensive cafes, bars, a gay bar even, designer resale stores, a functioning public transport system, parks, an American apparel, etc etc. there’s absolutely no way on earth you could describe it as a ghetto I’m sorry. But really you did give me a giggle so I appreciate that.

R6 - can confirm, it's definitely worse now, almost all over SF. Very sad, very discouraging.

r46 glad you laughed.

I lived it. But i also lived where shots were fired every few nights from gang activity in my neighborhood down in Vista, CA as well, and my short (thankfully!) time in the University Avenue area of San Diego in the late 80s.

Just because a place has restaurants, public transportation, parks, banks, cafes, doesn't mean it isn't ghetto-like. When there are people shitting right outside your building in broad daylight and you walk past passed-out, homeless druggies on a daily basis, i'd like to see what YOU call it. We even had one guy run into a pizza joint and start yelling at everyone, threatening them, and grabbing their food, then running out with it.

Scratchin’ n survivin’

[quote] Just because a place has restaurants, public transportation, parks, banks, cafes, doesn't mean it isn't ghetto-like.

Actually that’s exactly what it means R48. If you have fancy restaurants, public parks, public transport, great and varied food options, public street festivals etc etc and an American apparel, you weren’t living in a ghetto sweetheart. You’re just fucking deluded lol.

Like I said (not sure if you read my post thoroughly) I spend the better part of a year in the haight at the exact same time. And while there were homeless people, it was not a ghetto baby. Also I don’t care that you lived in various other Californian cities idk why that’s relevant to our back and forth. You should watch the Catherine Tate episode about the yummy mummy when daddy couldn’t get the good Brie, you might not get it but it’s a good study.

I did in Japan. I lived in yakuza controlled part of Osaka where most of the residents were burakumin (untouchables).

Okay, r50. There are varying degrees of ghetto. And i've lived all over the place - not just in CA, but also in NY.

You're black and white and i see the shades in between.

👍

I don’t think so. I had mice jump out of the stove and cockroaches everywhere but I commuted to work by cable cars that tourists come from around the world to see.

R52 there are varying degrees of ghetto and the haight in late aughts doesn’t appear on that list. Ghetto by definition incorporates poverty in almost all inhabitants, lower access to healthcare, but especially an aspect that its impossible to leave the area because of ingrained poverty and because of being othered. You and your bf on his $200k salary unfortunately do not qualify for this just because you had to look upon the occasional homeless person (the horror). I hope you kept your AA circle scarf as a souvenir of the desperate times you lived through 😂😂😂.

I can only imagine your friends rolling their eyes when you tell them about the desperate times you went through when someone stole your garlic potato and rosemary pizza slice from escape from NY. Get a fucking grip.

A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure.[1] Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.

Ghettos in the US are self-created. No one else wants to live with them for reasons stated above by several people.

Bump

R56 “for reasons well known to her”

I went to grad school at Fordham and lived in Belmont for a few years, a few blocks south of the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. As a white kid coming from the Pacific Northwest, many people warned me that it was highly dangerous and certifiably "ghetto", but I was fortunate to never have a bad experience. I actually loved living there. I saw the occasional sketchy stuff go down, but nothing outrageous or violent. I do remember getting emails fairly regularly from university admin about college kids getting mugged and having their phones stolen from them late at night, but I never ran into any trouble myself, even during late hours. I am someone who is always very aware of my surroundings and I've always minded my own business. Maybe I just got lucky, but I have fond memories of that neighborhood. I rented a shitty (albeit comfortable and affordable) 1-bedroom in a walkup owned by an old Italian man who lived upstairs. Mostly college kids and a few employees at St. Barnabas Hospital lived in the building.

So getto we couldn't afford the H

I wouldn't call the Haight a ghetto, but I have never, ever liked that neighborhood.

I lived in SF and admit I didn't venture into many "scary" neighborhoods. The two times I felt like clutching my pearls were:

1. A friend of a friend lived in the Western Addition (Divisadero?) in a cool apartment, actually. However, I did not like the feel of that neighborhood. When it was time to go home, I just wanted to GTFO.

2. Tenderloin. A friend and I went there to eat at Original Joe's (before it burned down). That place is creepy at night! (The Tenderloin, not Original Joe's, which was an awesome restaurant!)

A homeless person does not a ghetto make.

good god, many of you don't really understand NOR have ever lived in the Haight. It wasn't just "A" homeless person...it was TONS OF HOMELESS PEOPLE all over the place, camped out on your doorstop, drugged out, shitting, pissing and doing drugs/strung out on your steps.

fancy restaurants?? Does Squat and Gobble count as one? Tell me the fancy the places to eat on the Haight during that time?

fuck off. you didn't live there. i fed homeless people there during that time. Just shut the fuck up.

R63 seems like you’ve been partaking in some of the drugs in your terrible Haight ghetto!

r63 is having a moment!

[quote] i fed homeless people there during that time.

MARY.

The Haight seemed like a ghetto to me when I visited around that time.it certainly wasn’t nice or a place I would want to live. Huge crowds of smelly people going up and down the streets all day. Every other person either asking for money or trying to sell me drugs.

Mixed in with all that (the Haight) is the fact that it still is a tourist destination (Summer of Love). It has all those colorful (ugly?) Victorian houses that people like to look at (Painted Ladies). It's also close to the outer reaches / Panhandle of Golden Gate Park, plus the DMV.

I'm guessing it still has a fair amount of decent restaurants there. Fancy? No. Shitty restaurants don't survive in SF (except for a couple of places that are inexplicable).

Also, neighborhoods in SF change quickly from street to street. Walk a couple of blocks in another direction and you're in a much nicer area.

[quote] Shitty restaurants don't survive in SF (except for a couple of places that are inexplicable).

So shitty restaurants DO survive in SF.

Data from 2014 which is slightly after R63’s traumatic experience in the upper height.

94117 zip code has a median household income of $91,300, which is 23% higher than that of the rest of the city, 50% higher than the state that it’s in, and almost 100% higher than the US at the time. Bear in mind R63’s household income was almost 3x the starting income and I’m guessing, lacking any dependents.

Like I said I spent the guts of a year in the upper haight during the same time as you R63 and once again, there is absolutely no way you could describe it as a ghetto. Just because you didn’t have in unit laundry and had to look at small groups of homeless people chilling out smoking joints with their dogs on the side of the street (because that’s what I saw, they were harmless) doesn’t mean you experienced a ghetto.

I think you’re upset because your dinner party anecdote of having “lived in the ghetto and fed the homeless” is being torn to shreds before your eyes and you can’t face up to it.

A couple of years ago I spent a few weeks in the south side of Chicago and let me tell you that is a ghetto. The poverty was indescribable considering we were in the US. There were only liquor stores (boarded up and some with security), every single person I saw seemed to be suffering some sort of ill health, no parks, no organic markets, no tourists, no bars, no American apparel. And the people there are on much stronger and more depressing drugs than weed or acid.

You don’t understand the country you live in and you sound like a dickhead the more you dig your heels in.

R70 good points.

I don't think anyone can understand the levels of desperation that happen in some parts of the south of Chicago. It's easy to lump the whole city together and blame certain political parties. But there were a few huge changes that happened, some almost 40-50 years ago, and those areas never recovered as a result.

Lack of jobs due to all industrial work shutting down + destruction of the projects (which were awful but did actually provide housing - now people have to fight over hovels) + the crack epidemic = total destruction, and people literally fighting to survive, which is why everyone shoots and kills anyone who so much as walks by their house and farts.

"The World Is A Ghetto" - War

Ghetto superstars, that is what we are!

I loved me some Average White Band.

Almost nobody had an in-unit washer and dryer in SF.

I just knew this thread would eventually devolve into screeching lamentations about SF.

you'd think it was the only place anyone ever lived

Anywhere in my city is the ghetto, it's opposite here, ghetto with pockets of nice and often gated places. We're number three I think so far in 2024 this year in the national homicide race. It's cheap to live here of course.

This baby was just shot and killed through the wall just two weeks ago.

R78 What are best things about Shreveport? This is a genuine question. How’s the food?

If you encountered anything like this type of foolishness at a gas station on a semi-regular basis, then you lived in the ghetto.

Yes.

Mount Pleasant , DC in 2000. It's now very yuppie-ish, but at the time it was cheap and fringe. Lots of homeless people who'd just pee on the street. Needles on the way to the Metro. One block would be fine; a block over and you'd be leered at. My apartmenr had bars in the windows and was infested with mold.

R82 That’s actually not too far from where I grew up during the end point of white flight and the beginning stages of gentrification.

I lived in East Cleveland for a summer. It was not ideal, but I was a young college student and sucked it up

r36 No. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of or seen the show BMF on Starz, but that's the neighborhood I grew up in. It's in Southwest Detroit. They call it 'The Hole.' I don't know why. I just know I hated it there. The heavy, pungent, pollution fucked with my asthma on a daily basis. Specifically the Marathon Oil Refinery.

There is nothing good about Shreveport, just like Jackson,Baton Rouge, Montgomery etc. They are all dead and decaying places.

People here think the chain places are the bees knees, Olive Garden is like a Michelin star restaurant. This is bible belt, not Cajun or Creole, think Paula Dean.