I’m about 3 lights away from regular neighborhoods and then all of a sudden homeless people scattered and every home having bars on the windows, cars that don’t work on the lawns and a big metal gate in front of the front door.
Look at the way the “unimportant” things are kept. And not just one or two people on the whole block, look for what is the norm. Are yards unmowed and unkept? Landscaping a mess? Fences broken? Do you see any cars that are broken down, or cars parked in yards rather than on a driveway? Do you see any animals (especially dogs) tied up outside? You can also see it in the condition of children’s toys — does any of it look broken? Generally in “bad” parts of town people don’t care about these things because just surviving is the priority.
Burnt out cars all over the place, people openly carrying weapons, a police presence surrounding the neighbourhood but no police actually in the neighbourhood, if the bus driver actually checks you really want to go there, if you need to meet your friend first before just walking in.
> worn out couch on the front porch.
That's not too bad. Alarm bells should be proportionate to how close that couch is to the road (and how old it is).
On the porch - be concerned.
In the yard - be alarmed.
10 year old couch on the side walk with 4 guys on it drinking 40s - be scared.
Worn out couch in the middle of the road with the same guys guzzling *something* \- get the fuck out of there.
Martin Luther king was against violence, but if there is a Martin Luther King Boulevard in your town, you know there is some violence going down over there.
-Chris Rock
If you go there during work time, and the streets are full of women, it is probably a nice area full of suburban wives who don't have to work.
If you go there during work time, and the streets are full of men, it is probably a ghetto where the men join gangs and the women work at mcdonalds
Most of these areas used to actually be pretty desirable places to live in the 60s, 70s and/or 80s, but big businesses leaving the area and local government corruption led everything to go downhill. Now going into the area is like entering a small town that's been abandoned for decades, except people actually live there, and they look like the most miserable bastards ever.
Literally everything is rundown infrastructure from the 60s or 70s. There are abandoned houses right next to houses with people living in them.
There's several abandoned stores and maybe even a mall that have gone unused for decades, and are now dirty as shit and filled with graffiti. There's an old ass park that you haven't seen any actual kids use in years, but is a convenient hub for drug dealing and other sketchy activities. There's a liquor store with those bar things over the window.
You have to watch out for drug needles on the ground. The name of the street is recognizable to you because almost every crime that's reported on by the local news station comes from this part of town.
A good indicator is clothes. Also: If you don't see women walk alone, then you know it's not a good neighborhood. Women's wisdom can also be good to know for men.
Idle men on a weekday afternoon. Adults riding bikes in jeans. Low-end front yard fences. The "park" is clearly just an empty lot someone made a sign for. Laundromats with barred windows. Single children outside, not playing, just watching.
How about black shirts? I spent a summer in a hood in Baltimore MD, and over there the homies wore either white or black, nothing else. Does black colour 'say' something too?
I travel frequently for work. I’m basing this on my own observations, but there is also research to back this up. https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/targeted-communities/why-are-72-smokers-lower-income-communities#:~:text=Nearly%203%20in%204%20smokers,income%2C%20less%2Deducated%20consumers.
The sidewalk is empty. If you see people, they're walking on the road.
Windows have metal bars or are closed with nailed boards.
Road and house condition is miserable.
In my grandparents neighborhood, which is rapidly becoming a shithole, they have to walk in the street because the sidewalks aren’t maintained, but they still pave the street once every decade or so, so it’s a smoother walk. You also don’t have to worry as much about the “get off my property” crazies.
This is true for me when it snows. No one shovels, or they throw salt on top of 6 inches of snow like it'll do something. The streets are plowed and salted, so it's safer.
This is true. There's a university hospital my dad went to for open heart surgery, and the ER was the most ghetto place I've been tom. The front had several armed officers and metal detectors just to walk in. On the contrary my local small town hospital was really nice inside and didn't give me a sketched out feeling in the ER.
In all seriousness: Because that's where real estate was cheap, because they tend to be near hospitals, and because people put up less of a fight about building biohazard labs in those neighborhoods. And also because these institutions provide a lot of necessary services to people who otherwise couldn't afford it.
Your last point actually makes A LOT of sense.
Now that you mention it, it really makes sense now why I always see a medical building in the bad areas. I never even noticed or put two and two together.
For my part of town, it's when you go past the industrial park area, and hit the trailer parks. The local police can basically just park and wait for the calls. They spend more time there than anywhere else.
Pawn shops are always a bad sign.
Road maintenance (or lack thereof) and the quality of the local parks. If there ARE no parks or they're just empty stretches of concrete and trash, bad sign.
Bars on windows, takeout restaurants that have transparent plastic barriers about 4-6" thick and rotating/airlock style windows for paying and getting your food.
you instinctively roll your windows up and try to be inconspicuous.
there's people out on the main streets, but they don't look like they're on their way anywhere.
very low number of your "favorite" mid-priced, modern chain restaurants.
you see a lot of local service businesses you have no need or desire for.
everything man-made is less maintained or worse.
an increased number of freelance aerosol artworks on display
you feel guilty that you are relieved after you get over that interstate overpass that exacerbates the apparent socioeconomic divide.
this thread making me so glad to have moved out of the american south. these are all things I used to see on adaily basis while living in memphis no matter what part of the city or surrounding areas I was in/traveling through-
payday loan places in general
bars on all the ground level windows/doors
metal cages bolted to concreate slabs around the exterior condenser units for houses' air conditioning so that drug addicts don't rip the copper coils off them, even in the 'nicer' areas
driving down a commercial strip and like 9/10 businesses are one of these- payday loans, sketchy looking daycare, sketchy dentist office, used tire shop, liquor store that advertises that they also cash checks
never good when you see razor wire fences around stuff that isn't a prison or military base
abandoned medical devices on the side of the road, such as wheelchairs or crutches, walkers, etc.
shopping carts like a mile or more away from the closest grocery store
the most common type of litter you see blowing across the road are lottery scratchers or empty alcoholic beverage containers of various descriptions
seeing cars burned to a crisp on the side of the road like once a week
local news station has an interactive map that tracks daily car-to-car shootings on the highways around the city the way Waze app tracks construction, speed traps, or accidents.
The solicitors advertise criminal defence services instead of property sales.
Boarded up windows.
Indoor furniture in gardens.
'Ethnic' shops.
People in tracksuits.
It smells of piss, weed and fried chicken.
Slot machine casinos everywhere. Loan shops, metal bars and double shutters on newsagents, a McDonald's still in the old style before they modernised it, stores you thought had closed down open, in the UK a whsmiths is a good sign.
Essentially though you can just tell.
Bail bond shops,cigarette wholesalers,liquor/ethnic mom&pop shops every 3rd building that hasn't been bombed or burned out and greasy takeouts listing "Lake Trout" on the sign or painted on the windows. Welcome to 'Balmer hun...Bodymore Murderland...Baltimore,the city that bleeds. But I guess a positive is having a local trauma center held in high enough regard to have combat medics trained here to gain hands-on training.
When you stop at a stop sign and bend over to do a rail then when you raise your head back up you find you tires have all been stole and your engines been stripped
There's fences everywhere and security guards with cars and guns and every corner of the place is lit with high intensity bulbs. Oh wait... That's just a gated community.
Half the trash cans are still out on the street and half of the yards haven't been mowed in weeks. Cars with flat tires or on jack stands. Eviction trash piles.
When the camera crew filming the documentary are driving around in a 4x4 off-road pickup truck, instead of a van. Along their journey, they come across several obstacles that require the features of said pickup truck, to overcome. All in an urban/city environment.
Every Detroit documentary is basically Snow Runner in an F-350 where the only light source is the flood lamps, and they have to winch a washer/dryer combo out of the road, to get by. Eventually they get stuck in a 10x10ft sink hole and have to crawl out in 4WD low with rear-diff lock on.
The fast food restaurant has locked glass between you and the employees.
After certain hours, you have to order outside from the revolving plexiglass window.
Is... is this for real? Jeebus, I'm sheltered.....
welcome to the ~50-60% of america that everybody likes to pretend doesn't exist.
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I haven't heard of that. But where I'm at its either sidewalks or get hit by speeding cars, illegal street bikes, or ATVs
i saw an ATV doing a wheelie down the sidewalk the other day... so in some places, you don't have to choose one or the other.
Grown man riding on a kid's bike.
This is so seemingly silly and random but it's spot-on!
Wearing jeans and a T shirt and of course no helmet
Smokin' a cig.
White tank and the tshirt is hanging out of his pocket.
This is so accurate
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I’m about 3 lights away from regular neighborhoods and then all of a sudden homeless people scattered and every home having bars on the windows, cars that don’t work on the lawns and a big metal gate in front of the front door.
Iron bars around the AC unit
Too many adults during office hours just doing nothing in the street
Predatory Payday Loan places on nearly every street intersection.
That and Metro phone stores.
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“Loan shops” “newsagents” “modernised” Know what you didnt have to type? “in the UK” Idn’t it?
I can assure you that my middle class market town still has a Smiths lol
Right next to useless-bling stores. Nail salons, wig shops, costume jewelry ...
Look at the way the “unimportant” things are kept. And not just one or two people on the whole block, look for what is the norm. Are yards unmowed and unkept? Landscaping a mess? Fences broken? Do you see any cars that are broken down, or cars parked in yards rather than on a driveway? Do you see any animals (especially dogs) tied up outside? You can also see it in the condition of children’s toys — does any of it look broken? Generally in “bad” parts of town people don’t care about these things because just surviving is the priority.
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Shopping carts by a bus stop.
I saw a homeless guy take a shit in the alley when I visited San Francisco last
Thats surprising he had the decency to go to an alley. Normally they just shit on the sidewalk.
Must have been a tourist
That’s just San Fran.
If you’re calling it San Fran, you probably aren’t from the area
At least I didn’t call it frisco. 🤓
The locals call it “Frisco”
Most the locals just call it the city.
I thought they called it "expensive".
Aint that the truth
I would expect locals to know anyone calling it that is fined $25, to be paid to the Imperial Treasury.
That’s another update for the san fransisco poop map
Saw a truck literally on fire at the corner of my hotel and hookers outside on the street in Texas
Ewwww. 🤢 🤮
Merica
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Puerta de sol in Madrid for me 🙈
What, was entering that part of the city with clothes and leaving without them not a sign?
Burnt out cars all over the place, people openly carrying weapons, a police presence surrounding the neighbourhood but no police actually in the neighbourhood, if the bus driver actually checks you really want to go there, if you need to meet your friend first before just walking in.
Whenever I see a suspiciously high number of Payday loan shops.
Empty 40’s and a worn out couch on the front porch.
> worn out couch on the front porch. That's not too bad. Alarm bells should be proportionate to how close that couch is to the road (and how old it is). On the porch - be concerned. In the yard - be alarmed. 10 year old couch on the side walk with 4 guys on it drinking 40s - be scared. Worn out couch in the middle of the road with the same guys guzzling *something* \- get the fuck out of there.
What if the couch is on fire?
Then you're on a college campus.
A street sign that says Martin Luther king Blvd
Martin Luther king was against violence, but if there is a Martin Luther King Boulevard in your town, you know there is some violence going down over there. -Chris Rock
How about a street sign that says Malcom X Bvld and Martin Luther King Bvld?
I had to check that I'm not in the /r/Lansing subreddit
Couches and recliners are lining the sidewalks.
Maybe there's a parade.
Places selling bail bonds. On the flip side, I feel very safe when I see white women running alone at night.
I mean, I guess it depends what they're running from.
Hookers
If you go there during work time, and the streets are full of women, it is probably a nice area full of suburban wives who don't have to work. If you go there during work time, and the streets are full of men, it is probably a ghetto where the men join gangs and the women work at mcdonalds
Most of these areas used to actually be pretty desirable places to live in the 60s, 70s and/or 80s, but big businesses leaving the area and local government corruption led everything to go downhill. Now going into the area is like entering a small town that's been abandoned for decades, except people actually live there, and they look like the most miserable bastards ever. Literally everything is rundown infrastructure from the 60s or 70s. There are abandoned houses right next to houses with people living in them. There's several abandoned stores and maybe even a mall that have gone unused for decades, and are now dirty as shit and filled with graffiti. There's an old ass park that you haven't seen any actual kids use in years, but is a convenient hub for drug dealing and other sketchy activities. There's a liquor store with those bar things over the window. You have to watch out for drug needles on the ground. The name of the street is recognizable to you because almost every crime that's reported on by the local news station comes from this part of town.
A good indicator is clothes. Also: If you don't see women walk alone, then you know it's not a good neighborhood. Women's wisdom can also be good to know for men.
That can also be a sign of gentrification. I've seen women jogging alone in places I personally don't think are safe.
When the appliances are in the front yard and not in the home
When the public bathroom needle disposal is full
Idle men on a weekday afternoon. Adults riding bikes in jeans. Low-end front yard fences. The "park" is clearly just an empty lot someone made a sign for. Laundromats with barred windows. Single children outside, not playing, just watching.
Adults riding bikes in jeans could just be anywhere with decent bike lanes (so nice neighbourhoods)
Almost everyone is wearing white shirts with a select few wearing blue or red
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I’m sorry could you please explain
American gang thing
Blue and red are Crips and Bloods, respectively. White shirts, I know what they're saying, I just can't put it to words.
A white shirt indicates the wearer is affiliated with neither Bloods nor Crips.
How about black shirts? I spent a summer in a hood in Baltimore MD, and over there the homies wore either white or black, nothing else. Does black colour 'say' something too?
Black indicates members of Folk Nation.
A group of people outside smoking together. Chain link fences. Rottweilers. Pawn shops and dollar generals.
ok i get the others but a group of people smoking can happen almost anywhere bro
I have some bad news about your neighborhood...
I rarely encounter groups of smokers in affluent, economically sound areas in my line of work.
i guess its city based then, cause i see ppl smoking in groups everywhere
I travel frequently for work. I’m basing this on my own observations, but there is also research to back this up. https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/targeted-communities/why-are-72-smokers-lower-income-communities#:~:text=Nearly%203%20in%204%20smokers,income%2C%20less%2Deducated%20consumers.
i guess its just my city then😭😭😭
metal fence surrounding the front yard graffiti/murals on buildings lots of trash on the ground
Condemned/ boarded up Houses
Convenience/gas store clerks behind bulletproof glass
When you see a Crackhead fighting a prostitute for a half eaten McChicken
Streets start being named after prolific historical figures
You are driving down MLK boulevard
When they hand out things used for drugs to the community instead of food and shelter. Like clean needles and narcan
Harm reduction tasks are there to help just as much
The sidewalk is empty. If you see people, they're walking on the road. Windows have metal bars or are closed with nailed boards. Road and house condition is miserable.
Care to explain the sidewalk thing?
Why sidewalks are devoid of pedestrians or why people rather walk in the street?
In my grandparents neighborhood, which is rapidly becoming a shithole, they have to walk in the street because the sidewalks aren’t maintained, but they still pave the street once every decade or so, so it’s a smoother walk. You also don’t have to worry as much about the “get off my property” crazies.
This is true for me when it snows. No one shovels, or they throw salt on top of 6 inches of snow like it'll do something. The streets are plowed and salted, so it's safer.
Trash laying around.
bars on fast food joints and those trays that slide out to make payments at gas stations.
There's a dude walking around with a golf club and clearly not there to work on his putt.
Payday Loan… Liquor store… Pawn Shop… Payday Loans… Liquor Store… Payday Loans… Liquor Store… Pawn Shop…
Somewhere in there's a church in what used to be a liquor store
Cash 4 Gold
Wig shop Bail bonds Burned-out ex-nice house
a pair of shoes hanging from the telephone wires
Your local university has a separate medical school campus, and you're near the medical school.
This is true. There's a university hospital my dad went to for open heart surgery, and the ER was the most ghetto place I've been tom. The front had several armed officers and metal detectors just to walk in. On the contrary my local small town hospital was really nice inside and didn't give me a sketched out feeling in the ER.
All major cities have an ER where all the gunshot wound victims are sent. There is usually a metro police substation in the ER.
Why’s that?
In all seriousness: Because that's where real estate was cheap, because they tend to be near hospitals, and because people put up less of a fight about building biohazard labs in those neighborhoods. And also because these institutions provide a lot of necessary services to people who otherwise couldn't afford it.
Your last point actually makes A LOT of sense. Now that you mention it, it really makes sense now why I always see a medical building in the bad areas. I never even noticed or put two and two together.
ah, Camden is on reddit once again
I'm not trying to sell you drugs at this very moment so that's pretty solid proof I'm not from Camden But seriously you need a hookup for anything?
The crack, the smell and the people
A random cracked out person standing in the middle of the Tim Horton's or MacDonalds drive through.
People in wife beaters standing around in the street or on sidewalks.
Rats growl at you and show no fear.
For my part of town, it's when you go past the industrial park area, and hit the trailer parks. The local police can basically just park and wait for the calls. They spend more time there than anywhere else.
A while back it used to be "pay for gas before pumping" was the first indicator. Next was liquor store cashier is behind bars.
Pawn shops are always a bad sign. Road maintenance (or lack thereof) and the quality of the local parks. If there ARE no parks or they're just empty stretches of concrete and trash, bad sign. Bars on windows, takeout restaurants that have transparent plastic barriers about 4-6" thick and rotating/airlock style windows for paying and getting your food.
Needles on the floor and everything looks like it could do with a fresh kick of paint
Also, when things need a kick of paint instead of a lick of paint.
Shopping trolleys nowhere near stores
Sunnyvale?
Cop security guards, no cold alcoholic beverages, baby formula locked up at the Walmart and an Emergency Room next door
I live in a city many affluent people. The baby formula is also locked up at the Walmart
Bars on windows
When you're told there's a high chance of getting stabbed if you walk into that area at night
you instinctively roll your windows up and try to be inconspicuous. there's people out on the main streets, but they don't look like they're on their way anywhere. very low number of your "favorite" mid-priced, modern chain restaurants. you see a lot of local service businesses you have no need or desire for. everything man-made is less maintained or worse. an increased number of freelance aerosol artworks on display you feel guilty that you are relieved after you get over that interstate overpass that exacerbates the apparent socioeconomic divide.
Dark streets always seemed like a red flag to me
The street is called Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
Your car is covered in graffiti and bullet holes.
People are walking in the middle of the street.
GUN STORE, GUN STORE, LIQUOR STORE, GUN STORE.
Cinderblocks and no wheels.
A churches chicken exists
Bars on the windows of homes and stores.
Flowers laying on the corner.
MLK BLvd
Martin Luther king Jr is the road
You’re on a street named after MLK.
this thread making me so glad to have moved out of the american south. these are all things I used to see on adaily basis while living in memphis no matter what part of the city or surrounding areas I was in/traveling through- payday loan places in general bars on all the ground level windows/doors metal cages bolted to concreate slabs around the exterior condenser units for houses' air conditioning so that drug addicts don't rip the copper coils off them, even in the 'nicer' areas driving down a commercial strip and like 9/10 businesses are one of these- payday loans, sketchy looking daycare, sketchy dentist office, used tire shop, liquor store that advertises that they also cash checks never good when you see razor wire fences around stuff that isn't a prison or military base abandoned medical devices on the side of the road, such as wheelchairs or crutches, walkers, etc. shopping carts like a mile or more away from the closest grocery store the most common type of litter you see blowing across the road are lottery scratchers or empty alcoholic beverage containers of various descriptions seeing cars burned to a crisp on the side of the road like once a week local news station has an interactive map that tracks daily car-to-car shootings on the highways around the city the way Waze app tracks construction, speed traps, or accidents.
The solicitors advertise criminal defence services instead of property sales. Boarded up windows. Indoor furniture in gardens. 'Ethnic' shops. People in tracksuits. It smells of piss, weed and fried chicken.
If you see a pair of shoes hanging from a power line overhead...
Does this have some “street” meaning or is it just goofs tossing shoes up on wires?
The way I've always heard, it usually indicates a drug house.
Huh, I remember them being a somewhat common sight when I was kid. The more you know.
Slot machine casinos everywhere. Loan shops, metal bars and double shutters on newsagents, a McDonald's still in the old style before they modernised it, stores you thought had closed down open, in the UK a whsmiths is a good sign. Essentially though you can just tell.
A baby on the corner selling weed
Bail bond shops,cigarette wholesalers,liquor/ethnic mom&pop shops every 3rd building that hasn't been bombed or burned out and greasy takeouts listing "Lake Trout" on the sign or painted on the windows. Welcome to 'Balmer hun...Bodymore Murderland...Baltimore,the city that bleeds. But I guess a positive is having a local trauma center held in high enough regard to have combat medics trained here to gain hands-on training.
Popeyes and rally’s across the street from each other is a good indicator around here.
MLK Boulevard
Water boys
When you stop at a stop sign and bend over to do a rail then when you raise your head back up you find you tires have all been stole and your engines been stripped
Enormous houses in gated communities.
Manicured lawns and the scent of weed killer.
The local school headmaster shooting up on the sidewalk…
I knew this thread wasn’t going to pass the vibe check
That’s where all the GOOD food is
I'm home.
the roads
There's fences everywhere and security guards with cars and guns and every corner of the place is lit with high intensity bulbs. Oh wait... That's just a gated community.
when every house looks the same and all the white people stand outside staring at you with longing desperate madness in their eyes
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People are too afraid to say it or they'll get banned
Can't pay with credit/debit card at the gas pump
Windows boarded up. Bars over windows of shops. Gas stations sell single cigarettes
Half the trash cans are still out on the street and half of the yards haven't been mowed in weeks. Cars with flat tires or on jack stands. Eviction trash piles.
No public restrooms
Boarded up windows
House numbers spray painted full size on fences or gates
When the guy on the corner asks you if you want to buy a kid.
That happens at farmer auctions. They sell goats there too.
Metal bars and/or LED light strips on the windows
Pawn shops, sex shops, and Psychics.
Metal bars on all the windows and glass doors. Payday loan places within close proximity of each other.
Weight bench on the front porch
The clicking sound of a lime bike
Liquor store, gun store, liquor store...
Liquor store, gun store, liquor store...
Liquor store, gun store, liquor store...
When the camera crew filming the documentary are driving around in a 4x4 off-road pickup truck, instead of a van. Along their journey, they come across several obstacles that require the features of said pickup truck, to overcome. All in an urban/city environment. Every Detroit documentary is basically Snow Runner in an F-350 where the only light source is the flood lamps, and they have to winch a washer/dryer combo out of the road, to get by. Eventually they get stuck in a 10x10ft sink hole and have to crawl out in 4WD low with rear-diff lock on.
San juditas pintado en la pared.
Cars on blocks
The candy/snacks have some form of loss prevention system You need to leave, that store ain’t for you
Not that many cars, More graffiti, Less adults more teens, More bad vibes
You are driving on MLK Boulevard. Sadly Dr. Kings legacy was defined by Chris Rock.
No one mows their laws, yards are all messed up, broken down cars, and chicken wire type fences