What is the "grit capital" of the West Coast?

[tech12]

All cities have their gritty areas. I've never been to the Northwest, but the top "grit cities" for CA have to be Oakland, SF, and LA. Not too surprising.

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

I am not sure how working class Potrero Hill and The Mission are nowadays. That Whole Foods in the former, and all of the hipsters/precious cupcake shop shit and Dolores Park/Valencia areas don't scream "working class," IMO. Parts of them? No doubt. However, the levels of gentrification present make it difficult to characterize them as being entirely "working class."

That "precious cupcake" (lol) part of the mission is abut 1/3 of the mission's total area. The rest also has plenty of hipsters/yuppies and such, but is still majority working class, and still has plenty of grit. As of 2009, the Mission was 17.5% in poverty, which is not great, and was higher than the city-wide average of 11% (while neighboring Potrero Hill and Noe Valley had poverty rates of 13% and 6%, respectively). The hipster/cupcake part of the mission has some grit and working class people here and there as well. I would still call the Mission "working class" overall, though definitely less so than before the area west of Mission Street got trendy. Potrero Hill has some grit and working class people too, especially in and around the projects on the southeast side, but for the most part that neighborhood is pretty gentrified.

[dimondpark]

In my experience LA is grittier than SF and Oakland(these 2 are no slouches either tho, but in LA it seems way more widespread)

Like from the Airport driving all the way to Downtown. Take the 105 to the 110 and the entire drive is through rather gritty areas, not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but it is what it is.

[spoonman]

Originally Posted by JiminyCricket II

Tacoma and the eastern side of DT Vancouver, in that order. Parts of LA like old warehouse districts along I-5 are nasty too. Parts of the Bay Area are dingy too.

To me it seems like every major metro on the west coast has some pretty bad spots, except maybe San Diego? I've only been there once in my life so I don't know, maybe it has some 'Navy Grit'. Portland 20 years ago was pretty gritty, but determined effort at urban renewal has changed a lot of that, now the buildings and streets are clean... but the people don't know what a shower is .

Tacoma to me, if you take it the mountains and hills away, could be any gritty Great Lakes city.

South Bay, San Diego's south side is very gritty. It's bordered by the shipyards, Tijuana, and downtown.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by novawolverine

I learned a lot about LA's grit from Escape from LA.

They have really cleaned up that Hollywood and Vine intersection.

[Robertpuant]

Visually, I'd say LA.

[599GTO]

LA outside of the Westside and BH looks rather dumpy. I don't know if it's grit? Perhaps, but "sleazy" would be a better term I think.

SF I find kind of gritty and unkempt. It's a nice place but i've never thought of it as pristine or exclusive.

Fresno is gritty.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by 599GTO

LA outside of the Westside and BH looks rather dumpy. I don't know if it's grit? Perhaps, but "sleazy" would be a better term I think.

SF I find kind of gritty and unkempt. It's a nice place but i've never thought of it as pristine or exclusive.

Fresno is gritty.

I wouldn't exactly consider Fresno as gritty, since most of the city isn't all that old. Of course what you may see driving down Highway 99 is on the edge the city and downtown. Most of Fresno extend way north along highway 41 and a lot of of looks quite suburban quite clean.

Your view of LA grit is also a bit of an exaggeration, I wouldn't call much of the neighborhoods bordering the Ventura corridor as sleazy. Plus there are many other hoods on on the east side they are quite nice and very well maintained.

[Cirrus]

What exactly is the Vancouver Downtown East Side? My experience w/ Van is limited, but surely you don't mean Gastown and Chinatown?

[Ex-Ithacan]

^ I didn't know what it was either until I watched "The Beat" TV show on Current TV. Seems to be the land of the walking zombies, and dirty as hell.

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

What exactly is the Vancouver Downtown East Side? My experience w/ Van is limited, but surely you don't mean Gastown and Chinatown?

Yes, that area is considered to be the worst in Canada in terms of violence, poverty, homelessness, drug use, HIV infection rates, etc.

I stayed in the "Denny Triangle" area of Seattle, and it was quite the dump (thought this nearly a decade ago). For example, the sidewalks were in terrible shape with weeds growing between the slabs, plus it was obvious they would "repair" them by just pouring concrete over the repair. The built environment (stand-alone parking lots), hotels/motels with parking between the sidewalk and the building, etc. also left a lot to be desired. The good thing it the hotels there were much cheaper than west/south of the Monorail, and it is a very short walk to Belltown/"Retail District".

[InlandEmpire]

The Denny Triangle was sparse ten years ago, but not what'd I'd call 'gritty', and it is much different now. I don't know that there are any seriously downtrodden parts of Seattle.

[sopas ej]

I wouldn't say that San Diego has some really "gritty" areas, but there are indeed some rundown areas and poorer neighborhoods of San Diego as you go inland from the coast. But they're not super gritty. That also goes for some of the southern suburbs of San Diego like Chula Vista; I remember someone from there who used to refer to it as Chola Vista.

[softee]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

What exactly is the Vancouver Downtown East Side? My experience w/ Van is limited, but surely you don't mean Gastown and Chinatown?

Mainly the strip along East Hastings street.
• Video Link

[Centropolis]

"what is the grit capital" probably doesn't mean what city has the most compelling squished-in spot of filfth. I imagine that helps but I don't think that is really in the spirit of.

[AviationGuy]

Originally Posted by JiminyCricket II

Tacoma and the eastern side of DT Vancouver, in that order. Parts of LA like old warehouse districts along I-5 are nasty too. Parts of the Bay Area are dingy too.

To me it seems like every major metro on the west coast has some pretty bad spots, except maybe San Diego? I've only been there once in my life so I don't know, maybe it has some 'Navy Grit'. Portland 20 years ago was pretty gritty, but determined effort at urban renewal has changed a lot of that, now the buildings and streets are clean... but the people don't know what a shower is .

Tacoma to me, if you take it the mountains and hills away, could be any gritty Great Lakes city.

When I was in Portland in 1996, I noticed that some areas between the airport and downtown were downright scary. Hopefully things have changed since then.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by destroycreate

I think the Tenderloin in SF might be worse...

me and my friend walked through the tenderloin on our last visit, we didn't even know we were in the tenderloin until afterwards it didn't look any worse than other areas we didn't see any junkies shooting up as you do in the DTES

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by J. Will

Yes, that area is considered to be the worst in Canada in terms of violence, poverty, homelessness, drug use, HIV infection rates, etc.

If this thread is to be believed, it's also worse than anything else on the west coast of the US.

I find that unlikely. Unless it's much much worse east of Chinatown. Is it much much worse east of Chinatown?

[seaskyfan]

I think the DTES is the most hopeless place I've been in on the West Coast - not sure about the scariest or "grittiest" whatever that means.

Great book by the way by Gabor Mate who's been running a clinic there for years - "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts."

[SpongeG]

its in that video - the worst of it is basically between chinatown and gastown along a couple of blocks of east hastings and a bit to the east of main street as well

the alleyways are areas you wanna avoid, i've never had any problems down there - well once last year or so some woman started yelling at me cause i was taking a picture of a building and she started calling me a tourist stealing their souls and we don't know their lives and you better not take any more pictures basically threatening me - me and my friend just ignored her

i have heard of people having their cameras grabbed and broken for taking pics of people down there - its an odd situation - they want to do it all out in the open for everyone to see but they don't want anyone to know

my old boss wanted to buy a condo in the adjacent area to china town - just south of chinatown and there is a huge park there that looks really nice but they didn't like when they walked through the park seeing so much discarded drug paraphenalia, needles etc - its easily unseen from a distance but you look closer in the parks down there and you can't miss it

[599GTO]

What does gritty even mean?