In The Ghetto: Canadian Style

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I grew up in this ghetto and it's the worst east of Quebec by far. Haven't been to DTES or Winnipeg but as far as I can tell only Scarborough was worse in terms of pure poverty and drug use.

Scarborough isn't exactly a drug-addled slum of ingrained, multi-generational poverty. Well, for one it's an area home to some 600,000 people with neighbourhoods ranging from poor to rich, but even the poorer areas and public housing developments are home to more of the struggling immigrant type of poverty. For that kind of cracked-out, skid row kind of poverty, see Toronto's aforementioned downtown eastside.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I grew up in this ghetto and it's the worst east of Quebec by far. Haven't been to DTES or Winnipeg but as far as I can tell only Scarborough was worse in terms of pure poverty and drug use.

As a Scarborough resident, I will have to remember I live in an area of pure poverty and drug use.

I am sure most other Scarborough residents will be surprised to hear that.

I wonder how Scarborough residents afford their $600,000 to over $1 million dollar homes with all the poverty, drugs, and crime.

I never did get how Scarborough got this reputation of being poor and crime ridden, when North York and Etobicoke have more and larger crime ridden and poor areas.

[MolsonExport]

Etobicoke has certainly been put on the radar, with a much clearer signal of being a den of iniquity, since the whole RoFo file.

[Hawrylyshyn]

I'm surprised no one has brought up the low income areas in Hamilton (who is said to have the three poorest postal codes in Canada)

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.26971...2!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Bur...a957f6b0?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.25681...2!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.25934...2!8i6656?hl=en

[leftimage]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

I'm surprised no one has brought up the low income areas in Hamilton (who is said to have the three poorest postal codes in Canada)

Looks like shit. Good submission !

reminds me of some parts my own ghetto hood Pointe-Saint-Charles

like here

and here.

[matthew6]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

I'm surprised no one has brought up the low income areas in Hamilton (who is said to have the three poorest postal codes in Canada)

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.26971...2!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Bur...a957f6b0?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.25681...2!8i6656?hl=en

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.25934...2!8i6656?hl=en

Looks fine to me

[Hali87]

I stayed in Pte-st-charles and while not exactly the most ornate or happening part of montreal, it didn't seem particularly sketchy. Reminded me a lot of North End Halifax, but with many more depanneurs/convenience stores and fewer specialty shops. The only really remarkable thing was the huge feral cat population - my friends had a list of which cats were / were not allowed in their house. The house itself was very nice and not in any way run down.

[Hali87]

FWIW... an actual "ghetto" isn't just a poor or sketchy place or one with lots of panhandlers. The term "ghetto" actually has largely racial/cultural implications. It doesn't just mean that everyone smokes dope, listens to rap and has a hard time finding employment, or whatever many here seem to think; it's also not really synonymous with "slum"... just my 2 cents here

[SignalHillHiker]

In a backyard on my street. Not my place but same type of thing lol

This is what the cheapest rowhouses have in back.

[Hali87]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

In a backyard on my street. Not my place but same type of thing lol

This is what the cheapest rowhouses have in back.

This seems pretty... normal to me? I don't quite get what this has to do with ghettoes.

[SignalHillHiker]

It's just so... poor. The nicer older areas have landscaped gardens and courtyards in back. The suburbs have manicured lawns. Here it's just a mess. This is probably the only mowed lawn on this block.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by matthew6

Looks fine to me

Those parts of Hamilton don't look threatening like in American cities, and there's no racial component to the demographics, but trust me, they're incredibly bleak, soul-crushing places to live. Unemployment, social dysfunction, mullets, smoking teenage mothers-to-be, smoking teenage mothers, scrawny prostitutes, big dogs straining at leashes held by big assholes, stupid fights, stupid arguments leading to stupid fights, etc. Essentially People-of-Walmart when they're not in a Walmart.

It's partly the fault of the vinyl siding. A struggling pre-war neighbourhood is redeemable if the brick is still intact, but once the vinyl siding goes up it's all over.

[Bcasey25raptor]

The DTES isn't even that bad. The ghetto portion really doesn't spill out much from east hastings in-between carrel and main. Parts south of main in chinatown are generally ok and parts north of that section are actually pretty nice.

DTES is a bad term since it encompasses a huge amount of area when only a small part of the DTES is a legitimate ghetto.

I personally live just off main to the south of the Georgia Viaducts and it seems fine to me walking through Pender down to Tinseltown for a night at the movies than walking back at midnight.

As long as Hastings is avoided most of the trip, you'll be fine.

[matt602]

Hamilton, even the areas that were just linked to a few posts ago, doesn't really have any truly ghetto areas any more. A lot of the depressed areas downtown and across the lower city have been gentrified quite a bit over the past 5-10 years and with the Pan Am games going on this month, a lot of lipstick has been put on the pig. Even the worst parts of Barton Street aren't anything like what they used to be.

If you look at flar's photos from 8-10 years ago and compare them to recent streetview imagery, you can see a big difference in a lot of areas.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

I'm surprised no one has brought up the low income areas in Hamilton (who is said to have the three poorest postal codes in Canada)

You're obviously new to the forum. Hamilton's more 'challenged' neighbourhoods have received plenty of air time around these parts.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Bcasey25raptor

The DTES isn't even that bad. The ghetto portion really doesn't spill out much from east hastings in-between carrel and main. Parts south of main in chinatown are generally ok and parts north of that section are actually pretty nice.

DTES is a bad term since it encompasses a huge amount of area when only a small part of the DTES is a legitimate ghetto.

I personally live just off main to the south of the Georgia Viaducts and it seems fine to me walking through Pender down to Tinseltown for a night at the movies than walking back at midnight.

As long as Hastings is avoided most of the trip, you'll be fine.

I wouldn't say the Downtown Eastside is dangerous, it's just intimidating. Even on East Hastings Street, the sheer number of homeless people is enough to feel uncomfortable, let alone the general condition of the area and the state that many of those people are in. However, I've walked there quite a few times in the middle of the night, and nobody's even said a word to me.

Personally, believe it or not to the people outside of Vancouver, I'd much rather be here at night:


http://libertyroot.net/how-is-ibogai...-of-vancouver/

Than here:


http://www.valuegroupproperties.com/Centre-of-Newton-2

Which is the Newton neighbourhood in Surrey. It's literally been having at least one (usually a couple) drive-by shootings a week for the past few months due to a low-level turf war going on. Sure the Downtown Eastside looks terrifying, but as far as actually being a victim of crime, I'm much more wary of the suburbs.

[ssiguy]

I agree.

I have never felt scared while in the DTES but just unnerved, offended, saddened, angry, and a whole slew of other emotions seeing such depravity and despair 2 blocks from million dollar condos.

The DTES is horrid but it's made even more so by the fact that it right up against vast areas of nouveau riche.............it's social and political stratification in the extremes. Reminds one of the shanty towns in RIO where it end on one side of the street and the wealthy protected neighbourhoods start on the other.

It's economic and social stratification that started the DTES and it's the same thing that keeps it going. The city housing policy is the worst imagineable and build low income housing in almost the DTES far more than any other neighbourhood. This is because the tony Westside doesn't want any social housing as "it will bring down real estate values" but that is also true of the Eastside of the city where shacks go for $1 million plus.

Now you have a situation where all the new low income, disabled, addiction centres and housing, rehab etc is all being built in an area that is already dirt poor.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I wouldn't say the Downtown Eastside is dangerous, it's just intimidating. Even on East Hastings Street, the sheer number of homeless people is enough to feel uncomfortable, let alone the general condition of the area and the state that many of those people are in. However, I've walked there quite a few times in the middle of the night, and nobody's even said a word to me.

Personally, believe it or not to the people outside of Vancouver, I'd much rather be here at night:


http://libertyroot.net/how-is-ibogai...-of-vancouver/

Than here:


http://www.valuegroupproperties.com/Centre-of-Newton-2

Which is the Newton neighbourhood in Surrey. It's literally been having at least one (usually a couple) drive-by shootings a week for the past few months due to a low-level turf war going on. Sure the Downtown Eastside looks terrifying, but as far as actually being a victim of crime, I'm much more wary of the suburbs.

I think that's true of a lot of Canadian cities. The homeless folks and poor aren't nearly as much of a threat as the lower middle class teens in the inner suburbs.

[esquire]

Winnipeg's grimmest area is the North End, and Selkirk Avenue is its hub.

https://goo.gl/maps/Oi0vv
https://goo.gl/maps/zOU4o
https://goo.gl/maps/zOU4o

Selkirk is in some ways the most urban street in Winnipeg outside of downtown proper... it started out as the centre of a neighbourhood filled with the newly-arrived poor and dispossessed masses, gained some working class respectability as an ethnic commercial area (mostly Eastern Europeans including Poles, Ukrainians, Jews) sometime between the wars, then after about the 70s began a long slide into social dysfunction and crime.

I'm barely old enough to remember the last vestiges of when Selkirk was still a legitimate shopping and small business street in the 80s... over the course of the 90s and 00s, businesses disappeared and the street is now lined mostly with empty storefronts, vacant lots and an absolute plethora of social agencies. There is a handful of businesses still around, some legimate, some sketchy. There is a strong racialized element to the neighbourhood now in that it is home mostly to some of Winnipeg's poorest and most vulnerable urban indigenous residents.

[Bcasey25raptor]

The dtes strathcona neighbourhood is the best in vancouver, period.

The ghetto portion is rather small and doesn't seem to spread out from its centre much more than 5 minutes walk in any direction.