<p>When I think of a bad neighborhood, I’m looking at the kind of businesses that surround it. If I’m looking around me and see ratty looking liquor stores, ‘adult’ entertainment places, pawn shops, ‘massage’ parlors, gambling parlors, convenience stores where there’s lots of loitering, lots of vacant storefronts, etc., that’s what I would feel is a bad neighborhood. </p>
<p>Frankly, if I’m lost in an area that fits the above description, I could care less what color the people are - I’m not comfortable. It’s not like if I were in an area like that and I saw all caucasian people I would all of a sudden feel safe. I’d be just as scared.</p>
<p>Jesse Jackson has said that he feels safer in most white areas than in a black ghetto. So do most people. The vast majority of “bad” areas these days are minority dominated.</p>
<p>Well, datdude, I have to say I have asked myself exactly your question when I hear people say that JHU (where my son goes) is in a “bad” neighborhood. It isn’t (imo). Some of them get specific and say, "Well, it’s bounded on the north by a beautiful neighborhood of elegant homes (true imo); on the west by Wyman Park and Hampden,a kind of working class/young people starting out neighborhood with funky shops (true imo); but on the east it gets “sketchy.” </p>
<p>And guess what? When I go east, first I see Charles Village - a few stores/restaurants and then a perfectly decent (to my eyes) but definitely less upscale neighborhood. Most faces there are black. I’m afraid that it is the combination of “less upscale” and more faces being black that gets some folks to the “sketchy” label.</p>
<p>Now, I don’t think people are consciously saying bad=black or black=bad. I think the buildings look poorer quality; I think the people look less expensively dressed. And, yes, I think the people look “different.” I wonder if the people who make these comments just aren’t city people at all. I grew up in Washington, DC. So I just feel more comfortable than I suppose these people feel. I can’t imagine feeling endangered there. But I wonder if other people do just because they see less affluence and more people different from themselves?</p>
<p>I’m honestly thinking that these comments might be coming from people with no real city experience at all. They perhaps just aren’t used to living in an environment where you can find substantial differences in economic status (which might well be associated with race/ethnicity) just by walking a few blocks in a different direction. </p>
<p>I’m thinking they’re used to suburban homogeneity. Even if they are from rural areas, they may not know the phenomenon of the “other side of the tracks” in their own personal day-to-day doings. </p>
<p>It’s easy to <em>say</em>
… but what gives one that feeling? When there are no statistics to say that the area is unsafe or you are likely to be hurt going there.</p>
<p>I fear that it is that people look different. And I’m afraid it is due to race. Even if we all, of every race, wish it were not so.</p>
<p>I’m with JHS. I think it is less of a problem now than it was when I was 18 and I rejoice in that. And I think it will be less of a problem when my grandchildren are 18.</p>
<p>I don’t see it that way. I think they’re “dominated” by absentee landlords,
corrupt city politicians who let the areas rot, school boards that put them last on their list of consideration.</p>
<p>The people who live there are poor.</p>
<p>In city centers, most poor people are from racial minorities. </p>
<p>Fortunately, not every member of a minority group is poor, so they can get OUT and live elsewhere in more upscale neighborhoods. </p>
<p>We felt New Haven was a bad neighborhood because we saw active drug dealing within a block of the Yale campus at all hours of the day. The criminals were of a wide variety of races. The police were not visible at all during the week we were there, but we saw criminals every day.
That’s a bad neighborhood, at least when I think about where my daughter will be safe for four years.</p>
<p>Thanks for the wealth of competent opinions, you all have been super. </p>
<p>paying3tuitions, you are brilliant. Your posts are so thought-provoking and completely “on-the-money.” No wonder you’re able to pay 3 tuitions </p>
<p>jmmom, I also respect your honesty and insight. Boy, if some of the students could sneak over here for a hot-minute they’d get a real dose of reality from people with more worldly experience. </p>
<p>Now JHS, I gotta admit I don’t entirely agree with the presumption that being a URM (black for this discussion) gives you a leg up. Obviously any school, elite or average, should be pleased to take any black kid who has the brain-power and the scores to prove it. But the idea that they lower the standards for black people doesn’t sit well with me at all, and I don’t find it necessarily true. Why can’t we get opportunities based on our merit? AA is for the centuries of being denied opportunities, not a reward for skin color. If the system is being so “generous” for the years of discrimination against us, then we’re deserving of a lot more than AA (I could really use that 40 acres and a mule right about now) </p>
<p>So JHS…the question I ask you is - why is it that because institutions are now being FORCED to comply with certain quota regulations do people get the right to consider that being a minority (partcularly black) is suddenly the great door-opener to opportunity? These kids responding to these chance threads don’t have a clue about the admissions process and can’t accurately suggest to a person of color that their chances are good based on anything but scores and EC’s. They are not admissions counselor’s. And you are right, it’s their anger that’s doing the talking. They can’t live with the notion that some of us are getting better opportunities now than over the last 25 - 30 yrs.</p>
<p>There are active drug deals on most college campuses–often inside the dorms, AVM.</p>
<p>The atmosphere given off by a drug deal between two parties that is in secret is much different IMO than by people so blatant in their “business” that they will openly deal drugs " in the open" across from a school & community center at all hours of the day and night- and that is known to be watched by uniformed cops for that reason.</p>
<p>Im not saying these people live in the neighborhood- just as the fights on frat row by the UW were started by some punks who just came up with that intention, but I have never seen this particular gas station without a lot of people standing around- and I have seen exchanges regulary- and I am fairly unobservant so if I noticed it- anyone could.</p>
<p>Youth perspective:
I toured Boston College in Newton, MA last March. I remember that the admissions rep seemed particularly preoccupied with BC being a “safe school.” Lots of comments about being suburban, quiet, and having “superb” on-campus security. There was even some remark on how much safer is was there than in Cambridge (perhaps by an audience member).</p>
<p>Statistically, Newton, MA is one of the safest neighborhoods in America. Cambridge is pretty high up there, too. Harvard and MIT seemed almost completely unconcerned with safety, though I think Cambridge has a far worse rep as being “bad” than Newton does.</p>
<p>So, why all the fuss from BC? To me, it feels like “safe” is a euphemism for “we’re white/suburban, so you’re not going to get hurt.” As a white city kid, I tend to be wary of claims like BCs. There isn’t a college I know of where crime is a severe issue. If theft, assault, or injury were big issues at a college, there would be immediate action. </p>
<p>As to the question at hand, neighborhoods of color and “bad neighborhoods” are near-equivalent terms, at least to my generation. Step into any high school, public or private, and you will here refrains of “That’s so ghetto,” an amalgamation of “that’s like it’s from a poor neighborhood” and “that’s so black.” While it is uncomfortable for me to discuss all communities of color as poor, bad, or what have you, this is an idea that is belligerently perpetuated in youth culture. But as pointed out by many of you, the common idea of “bad” holds almost no bearing over reality. </p>
<p>Anyone looking at colleges needs to seriously examine prejudice when considering safety as an admissions factor. There’s a lot of internalized messages about what is “safe” and what is “bad.”</p>
<p>I don’t want this to degenerate into yet another CC affirmative-actionoganza. Personally, I agree 100% with both of the statements above. But the fact that they are a little contradictory is what sparks all the passion. Acres of cyberspace have been devoted to this. </p>
<p>You also said at some point that colleges are “forced” to do affirmative action. That isn’t true at all. Generally, it’s completely voluntary, if it happens.</p>
<p>As one who has lived in Hyde Park and has a daughter living there, I can tell you from experience that all too many people equate a “neighborhood of color” with a “bad neighborhood”. </p>
<p>the other component that affects neighborhood reputations is often outdated historical impressions. Two examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the area immediately north of Hyde Park Kenwood (i.e. north of 47th street) was for many years one of the roughest neighborhoods of Chicago. in recent years it has undergone a renaissance, with blocks of 50K townhomes being built and sold. The projects that anchored crime in the area are gone. But few folks are aware of these changes (except for the mostly african americans buying these homes!) and fewer still are willing to see for themselves.</p></li>
<li><p>Gage Park, an area near Midway airport, has been reputedly taken over by Latino gangs and the crime rate has skyrocketed. Yet many folks are under the impression that this is a stable, safe area.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The word “ghetto” used to refer to neighorhoods populated exclusively by a racial or ethnic group. These enclaves could be either voluntary or forced. A few generations ago in the NY/NJ area, a black ghetto was incredibly diverse in socio-economic level. Black docs & professionals lived among even the poorest & most dysfunctional, and evey level of wealth and stability was represented. They had no choice, as segregation closed the door to better neighborhoods. So the black child of the town drunk still had strong role models in the neighborhood. </p>
<p>Now as blacks have the freedom to choose where to live, the ghettos are socio-economic. The successful role models are gone. Black-on-black crime is an epidemic, so why in the world would blacks with the means to move out stay around? The neighborhoods are often crime-ridden & shabby & unsafe. And I would argue that they are often more racially diverse than in the past.</p>
<p>It’s not because of race that a neighborhood is considered “bad.” Look around & see check-cashing storefronts, OTBs, graffiti, pawn shops, metal grates on windows, and decaying buildings. That’s a bad neighborhood, regardless of what race is walking the streets.</p>
<p>Bad neighborhood always denoted black, hispanic, or wrong side of the tracks white. (biker areas, etc.) Safe meant any neighborhood where others didn’t come into to commit their crimes.</p>
<p>JHS,
I’ll repeat, any school, elite or average, should be pleased to take any black kid who has the brain-power and scores to prove it. But the idea that they lower the standards doesn’t sit well with me at all, and I don’t find it necessarily true. </p>
<p>The second part of the statement is in response to your suggestion that being a URM has advantages. But in your last post you said that schools aren’t forced to comply with affirmative action and it is completely voluntary if they do. </p>
<p>Now, how is it advantageous to be a URM if schools aren’t forced to comply with AA? If a school “voluntarily” selects black students, wouldn’t it be based on their academic merit rather than that student being a URM? I’m saying that your statement about it being advantageous to be a URM is not true, unless a school is forced to comply with AA and even then, I wouldn’t call it advantageous just because an opportunity opened up that should have been there from day one. </p>
<p>That sort of thinking perpetuates the idea that black kids need “preferential treatment” to be admitted to these schools, or will be admitted only under “special circumstances.”</p>
<p>I agree that ‘bad’ neighborhoods used to imply predominantly black or hispanic neighborhoods: Harlem in NY, neighborhood in Oakland, CA., parts of Redwood City in CA, East Palo Alto in CA; etc. Don’t really know if that is still the case.
What do you think of Chinatown?</p>
<p>Yale, Columbia, John Hopkins Medical School, Tufts New England Medical Center, UM Medical School, University of Chicago… are examples of good schools that have traditionally been referred to as being in “bad neighborhoods”. I believe the neighborhoods are not hispanic nor the so called “white trash”. They are mostly black.</p>
<p>Harvard, Northwestern, Loyola, University of Miami, are in neighborhoods that are not.</p>
<p>A “bad neighborhood” has both racial and socioeconomic connotations. Chicago’s South side and East LA are both considered “bad”. They are moslty hispanic neighborhoods. </p>
<p>The sad thing is that when people talk about universities in bad neighborhoods, there is more than a socioeconomic connotation. There is the subtle race issue. From what I see, is always about blacks. University of Miami is in Coral Gables, with plenty of wealthy hispanics around.</p>
<p>We all know what a bad neighborhood should be. From crime ridden areas, to poor city maintenance, to dilapidated buildings. But the socioeconomic connotations and race go hand in hand.</p>
<p>The phrase “being a minority will work for you” is just a atatement of fact. There are endless debates on this site about whether affirmative action is a good idea or not but I don’t see anyone denying that it plays a major role in admissons decisions. As far as the “bad neighborhood” issue is concerned a few generations ago those neighborhoods might have been Irish or Italian or Jewish. It is not the ethnicity of the neighborhood but what happens in the neighborhood that makes it “good” or “bad”. There are neighborhoods that would be consisdered “bad” today with little or no black or hispanic population but they are a bit harder to find, especially in the kinds of places most colleges and universities are located. I think you may be taking offense where none is meant.</p>
</p>