Harlem. south central or cabrini green (crime rate, houses, unemployment)
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Which of this neighborhood do you think was the most dangerous? I'm talking about when they were notorious at their time. FOr some of you who don't know where this places are. It chicago, newyork and Los angeles
Probably Cabrini Green.Just for the fact that they were on the Northside of Chicago,which is usually dubbed the nice side of town.I've never been to any of them,I was in Chicago,and was looking for Cabrini Green but couldn't find it.Harlem and South Central are neighborhoods,Cabrini Green was project buildings,so I don't think you can really compare South Central and Harlem with Cabrini Green.Between Harlem and South Central,I don't really know which one would be considered more dangerous.South Central is definetly more notorious.South Central is more spread out,and Harlem is more dense.South Central probably has more crime,but its also a bigger area.One things for sure Cabrini Green,Harlem,and South Central are all pretty dangerous.
Last edited by CTownNative; 09-22-2007 at 06:17 PM..
Cabrini Green is a housing project in an affluent neighborhood, how do you compare that to South Central or Harlem (Harlem isn't even that bad anymore.)
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York Cityborough of Manhattan, long known as a major black cultural and business center. After being associated for much of the twentieth century with black culture, but also crime and poverty, it is now experiencing a social and economic
renaissance.
The high cost of space forced people to live in close quarters, and the population density of Harlem in these years was stunning — over 215,000 per square mile in the 1920s. By comparison, Manhattan as a whole had a population density under 70,000 per square mile in 2000.[23] The same forces that allowed landlords to charge more for Harlem space also enabled them to maintain it less, and many of the residential buildings in Harlem fell into disrepair. The 1960 census showed only 51% of housing in Harlem to be "sound," as opposed to 85% elsewhere in New York City.[24] In 1968, the New York City Buildings Department received 500 complaints daily of rats in Harlem buildings, falling plaster, lack of heat, and unsanitary plumbing.[4] Tenants were sometimes to blame; some would strip wiring and fixtures from their buildings to sell, throw garbage in hallways and airshafts, or otherwise deteriorate the properties which they lived in or visited.[25]
As the building stock decayed, landlords converted many buildings into "single room occupancies," or SROs, essentially private homeless shelters. In many cases, the income from these buildings could not support the fines and city taxes charged to their owners, or the houses suffered damage that would have been expensive to fix, and the buildings were abandoned. In the 1970s, this process accelerated to the point that Harlem, for the first time since before WWI, had a lower population density than the rest of Manhattan. Between 1970 and 1980, for example, Frederick Douglass Boulevard between 110th Street and 125th Street in central Harlem lost 42% of its population and 23% of its remaining housing stock.[26] By 1987, 65% of the buildings in Harlem were owned by the City of New York,[27][28] and many had become empty shells, convenient centers for drug dealing and other antisocial activity. The lack of habitable buildings and falling population reduced tax rolls and made the neighborhood even less attractive to residential and retail investment.
Since the arrival of blacks in Harlem, the neighborhood has suffered from unemployment rates higher than the New York average (generally more than twice as high),[45] and high mortality rates as well. In both cases, the numbers for men have been consistently worse than the numbers for women. Unemployment and poverty in the neighborhood resisted private and governmental initiatives to ameliorate them. In the 1960s, uneducated blacks could find jobs more easily than educated ones could, confounding efforts to improve the lives of people who lived in the neighborhood through education.[46]Infant mortality was 124 per thousand in 1928 (twice the rate for whites).[47] By 1940, infant mortality in Harlem was 5% (one black infant in twenty would die), still much higher than white, and the death rate from disease generally was twice that of the rest of New York. Tuberculosis was the main killer, and four times as prevalent among Harlem blacks than among New York's white population.[47] A 1990 study reported that 15-year-old black women in Harlem had a 65% chance of surviving to age 65, about the same as women in India. Black men in Harlem, on the other hand, had a 37% chance of surviving to age 65, about the same as men in Angola.[48] Infectious diseases and diseases of the circulatory system were to blame, with a variety of contributing factors including the deep-fried foods traditional to the neighborhood, which may contribute to heart disease. Harlem has one of the highest asthma rates in the United States. Increased risk of asthma may be brought about by high particulate matter from the diesel emissions of buses and trucks, which levels are higher in Harlem than elsewhere in New York City
1940 statistics show about 100 murders per year in Harlem, "but rape is very rare."[31] By 1950, essentially all of the whites had left Harlem and by 1960, the black middle class had gone. At the same time, control of organized crime shifted from Jewish and Italian syndicates to local black, Puerto Rican, and Cuban groups that were somewhat less formally organized.[50]At the time of the 1964 riots, the drug addiction rate in Harlem was ten times higher than the New York City average, and twelve times higher than the United States as a whole. Of the 30,000 drug addicts then estimated to live in New York City, 15,000 to 20,000 lived in Harlem. Property crime was pervasive, and the murder rate was six times higher than New York's average. Half of the children in Harlem grew up with one parent, or none, and lack of supervision contributed to juvenile delinquency; between 1953 and 1962, the crime rate among young people increased throughout New York City, but was consistently 50% higher in Harlem than in New York City as a whole.[52] Injecting heroin grew in popularity in Harlem through the 1950s and 1960s, though the use of this drug then leveled off. In the 1980s, use of crack cocaine became widespread, which produced collateral crime as addicts stole to finance their purchasing of additional drugs, and as dealers fought for the right to sell in particular regions, or over deals gone bad.
By some measures, the 1970s were the worst period in Harlem's history. Many of those Harlemites who were able to escape from poverty left the neighborhood in search of safer streets, better schools and homes. Those who remained were the poorest and least skilled, with the fewest opportunities for success. Though the federal government's Model Cities Administration spent $100 million on job training, health care, education, public safety, sanitation, housing, and other projects over a ten year period, Harlem showed no appreciable difference.[75]
The deterioration shows up starkly in the statistics of the period. In 1968, Harlem's infant mortality rate had been 37 for each 1000 live births, as compared to 23.1 in the city as a whole. Over the next eight years, infant mortality for the city as whole improved to 19, while the rate in Harlem increased to 42.8, more than double. Statistics describing illness, drug addiction, housing quality, and education are similarly grim and typically show rapid deterioration in the 1970s. The wholesale abandonment of housing, described in the "Ghettoization" section above, was so pronounced that between 1976 and 1978 alone, central Harlem lost almost a third of its total population, and east Harlem lost about 27%.[75] The neighborhood no longer had a functioning economy; stores were shuttered and by estimates published in 1971, 60% of the area's economic life depended on the cash flow from the illegal "Numbers game" alone.[76
The worst part of Harlem was the "Bradhurst section" between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Edgecombe, from 139th Street through 155th. In 1991, this region was described in the New York Times as follows: "Since 1970, an exodus of residents has left behind the poor, the uneducated, the unemployed. Nearly two-thirds of the households have incomes below $10,000 a year. In a community with one of the highest crime rates in the city, garbage-strewn vacant lots and tumbledown tenements, many of them abandoned and sealed, contribute to the sense of danger and desolation that pervades much of the area."[77
Say what you want about Compton, South Central, Cabrini Green etc etc the sheer misery of Harlem was something worse than living in the streets of a 3rd world country. Read that article.....I was shocked when I read it. The crime, poverty, and basic way of life in Harlem IMO was unbelivable.
The only reason Harlem isn't mentioned as much today is because it's doing way better now. The South Bronx was similar to Harlem....and it still is awful. That's why it gets mentioned more today. Harlem, should not be forgotten IMO.
Harlem was something else. And NOTHING and I mean NOTHING compares to it.
It may sound biased because I have a strong belief that NY during the crack epidemic was the worst place ever but IMO a better question would be between which was worse...Harlem or South Bronx.
Last edited by DoubleXAs; 09-22-2007 at 06:30 PM..
Yeah really Cabrini Green isn't comparable to South Central and Harlem.The only reason I siad it was the worst is because they are bad projects,out of all the projects I've read about they were the worst.But Cabrini Green is sorrounded by rich areas,and they've already torn down most of Cabrini Green.I don't really know between South Central and Harlem which one is worse,both are dangerous.I guess It might be Harlem since it is compacted into a smaller area,while South Central is a larger area.South Central on its whole area probably has more crime then Harlem,but again Harlem is a much smaller area.
Cabrini Green is a housing project in an affluent neighborhood, how do you compare that to South Central or Harlem (Harlem isn't even that bad anymore.)
Harlem is better today. But it's not all the way back. I agree that Harlem doesn't compare today though. But the question was
Which of this neighborhood do you think was the most dangerous? I'm talking about when they were notorious at their time.
Sorry but those other places dont compare to Harlem in it's time. Few places can.
Walk over there without living there or knowing anybody that does....You aint coming out
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