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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   23591 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard it about parts of Chicago as well, and in both places, I don't drive with the windows down or leave my car for large stretches of time or walk alone, and so on.

Accidental double post

I've heard it about parts of Chicago as well

Chicago was strongly affected by red-lining. Anecdotally, most of the non-petty crime is strictly limited to the south and west sides of the city. There is very little chance you will just "wander" into the bad neighborhoods unless you are completely oblivious, deliberately or otherwise, to the changing neighborhood affluence markers. It's literally a gradient from good -> bad. The only real exception to this rule is the area around Hyde Park, which is the purview of the University of Chicago. It's smack dab deep in the ghetto, the metra stop for Hyde Park is very rough, but the actual neighborhood itself is super nice, until you cross the street boundary.

I was living on the South Side, and kept going to places like the DMV, or the grocery store, or some cool little fried shrimp place on a bridge, or a nature preserve, and my father in law kept giving me startling strong opinions about the places I had to drive through to get to them.

I lived on the outmost west side of the "good" parts of the city, in avondale/logan square. It was fine. The neighbor had a bit of "character" about it, but was more rough working class rather than actually ghetto. The worst thing that ever happened was a drive by shooting 3-4 blocks south of my apartment. Unfortunately, as is generally the case, a bystander was caught in the crossfire.

One of my swim coaches was stabbed to death in West Mesa. For some reason, despite being a not great neighborhood, West Mesa also had the best pool complex in Albuquerque.

Worst that happened to my family directly I think was a tandem bike getting stolen.

I think the real trouble is in most cities the crime is segregated by neighborhood much more clearly than in Albuquerque, where you can have really great and well-kept infrastructure in an area of town who's name gets Google Autocompleted to "West Mesa Murders."

I'm sorry to hear that! There are occasionally people murdering each other in my area (village/exurb), but only if they get involved in some kind of family feud, or possibly drugs. Drugs are bad in general, but the entire Southwest has bad cartel activity and car thieves.

And alien abductions, of course. But you know maybe people are into that.

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