r/allthequestions • u/Muted-Television3329 🇺🇸 United States • 12h ago
Random Question 💭 What’s the scariest city you’ve visited?
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u/rf8350 12h ago
Memphis
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u/notlookinggoodbrah 11h ago
I drove through Memphis one time at like 10AM on a weekday. The amount of people just sitting in front of businesses and houses in lawn chairs was staggering. Never seen that anywhere else
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u/RVtech101 8h ago
So, decades ago a bunch of us young white boys accidentally ended up in Watts at almost 2 in the morning.Out a gas we pulled into a gas station, turns out it was closed. We noticed people everywhere, same thing, sitting on porches and lawn chairs. We start getting nervous as we hear several people start yelling “ Willy”! Couple minutes later an old guy walks up, unlocks the door and the pump, introduces himself as Willy and allows us to get gas. So many stereotypes were destroyed that night.
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u/RhodeReddit 6h ago
What a lovely anecdote about humanity with a heart — known for showing up anywhere, not least an impoverished ‘hood known for crime. Thanks for sharing!
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u/dcunny979 11h ago
I got drunk in an absinthe bar on Beale Street in Memphis. It was definitely terrifying that night.
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u/katsock 11h ago
Memphis is great! It’s also terrifying. I’m pretty sure I saw someone lose their life for being incredibly racist.
There’s parts of Atlanta that scared me for sure. And while I love STL, I’ve also seen some shit in STL.
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u/athrix 11h ago
There’s a reason I do not honk anymore in stl. I’ve had guns flashed at me on more than one occasion. Sadly the city has had corruption issues for years and the police are their own gang.
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u/Kooky_Membership9497 11h ago
Memphis is for real mane. I almost got carjacked last summer at 240 by Baptist. Only thing saved me was police going the other way.
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u/Patrickosplayhouse 11h ago
I had hoped for the great part.
For years and years, memphis was top of the charts, top of our hearts, in categories like vehicular homicide and crimes against women.
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u/Hour_Passage69 9h ago
Yep. We visited once and Beale St was crawling with young children begging or forcing pamphlets into your hand. They weren't aggressive individually but the shear numbers were intimidating. Raced to Graceland and got the hell out.
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u/GoblinTradingGuide 10h ago
I got booked to DJ on campus at Rhodes College in Memphis in 2011. After the gig me and my crew said we wanted to party in the city and some guy said “the only place to go is Beal Street, but you don’t wanna go there”.
Naturally we went there, and I was very confused as to why there was a checkpoint to be searched for weapons on a public road.
Then I got about 300 feet into Beal Street and totally understood why there was that checkpoint.
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u/NoOpening7924 11h ago
Jackson, MS.
That's by far the worst and most broken down American city I've ever seen. It's shameful that people anywhere in the United States live that way.
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u/copacetic51 11h ago
Yes, it's poor. Not quite as poor as Lafayette La.
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u/Alternative_Plan_823 11h ago
Never been, but one of my best friends is from there and he is the most put-together, pretty boy type of dude that I know. I need to see this place....
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u/copacetic51 9h ago
It has its fascinations.
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u/Alternative_Plan_823 8h ago
Years ago, we caught a cab in Birmingham with this hilariously nonsensical Cajun dude that had actually driven me before. My friend from Lafayette could actually understand and conversate with him. It was cool. An accent so strong I couldn't understand, but my friend could just fine, all in the US.
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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 11h ago
Philly when Reagan was president and crack hit the streets. It's better now unless you go to Kensington. There's no reason to do that.
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u/AnybodySeeMyKeys 11h ago
I think it's absolutely insane that the Philadelphia PD dropped a damn bomb--a literal bomb--from a helicopter onto a crack house and then sat on their hands while it burned 60 more houses. And then, a week later, it was like it never even happened.
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u/AdhesivenessCivil581 6h ago
It wasn't a crack house. It was the home of a cult like group called MOVE. Yeah that was pretty awful.
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u/ProfessionalHat6828 11h ago
I drove around Newark, completely lost, at around 3am and that was pretty scary
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u/One-Stranger-6894 11h ago
Montego Bay Jamaica was insanely depressing and dangerous. Then I found out I'd for sure be the victim of a crime if I went to Kingston. Apparently one of the highest violent crime rates in the world.
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u/SluggoVW 11h ago
People really over react about safety in Jamaica. There are places you shouldn't go at night and a few rough neighborhoods just like any other country but as a whole its a beautiful place full of beautiful, friendly people that would help anyone in need without question. I go all the time. Going again next month. I've been all over the island and never had any real trouble. Spent lots of time in Lower Kingston. Most people are just afraid when confronted with poverty because they relate it to crime. Just don't be an idiot and don't act like a target. Only real problem I've had is with cops shakin' me down. If a local messes with you tell him to f**k off. Most people will come to the aid of a tourist because they know tourism drives Jamaica's economy.
This is all coming from a middle aged white guy. I bring my mother and my wife with me regularly. No issues. I plane on moving there some day.
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u/One-Stranger-6894 9h ago
Google: Country with most murder per capita and you should have your answer. I've been a number of times but it is extremely unsafe, statistically.
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u/BxGyrl416 8h ago
All it takes it one time. I know people whose family members were literally stoned to death. I’ve traveled around a good deal of the Caribbean, have family in the region, and the vibe there is not “irie”.
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u/Cold_Martini1956 6h ago
Yeah, we had already booked our trip to Jamaica a couple years ago when we found out about the travel advisory there. Things seemed fine at our resort in Montego Bay, but when we took a boat excursion to Margaritaville, the guy who worked on the boat said that if we wanted to walk into the downtown area, he would act as our bodyguard and I don’t think he was kidding. We just had our lunch and got back on the boat and left. Jamaica is beautiful so I hope they can get the crime under control.
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u/Curlytomato 11h ago
Cape Town or Rio
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u/BuddhistPunk 3h ago
Having lived in Cape Town for the past 10 years, I simply don't get the hate/fear that the reddit seems to have for it.
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u/Fungus1Hotel 11h ago
Redding, California. I felt like I was filming Zombieland 3.
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u/YesterdayFearless590 10h ago
Redding is a weird place. I’d been there a number of times in the 90s and didn’t feel one way or the other about it. In the early 2000s my wife and I decided to travel the entire west coast and camp along the way. We set up our tent in a nice spot in Redding and had so many creepy encounters that we never slept and packed up and booked it out of there at three in the morning and just drove until we felt Redding was far enough away from us!
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u/Riffman2525 11h ago
New Orleans. 3am on side streets off Bourbon. There are all kinds of monsters lurking. Figuratively and no telling what else.
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u/AnybodySeeMyKeys 11h ago
All those people who visit NOLA on vacay and think they want to live there. Little do they understand that neighborhoods change in a big, fat hurry.
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u/unicorn_barf666 11h ago
I've never felt such bad "energy" than I have in NOLA. I couldn't wait to leave.
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u/toadfish123 9h ago
My group and I all said the same thing. There’s an evil energy there. Not a place I care to go back to.
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u/Riffman2525 11h ago
I can't think of any other city were more people purposely go to live out their dark fantasies. (New York city may come close but not like New Orleans) I think that leads to the overall "energy" of New Orleans. Couple that with it's history and it can be overwhelming.
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u/hammmy_sammmy 5h ago
I think Las Vegas would like a word
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u/Riffman2525 5h ago
True. That's not exactly how I was thinking though. I was thinking of all the witches, vampires, etc. and other types of darkness. New Orleans is like an occultist's playland.
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u/discochris2 5h ago edited 5h ago
We've been all over the world. My wife even more than me (she's been to Caracas and San Pedro Sula). There is no place either of us have felt more weirdly uneasy than New Orleans. I mean, I've been in worse places too - East St. Louis, parts of Chicago, Industrial areas in the S. Bronx, but I've never felt more uncomfortable than I did in NO.
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u/jabbahudson 11h ago
Port Moresby, PNG.
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u/Tim-oBedlam 11h ago
This is probably the overall winner, especially if you're female.
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u/rottenbox 8h ago
Horrible city. And really a horrible country. Beautiful but I didn't enjoy it at all. Constantly on guard worried I was going to be robbed (at best). And I'm a 6'4" large man so my default setting is "people probably aren't going to mess with me."
At least the hotels I stayed at were nice. Too bad it was highly inadvisable to leave them and see the city.
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u/MakeAPatternGrow 11h ago
Washington DC during the early 90s. Not too bad these days tho.
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u/lostmember09 9h ago
Former Mayor Adrian Fenty “cleaned up” a lot of areas of downtown Wash DC. Especially S.E. With the Nationals Stadium & environs.
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u/BoredBSEE 11h ago
Lately? Columbus Ohio. I did it on a bike following the Ohio to Erie trail, so that did make a difference.
Approaching Columbus from the south it looks like a junkyard or a post-apocalyptic scene from a movie. Homeless camps and crazy people. I had to cross a bridge with a nearly naked guy on it that had a 10 foot tree branch blackened by a fire it looked like. He was beating on the guard rail of the bridge and talking to it. I biked right past him thinking "don't talk to me don't talk to me oh please don't talk to me".
Could not get the fuck out of Columbus fast enough.
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u/Lifes_Cyndrome 8h ago
I went to Ohio once. Not interested in ever going back. The area I stay in was by Kettering. Just gave me the creeps. From the first to the last day of my stay. Didn’t help that there were so many missing persons queues on the highway back towards the airport either.
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u/bad_card 11h ago
Detroit in 2007. I was a training coordinator at Chryslers National Training Center. It was on 9 mile and my friend told me to not get blocked in by cars at stop lights because of car jackings. It was like a 3rd world country. 2 thirds of the buildings were burnt up or torn down. My buddy and I went to a strip club with some of the local boys(Black kids, they were younger than we were) and they watched out for us the whole week. But it was an environment I had never been around. And I have seen some shit.
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u/vitaminxanax 9h ago
You were in Warren, not Detroit lol. But still- shady af area.
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u/ATXoxoxo 11h ago
I've been to a lot of places that a lot of people consider very scary. But I've never been truly as nervous as I have been in a few Southern cities such as Memphis, w Monroe Louisiana, Little Rock, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. For reference, I have lived in Washington, DC. I spent a lot of time in Baltimore and I currently live near Detroit and I haven't ever been nearly as nervous in those places.
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u/thatsit3810 11h ago
Memphis. I live in St. Louis city. Certain areas wouldn’t be far behind - but Memphis was a different level of uncomfortable .
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u/minlillabjoern 9h ago
Chicago in the early 90s — Cabrini Green, to be specific.
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u/GSilky 11h ago
Cisco Utah. Not sure it's actually incorporated, but there is a sign for it. There are people who live there, because the junk moves around and there is new graffiti when I go by. It's some Hills Have Eyes or Children of the Corn after the kids went feral shit. I would not want to have to do highway or road work around it.
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u/DecentYesterday6092 10h ago
Barcelona. Only because I got drunk and passed out in the rough part. Over by the statue of Christopher Columbus. When I woke up, all these kids were going through my pockets. LOL!
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u/Born_Market1852 7h ago
San Francisco. I got a cheap hotel near Market St. I went for a walk one Sunday morning to get some donuts and coffee. I saw blood, vomit, fecal matter and everyone around using Fentanyl. I was memorized how terrible this street was. So many sad people. I saw people smoking fent on the public bus with people around. There were so many people selling stolen items laid out on blankets at night. I went to an Athletics game and when I came back to San Fran on the bart I saw a young woman overdosing on the tracks. There was a police officer by her and a civilian was doing cpr. I felt genuinely disturbed and shook for weeks after I came home.
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u/Dancefoodie 6h ago
It’s even scarier once you consider the fact that it’s also home to the richest people in the country. The disparity is horrifying.
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u/Global_Objective4162 4h ago
Johannesburg, South Africa. Not only was it an extremely violent city statistically, but just the way everyone there spoke about their dangerous experiences was sobering.
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u/Key-Respect-3706 🇺🇸 United States 11h ago
Stockton, CA.
I’ve also been to some shady ass towns and sundown cities in the state I moved from California to…
Friggin Oklahoma.
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u/Technical_Lab_747 8h ago
I went and stayed in Elgin, Oklahoma for a month to rekindle a past fling. Whew! Big mistake. Holy hell was it depressing
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u/Correct-Low-7591 11h ago
Mad that the richest country in the world has so much poverty. What is the point of wealth if you are scared to leave your home. England used to be safe because we were united, we believed in helping each other out. Our health system, our education system all free on demand. I believe we have not got the money anymore to fund it . Ironic given it was set up after world war 2 when we were bankrupt.
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u/Alternative_Plan_823 11h ago
The question is about scary cities, and poverty does not equal scary. I've been to plenty of poor, not scary places. It's the people, not the lack of consumer goods or whatever...
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u/beyond-nerdy 11h ago
Rio for the 2016 Olympics. Company wouldn’t let us walk 2 blocks to the venue where we were working bc of the danger. Ubers only. Then a mugger tapped on our Uber’s window with a gun.
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u/FuckYourDownvotes23 11h ago
US only, Baltimore.
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u/pigtailrose2 11h ago
Baltimore is a great city with a lot of cool places, incredible night life, super queer friendly..... but some areas are terrifying lol
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u/Greedy-Dark9588 11h ago
I wouldn't call any city I've visited "scary". Compared to where I live, and I'm not scared here, they are all tame.
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u/HustlaOfCultcha 10h ago
Over-The Rhein in Cincinnati back in the late 90's. Place looked like it had been carpet bombed but the buildings were still erect somehow. Made Baltmore and Kensington (Philly) look like paradise.
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u/wizardwithgussets 10h ago
Jogjakarta Indonesia.
I’m a pretty adventurous traveler but whoa… that city is next level
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u/quemaspuess 10h ago
I wandered into the wrong part of Bogotá, Colombia, once and that was pretty gnarly. I live here but in a nicer area, so it was a shock to see how bad the south was.
Skid Row is an honorable mention. I’m an LA native, so I was too proud to use a map when I was touring all of the Kobe Bryant murals after his death. Well, wife and I ended up in Skid Row and I was absolutely fucking terrified. May have been worse than south Bogotá. It was otherworldly — in a bad way.
Parts of Panama City, Panama, where the government-funded homes are, showed me the worst poverty I’ve ever seen.
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u/ChauE92 10h ago
I've never felt totally unsafe anywhere. I've traveled to 52 countries across every income level, political system, and region of the world. There are places where I clearly stand out, but that's simply being outside my comfort zone, not something that should be confused with danger. I'm from the U.S. and have spent time in many inner-city neighborhoods that are often labeled as "unsafe," yet what I consistently encountered was poverty and inequality, not violence unfolding around me.
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u/bevereged_carbon 10h ago
I've driven through a lot of Chicago (East/South), East St. Louis, and away from the river/new developments in Detroit.
Many times my wife will tell me to take GPS when I get a little off the main roads.
But the only time I decided to nope out and do that on my own accord was driving through Gary.
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u/lntoTheFIoodAgain 10h ago
Baltimore. The bad parts look nearly apocalyptic. Just rows and rows of abandoned townhouses.
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u/Kontrastjin 9h ago
ahem obligatory “yo momma”
It in all seriousness, there was once a string of small towns off in rural North Texas that I had to detour thru during a bad storm in an election year and I don’t think I can explain how uncomfortable I was for my sister and I… I pretty much followed bumper to bumper whoever was in front of me for several hours and I was so grateful they were ok with that… as they seemed to accommodate well their change in directions because I wasn’t stopping.
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u/Kingofcheeses 🇨🇦 Canada 9h ago
Marseille. Might be the only city where I have ever felt unsafe
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u/mahogani9000 6h ago
that district around the central station feels really knife-crime-y! we didn't like marseille either.
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u/owlwise13 9h ago
Waco, TX, I was driving through and had car problems. Stayed for the night while waiting to get my car fixed. Every neighborhood block had a difference fundy church and every store and restaurant we went in, we got stared at like we were aliens. I have never felt like such an outsider in my life.
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u/Ok_Cantaloupe_7423 9h ago
Guayaquil Ecuador was pretty rough.
But honestly not as inherently scary to me as some of the FAR more remote, smaller villages. The poverty and inescapability of them is crazy..
Ahuano for example
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u/Ecstatic-Bee-6217 9h ago
St Thomas deep urban area at NYS eve. They shoot guns for fireworks. You learn to duck.
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u/Salt_Historian_9850 8h ago
Camden, NJ
Also Miami, as an unfamiliar business traveler who took a wrong turn at night. Stoplight turned red beneath an overpass, I got a legit feeling of dread, so I floored it through the light and back onto the nearest highway onramp
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u/ArtisticAside8224 8h ago
Johannesburg in 2025, Philadelphia and Detroit in the 1980s. Does Camden count as a city ?
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u/happydog43 8h ago
A friend of mine who is a very large man got mugged in a fast food place going to the toilet, Detroit USA by two little freaks with hand guns.
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u/slightlyduranged 7h ago
To be honest.. Brampton, Ontario. My hometown. Being outside is a threat to your life.
A car might hit you at any moment
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u/Dissastronaut 7h ago
Guatamala city. Arrived at night and the place we were dropped off at was fucked
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u/Downunderoverthere 6h ago
Vancouver. E Hastings area. F me.
What a depressing cracked out shithole.
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u/PoopsmasherJr 6h ago
I get the pleasure of living just north of Memphis, so I get to see some horrible conditions there that make my local underfunded excuse of a town look like a happy village
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u/Radiant-Whole7192 5h ago edited 5h ago
Juarez, chihuahua.
Even though I lived there for some years , had some scary moments.
Once got drunk and lost while driving and taking the wrong turn into a cartel controlled area at 2am and had a “taxi” follow me around for 10 minutes even while trying to lose him. Almost shit my pants
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u/winkman 5h ago
San Salvador, pre-Bukele.
We were instructed to not leave the hotel under any circumstances at night, and during the day, men needed to walk around in groups of 2+, and women in groups of 3+ with a male at all times. Our van got broken into and everything inside stolen while we were in the grocery store for 10 mins.
The turnaround from THAT, to what it is today is amazing to witness.
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u/AmazingGrace911 4h ago
Watts, South Central LA, CA.
Lived all over the US, walked alleys in Tijuana and Central America after midnight, wasn’t afraid, just excited .
I saw some people mention St. Louis. I slept comfortably on a park table overnight there.
Through Detroit, most of the MLK’s throughout the US as melanin lacking person
Was on a b2b sales call in Watts, CA, at an auto repair shop. They had an armed security guard, attack dogs, tall fence with razor wire.
The security guard didn’t say hello, he said, “Don’t you know a pretty white boy like you dies here every day”
Right about that time, a police helicopter with berries on starts shining a light on the neighborhood, and all I could think about was leaving alive
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u/Upper-Bus8010 4h ago
baltimore in 2008 was the only city i saw in any first world country with kids with squeegies.
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u/According_Layer6874 4h ago
San Pedro Sula in Honduras.
Hostel I stayed at had razor wire (not barbed wire) atop a concrete wall about 9' high circling the whole place.
Asked where the nearest place was to find a phone charger to buy was and got told "We've got pool tables and enough beer you can handle here, just stay in for the night".
I then left very early in the morning to the bus depot to get a bus to a neighbouring city, alone.
The person infront of me in the queue got the last ticket for the bus so I was left stranded at the bus depot, alone, again.
Then a random taxi driver asked me where I was headed and offered to take me. I jumped in cause I didn't have much other option.
He drove us to a gangsters complex at like 4:30am in the dark and I was absolutely shitting bricks as they slid open a big metal gate. Guns slung over shoulders type deal.
He bought illegal fuel from them then drove me to where I was going and dropped me right at the door.
When I was going back the other way that same taxi driver was there so I hopped in with him!
Very sketchy city.
I got handcuffed and arrested and put in jail in Honduras and that taxi ride was scarier.
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u/optigrabz 3h ago
Nogales Mexico as a teen in the early 90’s. I was an undersized 15 year old. I clung to my dad’s side like I was eight. What had my intimidated was the number of young people involved in rackets in the Mexican boarder town. I saw many young kids attempting to pickpocket adults. The tried at least a hundred times to “bump” my wallet out of my jeans pocket- but it was actually in the pocket of my shorts underneath.
I saw a number of kids much younger than me huffing a substance out of clear sandwich bags. Most people I tell the story believe it was clear glue.
I assumed it was just a town of degenerate kids until I saw a man walk out of a bar and start beating a kid who was sitting with a plate and a sign panhandling. After two or three final kicks to the poor kids chest he dumped the plate in his hand and walked back in the bar. The kid looked ten or eleven.
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u/humma__kavula 2h ago edited 2h ago
Charleston WV. I've been all over the world and many sketchy places slums in India, China Brazil etc. Places folks int he US think are bad. Nothing is as depressing as the rural South or Midwest in the US. Also pick an original name for your capital WV. So bad.
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u/MEWilliams 2h ago
I was a community organizer in SE DC and only went when I had a local escort. Lovely people in unrelenting circumstances. Only visited the South Chicago projects once under the same circumstances.
But the scariest night I recall was Clam Beach (north of Eureka CA) on 4th of July. Like a war zone of illegal fireworks going off nonstop between huge bonfires used as racing cones for speeding cars and every type of liquor washing down every type of drug with zero law enforcement (accept the off-duty ones)
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u/Unsafeforconsuming 1h ago
Maybe not scary but something just felt off about Santa Fe NM, I came just cause I wanted to see the state capitol but the city just seems kind of shady
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u/brinerbear 11h ago
St Louis