Resident vs visitor perceptions of cities

[C.]

I would be interested in hearing about your home town or current city. What are the best areas of town? What areas would you consider nothing special or areas of town to be avoided. I would also be interested in hearing from folks that have visited the city to get their take on what they felt were the best neighborhoods and other areas they didn't care for much.

I've had a few personal examples where local residents rant and rave about the downtown area along with the main street. It's where many of the big hotels are located, so it's the first impression many tourists get. I wasn't impressed at all until I started venturing out to districts that were off the path but were awesome and really special. The funny thing is local residents don't appreciate their own neighborhoods.

The reverse could be true, with visitors fixated on tourist traps and other mediocre areas, but miss out on the much more amazing city that all the locals know about. The first one that comes to mind in this example is New Orleans. It's just so much more than the French Quarter. I went with some friends a couple years back and they just stayed around the periphery of the French Quarter. I couldn't believe it.

Another example may be NYC and Times Square -- but it's a little different in this case since Times Square is something everyone should see just once and that's it.

yet another example may be tourist traps.

[jd3189]

I know that in West Palm Beach, CityPlace is the main meetup for people in the area. A few blocks away is Tamarind, which I heard horror stories about.

West Palm Beach is mainly visited by the rich up north who decide to vacation and buy property in Florida and they just stay in downtown or condos in the barrier islands.

The rest of the Palm Beach area, from the intercoastal to I 95, is pretty interesting and walkable at certain points. There are some ridges here and there ( Florida is flat but not perfectly flat). There's a lot of Caribbean and Latin influence especially in Lake Worth and Boca Raton. Tourists don't usually go to those areas but they're nice beach towns.

[mhays]

Most cities get more interesting away from their core CBD...and the bigger the office core the more this is true.

Seattle becomes more fine-grained once you cross I-5 to Capitol Hill. Try Pike or Pine for the heart of this area. You can also take Link to the tunnel station at Broadway and John.

[Pedestrian]

Tourists to San Francisco have a tendency to stay in or near Fisherman's Wharf and to not explore sufficiently beyond that area. In fact, it's a place locals avoid if at all possible and not much different from the "Coney Island" kitsch of many beach towns all over the US. Its T-shirt and chain restaurant heaven.

Most people are aware that SF has other intereting neighborhoods: North Beach (Little Italy), Chinatown, Japan Town (with its Nihonmachi Japanese mall), the Union Square shopping district and on and on.

So I'll focus on a couple of areas with unsavory reputations. There are basically 3: (1) the Tenderloin; (2) the Fillmore; (3) Bayview Hunters Point. The last 2 are San Francisco's historically black neighborhoods and the current site of a lot of its public housing. There IS gang activity and there is poverty. I do see tourists walking around sometimes and I tend to wonder why they are there. But compared wth some other cities (your know the list), these areas aren't so bad--maybe it's because even here the houses would be very expensive by national standards and so the poverty is pretty well confined to the public housing and its environs.

But I want to focus down further on the Tenderloin because of its central location in the city, right next to Union Sqaure and that area's many tourist hotels and upscale shopping. The city has made the Tenderloin what it is by limiting gentrification through 2 measures: (a) a 9-story height limit in a lot of it and (b) a ban on conversion of monthly-rental (so-called single room occupancy) hotels to nightly rental tourist-focused establishments. This pretty much stopped gentrification in its tracks just as it was beginning to happen in the 1970s.

The city has also concentrated services for the poor, the addicted and the homeless in this one neighborhood, thus attracting people with these problems to it and keeping them there. But at the same time, it has become a center of non-profit development of "affordable housing". San Francisco has a number of non-profit developers thanks largely to a series of multi-million dollar bond issues to build affordable housing and also to the affordale requirements placed on market rate developers. These folks have put up a substantial number of roughly 9-story, modern, fairly attractive buildings in the Tenderloin so the physical appearance of the area really isn't bad. I remind me a lot of areas of New York. And due to its large immigrant populaton, it is a mecca for ethnic dining and "dive bars". IMHO it is safe enough during the day but I don't walk around there at night alone and I advise tourists to try and not look like tourists (no camera hanging around the neck etc).

Here are some photos I took:

These is the sorts of "affordable" buildings the non-profits are putting up






Streets scenes:

[Capsicum]

Depending on the city or the part of the city and people's experiences with it, in some cases the tourist can overrate it relative to the locals, and in other cases, underrate it.

[jd3189]

The Tenderloin reminds me of New York too, especially Chinatown, Lower East Side, and parts of Brooklyn. Probably the most Eastern urban-looking neighborhood in the West Coast.

[muppet]

London comes across as an absolute wonderland for tourists these days, its streets and architecture cleaned up (finally), the weak £ making things slightly more affordable, and everything in the centre being very civilised (finally), and genuinely prettified. The city's safe, green and arty, nightlife is great and varied.

However living here is something else entirely, the cost of property and rent means living far out with overcrowded commutes and tenuous transport, in small flats in dingy locales, with less social interaction than one would like.

Londoners will avoid all the usual tourist traps, and are increasingly avoiding the city centre for the first time. They can now be found in megamalls that ring the centre, or the nightlife districts that ring the centre, and slumming it in the inner city districts that ring the centre. Nightlife's better, but nothing much else.


The Streets of London if you're a visitor. Expect $1.1 million per room - so an apartment will be $2-4.5 million anywhere near this street (the street itself is too expensive for property).


http://homesandproperty.co.uk

The Streets of London if you're not. Expect $838,000 an average apartment price on this stretch of road 6 miles from the centre, and $628,000 for the tower blocks in the distance that caught ablaze last year (read: you'll be renting shared accommodation, even here, at $1,665 per head per month).


https://makesewdo.files.wordpress.com

Or failing that, 11 miles from the centre $325,000, or ($832 per head rent per month). Your annual commute will cost you $2,500 at discount, or $12.58 - $16.50 a go to get into the centre. If this is your budget, this is also where you'll likely be hanging out. This is where the Londoners invariably are these days, and the city that most Londoners experience.


https://chrismansfieldphotos.com

You could of course go even further out to beyond the 15 mile mark, but the costs and time taken in transport by then wouldn't make sense unless you worked locally.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Tourists to San Francisco have a tendency to stay in or near Fisherman's Wharf and to not explore sufficiently beyond that area. In fact, it's a place locals avoid if at all possible and not much different from the "Coney Island" kitsch of many beach towns all over the US. Its T-shirt and chain restaurant heaven.

Most people are aware that SF has other intereting neighborhoods: North Beach (Little Italy), Chinatown, Japan Town (with its Nihonmachi Japanese mall), the Union Square shopping district and on and on.

So I'll focus on a couple of areas with unsavory reputations. There are basically 3: (1) the Tenderloin; (2) the Fillmore; (3) Bayview Hunters Point. The last 2 are San Francisco's historically black neighborhoods and the current site of a lot of its public housing. There IS gang activity and there is poverty. I do see tourists walking around sometimes and I tend to wonder why they are there. But compared wth some other cities (your know the list), these areas aren't so bad--maybe it's because even here the houses would be very expensive by national standards and so the poverty is pretty well confined to the public housing and its environs.

But I want to focus down further on the Tenderloin because of its central location in the city, right next to Union Sqaure and that area's many tourist hotels and upscale shopping. The city has made the Tenderloin what it is by limiting gentrification through 2 measures: (a) a 9-story height limit in a lot of it and (b) a ban on conversion of monthly-rental (so-called single room occupancy) hotels to nightly rental tourist-focused establishments. This pretty much stopped gentrification in its tracks just as it was beginning to happen in the 1970s.

The city has also concentrated services for the poor, the addicted and the homeless in this one neighborhood, thus attracting people with these problems to it and keeping them there. But at the same time, it has become a center of non-profit development of "affordable housing". San Francisco has a number of non-profit developers thanks largely to a series of multi-million dollar bond issues to build affordable housing and also to the affordale requirements placed on market rate developers. These folks have put up a substantial number of roughly 9-story, modern, fairly attractive buildings in the Tenderloin so the physical appearance of the area really isn't bad. I remind me a lot of areas of New York. And due to its large immigrant populaton, it is a mecca for ethnic dining and "dive bars". IMHO it is safe enough during the day but I don't walk around there at night alone and I advise tourists to try and not look like tourists (no camera hanging around the neck etc).

Cable cars climb halfway to the stars, but SF tourists remember the low points

I think something that locals are aware of that visitors aren't always keen on is the amount of property crime and the very visible and in your face homeless population. Car break-ins are at an all time high, and there have been multiple cases of visitors getting robbed at gunpoint at prime tourist spots such as Lombard St and Twin Peaks. There are popular walking areas where you can't walk through without encountering multiple homeless and/or mentally unhealthy people and witnessing rampant evidence of or active drug use. For a city known for its wealth both in terms of economy and attractions, I think the poverty is equally memorable. While visitors have a great time, their experience is marred. Until this gets fixed, people will always say "San Francisco was nice, but...".

Anyway, here is my list.

Best areas in SF (other than the obvious ones listed above): Lower Pacific Heights, Cow Hollow, Hayes Valley, Inner Richmond, Inner Sunset, Dogpatch, SoMA, Embarcadero, the stretch from Marina Green to Crissy Field to the Presidio (preferred over Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf)

Areas to avoid: Tenderloin, Mid-Market (6th St and up), Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley/Excelsior, Lombard St (at night), Twin Peaks (at night)

[JManc]

Originally Posted by muppet

London comes across as an absolute wonderland for tourists these days, its streets and architecture cleaned up (finally), the weak £ making things slightly more affordable, and everything in the centre being very civilised (finally), and genuinely prettified. The city's safe, green and arty, nightlife is great and varied.

However living here is something else entirely, the cost of property and rent means living far out with overcrowded commutes and tenuous transport, in small flats in dingy locales, with less social interaction than one would like.

Londoners will avoid all the usual tourist traps, and are increasingly avoiding the city centre for the first time. They can now be found in megamalls that ring the centre, or the nightlife districts that ring the centre, and slumming it in the inner city districts that ring the centre. Nightlife's better, but nothing much else.


The Streets of London if you're a visitor. Expect $1.1 million per room - so an apartment will be $2-4.5 million anywhere near this street (the street itself is too expensive for property).


http://homesandproperty.co.uk

The Streets of London if you're not. Expect $838,000 an average apartment price on this stretch of road 6 miles from the centre, and $628,000 for the tower blocks in the distance that caught ablaze last year (read: you'll be renting shared accommodation, even here, at $1,665 per head per month).


https://makesewdo.files.wordpress.com

Or failing that, 11 miles from the centre $325,000, or ($832 per head rent per month). Your annual commute will cost you $2,500 at discount, or $12.58 - $16.50 a go to get into the centre. If this is your budget, this is also where you'll likely be hanging out. This is where the Londoners invariably are these days, and the city that most Londoners experience.


https://chrismansfieldphotos.com

You could of course go even further out to beyond the 15 mile mark, but the costs and time taken in transport by then wouldn't make sense unless you worked locally.

The latter two pics are the 'real' London and one I'm more fond of visiting. Not the first one (Regent st?) where obnoxious tourists in fanny packs are taking selfies every 2 seconds.

[suburbanite]

Where's the third London pic taken?

What kind of nightlife are we talking about in the more fringe, local-heavy nodes? Is it the smaller more intimate bar-type settings or have the bigger clubs moved outwards as well to follow the young professionals and artsy types?

[JManc]

2nd = Hammersmith?
3rd = Woolwich?

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by homebucket

[B]
Best areas in SF (other than the obvious ones listed above): Lower Pacific Heights, Cow Hollow, Hayes Valley, Inner Richmond, Inner Sunset, Dogpatch, SoMA, Embarcadero, the stretch from Marina Green to Crissy Field to the Presidio (preferred over Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf)

Areas to avoid: Tenderloin, Mid-Market (6th St and up), Bayview-Hunters Point, Visitacion Valley/Excelsior, Lombard St (at night), Twin Peaks (at night)

I firmly believe for someone capable of behaving like a native, the Tenderloin is not only reasonably safe in the daytime but has enough reasons to go there--restaurants, bars, some shopping--that there's no need to completely avoid it. Just use good sense and leave the expensive cameras or other bling in your room. The principle reason to avoid it IMHO, as someone who walks through there to acquire the southeast Asian groceries and condiments I want and for other things, is to shield your delicate eyes from the displays of bizarre behavior (I've seen people shooting up and defecting in alleys and even between parked cars on streets as well as simply sprawled on the pavement sleeping). This is true urban "grit" and some people want to see that.

To me, Mid-Market is more actually dangerous and, since I live "east of Twin Peaks" (i.e. in the northeast quadrant of the city where most tourists confine themselves), niether I nor the average tourist has any reason to go to the other places you suggest avoiding and I mostly agree that I would avoid them.

One word about Twin Peaks, though. It's a "don't miss" for camera buffs in the daytime when it's usually crowded with tourists. What makes it to be avoided at night is simply its relative remoteness--on a cold, foggy night you'll be alone up there and easy prey for anyone up to no good. But on a clear night the overlook where everybody parks to see the view of a good chunk of the Bay Area is still worth visiting and usually there are enough other people there to make it safe. Just don't stray far from there on the hiking and other trails.

[muppet]

Yep, spot on, second is Goldhawk Rd, 3rd is Woolwich.

All the big clubs have closed or are closing (in the country at large also - club culture is passé now), as has much of the nightlife in the West End - once the world's largest - is now taken over by chains or been converted into flats/ stores/ offices. Where once these zones were 24 hr, they're now closing at 11pm again, like the 1980s. -New districts opened up further afield, taking the overspill from the early noughties, Hoxton (artsy, hipster), Islington (middle-of-the-road) and Vauxhall (gay club n drug village) but even they are starting to close down due to rising rents (Islington's dead now), and the fact hook up apps mean people don't have to party out to get a lay anymore. In turn even FURTHER afield are the places to be - but invariably they're smaller, and people have to leave earlier without the central transport links. Places like Peckham, New Cross, Dalston, Hackney, Brixton - heaven forbid, even Clapham; we're talking zones 3-4 now and south of the river.

The huge superclubs that dominated the noughties tried opening further out, but could never fill - or did for short periods, before the non-locals tried to catch the last trains and buses (or face bleak mornings coming down in windswept industrial estates). They closed first, before the central ones, the mother ships that had been going for decades, too bit the dust, usually from drug scandals aided by long suffering nimby complaints.

This was 338 (capacity 3,000), out near Woolwich before it got burned down in 2015



Matter at the O2, with a capacity of 2,600 closed as the Jubilee line underwent years of needless, corrupt closures

...and was taken over by Proud 2 (sister of Proud in Camden, made up from horse stables), in turn Building 6 (we'll see how long it lasts), and is now Indigo, a concert venue.



Nightclubs in the UK, which used to house 500,000 a night in London alone, have now halved within a few years. And definitely out of the centre - stalwarts such as Pasha, Ministry of Sound Fabric, Bagleys, The Cross, The Edge, 333, The Bethnal Green Working Mens Club, The Cock, Herbal, The Fridge, Cable, Astoria, Turnmills, Plastic People, the End, Se1.

- Plus every area in the suburbs are now seeing a return of localised, more upscale clubs and bars that don't involve a smoky round of darts and a fistfight with a granny.

In short nightlife has broadened, and become a smattering of intimate spots round town, but we've lost that amazing, no-holds-barred, mega feel and cross pollination from having a million people partying in one place in one night, and much of it cutting edge and underground too. The nightlife in the centre today is very staid, expensive, safe and formulaic these days, you have to go out to get the real and interesting stuff.

City centre:


http://crm.innerplace.co.uk



https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com


Outside:


http://dalstonsuperstore.com/features/superm-in-photos/

https://media.timeout.com

https://media.timeout.com

[Innsertnamehere]

^same thing in Toronto. The entertainment district, directly west of Downtown, has been fractured and shrunk significantly since it's peak from gentrification and development. Nightlife has shifted out towards the neighborhoods surrounding downtown, and doesn't take the form of the traditional club as much. Nightlife is arguably more varied and interesting today than 10 years ago, but doesn't have that extreme feel like it once did. When the clubs closed at 2am, the streets of the district became quite interesting.. not as much today.

[suburbanite]

Meh, Toronto's nightlife steel feels somewhat centralized around the two biggest nodes, at least compared to that description of London. I'd wager over half of the twenty-somethings going out on a Friday night are still between University and Bathurst. The other half are likely in Ossington or Queen West which is what? a $12 Uber ride from downtown?

Definitely decrentralized compared to the late 90's though. I wouldn't mind travelling back in time for a couple weekends to experience that insanity based on the stories I've heard

[jtown,man]

Delete

[muppet]

The death of clubbing in London. Half of all nightclubs have closed in the last few years in the country as a whole, more so in London, that used to entertain 500,000 clubbers a night in the 90s heyday.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...don-nightclubs


It's weird, but there's now an underground 'nightclub' scene - not an underground nightclub scene, but an underground nightclubbing scene (as in a scene that tries to personify, iconicise, and exoticise the lost clubbing experience). They tried nu-rave 10 years ago but it only lasted a year. This time round it's 90s style techno retro, rather than the Summer of Love from 1988 - hard house, trance, podiums, lasers, day glow, dreads, bottles of water - that kind of thing. It's currently only in the gay community really, and filled by the people who weren't even born in 1995.

Secret Soma:


The straights have illegal warehouse parties populated by handfuls of druggies, but that's not really catching on much.

middle class versions (invite only, online), slick, well organised, illegal


http://i.dailymail.co.uk


teenagers versions - open to all via twitter or social media, not so well organised - they can be huge, or mostly empty, illegal. Expect it to be freezing and a bit bleak. Don't even bother dressing up. Not exactly 1988.


www.bestclubsin.com