Compton or Newark. Though there are other ghetto neighborhoods in LA I would rather live in, closer to downtown or west LA. Compton is just too suburban for what you get. Newark is right across from NYC, so yeah. Too bad you didn't include Oakland (though it really doesn't belong in this list), but I would choose it in a heartbeat.
Really, Detroit and East St. Louis are just in a category of their own. I am not sure about Newark, but Compton doesn't really have entire streets and neighborhoods that have been abandoned.
Compton would be near the bottom of the list of places to live in SoCal, if not at the bottom. It's still dangerous and dysfunctional.
No disagreement there. Areas near downtown that may be just as dangerous (the areas around USC and to the west of it?) at least are close to the more happening areas. Compton is just a crap suburban town, surrounded by more suburbs.
The USC hood has either gentrified or turned Hispanic. It is a fine place to live now, and reasonably safe. The goal of hooking USC to downtown has been to a substantial extent achieved, what with the Staples Center and a lot of new housing built at the southern edge of downtown around 9th to 12th street or so south, plus the revival of the Adams district (where the Bourgeoisie used to live until Hancock Park got going around 1915-1920 or so). Things fall apart rather abruptly about 15 blocks south of USC or so, around 50th street or so as I recall. I drove that area from a hole in the wall granite place north on Figueroa to downtown about a year ago, to observe all of this.
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