I grew up in a bad neighborhood in the US and this is what it meant for us: hearing gun shots every other night, experiencing drive by’s at school, frequent helicopters looking for someone, swat team locking down our neighborhood and evacuating everyone, break-ins multiple times, being threatened at knife point by a random stranger, people putting our dumpsters on fire. Lack of opportunity because everyone around us is poor and in the same situation. No sidewalks, roads in bad condition, shitty schools.
We weren’t part of the problem, we were just kids. But it’s easy to get pulled in when you grow up like that. There’s a big difference between visiting or driving through and growing up in such a place where you feel like you always had to watch your back. Because you spend more time in such a place, it increases your chances of bad things happening.
But it also meant, playing around the streets with the neighborhood kids, great food, neighbors giving each other things like food and essentials, a sort of camaraderie that we had each other’s back. Not everything was bad. However, you never feel truly safe.