Whats the roughest place you have been to in the UK or US ?

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Bridgend used to be rough at night

Townies v valley boys

Bridgend valleys , some of the most socially deprived in Western Europe

Lewistown , christ

[goats]

Medan in Sumatra is another very weird shiiithole. Off the boat from Malaysia and for some reason the police filled one bus with westerners. Every street we drive down everyone just turned and stared at us on the bus, until we were out of sight too not just a fleeting glance. Dropped us all off and a crowd develops around us, again just staring, as if they had never seen white folks before.
If we walked anywhere a group would just follow us, more would join them. They would then start fighting over who was driving us in a taxi which would then take forever to organise. Def the strangest place I’ve ever been and I’ve never heard a single good word about it.
Unfortunately you have to go through it to get to the rest of the island which has some incredible places, and of course wild orangutans

[adz-a32]

Skid Row in Los Angeles probably the biggest eye opener of my entire life, but I would feel including that as 'rough' would be unfair, the deprivation and squalor for a western country was astounding, but these were people living in tents and wooden shacks as they had nothing else, unlike the other areas I mentioned.

The amount of homeless people in California is surprising

[Tuerto]

I know it's outside of the parameters of the thread, but on safari in the Masai Mara several years ago, we needed an armed guard on our 4x4 to protect us from rival warring tribes as we traveled across some disputed land.
Thankfully his services weren't needed.

Sounds like the Rhondda Valley.

[adz-a32]

Tenderloin in San Francisco is booky. The streets smelt like crack and the area is notorious for crime. But as Der Kaiser said about Skid Row, calling it 'rough' would be harsh due to the poverty

[Wash DC Blue]

The amount of homeless people in California is surprising

It sadly isn’t.

States were at one point paying travel fare for homeless people to go there.
That along with the drug policies make places like San Francisco a magnet for homeless people.

It is literally a shit show with human excrement all over the pavements.

[LeningradCowboy]

I found the New Cross area in London less than totally hospitable when I was mugged and attacked with a broken bottle in 1976. I was passing through the area at night on my way to Germany (it was pre-M25 and I was hitching). After a violent attack of punches and kicks to the face in a back alley cul-de-sac I was dragged into, one of the assailants espied a broken bottle as he was about to return to the main road 15 yards away. He decided to return with his mate, broke the bottle against a wall en-route and proceeded to attack my face with it. Although he caught the top of my head with it in various places (subsequently stitched), I managed to put my hand over my face just in time. I sustained cuts on my right wrist, a cut on my chin and a piece of glass cut the skin very lightly to the right of me eye. However, my left hand took the brunt of it and the broken bottle severed a vein and three tendons and part of my knuckle was also severed. Although bleeding like a pig and the severed vein pumped blood out of the wound I managed to flag down a car just as I was about to pass out. An ambulance was called by someone and I spent a few days in Greenwich hospital. Courtesy of nylon, my three tendons were re-joined and the scar on the back of my hand is still testament to the shape of the bottle.
This peaceful soul who has never had a fight in his life always carried a sharp knife for a decade or two when passing through London again and wouldn't have felt any guilt in doing the deed to anyone who would fancy trying it again.
Ironically, after developing a bit of a phobia about that part of London I ended up living about a mile from there twenty years later. The nylon tendons are still going strong, I only have a small scar on my chin and my scarred hand is feels a bit string but functions well in general. I can't think what my mental state would have been had I not raised my hand in time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Cross_double_murder

This happened when I was living in London and studying at the same university as the victims. I'd been on a night out in New Cross a few weeks before.

[Taunton Blue Genie]

That’s a horrific experience, so glad you came through it.

Cheers, old fruit. I honestly never give it a thought these days - even though I was advised in hospital when I came around that had I not fought off the drift into unconsciousness in the back alley I would have been dead.

Fortunately, the Grim Reaper will have to wait a bit longer.

[Majorblue]

UK........we all know about parts of London but for me parts of inner city liverpool were pretty grim

Some of the streets around goodison park , Anfield and Toxteth and croxteth were very deprived

Not done a lot of the states but Detroit and Cleveland gave me the willies

Without a doubt Liverpool in the late 70’s and early 80’s was a terrible place. The Scottie Rd and Piggeries looked like something from a post apocalyptic movie.
I found the US a pretty safe and pleasant place on the whole but as I was working there I was pre warned where to avoid and so probably never stumbled into the more dubious areas.

However, slightly off topic but having lived in Lagos, Nigeria then anything else seems like Mayfair in comparison. The poverty, violence and corruption is on such a scale that it is considered normal. A truly frightening place.

[Des Parrot]

Blackley, Manchester. My niece lives there. Helicopters overhead most nights, burnt out cars, stolen goods offered on the doorstep several times an evening, the local shops all have cages built in so you're served through bars, markers on the cars in the pub car park, so the locals cars are known & don't get broken into. It's like something from a TV show but it's all very real.

[The Hooded Claw]

Some rough estate, Swansea: my Dad and I had installed an alarm in the Jack Brown. Some kiddies nicked the ladders off his car, but we got those back. As we were leaving, we drove past a skip that was on fire.

Glasgow, 1970s: my Dad went to visit a customer in the fruit machine business and the first thing they asked was where he’d parked his car. They panicked when he told them it was outside their compound. When he returned, there were some likely lads hanging around it.

Glasgow: a Brummie guy I used to work with went to pub for an audit and got told to come through the back or he’d be lynched for being English.

Penrhys: many stories I have heard about it, but the people I met at the Buff Club there (another of my Dad’s alarms) were lovely - although you wouldn’t mess with ‘em. Same with the boys at Hopkinstown Cricket Club, who went after their burglars with cricket bats.

Brixton always gave me the willies and someone was murdered a couple of blocks away from my friends’ house while I was there.

My scariest places was Laos - driving in a bus up to Luang Prapang from Vang Vieng and we went past armed guerillas standing in the side of the road. One of ‘em was carrying an RPG.
A couple of weeks later, a bus in the same route was machine-gunned and a Frenchman died.

[B. Oddie]

The outskirts of Krakow and equally, the outskirts of Paris.

[Packerman]

Penrhys late 80s early nineties was wild

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

The crescent high rise flats between hulme and moss side in Manchester were not a pleasant place to walk through even in daylight

[The Bloop]

I found the New Cross area in London less than totally hospitable when I was mugged and attacked with a broken bottle in 1976. I was passing through the area at night on my way to Germany (it was pre-M25 and I was hitching). After a violent attack of punches and kicks to the face in a back alley cul-de-sac I was dragged into, one of the assailants espied a broken bottle as he was about to return to the main road 15 yards away. He decided to return with his mate, broke the bottle against a wall en-route and proceeded to attack my face with it. Although he caught the top of my head with it in various places (subsequently stitched), I managed to put my hand over my face just in time. I sustained cuts on my right wrist, a cut on my chin and a piece of glass cut the skin very lightly to the right of me eye. However, my left hand took the brunt of it and the broken bottle severed a vein and three tendons and part of my knuckle was also severed. Although bleeding like a pig and the severed vein pumped blood out of the wound I managed to flag down a car just as I was about to pass out. An ambulance was called by someone and I spent a few days in Greenwich hospital. Courtesy of nylon, my three tendons were re-joined and the scar on the back of my hand is still testament to the shape of the bottle.
This peaceful soul who has never had a fight in his life always carried a sharp knife for a decade or two when passing through London again and wouldn't have felt any guilt in doing the deed to anyone who would fancy trying it again.
Ironically, after developing a bit of a phobia about that part of London I ended up living about a mile from there twenty years later. The nylon tendons are still going strong, I only have a small scar on my chin and my scarred hand is feels a bit string but functions well in general. I can't think what my mental state would have been had I not raised my hand in time.

Bloody hell.

[Wasthere]

Highfield, Harare.
Was taken to a club there and had to pay a CIO guy there to enable my colleague and I to get out, get to our car, and get away

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

when I was a student in Manchester me and a couple of mates were walking past a notorious rough rough house pub , the Manor house , in Withington

We were all a bit pissed , scoffing kebabs when a huge fight broke out in the pub car park

Like typical students we stayed to watch

Bad move

In no time we were surrounded by a gang of about a dozen locals who gave us a beating

I had my arm broken, my mate had six stitches in his head after being hit over his bonce with a bar stool

It was a feeling of elation when the riot van turned up but they never charged anyone , one of the coppers said student bashing in manchester was a local pastime

[Gofer Blue]

Washington DC. On a motoring holiday up the east coast of the U.S. we booked into a motel in advance over the phone. It was on a road called New York Avenue East which sounded quite grand and therefore presumably safe. When we got the key to our room we found that the door had been jemmied at some time and there was a flimsy metal plate over the gap. Looking at the neighbouring rooms we found they were all the same so no point in asking for a different room. Thankfully the night passed without incident. The following morning we walked to the nearest underground station to travel into the city to do the sightseeing stuff. This was scary, like a scene from a film. There were small groups of lads sitting on the steps of practically every house watching us intently as we walked down their street. Clearly we were tourists with our backpacks. We were too nervous to go back that way after dark so we got a taxi - the driver could not believe that we had walked where we had walked, even in daylight!

[Rock_Flock_of_Five]

I forgot to add from my earlier post.... Manila. I should really say 'Manila at night'.
There is massive amount of poverty there. You see it the moment you exit the airport. There is a rail track that snakes its way towards the city centre, along which they have built cardboard dwellings, a few of the luckier ones have salvaged wooden doors etc to make slightly sturdier homes.
Kids aged from about 4-10 run up to cars at traffic lights begging for money (often naked). At every shopping mall you are stopped and searched to check you're not carrying a bomb (white-foreigners are exempt).
The local fast food 'Jollie Bees' has armed guards carrying revolvers at the door. You're advised not to wear necklaces, as they could be snatched.
Finally, the city is plagued by the drug 'shaboo'. Whole families are hooked on it, despite the government's aggressive crackdown.

[Wash DC Blue]

Washington DC. On a motoring holiday up the east coast of the U.S. we booked into a motel in advance over the phone. It was on a road called New York Avenue East which sounded quite grand and therefore presumably safe. When we got the key to our room we found that the door had been jemmied at some time and there was a flimsy metal plate over the gap. Looking at the neighbouring rooms we found they were all the same so no point in asking for a different room. Thankfully the night passed without incident. The following morning we walked to the nearest underground station to travel into the city to do the sightseeing stuff. This was scary, like a scene from a film. There were small groups of lads sitting on the steps of practically every house watching us intently as we walked down their street. Clearly we were tourists with our backpacks. We were too nervous to go back that way after dark so we got a taxi - the driver could not believe that we had walked where we had walked, even in daylight!

I’ve been driving up NY Ave E most Monday’s for the last 11 years or so to get to a meeting in Maryland.
I used to hate a couple of intersections when the lights turned red.

It used to be very sketchy
Lots of that area has been gentrified
Still preferred it to driving on The Beltway.

Apart from NW DC, the rest of the City used to be bad. Now a lot of the bad parts like Anacostia and The U-St Corridor has been gentrified somewhat and packed full of Hipster/Yuppies.

Still dodgy AF in some areas, but not as bad as it was.

Much of Baltimore is way worse.
Stray a few blocks from Camden Yards or The Harbour and it gets very real very quickly.

[NYCBlue]

Washington DC. On a motoring holiday up the east coast of the U.S. we booked into a motel in advance over the phone. It was on a road called New York Avenue East which sounded quite grand and therefore presumably safe. When we got the key to our room we found that the door had been jemmied at some time and there was a flimsy metal plate over the gap. Looking at the neighbouring rooms we found they were all the same so no point in asking for a different room. Thankfully the night passed without incident. The following morning we walked to the nearest underground station to travel into the city to do the sightseeing stuff. This was scary, like a scene from a film. There were small groups of lads sitting on the steps of practically every house watching us intently as we walked down their street. Clearly we were tourists with our backpacks. We were too nervous to go back that way after dark so we got a taxi - the driver could not believe that we had walked where we had walked, even in daylight!

Jesus. New York Avenue was rough as ****. I don't know what it's like nowadays, but can't imagine it's much better.

[blue matt]

I forgot to add from my earlier post.... Manila. I should really say 'Manila at night'.
There is massive amount of poverty there. You see it the moment you exit the airport. There is a rail track that snakes its way towards the city centre, along which they have built cardboard dwellings, a few of the luckier ones have salvaged wooden doors etc to make slightly sturdier homes.
Kids aged from about 4-10 run up to cars at traffic lights begging for money (often naked). At every shopping mall you are stopped and searched to check you're not carrying a bomb (white-foreigners are exempt).
The local fast food 'Jollie Bees' has armed guards carrying revolvers at the door. You're advised not to wear necklaces, as they could be snatched.
Finally, the city is plagued by the drug 'shaboo'. Whole families are hooked on it, despite the government's aggressive crackdown.

Ross Kemp did a program on Manila , it said that the Government have really cracked down on " Shaboo " and communities even get rewards if they grass people up who are using it ( I got 3 drugs in that sentence, impressive )

[Rock_Flock_of_Five]

Ross Kemp did a program on Manila , it said that the Government have really cracked down on " Shaboo " and communities even get rewards if they grass people up who are using it ( I got 3 drugs in that sentence, impressive )

I was there in 2005 and to be honest I had no awareness of the drug problem there at the time, probably because I was staying in a nice 4 star hotel in the business district.

Guns are quite common there and you can see the American culture influence, a lot of the men walk about without shirts on displaying their gang tattoos.

Those people who are lucky enough to have a good paying job will live in gated communities. I don't think I've ever seen so many armed private security guards in all my life, they are everywhere in Manila.

[Stanmore Bluebird]

Highfield, Harare.
Was taken to a club there and had to pay a CIO guy there to enable my colleague and I to get out, get to our car, and get away

Akasi in Kazakhstan where I worked 28 days on/off for 3 plus years on an oil and gas project definitely had its rough side as the locals were often jealous of the more economically advantaged ex-pats.

[MarcP]

I was there in 2005 and to be honest I had no awareness of the drug problem there at the time, probably because I was staying in a nice 4 star hotel in the business district.

Guns are quite common there and you can see the American culture influence, a lot of the men walk about without shirts on displaying their gang tattoos.

Those people who are lucky enough to have a good paying job will live in gated communities. I don't think I've ever seen so many armed private security guards in all my life, they are everywhere in Manila.

I’m back & forth to the Philippines on a regular basis, and I guess I’m probably somewhat immune by now to the various social problems out there.
Don’t know Manila that well, and I’ve always tended to stay in the Mall of Asia area when there.
However, know Davao (… and lots of Mindanao) pretty well, and I’ve always felt secure in that City, but you obviously need to keep your wits about you, and be sensitive to local customs…. (but you need to be cautious in the autonomous Muslim areas).

Davao is regarded as the safest city in the Philippines, due to the so-called “Death Squads” that operated there. Pretty criminals, drug dealers etc were supposedly given just one warning, “Stop or leave”. If the warning was ignored, summary “justice” was enforced, with an almost total lack of public outrage.
The City mayor most of this time was Duterte ….. altho’ there was no evidence to connect the police or Duterte with the killings.
He’s now the President.