@nimh,
Re the appearances of the building nimh, you can't always go by that. Looking at your "behind the building" picture, I don't see that as being that bad. Just run down and old. Sure there's some trash, but in the form of paper. Could be a lot worse, with a half a dozen or more abandoned cars, torn down fences, graffiti all over, etc. Anyway, that's an allyway, not the street, where they put the trash cans and stuff. There's going to be some litter. I went down the street and around the corner a little, and the streets look fine, the allys as you pass them are fair to middling.
Not making excuses, this might or might not be a bad area just based on how it looks. It's an old area. There's a lot of open land down the street that could be used.
Also, in cities, you can literally cross the street sometimes and go from good to bad.
There's a neighborhood in Austin I have to drive through every couple of weeks at least, to deliver billing. In any given blocks- I pass homes that would go for over a million dollars, a few that need to be torn down (and I'm sure will be when someone buys the lot for $600K) , a really great cafe I go to sometimes with friends, and a highly ranked public school. It's one of the original settled areas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Line_Historic_District_(Austin,_Texas)
As the link indicates, it's a real mixed bag of nuts. Started to be built on a couple hundred years ago, and just sort of had a life of it's own. It was during a time when land was all there was all around for the picking.
Just musing here nimh. I'm not disagreeing with you.
Heh, remembering something. Years back my husband and I were driving through Maine, and we knew we were going to go through Bangor, and meant to stop to see Stephen Kings house, since we're his "number one fans" lol, reference to Misery, one of books.
Anyway, obviously nice neighborhood, big old victorian houses. When we got out of the car to take a picture, I looked around and saw 2 women talking outside the house catty corner to where we were. One woman was up on her porch, leaning over the railing, the other standing in the yard looking up and talking to the woman maybe 6 feet above her.
Real friendly scene. However, if you took that exact same scenerio and put it in a different neighborhood, some people would have thought they could be welfare mothers with a houseful of kids all with different fathers.
btw, here's the google map of that address.
https://www.google.com/maps/@44.8021702,-68.7845374,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZZ90B6ofGyxL9vGaG7jnCw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
I just checked the image, and the white house that came up was the exact house the women were talking in front of. I remember that like it was yesterday.
Turn to the left (counterclockwise) 2 clicks and you'll see Kings place.