Lately there's been a good deal of noise around town about how "bad" the Highlands have gotten. Lots of breathless news stories about rising crime in the Highlands has got all the upper crust white folks scared to set foot there, so naturally I had to investigate this scary situation.
When I quit drinking many moons ago, I quickly discovered that in this society about the only places adults gather to socialize are bars and churches. Since me and religion get along like matter and antimatter, that just left bars. Seems counterintuitive but watching a bunch of drunks carry on is a great reminder of why you quit drinking.
The Highlands quickly became my favorite haunt with its walkable assortment of bars, restaurants, and quirky shops. There was always somewhere to shoot pool, listen to music, or get into a bar fight.
All the noise about how bad it's gotten has amused me greatly, it's quite obvious that the folks saying that stuff were never there in the Before Times. It's no different now than it was then but I can't help but suspect that the quiet of the lockdown gave folks collective amnesia.
The Badlands Highlands can get lively enough to make you lose your donuts but that's just part of the fun of mixing booze with those volatile critters known as humans.
See how scared those guys are? Guess anything can be scary if you don't have any experience with it.
Looks a lot cleaner than my badlands. I'd love to take pictures when I go there but I'd lose the camera without an armed bodyguard and that's no fun
Ha, I bet. The Highlands is only the badlands with a tongue planted firmly in cheek. Your badlands sound interesting though, bet nobody's got photos of it.
There are ways to get photos, just not really available to me and I've seen some things over the years. Among many other places I lived were these very streets for about 5 years
The stories I could tell about the building opposite mine
Then there was this building gutted by a fire, people remained living inside, others stripped supporting roof structures and the whole thing collapsed
That had to be a lively 5 years. Out of curiosity, is it the risk of random street violence/robbery or is it more organized than that, trespassing on people's turf and the like?
I think I read about some of that, Al Jazeera had some stuff about it after that one structure burnt and killed all those people. Here it's more shantytowns and tent encampments near highways and such, which can be sketchy but not quite to that degree I suspect.
It was and the risks were both random and organised. The buildings I showed above were all hijacked. Not squatters because sadly, they paid to live in those shitholes, just not to the actual owners of those buildings.
The recent story you read in Al Jazeera was especially bad because it had once been a shelter belonging to the city. Instead of retaking control from the hijackers, they wasted limited budget money on building a brand-new community centre on land they took away from a viable community project. Corrupt construction relationships... I'm still angry about that: one woman's life-work ruined, people in the hood going hungry and over 70 burned to death down the road
The Highlands is one of the best places that pictures can be taken
These pictures are cute!
It's definitely one of my favorites. Thanks!
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