What Are The “Bad” Areas Of Philadelphia

Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, has one of the toughest times keeping the peace. Philadelphia’s crime index on a scale of 100 (being the safest place) is a frightening eight.

Over 41 thousand property crimes and over 12 thousand violent crimes committed in a year as NeighborhoodScout reports. If you want to live here, you might want to rent with security cameras and maybe even a guard dog for safety. By just driving through the worst neighborhoods, you may even encounter a crime scene or two.

To find the worst spots to live in, data were compared and ranked for all of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. The criteria were ranked from The Inquirer’s Data Hub data on violent crime rates and property crime rates, the number of crimes recorded from Dec 25th to Jan 22nd, 2023, and compared it to the neighborhood’s population, as well as their poverty and unemployment rates.

These criteria were selected because as White from the BiggerPockets blog says, “Sometimes it’s not the property itself, but the local area that is a bad investment. This includes high crime rates, high unemployment rates, and declining populations.”

These places typically are the city’s cheapest and are filled with government-subsidized housing. People coming into hard times and no way of getting by tend to resort to crime just to get by. Not excusing it. Others must know in order to exercise caution.

#1 Mantua

Populated (population: 12,528) by many college students from Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania, Mantua has a promising future. However, they still suffer from a low median income ($17,172) and a high poverty rate (49.32%). Their recent crimes per population (0.0125) were also one of the highest.

#2 Hunting Park

Despite the residents’ efforts to fight against crime until 2010, Hunting Park is still landing pretty high on the crime rates (1.81). With a population of 16,371 people, their median income ($20,019) is pretty low and their poverty rate (49.86%) is third highest.

#3 Tioga-Nicetown

Ever since the housing bubble of 2008 burst, housing prices have been constantly falling along with the quality of life. With a population of a little over 17 thousand, they have one of the highest unemployment (21.94%) and violent crime (1.93) rates. Their rate of crimes reported per population is also really high at 0.0156.

#4 Alleghany West

A neighborhood hurt by post-industrial decline and disinvestment, Alleghany West (population: 17,022) is also suffering from high unemployment rates (21.23%). They are reported to have one of the highest violent (1.94) and property (5.29) crime rates currently. The new crime cases per population are also quite high (0.0147).

#5 Parkland

Parkland has one of the lowest permanent populations of only 1,278 residents. They have the highest violent (2.35) and property (22.69) crime rates currently. Probably due to the low population, their crime per population is also the highest at 0.0336. Regrettably, there wasn’t any data on their median income.

#6 Fairhill

With a population of just over 17 thousand, Fairhill is known as “El Centro de Oro” or “Center of God” and is located in the Northeast section of Philadelphia. This neighborhood is known for its high crime (2.11) and has some of the most famous drug-dealing corners.

They currently have one of the lowest median income ($16,728) and the highest poverty (59.70%) and unemployment rates (27.22%) out of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods. They also have one of the top new crimes reported per their population (rate: 0.0136). This is definitely not a place you want to raise a family in.

There were more noteworthy neighborhoods that didn’t make the top 6. Powelton has the lowest median income ($16,032). Center City has the most crimes recently reported (647). Strawberry Mansion is also a very troubled neighborhood, but no data was reported by the primary data source.