In reference to the Hayward Flatlands, well it’s all in the eye of the beholder I guess. I lived for the first 17 years of my life off Jackson along the railroad tracks(Vario Ramos, it’s known as). In the late ’80s it got pretty bad around there, maybe not to the point of being a clinical ghetto, but it was a shady neighboorhood at that point and my family moved up the hill off D St. Now I live in Oakland flatlands and in comparision Hayward looks really nice and clean. And, yeah, Oakland has it’s bad spots, but I’ve heard many east-coasters say its nothing compared to what they know of.

I have a friend who owns The Buggy House, a boilkswagen parts store on Mission Blvd. He’s told me stories of customers who drive out from Pleasanton and Livermore whos complain about their location being scary and ghetto. It seems funny to me because I know the area is fine unless you are really looking for trouble. But. to people usd to the valley, where most buildings are less than 40 years old, power and telephone wires are underground, and any blue-collar businesses are tucked away into industrial parks, hayward would look really shabby and maybe scary. If you were raised in Blackhawk, Pleasanton would look “ghetto”. Hayward has it’s share of tweaks, lowlifes, prostitues and homeless. It does have crime, but it always has. Hayward was never a high-class city, it was always a working class place and had a rough element, even back in the 1860s. If you call hayward a great place to rais a family, i will agree. If you call hayward a shithole, i would agree. It’s both. That’s what makes it better than a shiny new valley town.

Come to New Jersey. I’ll show you some ghettos with gusto, the wind whistling through the rusty beer bottles, the gang shootings pop-poppping to the beat of an LL Cool J song. That’s a ghetto!