Seattle doesn't have ghettos. Seriously, compare Oakland or south-central LA to Seattle's "ghettos" and tell me they are similar. Vancouver's Downtown Eastside had the worst concentration of poverty and desperation I'd ever seen in North America while I lived in Vancouver.
Vancouver's poverty is kind of odd and I think not entirely comparable to other areas. It's concentrated in just a couple of blocks on hastings, in a highly visible area. The overall homeless rate is actually higher in less populous municipalities like Abbotsford. It's also not a "violent" ghetto, I've never felt unsafe walking down that stretch of road, compared to some of the places I've been in the US.
I probably misused the word ghetto there (forgetting some parts of America have real ghettos).
The word I should be using is poverty. It's rampant and seems to be everywhere. You can mostly avoid it if you stick to the very central downtown core which I always did as a tourist.
But that was definitely just my impression of the city. I'm not damning the city for it, everywhere has problems. I just can't imagine living around that would have a positive long-term effect on anyone's state of mind. It's not where I would chose to be.
