I Drove Through The Worst Parts Of Orange County, California. This Is What I Saw.
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Published 2020-11-22
For this video, I visited Orange County, California, which is well known for being a rich, wealthy enclave. It’s not as rich as you might think. It ranks 79th in the nation in terms of average household incomes.
But my goal today wasn’t to see the fancy homes. It was to see the worst part of Orange County, to put things into perspective on the difference between the rich and the poor here. So, I took the 91 to the city of Santa Ana, smack dab in the heart of the OC. It was a bright, sunny day, and of course, there were fires in the area. Because it’s fall, so there are fires everywhere in southern California, coincidentally, due to the Santa Ana winds. The day was Tuesday, October 27, 2020 at 11 am.
Santa Ana is well known for being the worst place in Orange County. The city lies in the middle of the county, and has some of the county’s poorest residents, as well as some of its most dangerous neighborhoods.
Using statistical data and firsthand accounts from previous visits, I’m going to drive this section of the city, on the southeastern side of town. I’ll be driving up and down various neighborhoods in this general area.
Santa Ana is the second largest city in the county, population wise, just behind Anaheim, which is also a dangerous and rundown part of the county. There are 332,000 people squished together here. It’s actually the 4th most densely populated city in the whole country, and is California’s 11th most populous city.
As far back as 2011, Forbes called Santa Ana one of the safest large cities in the nation. But crime here has really picked up over the last decade, and now, Santa Ana is about average, crime wise, for all major cities. It’s not that this place is bad for crime, it’s bad for Orange County. Which is, overall, very safe and desirable.
Home prices in Orange County average $781,000. Here in Santa Ana, the average home price is $610,000. Keep THAT in mind as I drive through. There are very few homes under $300,000 in the areas I’m going to drive through. Most are in the $350,000ish range.
The average person here in Santa Ana earns about 24 grand a year. It remains one of the poorest areas in the country, and certainly, one of the poorest places in California.
Santa Ana used to be a very white community. Now, it’s 80% hispanic. You can likely tell by the home design that 4 in 5 homes in this part of town are home to a hispanic family. The Los Angeles Times once called Santa Ana the new face of California, due to the outrageously high percentage of Mexican Americans who live here now.
It would actually be hard to find anywhere else in the country that has more of a Hispanic vibe, culturally and economically, than in Santa Ana. Hence, this is one of the few cities in Orange County, which votes democratic. Orange County is well known for being mostly a republican stronghold.
We’ll drive around the worst neighborhoods in Orange County for a while now, and then at the end, see the main drag in town and eventually drive into downtown Santa Ana. I’m sure the last part will be eye-opening as well.
Now, we’re going to drive up the heart of Santa Ana on Main Street, north, into downtown.
That was a look at the worst part of Orange County, California. It’s changed a lot here, and it seems to be getting worse. There are a lot of great people here, but it remains very poor and much more dangerous than any other place in the region.
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All Comments (21)
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Here's my entire Unboxing America Series: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq-_cmf3H6yqgM1vGG305si…
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I m a middle-aged white guy with penchant for walking. I walk through these neighborhoods daily and have never had a problem. If you are afraid you need to get out more.
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Still waiting for you to show me the worst parts of Orange County I didn’t see them in this video
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I'm 72 years old and I've seen a lot of bad neighborhoods over the years. I was surprised that based on the narrator's preparation, how nice all these neighborhoods looked. All the houses seemed well maintained. The yards were obviously cared for, no overgrown weeds, no trash strewn about the streets or sidewalks. No junker cars cluttering the driveways or streets. And I saw only one wall with graffiti along the entire route! If this is the worst of Orange County, then this must be a nice county to live.
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I lived Orange County for 36 years, worked in Santa Ana for 32 years. I even lived in Santa Ana for couple years and walked down many of those streets in the video, but I never encountered any problems on the streets. Interestingly, compared to other poor cities in the US, Santa Ana looks pretty darn good.
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The worst parts of OC are still better than the best parts of South LA.
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I don't see anything scary about this city 😂
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Lol it’s funny how this guy is basically painting Santa Ana as a “dangerous” place, and then proceeds to run a red light at the end of the video. 😂
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I worked as a street vendor in Santa Ana and met so many humble and generous people. You can just feel it their presence. It was such an amazing and unbelievable experience. From the bottom of my heart thank you again.
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This is a working class neighborhood to me....looks normal.
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This video is problematic and tone deaf. It equates working class with “worst parts”. It is borderline elitism. There are actual neglect/dilapidated neighborhoods, or, as you would say, “worst parts” in Santa Ana and other parts of Orange County. Why didn’t you go to those? Then again, someone else might say the “worst parts” are those neighborhoods in Irvine and elsewhere with all those cookie cutter neighborhoods. All looking the same. All beige and boring with no character or personality. Truly awful.
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Seems like a tired perspective by someone's older relative. I'm glad to read all the comments noting that this is a lovely regular working class neighborhood. The housing tract I grew up in was once all white and is now one of the most diverse suburban neighborhoods in the country. I live in LA now and always love visiting places in OC like Santa Ana, Fullerton, Anaheim and Orange.
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This is a joke right? On one hand I do understand where you're coming from because I live in Orange County my entire life and I do know there are parts of Santa Ana that are a bit shady but your actual video recording does not describe in any shape or form any of the points from your narrative. The only thing your video shows was well kept homes for the most part clean city streets and normal people doing normal things that you would see in any other American city. If having a high Hispanic population coincides with violence and danger well you just proved the exact opposite. I know the area well and things have gotten better in the area not worse your video proves that. I will give you an a+ for video quality and an f- for content. Not that any type of critic I just call it as I see it. If you want to see a hood go to Hawaiian gardens.
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I've lived in Orange County for 50 years. I've spent time photographing Santa Ana for a while. What I saw in that video was clean streets, tidy and well kept houses, almost all that had been upgraded or remodeled over the years. You drove through neighborhoods where people obviously took care of their property. Downtown Santa Ana, and especially historic downtown, is filled with art, restaurants, bar and shops and lots of rehabilitated historic buildings. It's very walkable and vibrant. There is an online map of all the fantastic murals in the city. There is a Tennis Center, a Performing Arts Center and even a Lawn Bowling Center. And an Artist Village downtown. You don't state what your criteria for "Worst" is. "Worst" in what way? If it's based on crime rates then Santa Ana (and Anaheim) definitely has a higher violent and property crime rate than most of Orange County but Orange County cities have extremely low violent crime and property crime rates overall compared to the rest of California and the US.
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Growing up I used to think these places were “bad” neighborhoods but then I experienced the worst parts of Oakland and Philly. Living in the Orange curtain really blinds you to what a real “bad” neighborhood is like. This place is normal compared to the rest of the US.
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Looks like a community that is proud of their homes. I've driven through many times and it's not a bad place.
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The home prices you have mentioned are not accurate 350k range is not true. These homes are listed at about $500k right now.
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“Worse parts of OC” shows Santa Ana bruh, I love my city, yeah it has its gangs and it’s shady parts but if you ain’t out here looking for trouble youre chillin.
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The real irony is here that if you drive just a few miles away to main St. and Flower you'll run into a little neighborhood that has multi-million dollar homes in it.
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Leave it to a white guy accustomed to wasp areas to label something different bad. There’s worse parts of the OC that aren’t Santa Ana.
