Erie, Pennsylvania is a small city compared to many; Buffalo, New York, Cleveland, Ohio or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for example.
I imagine each city has their area of concentrated property. Who would expect Erie to be the exception? Nice homes near good schools are located West of State street in Erie. State is the half way point and runs North to the lake through downtown Erie. Canada is more North still and across Lake Erie by boat or plane.
Everything East of State Street in Erie, and below 26th Street heading to downtown toward the lake decreases in land value and provides homes for the lower income bracket.
Housing projects dot the city. Lawns become increasingly unkempt the further East or downtown that you travel through Erie until you reach the edge of town, East or West.
Soon after I separated from my ex-husband, after a 20 year marriage, and I began raising our two sons, ages 16 and 11, alone, I received a lead on a downtown apartment that the landlord would rent to me, the boys, and permit my Siberian Husky, Sasha, without an additional pet fee located on East Second Street four blocks east of State Street. I never lived in a city prior to this move. I was born and raised in small towns or in the rural areas. Having been raised in the country and attended county schools, I was far from prepared for the culture shock of any city, its people, or the prevalence of crime.
Poverty does strange things to people. I was "country poor" growing up. I seldom received new clothes. The hand-me-downs from my cousin were what I consider my new clothes, in large part.
Sifting through the bags of Chris, my older cousin's, hand-me-downs was akin to a Christmas gift to me and it never occurred to me that people were allowed to go regularly to buy brand new clothes in department stores.
When we did venture to a store, Mom would drive to Kmart when they had the money. She would shop the "Blue Light Specials". Blue Light Specials were cool because the manager of the store would wheel a grocery cart with a blue light on top of a metal pole; similar to what a mail man light looks like lit up [or a fireman's car light] and suddenly there would be a loud speaker announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen! For the next ten minutes we have a Ladies silk shirt on sale for $2.99! Follow the Blue Light to get your markdown before they are sold out!" Then the person would turn on the flashing blue light. A retail employee stood ready to markdown these sale items for people crowding around.
People rushed through the store to the blue light trying to grab a markdown deal.
In comparison, it's a much lower scale of mob mentality than any modern day Black Friday (complete with fistacuffs these days) but it caused plenty of excitement when we went. If we were lucky,befor we ventured out of the store mom would buy for my brother and me a delicious Icee drink to take home. My favourite flavor is cherry.
Another detail I notice when driving through the concentrated poverty areas of Erie, PA are little children playing outside, alone, by the sides of streets. Sometimes the youngsters are attended by a sibling, not much older then themselves. I observed a five year old towing along a three year old by the grubby hand more than once. Having been raised by a very protective mother, these things were unheard of to me.
It's common in these areas to see single parent homes with mothers raising one, two, three, four or more children in subsidized public housing run by slum lords. My landlord,.though kind, was no exception. I ended up moving when the city condemned the two story house we were renting after city inspection because of a bad foundation.
Poverty is a hard life. The apartment I rented sat right in front of a rundown basketball court with a street lamp. I had no idea until I started arriving home after work around 11:00p.m. and having to walk around the back of the house through the yard gate near the basketball court and hearing men who gathered a stone throw away perform illegal drug transactions and raise their voices. God must have protected us. I was seeing someone so I'd keep him on the phone until safe upstairs.
Eventually, the city closed the basketball court and snuffed that street light so that no one could play basketball, or sell drugs, there. It seemed to curb the traffic.
The house next door housed a large family. They were immigrants of Mexico. One morning I woke up to police sirens and somebody running on the pavement below my bedroom window.
I was relieved that I lived upstairs, but felt a little intimidated just knowing people and police were running around with guns below.
Concentrated poverty brings with it a host of other issues. During the time I lived in Erie, one night as I returned home from work, I stopped at the local grocery store and was mugged by a young man right in the lobby.
The man tore my purse from off my shoulder snapping the strap (I struggled to hold on to it) and he, followed by six other young men blocking the out doors to the left ran out the right set of doors to disperse into the night into a project I didn't know was right behind the Topps Market I was shopping in.
I learned not to carry a purse alone at night and a friend bought me pepper spray. They stole $40 I'd just got out of my bank and a brand new bus pass for my son's summer school transportation.
Police located my purse two blocks away. It was left in the rain in an empty lot. Police called me to recover it. The thieves, surprisingly, left my brand new red Nokia phone.
A small town girl slowly learned how to live defensively in the city and to watch her back in the poor side of town, and anywhere. Eventually, I moved here, to Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania but I retained the lessons I learned in the city that year.
This is my five
minute freewrite using prompt concentrated poverty hosted by 
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