A Ranking of the Toughest Places to Live in the U.S.

This isn’t the Milwaukee of beer tours and baseball games. The South Side tells a more harrowing tale: aging housing stock, lead pipes, and underemployment form a trio of trouble. Latino families dominate the population here, packed into neighborhoods teetering between survival and slide.

Police presence is constant; so are community barbecues and bilingual church services. Public education is under strain, and economic mobility feels stagnant. But you’ll notice how much life happens anyway—how fiercely people plant roots where few others would.