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What do residents of the DC Universe think of Gotham City?

Admiral Archer

Admiral Archer

Captain
Captain
This is a conjecture-based thread, as none of us live within the fictional DC Comics universe. But if we did, what would be the general consensus of living in Gotham City? Obviously it is a big city, and therefore home to what we can safely assume to be at least a million people, although they seem to generally be aware it is a dangerous place to live (In an episode of the animated Batman series, Batgirl and Robin joke that the theme song of Gotham City is a person screaming). My question is, what do people from outside city limits generally think of Gotham, and what might motivate someone to move there? Is it a well-known fact outside of city limits that Gotham is unsafe? Do people ever vacation there? Which big city is it comparable to in real life*? What keeps people from leaving town if it's so dangerous? Why would anyone even want to live there? Discuss!

*Long-time Batman comic writer Denny O'Neil famously wrote that "Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November." Obviously that is extremely specific, and open to interpretation on how literal you want it to be.

EDIT: Not sure if this belongs in Miscellaneous or Science Fiction and Fantasy. I'll let the mods decide. Sorry for any inconvenience!
 
Well, in "No Man's land" U.S. government officially evacuated Gotham and then abandoned and isolated those who chose to remain in the city.

I mean, if you decide to evacuate a city in your own country, it must a be very f****ed up place!
 
The series Gotham failed to show or explain why anyone would want to live in their version of Gotham City where the cops are seemingly being murdered every single day, where you can kill one person and be sent to prison for life but kill dozens of people and Hugo Strange has the ability to release you back into the world a few months later where you continue your killing spree with no consequences. But fortunately for them Batman shows up at the end... now that all the villains are senior citizens and easier for him to beat up.
 
Just look at Philadelphia for a real life Gotham

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In the comics, up until the nineties at least, Gotham wasn't any more dangerous or dark than other cities. The modern day conception of Gotham as an extremely dark place began sometime after the Zero Hour.
 
And I can't find any IRL examples to make a comparison: real dangerous cities usually are in really dangerous countries. Or bad things usually happens only to the poor people, so the rich ones really don't care.

But if anything, the Joker is really egalitarian in his murders: no one is safe from his madness. The very strange thing is the Gotham is dangerous for every income class. So, the real question is: why all those millionaires still live there.
 
Some neighbourhoods in Manhattan were pretty dangerous before the 2000s. Now it’s almost all millionaires who live there but it didn’t use to be like that. I always saw Gotham as the bad parts of Manhattan (before it got gentrified) whereas Metropolis was like the midtown/upper east and west sides.

Anyway, is there any American city in the DC universe that doesn’t have its own roster of supervillains (and superheroes)? Maybe Gotham is the worst of all of them but people still live there because it’s cheaper to live there than any other American city.
 
The Habs Fan said:
Anyway, is there any American city in the DC universe that doesn’t have its own roster of supervillains (and superheroes)?
Click to expand...
A lot of cities doesn't have a local super hero. There was even a Green Arrow Story which lampshaded that. Here they wondered why super villains don't go in one the of the superhero-free city. It almost seems that they need to fight someone:biggrin:
 
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Part of it may also be the supervillians are WAY easier to catch in "vanilla" cities because they stand out so much, their activities are easier to track and the cops aren't so busy dealing with 50 other C-listers running around stealing bank vaults with robot gorillas, unleashing a plague of rats that eat metal, or a serial killer that chooses their victims based on how their names line up in iambic pentameter. In a place like Gotham they can disappear into the chaos.
 
Why would anyone want to live in a city where the leading causes of death are things like gas induced laughing to death, being turned into an ice statue or eaten by a man shaped crocodile? Honestly, trying to justify anyone agreeing to live in Gotham City is one of the hardest things for me as a comic fan. Luckily I don't need a lot of realism in my superhero comics, I like somewhat more "fantastical" stuff, which is why DC heroes have always edged out Marvel heroes as my favorites (although I love Marvel heroes, too). So, the question doesn't bother me as a reader, I can just accept it, but its definitely a hard question when you think about it.

I really have no answer for why Gotham City has a population. People like to make comments about real cities, but Gotham is a hellhole with no real way to keep all the psychotic villains out of circulation for more then a few weeks. At least in metropolis Superman is able to really limit casualties most of the time. Batman is really good at catching the villains, but usually not before they build huge body counts (which usually isn't his fault, but that doesn't change the fact that it happens). Half the people in the city seem to be employed as themed goons for the villains, which makes even less sense since half the villains are just as likely to kill their minions as they are to pay them (assuming Batman doesn't catch them all before their job even finishes).

If it was a real place, no one could pay me enough to even visit Gotham. But, since its a fictional city, I just accept that some forms of common sense and basic survival instincts are absent from the average people living in the DC Universe.
 
People make a go of it anywhere they think they can. This truth of human behaviour doesn't change, in Gotham, or anywhere else for that matter. This has been true since what we call Gotham City today was founded on the remains of the Miagani Nation, whomever you believe among the nations of Europe started that settlement.

(Yes, I once co-wrote a book about the place and got paid for it.)
 
There are people living in cities like Gotham in the real world, but most of them are poor people. So maybe it's just dirt cheap living in Gotham, and the costs are low enough people are willing to put up with constant supervillain activity in order to live somewhere so affordable.
And for the people with money, it could be a matter of loyalty. Families like the Cobblepots and Waynes have been there for generations, so they just might not want to leave the city where there family has that kind of history.
Or maybe Gotham has a really good PR department, who manages to downplay just how bad things are there.
 
JD said:
There are people living in cities like Gotham in the real world, but most of them are poor people. So maybe it's just dirt cheap living in Gotham, and the costs are low enough people are willing to put up with constant supervillain activity in order to live somewhere so affordable.
And for the people with money, it could be a matter of loyalty. Families like the Cobblepots and Waynes have been there for generations, so they just might not want to leave the city where there family has that kind of history.
Or maybe Gotham has a really good PR department, who manages to downplay just how bad things are there.
Click to expand...
Batman merch, the city makes a fortune off of that ;)
I don't think the entire city is a cesspool. Places like Burnside might be pretty nice and I'm sure there are other boroughs that are fairly boring and middle class. It's places like Tri-Corner, the Narrows and Alleytown that you need to avoid.
 
Burnside, Manchester and Lyntown (AKA the Upper East Side), Little Bohemia, Cathedral Square, the student neighbourhoods around Gotham U...and that's just an incomplete list covering Gotham itself. The greater Gotham area has a lot going for it as well...
 
DEWLine said:
Burnside, Manchester and Lyntown (AKA the Upper East Side), Little Bohemia, Cathedral Square, the student neighbourhoods around Gotham U...and that's just an incomplete list covering Gotham itself. The greater Gotham area has a lot going for it as well...
Click to expand...
This message brought to you by DEWLine Real Estate.™ Your Gotham property pros. ;)
 
Agents of DEWLine Real Estate™ can also be found in Bludhaven, Ivy Town, Calvin City, Charlton Point, and Civic City.
:lol:
 
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