>Interesting. Here, most, not all, of the neighborhoods close to the city are not where you'd want to live. Those with money, drive. Those without, walk or take the bus inside the city (the only place there is a bus unless you live in one of a only a few metro areas with a good mass transit system). At one time, most city neighborhoods (near downtown) were populated with families, then later senior citizens, but now it is mostly low-income housing. There are some exceptions (upscale downtown or uptown areas), but in the metro areas I've lived that has been the case.
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While, as Mike said, there tend to be some up-scale neighborhoods in or around the downtowns these days, poor in the cities, rich in the suburbs is one of the big differences between American cities and European cities. Remember the riots in France a few years ago--they were in poor suburbs.

Tamar