History Main / Gangsterland

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

While they all derive from the movies, most versions of Gangsterland do reflect violent periods in the history of various cities -- at least if you turn your head and squint a little. UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity stand-ins will have violence courtesy of TheMafia, Chicago from the Mayor's office and Prohibition-era bootleggers, UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} from the IrishMob and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles from [[GangBangers Black and Mestizo Hispanic street gangs]]. Note that the first is organized crime, the second is [[WhiteCollarCrime corrupt]][[DirtyCop ion]] (and organized crime), and the third is [[AnarchyIsChaos street anarchy]] (though the more successful street gangsters move up into organized crime, or die trying). However in terms of treatment of civilians, the first rarely fits into TotalitarianGangsterism, the second may fit into it (depending on the government) and the third is this full-on. Pray that the people who run the land are NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters.

[[folder:Real Life]]

[[AC: US Examples]]
* A [[UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity Brooklyn]] newspaper back during the era gave us this poem (parodying part of "The Star-Spangled Banner"):
-->And the pistols' red glare\\
Bombs bursting in air\\
Gave proof through the night\\
That Chicago's still there.
* Former UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} mayor Harold Washington lampshaded the city's reputation for crime in a speech to his supporters. The phrase immediately afterwards was "Nowadays, they say 'How's Harold?'".
** Chicago, to this day, still has among the highest violent crime rates in the country due to all the gangs roaming the street. It's regarded by many as ''The gang capital of America''. And the city that had that reputation before then was UsefulNotes/LosAngeles.
* UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity during [[TheBigRottenApple a period rather close to our times]]. [[http://www.city-data.com/forum/new-york-city/1546030-how-bad-new-york-city-during.html People's]] [[http://www.city-data.com/forum/true-crime/1546155-how-bad-crack-epidemic-nyc.html testimonies]] are a bit chilling...
** There are some areas of NYC that are still like this. Brownsville, for example, has a very high crime rate. There's also East New York, south Bronx, and even Coney Island, unbeknownst to many people who live outside of Brooklyn. That said, even the worst areas of the city are very much an improvement compared to what it was like in the 70s and 80s.
* UsefulNotes/NewJersey has some Gangsterland inner cities. Newark and Camden are the most notable examples. You do ''not'' want to walk around there at night (except maybe the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark).
** In particular Jersey City has historically had a big crime problem. Although the downtown/waterfront area has been gentrified into a yuppie wonderland, the rest of the city has a lot of ghetto areas. The "Greenville" neighborhood is desolate during the day and extremely scary at night. The most frustrating part is that City Hall refuses to acknowledge these realities, and instead claims that crime is [[DamnedByFaintPraise "at a 30-year low" despite the fact that virtually everyone in the city knows otherwise.]]
*** City Hall may well [[ExactWords be right]]. "30-year low" just means that there is less crime now than there was at any one point in the last thirty years, ''not'' that there is little crime.
* UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}} has a long history of crime, especially in terms of murder rate, gang violence, and its reputation as being a [[TheMafia mafia]] stronghold. The city of Camden, New Jersey, located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, has frequently been rated as the most dangerous city in the United States.
** Many of the smaller cities around Philadelphia, such as Reading, Camden, and Trenton, have seen a massive uptick in crime since the steel mills and other factories left the region for cheaper labor abroad. Local coal mining cities and towns haven't been hit quite as hard in terms of violent crimes, but that's mostly due to low and less densely packed populations.
* The {{Dying Town}}s in the Midwestern US are among the best known current examples, with UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} and UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} being the most notorious. It speaks volumes that UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}, the ''original'' Gangsterland, is arguably the most well-off city in the region right now.
** Murray Hill is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods that's actually in Cleveland, rather than a suburb. It's also home to the local mafia.
* California has parts of UsefulNotes/LosAngeles, and further north, Oakland and Richmond.
** Stockton is also starting to turn into one thanks to an almost non-existent police force.
** Hell, Central Valley ("The Valley") has the highest grand theft auto statistics in the whole US. In a 2010 report, 4 of the top five spots were Central Valley cities.
* Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati, Ohio has been consistently in the top 25 most dangerous U.S. neighborhoods, actually reaching the top of the chart for some time.
* UsefulNotes/{{Baltimore}} is notorious for its insanely high crime rate and has been for several decades. Drug trafficking and use run rampant thanks to the high level of gang activity across the city, including the Bloods. It served as the inspiration for the TV series Series/TheWire.
* Miami was once known as the Drug Capital of the United States. It was Terrorized by drug queenpin Grizelda Blanco back in the 70s and 80s, and served as a massive distribution hub for illegal drugs that were shipped to other US cities. Series/MiamiVice perfectly captured the vibe of the times.
* Northern Virginia, as affluent as the suburb is, has among the highest concentration of Latino Gangs in the country.

[[AC: Non-US examples]]
* During the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, the Soviet Union used this trope in their anti-American propaganda.
** So did the Nazis -- anti-British propaganda featured tea-drinking UpperClassTwit-types, anti-Soviet propaganda featured savage looking commies...and anti-American propaganda was all Jews and tommy guns.
* While {{UsefulNotes/Mexico}} has its fair share of safe areas, some areas and territories are under the control of bloodthirsty [[TheCartel drug cartels]].
* Nottingham, despite being a relatively small city, is this for England. The Nickname 'Shottingham' references the firearms offences rate, especially with Shotguns, while drugs are a serious rising problem in the city.
* Limerick is generally considered this in Ireland; in 2007 nearly 33% of all firearm offences in the entire State took place in the city, in 2008 it offically edged past Glasgow to become the murder capital of Europe and for a while it had the nickname 'Stab City'. Things have improved though as ironically the open feuding between the [[TheIrishMob crime families]] has seriously weakened them. Parts of north Dublin (like Finglas) are also seen as GangsterLand.
* {{UsefulNotes/Brazil}} as a whole tends to be seen as this, with its vast slums and poverty-stricken neighborhoods that are a good place for gangs to hide.
* Much of {{UsefulNotes/Colombia}} during [[TheCartel the Medellín Cartel]]'s reign of terror.
* Much of UsefulNotes/NorthernIreland - especially Belfast - during UsefulNotes/TheTroubles. The [[PoliceAreUseless police were nigh well useless]] and in many cases aiding and abetting sectarian violence. Thus the Provos and UDA in addition to terrorism indulged in drug trafficking, extortion, and protection rackets. They did act as a kind of de facto police force; there was a tacit agreement that each side would "police their own" and anyone found committing a crime would be summarily kneecapped, beaten, or told to get the hell out of town by one or the other according to their religious affiliation.
[[/folder]]

* Referenced in ''Manga/AzumangaDaioh'' when Chiyo announces that she will be going to America. Osaka puts on her NightmareFuelStationAttendant hat and suggests that Chiyo will be kidnapped and killed there.

* ''[[ComicBook/{{Tintin}} Tintin in America]]'' pits Tintin against Chicago gangsters, including an undisguised Al Capone.
* ''Comicbook/SinCity'', as the name implies, is a crime-filled cesspool where even the heroes aren't the most law-abiding.

[[folder:Film]]

* NYC's Brighton Beach in ''Film/LittleOdessa'': TheMafiya is everywhere, all young men are wannabe hitmen, and nobody bats an eye when a murder occurs in broad daylight.

* The unnamed city that ''Film/AngelsWithDirtyFaces'' takes place in.
* Any [[HoodFilm "coming of age hood movie"]] from the early 90s, especially ''Film/{{Juice}}'', ''Film/BoyzNTheHood'', ''Film/MenaceIISociety'', and of course ''Film/DontBeAMenaceToSouthCentralWhileDrinkingYourJuiceInTheHood''. Also pretty most anything involving Mexican Americans, such as ''Film/BloodInBloodOut'', ''Film/{{Colors}}'', ''Film/AmericanMe''.
* The unnamed city in ''Film/StreetsOfFire'' is this.
* Prohibition-era Chicago in ''Film/RoadToPerdition''. Run by Capone and the IrishMob.

* ''Film/TheWarriors'': Nearly every character is a gangbanger.

* A more upscale version in the ''Franchise/JohnWick'' series. Every character is somehow involved in organized crime, with huge five-star hotels catering exclusively to mob hit-men, and civilians in the background take it totally in stride.

* For a British GentlemanAdventurer, Literature/TheSaint seems to bump into a lot of gangsters when he goes to America. Of course, since this is [[VigilanteMan the Saint]] we're talking about...

* [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' novel ''Death Masks'', where a Catholic priest from Italy says that he is hiring Harry Dresden because he does not trust the police in Chicago, thanks to Chicago's reputation as a Mafia hotbed. While Harry is quick to point out that there is a lot of Mafia activity in Chicago, the level of corruption that said priest suspects is mostly fictional since the Capone days ended.

* ''Series/TheSopranos'': New Jersey is portrayed as this in the series. It's a city filled with drug dealers, {{Loan Shark}}s, [[TheCartel drug cartels]], contract killers, criminal organizations, illegal business, corruption, illegal gambling, and [[TheMafia mobsters]].
* ''Series/RemingtonSteele'' seems to invoke this trope in having Steele obsessed with hard-boiled detective stories. He seemingly believed that they presented as accurate a picture of contemporary America and its slang as they did in the 1920s-1940s, when most of them were written.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'': This is Sigma Iota's [[PlanetOfHats hat]] in "A Piece of the Action."

* Pretty much the main point of White Wolf's World of Darkness setting is that it's like this - the darkest rumours and fears are all true, and then some.

* ''Happy End'', Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's SpiritualSuccessor to ''Theatre/TheThreepennyOpera'', was also set in {{Gangsterland}} Chicago.

* ''VideoGame/EarthboundBeginnings'' has the gang-ruled city of [[UsefulNotes/LosAngeles Ellay]]. In the original Japanese version, the city is called [[UsefulNotes/AlCapone Valentine]].

* ''VideoGame/LANoire'', to an extent.

* ''The King of Chicago'', a Creator/{{Cinemaware}} game in which you play an ambitious gangster trying to take over the city after Al Capone is busted.

* The French animated film ''WesternAnimation/TheTripletsOfBelleville'' has American gangsters as villains. It also invokes {{Eagleland}} in depicting the Statue of Liberty and Americans as obese in contrast to the svelte (if equally unattractively drawn) French characters. Well, according to a newspaper the gangsters are apparently the (nonexistent?) French Mafia, and insofar as Belleville was a parody of America, the actual geography of the city, besides the statue, seems to be inspired by Montreal.
* The setting of ''Slaughter Race'' in ''WesternAnimation/RalphBreaksTheInternet'' is the Los Angeles variant of this trope, where street thugs race each other in expensive cars, there is no law enforcement whatsoever, everything is dirty and run down, and it's perpetually sunset. This is paradise to Vanellope.

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' is another straight up example of the trope. Stillwater, Steelport, and Santo Ileso feature powerful gangs that run the district and often wage wars with one another, leaving pedestrians (and local law enforcement) in the crossfire. To show how bad the gang activities are, the US Government has a military unit aimed at combating gangs using military grade, space-tech hardware.

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' is another straight up example of the trope. Stillwater, Steelport, and Santo Ileso feature powerful gangs that wage war on one another and the local residents (and local law enforcement) are left at the mercy of said gangss.

* The ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, given that it is produced by a Scottish company, is a perfect illustration of the trope.

* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' is another straight up example of the trope.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts From the New World'' takes place in the late 20's and a subplot involves the party visiting Chicago while the city is recovering from a vicious gang war that ended up with Al Capone in Alcatraz and a new hotshot Irish gangster called Roy [=MacManus=] in charge of the place.

* UsefulNotes/{{Baltimore}} is notorious for its insanely high crime rate and has been for several decades. Drug trafficking and use run rampant thanks to the high level of gang activity across the city, including the Bloods. It served as the inspiration for the TV seiries Series/TheWire.

This might be considered the UrbanHellscape counterpart of {{Eagleland}}, the perception (more ignorantly so in other countries) of American cities as crime-ridden [[ViceCity Vice Cities]]. This has much to do with the export of American films. Supposedly, you will find French people, for instance, believing that UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} is still as it was when Al Capone was alive.

->'''Finian''': America's full of gangsters, you know.\\
'''Sharon''': I thought you said it was full of millionaires.\\
'''Finian''': That depends on which newspaper you read.

* ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}'' fits in so far as its milieu is a gangster-ridden 1930s [[BigApplesauce New York]]. However, it also involves ''alchemy'' and the mobster characters tend not to fit stereotype.

* ''Fanfic/LaterTraitor'': Maloof's mental world is a big city run by mafia members represented as [[DancingPants animate articles of clothing.]]

* ''Franchise/SaintsRow'' is another straight up example of the trope.

[[folder:Anime]]

[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/582fbf7cce3610c73407e34d1d236463.png]]]]

Compare WretchedHive and TotalitarianGangsterism (the latter is GangsterLand, but the gangsters also oppress the civilians)

While they all derive from the movies, most versions of Gangsterland do reflect violent periods in the history of various cities -- at least if you turn your head and squint a little. UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity stand-ins will have violence courtesy of TheMafia, Chicago from the Mayor's office and Prohibition-era bootleggers, UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} will have the IrishMob and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles from [[GangBangers Black and Mestizo Hispanic street gangs]]. Note that the first is organized crime, the second is [[WhiteCollarCrime corrupt]][[DirtyCop ion]] (and organized crime), and the third is [[AnarchyIsChaos street anarchy]] (though the more successful street gangsters move up into organized crime, or die trying). However in terms of treatment of civilians, the first rarely fits into TotalitarianGangsterism, the second may fit into it (depending on the government) and the third is this full-on. Pray that the people who run the land are NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters.

While they all derive from the movies, most versions of Gangsterland do reflect violent periods in the history of various cities -- at least if you turn your head and squint a little. UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity stand-ins will have violence courtesy of TheMafia, Chicago from the Mayor's office and Prohibition-era bootleggers, UsefulNotes/Boston will have the IrishMob and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles from [[GangBangers Black and Mestizo Hispanic street gangs]]. Note that the first is organized crime, the second is [[WhiteCollarCrime corrupt]][[DirtyCop ion]] (and organized crime), and the third is [[AnarchyIsChaos street anarchy]] (though the more successful street gangsters move up into organized crime, or die trying). However in terms of treatment of civilians, the first rarely fits into TotalitarianGangsterism, the second may fit into it (depending on the government) and the third is this full-on. Pray that the people who run the land are NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters.

This might be considered the urban counterpart of {{Eagleland}}, the perception (more ignorantly so in other countries) of American cities as crime ridden [[ViceCity Vice Cities]]. This has much to do with the export of American films. Supposedly, you will find French people, for instance, believing that UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} is still as it was when Al Capone was alive.

While they all derive from the movies, most versions of Gangsterland do reflect violent periods in the history of various cities -- at least if you turn your head and squint a little. UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity stand-ins will have violence courtesy of TheMafia, UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} from the Mayor's office and Prohibition-era bootleggers, and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles from [[GangBangers ethnic street gangs]]. Note that the first is organized crime, the second is [[WhiteCollarCrime corrupt]][[DirtyCop ion]] (and organized crime), and the third is [[AnarchyIsChaos street anarchy]] (though the more successful street gangsters move up into organized crime, or die trying). However in terms of treatment of civilians, the first rarely fits into TotalitarianGangsterism, the second may fit into it (depending on the government) and the third is this full-on. Pray that the people who run the land are NeighbourhoodFriendlyGangsters.

* In ''Film/{{Hoodlum}}'', in Harlem everybody is affliated with either the black Mafia, or the Jewish mafia, or the Italian mafia...you get the idea.

* The setting of ''Slaughter Race'' in ''Disney/RalphBreaksTheInternet'' is the Los Angeles variant of this trope, where street thugs race each other in expensive cars, there is no law enforcement whatsoever, everything is dirty and run down, and it's perpetually sunset. This is paradise to Vanellope.

While they all derive from the movies, most versions of Gangsterland do reflect violent periods in the history of various cities -- at least if you turn your head and squint a little. UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity stand-ins will have violence courtesy of TheMafia, UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} from the Mayor's office and Prohibition-era bootleggers, and UsefulNotes/LosAngeles from [[GangBangers ethnic street gangs]]. Note that the first is organized crime, the second is [[WhiteCollarCrime corrupt]][[DirtyCop ion]] (and organized crime), and the third is [[AnarchyIsChaos street anarchy]] (though the more successful street gangsters move up into organized crime, or die trying). However in terms of treatment of civilians, the first rarely fits into TotalitarianGangsterism, the second may fit into it (depending on the government) and the third is this full-on.

Compare WretchedHive, TheApunkalypse and TotalitarianGangsterism (the latter is GangsterLand, but the gangsters also oppress the civilians)