METH, MORONS, AND MURDER IN VICTORVILLE

By YASHA LEVINE

Living in an abandoned neighborhood in an exurb way out on the edge of the California desert has its perks. There isn’t much in the way of nightlife in Victorville, California, and food options are limited, but it has one hell of a crime scene, maybe the most happening in THE whole state.

Hunter S. Thompson barreled through here with a head full of acid and a rag drenched in ether pressed against his face on his search for the American Dream. And that’s exactly what Victorville, a desert commuter suburb 100 miles east of LA, has become. It is subprime central, a wasteland that boomed at the height of real estate bubble, overflowing with cheap McMansions built to scam low-income suckers into homeownership. But these days, the dream is dead. The row upon row of empty houses makes this depressingly obvious. You know the poor people that get displaced by gentrification? Well, suburbs like Victorville are where many have been forced to go. Places like this are going to be America’s 21st century ghettos, safely out of view, like Gulags.

By YASHA LEVINE 2 years ago Like · Comment · Share