History Main / ViceCity

* Detroit as portrayed in ''Film/TheCrow'' and ''Franchise/{{Robocop}}''.

* ''Literature/{{Durarara}}'': The Tokyo entertainment and commercial neighborhood of Ikebukuro blends this trope with the CityOfAdventure, with a bunch of gangs around, people cutting each other with knives, Shizuo throwing random vending machines at Izaya everywhere around the city, and a headless motorcycle rider going around, freaking people out and stuff. While it ''does'' have a somewhat "noisy" reputation in RealLife, its "Vice" aspects in both the books and their anime adaptation were heavily overplayed due to RuleOfCool.

* ''Manga/BlackJoke'': Japan has been made the 51st state of the United States and prostitution has been banned in Tokyo. An artificial island, the Neon Island, has been built in Tokyo Bay for gambling and prostitution. It is a place swarming with organized crime.
* ''Manga/CityHunter'': Shinjuku [[SubvertedTrope often appears like this]]. While it's not completely in the hands of its criminal elements, there's a number of crimes that the police can't or won't deal with (such as a serial killer who raped his victims as he kidnapped them in or close to the pleasure neighbourhood of Kabukicho, the police [[UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming simply blamed them for supposedly being loose women]]), [[WeHelpTheHelpless crimes that City Hunter deals with once the victims or their relatives ask for his help]] (the serial killer above, for example, was dealt with when the sister of one of his victims, who was waiting for her when kidnapped, hired City Hunter to do the police's job).
* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureGoldenWind'': Naples at the beginning of the story is presented as a corrupt town where the mob is more feared by the police, and said police is also near corrupt or ineffective.
* ''Literature/HeavyObject'': The city of Lost Angels was built near a Faith Organization Object maintenance base. The other superpowers sent spies to infiltrate the city, founding gangs to act as cover for their operations, and the Faith Organization responded in kind. The four gangs grew out of control as the crime rate exploded while the majority of the city's civilian populace fled. By the time Qwenthur and Havia arrive, the city consists of [[FlockOfWolves undercover spies]], criminals profiting off the conflict, and a handful of innocents with nowhere else to go.

* ''Comicbook/SinCity''
* Hub City in Franchise/TheDCU, from ''ComicBook/TheQuestion'' comics, was specifically written to be the most corrupt city in the U.S. Less than ten police officers were considered honest and the firefighters went out armed.
* Maranatha, Florida in the titular unfinished web novel ''Maranatha'' and the ongoing graphic novel series ''ComicBook/HeathenCity'', both by Alex Vance.
* Bete Noire, the setting of Creator/PeterDavid's ''Comicbook/{{Fallen Angel|2003}}''.

* Mega-City One from ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' flagship title ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' certainly qualifies, and the Angeltown district from its SpinOff ''ComicBook/TheSimpingDetective'' is depicted as being worse than the city as a whole.

* In ''ComicBook/GarfieldHis9Lives'' St. Paul, Minnesota is described this way.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

* Detroit as portrayed in ''Film/TheCrow'' and ''Franchise/{{Robocop}}''

* The Star Wars Expanded Universe brings us Nar Shaddaa, this trope in planet form, it's essentially a dark version of Coruscant.

* Zemphis in ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', filled with unlicenced beggars, people on the run from the law on the Sto Plains, and dealers in illicit goods including drugs and -- this being the Literature/{{Discworld}} -- raw treacle. Commander Vimes suggests that Vetinari allows it to exist so it doesn't exist closer to home, and complains that local law enforcement isn't even corrupt, because they're not competent enough for anyone to think them worth bribing.
* Grimpen Ward in the ''Literature/{{Shannara}}'' novels, which sometimes seems to consist of run-down, disreputable taverns. Being in the middle of the Wilderun, the only reason to live there is if you aren't welcome elsewhere.

* In ''{{Series/Arrow}}'', Starling City is ridiculously corrupt. The cops and judges are mostly on the pad, the administrators of the local mental hospital exploit their patients for profit, the leading candidate for mayor is secretly a costumed supervillain, and the city's wealthy elite are [[spoiler:plotting to destroy the TheCityNarrows with an earthquake machine]].
* ''{{Series/Gotham}}'', definitely verging on MoreCriminalsThanTargets levels. And its status as a {{prequel}} [[ForegoneConclusion means]] until a millionaire socialite and his young ward take up the fight, it won't be improving in a significant fashion any time during the course of the series.

* {{Music/Halsey}}: the Badlands are depicted this way, a dangerous urban sprawl full of dead-eyed kids and neon nights, reminiscent of UsefulNotes/LasVegas.

* These occur on planetary scales in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}''. The Dark Eldar race lives in an extradimensional, planet-sized Vice City, for one, and these are people who ''survive'' by crossing the MoralEventHorizon every day, if not every hour.
* In most {{Cyberpunk}} games, the background setting is one of these. Night City, in {{Cyberpunk 2025}}, is one prime example.
* The Edge, capital city of [[WretchedHive Al Amarja]], in ''TabletopGame/OverTheEdge''. All the normal laws against drugs, violence, fraud, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking trademark infringement]], and the like exist but are only enforced if you piss off the government. In the event that you ''are'' arrested for something, bribing the local magistrate to let you off is not only legal, it's actually a major source of income for the state.

* ''Every city'' in the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' universe is a crime-ridden city filled with violence.
** The {{Trope Namer|s}} is ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'', Miami-inspired city.
** ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'' expands this into a Vice ''State''.
* ''Videogame/{{Manhunt}}'' takes place in Carcer City. It's populated by various gangs who are (unknowingly) part of a SnuffFilm empire.

* Antiva is a small country that so far has never been visited in the ''Franchise/DragonAge'' games but gets mentioned a lot.

--->'''Isabela:''' I had a husband. He didn't beat me, that's the best I can say about him.
--->'''Bethany:''' So you left him?
--->'''Isabela:''' He was murdered. By my lover... It was all very... 'Antivan'.
* The city of New Radius in ''VideoGame/MarcEckosGettingUpContentsUnderPressure''.
** Arguably an inversion, as the conflict in the game is based around fighting a totalitarian (though admittedly still corrupt) local government and police force.
* New York in the ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' video games -- particularly ''VideoGame/SpiderMan2'' and ''VideoGame/SpiderMan3''.
* New York in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne''.

* Haven City in ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade''; Spargus City in ''VideoGame/Jak3'' is like this, but much more orderly, considering ''everyone'' is armed and are likely to shoot you if you try anything funny with them. The Kras City from ''Jak X: Combat Racing'' is an even better example as there are criminal syndicates involved in everything going on in the city, including the titular races.

* The grittily overblown "gangs control the city" version of this that primarily crops up in [[BeatEmUp Beat 'Em Ups]]:
** ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage''
** ''VideoGame/FinalFight''/''Franchise/StreetFighter''
** ''VideoGame/DoubleDragon''
** ''Film/TheWarriors''
** ''ChaosOverlords''
* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'':
** Santa Destroy features street thugs in bondage gear armed to the teeth and out for the player's blood, to the point where no one actually stays in the city willingly and desperately wants to take the first bus out of town. The ending of ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes2DesperateStruggle'' implies that with the UAA destroyed, Travis and Sylvia are going to fix it up. It ''does'' look better by the time of ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII''... and then the aliens obliterate a huge chunk of it anyway.
** ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroesIII'': Perfect World, located at the south, is how Santa Destroy would look like with a bigger quality of life. It ''does'' still host assassination challenges as well as some required fights for the Rank 9 fight, but by default it's a thematically safer (and prettier) city.

* The Den in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' is referred to as a WretchedHive, as a blatant ''Franchise/StarWars'' ShoutOut, although it's rather tame compared to New Reno, the true ViceCity of the franchise.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' has Goodneighbor, a city founded by criminals who had been exiled from the comparatively straight-laced Diamond City. Even with Hancock working to maintain a semblance of order and vigilantism encouraged, Goodneighbor is still rife with thievery, drug abuse, and murder. It may be safer in comparison to wandering the wastelands, but only to a point.
* ''VideoGame/WildArms3'' has Little Twister, a Wild West town of outlaws. The various arena towns in the ''VideoGame/WildArms'' series may also apply, though they aren't really towns per se.
* Zozo in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI''. Everybody's a thief and a liar, and unlike most towns, you'll hit random encounters while exploring.
* ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'' {{deconstruct|ion}}s this concept by showing how scary such a setting would be. All the crime-ridden buildings in Metro City that the main character has to crawl through (and there are a lot of them) are filled with nothing but junkies and crazy homeless people.
* ''VideoGame/TrueCrimeStreetsOfLA'' and ''[[VideoGame/TrueCrimeNewYorkCity New York City]]'' took this to a unique level by having the featured cities replicated, or at least with an accurate street and landmark layout. One review for the first game claimed that " residents of LA could use any shortcuts they know in RealLife in-game.
* Omega, the unofficial capital of the lawless Terminus Systems in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' fits in the trope quite well. More subtly all the basic elements of the trope also fit Illium, an asari colony world where everything is legal as long as there is a contract for it, and criminal organizations and ruthless [=CEO=]s struggle for power behind the serene image presented for tourists.
* ''VideoGame/TheGodfather: The Game'' presents NYC this way: You can't go far without running into a business controlled by TheMafia, {{Dirty Cop}}s are a dime a dozen, and staying away from known Mafia fronts doesn't guarantee your safety from running gunfights in the streets.
* ''VideoGame/PokemonColosseum'': Pyrite Town. Even for a LighterAndSofter work like ''Pokemon'', Pyrite is a Vice City within a WretchedHive - it's the only city with police officers in all of Orre, and despite them, the hoods freely roam the streets. This is the city [[EnsembleDarkhorse Miror B.]] ruled over during his days as a Cipher Admin, and it has an ''even worse'' Vice City underneath it, The Under, an underground city that's all one big Cipher hideout.
* In ''VideoGame/AllPointsBulletin'', San Paro has some of the things mentioned, minus the prostitution, but it does have drug rings, assassins, and carjackings. You have the choice of playing a criminal or a cop.
* Midgar in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. The Wall Market is a sleazy red-lights district owned by Don Corneo, a wealthy pervert and Mafia crime boss, and muggers can be encountered as enemies in Sector 5, who may steal your items and run away from them, taking them forever if you fail to beat them in time. Corel also suffers from having thief enemies.
* ''VideoGame/MafiaII'' has [[BigApplesauce Empire Bay]], home to three Mafia Crime Families and several other organized crime rings such as [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs Triads]] and a local [[TheIrishMob Irish Mob]].
** ''VideoGame/MafiaIII'' has [[UsefulNotes/NewOrleans New Bordeaux]]. While publicly a pleasant place to go to and live, the reality has it being controlled by TheMafia and TheKlan, who use the city to illicit their illegal activities ranging from prostitution to drugs.
* Night City, the setting of ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' is filled with crime, poverty, violence, prostitution, and people desperately trying to rise to the top. The city is [[DividedStatesOfAmerica independent from the [=USA=]]] and practically owned by corporations, with politicians being merely their puppets.

* Bete Noire, the setting of Creator/PeterDavid's ''Comicbook/FallenAngel''.

[[folder:Web Animation]]
* {{Hell}} is depicted this way in ''WebAnimation/HazbinHotel'', a dark red city where demons indulge in every evil they did in life, just without any shame or subtlety. Gang violence is rampant, the porn industry is booming, and hard drugs are sold from vending machines. One particular example is the main location ''alone'', Pentagram City. And that's not excluding its spinoff series ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss''.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* Greysky City from ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' is all but controlled by the Thieves' Guild, with [[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0574.html crime rampant on the streets]] and omnipresent flyers for ''corpse disposal'' that don't even bother with euphemisms.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': Sharteshane has a reputation as a home to criminals run by gangs, and its capital Sharteshane City is shown to have prostitutes carrying out their business in the streets while pickpockets slip through the crowds and Jab Beadman, a gangster who bought his way into the nobility, is the real power behind the throne.
[[/folder]]

* ''VideoGame/TheGodfather: The Game'' presents NYC this way: You can't go far without running into [[TotallyNotACriminalFront a business controlled by]] TheMafia, {{Dirty Cop}}s are a dime a dozen, and staying away from known Mafia fronts doesn't guarantee your safety from running gunfights in the streets.

* ''VideoGame/TheGodfather: The Game'' presents NYC this way: You can't go far without running into [[LegitimateBusinessmensSocialClub a business controlled by]] TheMafia, {{Dirty Cop}}s are a dime a dozen, and staying away from known Mafia fronts doesn't guarantee your safety from running gunfights in the streets.

Here, law enforcement, but bends to the demands and bribes of the powerful criminals or the temptations of the DirtyCop. Much less chaotic than some {{Wretched Hive}}s as the vice in the city is caused by [[VillainWorld organized corruption]] orchestrated by TheSyndicate rather than greed-induced every-man-for-himself-ism and anarchy. [[PoliceAreUseless The police are ineffective]] in Vice City, [[OptionalTrafficLaws only getting off their asses to stop a criminal who is running over little old ladies]] ''repeatedly'' in the middle of the street. [[CardboardPrison They'll only incarcerate the offender for a short sentence]], too. Except, of course, our heroes, especially if they take effective actions against crime.

Here, there is law, but it bends to the wallets of the powerful criminals or the temptations of the law enforcers. Much less chaotic than some {{Wretched Hive}}s as the vice in the city is caused by [[VillainWorld organized corruption]] rather than greed-induced every-man-for-himself-ism. [[PoliceAreUseless The police are often noticeably ineffective]] in Vice City, [[OptionalTrafficLaws only getting off their asses to stop a criminal who is running over little old ladies]] ''repeatedly'' in the middle of the street. [[CardboardPrison They'll only incarcerate the offender for a few seconds]], too. Except, of course, our heroes, especially if they take effectual actions against crime.

* [[VideoGame/PokemonColosseum Pyrite Town]]. Even for a LighterAndSofter work like ''Pokemon'', Pyrite is a Vice City within a WretchedHive - it's the only city with police officers in all of Orre, and despite them, the hoods freely roam the streets! This is a city [[EnsembleDarkhorse Miror B.]] ruled over during his days as a Cipher Admin... And it has an ''even worse'' Vice City underneath it, The Under, an underground city that's all one big Cipher hideout.

[[caption-width-right:350;Today's forecast: anarchy with a high chance of bullets.]]