I’m a former Waterville cop and still live in the area. The south end is a mixture of low and middle class blue collar folks. 99.9% are great people who work hard, take care of their families, and look out for their neighbors. There isn’t a street in the city that I wouldn’t let my own mother live on.

Those that think of the south end as some crime ridden hell hole are idiots that have clearly never lived outside of Maine.

Basically the area between Silver St. and the Kennebec River, bounded by downtown at the north end and the cemetary to the south.

It's the lower-income, higher-crime part of town, but you have to put that in perspective--it's still Maine, not Detroit. It's not the part of town I'd want to live in if I moved back, but I think the comment you're replying to makes it out to be worse than it actually is.

As someone who lives on Water st currently and has lived many places in the US there’s nothing crazy here, its mostly just low income families. There’s a brand new skate park in the area and a community garden down the street. There are some areas I wouldn’t walk at night, and I try not to leave anything visible in my car, but other than that its not a bad area.