Is Anchorage really that evil?

I've only lived here a few years, and I can absolutely say its an exaggeration. We have a few strip clubs, and street walkers like any other mid sized city (maybe slightly higher because of the male to female ratio here). What was depicted in the movie isn't anything close to what downtown is like here.

It might have been different back in the early 80s, and hopefully someone else who was here at that time can comment.

I'm from there and we mainly have issues of homelessness and gun violence. The prostitution is an exaggeration. However, perhaps in the 80's and certainly pre-statehood, there was probably more.

Supposedly it's not really much of an exaggeration at all. Anchorage was a very unique city at the time the movie took place, in the early 80's. The prostitution industry, and many other vice industries were booming at the time because of the massive influx of oil money and workers. The Alaska pipeline had just been completed a few years previously and the construction of the pipeline itself spurned on these industries. The company that built the pipeline had 21,000 workers during peak construction in the summers of 1975 and 1976, and over 70,000 workers would come through the state to work on the project. The vast majority of those workers were of course men and when you fill the state with tens of thousands of men who also happen to be flush with money from their new high paying jobs the vice quickly follows. Couple this with the fact that Alaska has always had a very laissez-faire attitude about most everything, and has never had much of a police presence, industries like prostitution easily flourished.

Nowadays it has definitely calmed down. Like everywhere prostitution has shifted a lot. Hookers don't walk the street like they used to when all of that stuff can just be done on the internet now. Policing has gotten better in Alaska, like most places. And the oil industry has wound down over the years from the days of the oil-boom years of the 80's. But they and all the other vice is still there, it's just not as apparent as it used to be. Classic Alaskan boredom will guarantee it'll always have a place in Alaska.

Anchorage is in some ways a small town that wants to be the Big City, it's small enough that it's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else. That Hanson could get away with his crimes for so long without anyone noticing speaks to a very large industry filled with women from outside of the state.

I read the true story on the murders years back. It was well known the it attracted a dodgy crowd . Lot of the town was strip clubs and bars . People who wanted to escape the big cities of the US would end up there . The end of the line . That was 1980's . I wouldn't know today .