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I think some people forget Gotham isn't the only one with absolute Psycopathic villains and crumbling economy. Let's take Central City, for instance.
Central City AND it's sister Keystone City is built on a faction of unionised workers, run off of Company plants, and people in the cities fear robots taking over their jobs enough to protest about it. Often the skies were depicted as smoke-filled and smoggy, except on Sunday's when the factories were down for a day. Not only that but most every coorperation is corrupt and everyone that's rich has made it by evil means. Take Rathaway Industries, or even STAR Labs as examples. Rathaway Industries is old money, but old enough that they got away with poor work conditions, cutting back minimum wage, racism, mysoginy, and homophobia. If what happened to their own son and Heir, Hartley Rathaway, isn't enough to prove that, I don't know what is. STAR Labs is new money and when has technological advancement ever really been clean, let's be honest.
Iron Heights was also one of the most corrupt facilities on City borders, accused of torturing, starving, and beating inmates. "The Pipeline" was created for the more villainous residents, even those who didn't deserve the treatment such as the rogues, and lesser known meta criminals. It was the basement of Iron Heights, full of dripping pipes of chemical water and bad air supply. These inmates were never taken out of their cells and usually weren't given enough clean drinking water, food, or sustainable living, leavig them to rot where they couldn't be seen. No wonder the Rogues were constantly breaking out, now that just makes the Flashes look like the bad guys. (They really are douche bags, them Flashers).
On to scary ass villains, you want to talk about the Joker of Central? I give you Dr Amar, AKA Murmur. He was Barry Allen's first testimony in court and first serial killer case. Amar would cut the tongues of his victims out of them while they were still alive and then silence them for good over his cray obsession for silence. He was trialed for 12 out of 50 murders he was suspected of and sent to Iron Heights for life. While in the prison, his mouth was sewn shut and tongue cut out as to not incriminate himself any further. Durring Wally West's prime as The Flash, he created a virus that spread through the water in the pipeline and infected everyone in Iron Heights with a deadly disease that choked it's victims to death by swelling thier tongues. The only cure was his abnoral blood, and Amar could not be infected.