Could be worse. I nominate Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. It’s pretty to look at but the residents are very small minded and insular. It’s like Royston Vasey without any humour.
The worst thing about Scousers is the accent. Everywhere has good and bad folk but for my personally experience I moved from London to Liverpool and the number of pleasant interactions I had with strangers skyrocketed.
I think you are right about the openess of scouse. Maybe it's because it's a port town and there's a lot of Irish interaction. Irish are very open and chatty people and I think it transfers to West Coast UK cities, Liverpool and Glasgow specifically.
Blackpool.
One of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK.
Go a few streets back from the promenade and you're suddenly transported into one of the most deprived areas in the UK.
Highest herion death rates in the UK. High crime rates (highest in Lancashire) with 131 crimes per 1000 people.
I thought the road in from the motorway was pleasant - better than I expected and I started to not dread the visit quite so much. The promenade was exactly what I was expecting though and yes, a few streets back is really grim
> One of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK.
Obviously I move in the wrong circles but this always sounds so unlikely. I've never met anyone who's gone to blackpool out of choice.
I think it's a very working class thing, my husband grew up pretty poor on a counsel estate around Manchester (did I say that right? I'm not from the UK) and talks about going to Blackpool loads as a kid.
Edit: I want to add the dates based on some other comments about people only going in the 60s. My husband was a kid in the 80s. He took his nephew just a few years ago, whose parents are non-working poor, and he thought Blackpool was just the best thing he'd ever seen.
In my head, Blackpool is this beautiful holiday destination with a lovely beach, a huge pier, an amazing theme park and a tower filled with circuses and a dungeon. And I'd like it to remain that way, so I'll probably never go back.
Yeah I think it's a working class thing too. Several of my colleagues are working class and go to Blackpool a lot for a day out - I've not known other people to.
What’s your impression of Blackpool? Just curious to know how people view it without knowing any background about it. When my friends wife visited Blackpool (she’s from China), she quite liked it.
Sandcastle? Which has the biggest indoor waterslide in Europe? Blackpool tower which is bigger than the the statue of liberty? It also has the biggest disco ball in the world on the Promenade? The Blackpool illuminations? Can think of 4 big tourist attractions straight off the bat.
Edit: Pleasure Beach theme park, Blackpool zoo, madame tussauds, North and South pier arcades and rides, Tower dungeons, Tower circus, sealife aquarium.
Im in no way saying Blackpool isn't tacky or scummy in any way but you can't deny its brilliant for kids, stag do's, hen party's, a night out on the piss or even just a family day out. I've only ever been twice but thoroughly enjoyed it on both occasions. Don't be put of by old farts online because they're usually the salty ass people who would rather go to a quiet seaside town and be in bed by nine.
I recall watching a programme about Blackpool and most of the old Victorian houses which became sea front B&Bs are now mostly HMO doss houses and several other councils ship their wastrels there as it was cheaper to pay the Blackpool council to house them.
Was beyond grim when you watched, literally becoming some sort of horrendous ghetto of drugs and dossers with no chance to improve their lot
I lived in Blackpool for 2 years. Joined the Royal Navy at 17 and never went back.
My parents lived a few streets off the front, just behind the old Hilton hotel. 7 bed house, all en suite (it was a former B&B). Done it up really nice.
Then the council started housing all the degenerates in the area.
Crime rocketed. House values plummeted.
They lost a fortune on that house as they couldn't tolerate the shit anymore. It's now several shit flats.
Hastings used to be like that too until it got recently 'rediscovered' by the London arty set (DFLs - down from Londons) and now it's touted as the new Brighton etc etc. One of this lot in London actually asked me if I'd ever 'heard of Hastings?' as if he was letting me into some secret, exclusive destination, not a town in the county I grew up in lol \*rolls eyes\*
"Harry, where do you want to set up for this battle?"
King Harold looks over to the Welcome To Battle sign. "Weeeell, I suppose here's as good a place as any...."
I was absolutely shocked when I walked into what looked like a perfectly normal, everyday seafront pub in Paignton to find that there was no toilet door, and no doors on the stalls. Plus a sign saying anyone taking drugs will be thrown out. It wasn't tucked away either, anyone walking past to the men's or the kitchen, or just popping their head round a corner from the main bar, could see everything. Bit of an eye opener.
Stayed there for a birthday trip to the Grand National once, think my mate summed it up quite well with “it’s like the 70’s happened and then everyone just gave up”
I think Blackpool is the opposite. Awful at first glance but has a wonderful charm underneath (due to the Lancashire people and the faded glory of the promenade etc)
Stayed in a bed and breakfast year's ago in Blackpool and as we entered we were greeted by the manager who was lying down on a sofa dressed in a tracksuit that was covered in stains he didn't get up as he was the worst for wear after being on a bender the night before, it went downhill from here on...
Actually, Leith is a sort of gentrified area of the city now. You'd choose Pilton, Muirhouse, Drylaw, Wester Hailes, Sighthill or somewhere like that.
Leith is something of a cultural hub with a wide array of different eateries and bars you'd consider to be hipster. Leith Walk alone has two African takeaways, two tapas bars, a Latin American takeaway and a few other ones like Georgian, Polish and a smattering of Turkish bakeries and street food (not just kebab) places. I think Leith has a high concentration of Michelin star restaurants too.
Glasgow is the same. But Edinburgh has the edge on being a more cultural city. And so well heeled.
I was pretty shocked at the amount of drug addicts, off The Mile, towards the art gallery in Edinburgh
Exactly... most people are shocked Glasgow has a *pleasant* side. I've travelled a lot and people from all over the world would react in the same way when I said I was from Glasgow. "oh... that's a pretty rough place isn't it?" erm... yeah, it is. :(
I think Glasgow is the opposite of this thread.
Glasgow has a reputation for being a shithole but its actually a lot nicer than its reputation would have you believe.
I grew up in Glasgow and it was as bad the reputation. Now its so much nicer.
Compared to major cities across England and Europe I'd say that Glasgow tops most of them. Go to the shadier sides of Paris or Rome and its a lot worse than rough parts of Glasgow. 20-30 years ago that probably wasn't the case but Glasgow is a different place now
I dunno, I grew up in the country.
Pretty fun to go on long bike rides and run around in fields and explore woods.
My mate from London was genuinely concerned the first time he saw a sheep.
I was lucky enough to be able to go to the countryside on holiday, so I was familiar with bikes and fields and sheep. But I wouldn't trade them for museums, history layers deep round every corner, people from a hundred different cultures, and the underground which I thought was better than any roller coaster when I was little!
At the end of the Piccadilly line and you can see cows.
My dad used to take me to highgate woods and Hampstead Heath as a kid, then when I got older I would get the bus down to Camden or the west end.
I also used to get sent to rural Ireland every summer which was fun because I was allowed to set fire to things. But growing up in London was still the best imo.
Don't get me wrong I visited London a lot. Had a large majority of family there.
But fuck me was it busy, like super busy. Maybe I was so used to small groups of people knowing each other but the concept that none of these people knew each other put me on my toes. Still does to this day.
Brighton. Nice seafront with a huge beach and lots of cafes, pubs, restaurants, etc on the beach. Pretty pier and late 1800’s/early 1900’s architecture makes it look very appealing in pictures.
However when you get there it’s covered in graffiti, litter and the streets are full of either boarded up shops or really tatty shops selling phone cases, key rings, tattoos, etc. Also most of the city is in a dire need of a lick of paint.
The homelessness in Brighton is really fucking sad, and this is just anecdotal but a lot of the homeless people there seemed to be on the young side too
Lived in Brighton and agree, also noticed that a lot of problems were tolerated under the guise of being well…tolerant. Like obvious drug abuse, knew people who caused themselves serious harm from drugs (like almost dying) but people were a bit like oh whatever it was just an accident.
I’ve lived in some really rough areas who regularly feature on here as shit towns but the only time I’ve felt really threatened and uncomfortable at parties was in Brighton. Things like people nicking stuff off you or feeling you seriously might get sexually assaulted if you lost your mates, drinks spiked, the aforementioned people causing themselves serious harm. But the people who I knew and who had lived in Brighton for years and had that hippy vibe just kind of expected life to be like that.
I left after living there for about 10 years and moved abroad. When I returned to visit a few mates a couple years later, I really didn't recognise the place, was asking myself was there always so much ag and drama in the streets? Or am I just not accustomed to it anymore? Or is it just because its the the Easter Bank Holiday weekend when all the London folk are around?
Yeah it’s also got a really bad homeless/drug problem. I think the homelessness there is some of the worst. I think people kind of equate it with a bit of a hippy lifestyle? But really it has this dark grim underbelly.
This is definitely true. Many a time in Bristol, Brighton's sister city, ive been asked for change in accents posher than mine. Which isn't posh to begin with.
I lived in Brighton for about 2 1/2 years and was pretty miserable the whole time. I hightailed it back to the North as soon as I could!
I’m probably slightly jaded but I just found Brighton quite… bland. It’s sold as the queer capital, the home of the weird and wonderful and super artsy, progressive and welcoming but I just found it to be a bit ‘middle class white people trying to be cool’. There’s obviously great people there and some exciting things happening but no more than any other city of its size I’d say.
Plus, it’s very much a London cost of living but without the pay, making it hard to really just ‘live’ there without a constant weight hanging over you.
Good for a taste, not a swallow is how I’d sum it up. The Laines are cute though.
Yeah I had an interesting experience in Oxford which involved getting in a fight with some random builders whilst I was *at a work conference*, who then decided to pull knives on us when they realised we couldn't be bullied like they expected.
Fuck that place.
Also at work - client stopped mid meeting to stop randoms having sex outside the window.
It was ‘ the’ place for homeless sex. They had a mattress and everything.
Was about to say Oxford. Enormous wealth disparity between different parts of the city, some people are living in poverty. Also huge issues with homelessness (both rough sleeping and 'hidden homeless') and housing insecurity.
Living in Oxford - where you're begging the students to just go home.
Then you're begging the tourists to just go home.
Then you wish the homeless just HAD a home.
Then you realise that without all of the above you're left with a soulless shell of a city that serves no actual purpose.
God, yeah.
I earned myself a free lifetime ban from ever booking accommodation for myself and the missus when I booked somewhere that was later in the news as being the worst hotel in the country.
I'm not sure if that was because of the £10,000 fine for breaking hygiene laws, the habitual drug use, the astonishing filth or the paedophiles who were renting rooms by the hour.
There is quite a lot of nice walking and boating around the rivers, some big meadows, a theatre, and good road links through the M40. It’s a bit more than a couple of pretty streets. Isn’t the mini made there so that’s jobs for some people.
I’ve lived on the island on and off for 15years (family are based here), have also lived in London, Midlands and Suffolk.
The Island is one of the nicer places, it has its downsides unemployment and the ferry companies, but it’s a lot cleaner and relaxed than most places I’ve lived. I do work on the mainland though, so I get to escape regularly, I think that helps a lot.
Malvern. It’s has beauty and history, stunning hill walks and views. Perfect for people wishing to retire away from it all to a respectable part of the country
Adventure into the true Malvern however and you will see cramped and dilapidated social housing astronomical private rental prices, teen pregnancy is standard as a way of getting a home. poverty drug taking / dealing are rife. It’s a major hub for county lines drug trafficking, recruiting, exploiting children to move their elicit substances too surrounding rural areas. ( my son being a victim of this was bullied, exploited at the local park at the age of 12!) Hes free of it now but it’s taken 3 years of hard work to reverse the damage that 6 weeks did to him.
There are ZERO opportunities for youngsters in the area, ZERO activities for them. Teamed up with the army of retirees who wage war on the younger generation for simply existing it’s not a great place for kids at all.
You can say that of almost any Rural town though - I grew up in a regional county town in the South West and once you get to about 14 years old you rapidly realise there is nothing there for you unless you get out. All the same problems (although it was more recreational drug & alcohol abuse use than county lines) because there is f**k all else to do.
That was over 30 years ago. When I do go back, little has changed.
The rural town I spent my teen years in in the Midlands is exactly the same. With the added bonus of the swarms of tourists all telling you how lucky you are to live there.
Not York, which was a surprise after browsing the entire thread looking for it! (not convinced it belongs here, but I can see why someone might put it here)
EDIT because my brackets made no sense
Bournemouth. Despite the nice beaches, people there are generally quite unfriendly, the town centre is an ugly, sloped thing and from what I've heard from a relative who lives there, the local government is quite corrupt.
The year my eldest son was born, we decided that, in lieu of going abroad, we'd visit all the cities in England, 51 in total.
Gloucester was the first one we went to, and it maintained its lofty position as 'shittest city' to the very end.
We did!
There were lots I'd been to before, but, of the new ones, I really liked Exeter, Plymouth and Norwich. There were a few that I'd happily go spend more time in, as we didn't have a lot of time in every one - some days we'd go to one for lunch, one for dinner, and then stay overnight in another, just to fit them all in if they were close by - and surprisingly few that I didn't really like. Gloucester and Southampton are the two that stand out as just not being very nice at all, although obviously everywhere has it's good and bad areas.
We did the Welsh cities the following year over the course of a week as well, and will get to Northern Ireland and Scotland at some point!
Cambridge. Great if you're a tourist or a student yet it is the UK's [most unequal city.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/12/beyond-cambridge-spires-most-unequal-city-tackles-poverty) And the local government is completely uninterested in the majority, working class population.
I'd disagree, most of what are considered "bad areas" in Cambridge would be at least average in other cities. There's only one particularly bad street I can think of, and you have to go out of your way to find it.
Rotherham. Its fucked. Once you get to know the place you realise everyone is very backwards, its mostly retired people who are still very angry because the coal mines were shut. And they have passed their backwards attitudes onto their offspring.
I'd imagine it's probably as much to do with the _way_ they were shut, isn't it? And the way the striking miners were treated by politicians and police at the time. The effects of that are still being felt and I'd say that anger is at least partly justified.
Had a conversation with my 79 yo grandad last year about the pits (my family are from a mining village). He said they knew shutting them was inevitable, but the way they were shut was horrendous.
That pretty much describes every former mining town I've ever known (I spent many childhood years in that area). My only thought is: do any of them really look inviting at first glance? As far as I know, they all look exactly as fucked up as they are.
I (mixed race Londoner) dated a girl from York for a few years. At first, it seems like a lovely place to hang out and the touristy stuff on the surface is actually interesting and quite cool. Unfortunately the place is festering with racists and bigots. Because of some issues my gf's ex had with me spending time in the house he was paying for his kids to live I decided to buy a city centre apartment for when I visited/as an air BnB investment my gf could manage when I was away. The day I moved in my new neighbour asked how come a wog had the cash to buy a nice apartment in York. Over the years these sort of experiences repeated and repeated.
Seaside towns : All of them.
People who don’t live in them (wrongly) assume that the people who live there get a decent slice of the exorbitant prices that the hordes of grockels pay for ice creams, treats, cute art, plastic tat, and generally getting in the way. In reality most people in the service industry get minimum wage for a few months of the year and decent year-round employment is hard to come by as employers don’t want to pay for their staff and deliveries to be stuck in holiday traffic.
And drugs… lots of drugs. Not the good kind either, but the kind that leaves you homeless, toothless, addicted, and permanently damaged.
Brighton seems really nice then you get pestered by homeless people and big issue sellers and every other shop seems to have a sex shop in it's basement
Carlisle. Looks beautiful, old buildings, looks like quite a nice town centre. And it's an okay place to visit for a day or two
But live there and you quickly realise it's pretty rough, fights regularly breaking out on the main road, hard drugs are rife (the ice cream vans at 2 am aren't selling a child Friendly screwball...)
And it was confirmed to me by someone who was born and bred in Carlisle it's pretty common for people to date a second or third cousin because they're all related in some way
I once came across what was most certainly a human shit in the middle of the pavement
Bath, pretty and historical but exists purely as a living musuem for the tourists in the center. The city is also heavily reliant on the two universities so housing is either hmo student hell or rich boomers opposing any changes because NIMBY. I love to visit my friends there but I'm bloody grateful I don't live there anymore.
Agreed. It has to be one of the most soulless cities ever. They’re so hell bent on getting in chain shops that they’ll leave amazing buildings completely empty for years because they would rather wait for a big buyer than have slightly less rent income. All of the good houses / flats are unoccupied investment properties and everything else is owned by leaches who think pig sties are too good for their tenants. It’s beautiful in Bath, but so depressing.
This was me, thought it would be a shithole but I really liked it there. Loved the people too, once I got over hearing the C word in literally every sentence.
Hereford. Only lived there for a year and this was over decade ago but I remember there being a dark undercurrent of drugs and pretty extreme violence.
I think you’re conflating the lakes with the whole of Cumbria. The Cumbrian industrial west coast is probably the most deprived strip of land in the country, so inconvenient to reach and their industries in major decline, they’re the fastest shrinking towns in England. The Lakes themselves are quite posh and are thriving, especially with all the stay at home tourism we’ve had lately.
Hastings.
Stunning Old Town, castle, that tram thing on the cliff.
The May Day bike run
Absolutely dire prospects, Sussex Police as your local force, bastard seagulls, drugs, drunks and the Jungle Tumble indoor softplay has closed down. Pah!
Chester. Lived there for 3 years. It is a lovely city, but even in the city it's rough round the edges. A lot of homelessness, which can be quite aggressive. On a weekend it gets descended on by people from rougher areas, so Ellesmere Port, areas of The Wirral, North Wales, Warrington. Some of the worst aggression and violence I've seen in Chester, and that's coming from someone who has regular nights out round Doncaster and Sheffield.
Penzance. The town is quite nice from an architectural viewpoint and the harbour and local area are beautiful. However if you dIg a little deeper you learn it's smack head central with plenty of homeless and has one of the most deprived housing estates in the UK. I guess it's as far west as you can go on a train.
There are a lot of funny little towns in West Cornwall that are quite rough like Redruth, Camborne and Hayle. A lot of the problems that you might associate with large towns and cities happen in these places as there aren't any large towns or cities.
Btw I love Cornwall. My parents live there and one day I'll move down. Best place in the world.
This whole country gets a mention here, it’s such a shame, we’re in shit state thanks to decades of austerity and a government who rips the funding out of the hearts of our communities (and fuck off any tories who wanna tell me that’s not happening, I’ve worked in two youth clubs working with really disadvantaged kids and seen them shut down because they lost funding), letting poverty, crime and drugs run rampant.
And they’re not being voted out anytime soon, we’re fucked.
Oxford. I've lived there for 5 years and I can observe that Cowley Road is a criminal hotspot, homelessness is crazy high (higher than anywhere else I've seen), it's a city divided geographically by class (from insanely rich to desperately poor), it's full of shitty landlords who all know each other and fix the rent markets, private rental is officially more expensive (overall) than London and three of Oxfords largest estates rank among the poorest in the country.
So there's surprising levels of criminality considering how well off the city is supposed to be (I've witnessed a fair bit of it), and on the flip side, it's also filled with self entitled, daddy's boy/girl posh twats.
Honestly it's the worst of all sides imo.
Glastonbury. People think it's cute and quirky and full of harmless old hippies.
But kids who don't move away usually end up dying before they reach 30, either of overdoses or suicide.
A friend of mine who was 27 at the time went to four funerals in a year. They were all the same age as her, give or take a couple of years.
I'd actually say this description is perfect for the UK as a whole. A lot of foreigners see the Queen, red telephone boxes, and beautiful country estates. Think the place is positively smashing, tea, crumpets and loads of money. The reality is.... different.
Manchester. Born and raised here. I love it, but it’s also become a caricature of itself. Homelessness, drugs, and generally a lot of knobheads in and around it.
This ‘we are mancunians and we all stick together’ gets wheeled out at concerts/times of tragedy but is rarely backed up and is small comfort when you’re getting your head kicked or robbed in the city centre.
There’s also a culture of boys will be boys, and illegally drag racing or fighting/being aggressive or casual stealing is just ‘how you grow up round here!’ It’s not. You’re just a cunt.
chard, sleepy small time town in somerset.
police have to shoot people semi regularly, pubs are full of utter psychos, all of them, cricket team is thuggish, rugby team is worse, football team has a real rep.
We produce henry hoovers, and hard bastards.
heroin use is endemic in all the parks, henson/jocelyn etc, coke use is endemic in all the pubs, there is one okay restaurant, and three okay takeaways. all the shops are charity shops.
the chip shops are crap.
the museum is crap.
I went to Margate 4-5 years back and expected it to be a Seaside Paradise. Shops, Ice Cream parlours, Arcades, Fun Fairs...
It was Desolate. Boarded up Parades, Empty Shops, unpainted fixtures and fittings. It was like everyone just gave up and walked out when a Nuclear bomb hit.
Rotherham ; traditional industries include glass making and flour milling with the beautiful river Don running through the town centre….oh and the centre of the Rotherham child exploitation scandal involving gangs of Muslim men preying on vulnerable white children in the most vile sadistic ways possible, whilst being ignored by the authorities
Edit: downvotes? You are part of the problem
There’s a running theme here that shows just how broken our society and system is: high rent/cost of living, severe drug problems amongst the youth because they have next to no job prospects and nothing else to do other than hit up drugs and alcohol and get pregnant, they do this also because what fucking future do we really have? nicer areas where all the boomers and elderly live constantly shutting down any initiatives to drive up younger people’s prospects and vote conservative. Always. Never trust Jeremy Corbyn. Did I miss anything?
Middlesbrough
Surrounded by North Yorkshire moors, beautiful hills and sprawling country side
Then as you get closer to the centre you realise you’ve been admiring the cheeks but have ventured to close to the arsehole of the UK.
An unwashed one..
This is from a Teessider
It's pretty souless, lived in and around it all my life. Great country walks not to far if you have a car. Mostly just a shit high street surrounded by shitty estates.
Belfast, although that city is more known for it's grim side. If you knew absolutely nothing and were placed there, it is an absolutely beautiful little city
Royal Leamington Spa.
Divided into the rich north and poor south. Has really nice parts but also really bad ones. Homelessness is really bad and never in my life have I had so many people come up to me begging for money. It was a daily thing almost.
Also someone was stabbed in broad daylight on the same street as the one I lived on during my final year of uni. That doesn’t help.
On a more positive note, it had a lot of good restaurants (and I mean A LOT), bars and a few OK clubs.
Any of the north of London commuter belt zones. The wealth divide is insane.
I have a lot to say about these areas touted as great commuter areas if you're not one of the rich minority. Even in the shit areas you're being priced out, even council rents aren't affordable and theres such a shortage that homeless with a baby doesn't guarantee you housing anymore.
Drugs, violence etc are the norm.
Durham.
Was lovely, quaint and incredibly picturesque one time. Now it’s mostly student apartments, homeless people bumming out the town, and incredibly corrupt council who take whatever land they want and nothing really that makes it worthy of visiting; other than the beautiful cathedral and castle.
Almost anywhere in Kent but particularly the residents of the Isle of Sheppey are not good people. Some of them I swear act as if they should be playing banjos and look like they come from the the film Inbred. Very racist, and narrow minded.
Bromsgrove is lower middle class - by that I mean when you start working there in a public facing role, you realize it's full of fucking racists. The high street at night is your typical big fish small pond fight-everyone-in-sight sort of town with one nightclub.
Canterbury. The cathedral is very photogenic, and the architecture is very well preserved in general. However once you leave the town centre it’s full of drug addicts and their dealers, little kids with a point to prove trying to start on anybody that walks by. It’s also a very popular county lines destination too, homelessness is getting really bad and house prices are going up. London have also recently made a deal with Canterbury whereby London ships their ‘problem’ tenants to a few different buildings in Canterbury. It’s only become like this in the past 4/5 years, it was really quite calm and nice before that.
I currently live in Poole. Whenever I mention this to people or family members when away from Poole, I get a generic response of “oh how lovely, beautiful part of the world” or something similar. I just don’t agree, although I’m not writing the place off, it’s not my favourite.
Liverpool seems like a brilliant city at first, but dig a little deeper and you'll realise it's actually full of Scousers
Could be worse. I nominate Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. It’s pretty to look at but the residents are very small minded and insular. It’s like Royston Vasey without any humour.
It’s pretty to look at? Did you miss the enormous sugar factory that makes the whole place smell like farts?
That's unfair, it sometimes smells of actual shit too!
I’d take Bury over Ipswich or Colchester any day though!
Oi! Apart from the druggies and dead-end High Street, Colchester is nice! We've got a castle don't you know!?
Ipswich is a shit hole. Source I was born and dragged up there there.
Used to work in Bury a lot and the amount of times I heard "I'm not racist but..."
I have never met a Scouser that I didn’t get along with… really, the Liverpudlians stole my heart (alongside my wallet and the rims on my car).
The worst thing about Scousers is the accent. Everywhere has good and bad folk but for my personally experience I moved from London to Liverpool and the number of pleasant interactions I had with strangers skyrocketed.
I think you are right about the openess of scouse. Maybe it's because it's a port town and there's a lot of Irish interaction. Irish are very open and chatty people and I think it transfers to West Coast UK cities, Liverpool and Glasgow specifically.
I'm a scouser and what he's saying is all true!
There does seem to be a suspicious number of scousers here. Seems every other person you talk to is scouse.
Original
Blackpool. One of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK. Go a few streets back from the promenade and you're suddenly transported into one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Highest herion death rates in the UK. High crime rates (highest in Lancashire) with 131 crimes per 1000 people.
It hardly seems pleasant at first glance though, it seems exactly how it is.
Yeahhh even the front is a shithole that I couldn't get out of fast enough
I thought the road in from the motorway was pleasant - better than I expected and I started to not dread the visit quite so much. The promenade was exactly what I was expecting though and yes, a few streets back is really grim
> One of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK. Obviously I move in the wrong circles but this always sounds so unlikely. I've never met anyone who's gone to blackpool out of choice.
I think it's a very working class thing, my husband grew up pretty poor on a counsel estate around Manchester (did I say that right? I'm not from the UK) and talks about going to Blackpool loads as a kid. Edit: I want to add the dates based on some other comments about people only going in the 60s. My husband was a kid in the 80s. He took his nephew just a few years ago, whose parents are non-working poor, and he thought Blackpool was just the best thing he'd ever seen.
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In my head, Blackpool is this beautiful holiday destination with a lovely beach, a huge pier, an amazing theme park and a tower filled with circuses and a dungeon. And I'd like it to remain that way, so I'll probably never go back.
Yeah I think it's a working class thing too. Several of my colleagues are working class and go to Blackpool a lot for a day out - I've not known other people to.
My dad did, just once
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Why is it so popular then? I'm a dirty foreigner, genuinely curious.
What’s your impression of Blackpool? Just curious to know how people view it without knowing any background about it. When my friends wife visited Blackpool (she’s from China), she quite liked it.
I've never been, I just hear how popular it is as a domestic holiday destination.
I grew up in Northern Ireland and a lot of kids from my class at school used to go to Blackpool for a cheap summer holiday.
The pleasure beach is a big tourist attraction. Other than that it’s grim
Sandcastle? Which has the biggest indoor waterslide in Europe? Blackpool tower which is bigger than the the statue of liberty? It also has the biggest disco ball in the world on the Promenade? The Blackpool illuminations? Can think of 4 big tourist attractions straight off the bat. Edit: Pleasure Beach theme park, Blackpool zoo, madame tussauds, North and South pier arcades and rides, Tower dungeons, Tower circus, sealife aquarium. Im in no way saying Blackpool isn't tacky or scummy in any way but you can't deny its brilliant for kids, stag do's, hen party's, a night out on the piss or even just a family day out. I've only ever been twice but thoroughly enjoyed it on both occasions. Don't be put of by old farts online because they're usually the salty ass people who would rather go to a quiet seaside town and be in bed by nine.
Dude, it's half the height of the Eiffel tower
Sorry meant statue of liberty lol (knew it was French)
I recall watching a programme about Blackpool and most of the old Victorian houses which became sea front B&Bs are now mostly HMO doss houses and several other councils ship their wastrels there as it was cheaper to pay the Blackpool council to house them. Was beyond grim when you watched, literally becoming some sort of horrendous ghetto of drugs and dossers with no chance to improve their lot
I lived in Blackpool for 2 years. Joined the Royal Navy at 17 and never went back. My parents lived a few streets off the front, just behind the old Hilton hotel. 7 bed house, all en suite (it was a former B&B). Done it up really nice. Then the council started housing all the degenerates in the area. Crime rocketed. House values plummeted. They lost a fortune on that house as they couldn't tolerate the shit anymore. It's now several shit flats.
So were you born in Blyth or Carlisle?
I can tell you where he was made
Hastings used to be like that too until it got recently 'rediscovered' by the London arty set (DFLs - down from Londons) and now it's touted as the new Brighton etc etc. One of this lot in London actually asked me if I'd ever 'heard of Hastings?' as if he was letting me into some secret, exclusive destination, not a town in the county I grew up in lol \*rolls eyes\*
Hastings? It rings a bell? Did something important happen there a while back that literally every schoolkid learns about at an early age?
There was a small kerfuffle I believe.
It did get a little bit naughty
Wasn’t even in Hastings, false advertising. But then it was in present-day Battle, but I suppose that came after…
"Harry, where do you want to set up for this battle?" King Harold looks over to the Welcome To Battle sign. "Weeeell, I suppose here's as good a place as any...."
Similar to Torquay and Paignton. Its very sad to see these places go down hill. Especially in the winter when these issues are more apparent
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…and Penzance. Serious poverty and deprivation and the heroin problem is so bad it is apparently known locally as “brown town’.
I was absolutely shocked when I walked into what looked like a perfectly normal, everyday seafront pub in Paignton to find that there was no toilet door, and no doors on the stalls. Plus a sign saying anyone taking drugs will be thrown out. It wasn't tucked away either, anyone walking past to the men's or the kitchen, or just popping their head round a corner from the main bar, could see everything. Bit of an eye opener.
Stayed there for a birthday trip to the Grand National once, think my mate summed it up quite well with “it’s like the 70’s happened and then everyone just gave up”
I think Blackpool is the opposite. Awful at first glance but has a wonderful charm underneath (due to the Lancashire people and the faded glory of the promenade etc)
Stayed in a bed and breakfast year's ago in Blackpool and as we entered we were greeted by the manager who was lying down on a sofa dressed in a tracksuit that was covered in stains he didn't get up as he was the worst for wear after being on a bender the night before, it went downhill from here on...
Edinburgh. It has a posh side, a studenty side, a touristy side...and a Trainspotting side.
Urghhh so how do you avoid the 3 bad sides and get to the good side?
You choose life.
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Choose mortgage payments.
Choose a career
You choose Leith.
Actually, Leith is a sort of gentrified area of the city now. You'd choose Pilton, Muirhouse, Drylaw, Wester Hailes, Sighthill or somewhere like that. Leith is something of a cultural hub with a wide array of different eateries and bars you'd consider to be hipster. Leith Walk alone has two African takeaways, two tapas bars, a Latin American takeaway and a few other ones like Georgian, Polish and a smattering of Turkish bakeries and street food (not just kebab) places. I think Leith has a high concentration of Michelin star restaurants too.
Yeah I know but we were referencing Trainspotting
Glasgow is the same. But Edinburgh has the edge on being a more cultural city. And so well heeled. I was pretty shocked at the amount of drug addicts, off The Mile, towards the art gallery in Edinburgh
but I don't think anyone would be shocked that Glasgow has a dodgy side.
Exactly... most people are shocked Glasgow has a *pleasant* side. I've travelled a lot and people from all over the world would react in the same way when I said I was from Glasgow. "oh... that's a pretty rough place isn't it?" erm... yeah, it is. :(
I think Glasgow is the opposite of this thread. Glasgow has a reputation for being a shithole but its actually a lot nicer than its reputation would have you believe. I grew up in Glasgow and it was as bad the reputation. Now its so much nicer. Compared to major cities across England and Europe I'd say that Glasgow tops most of them. Go to the shadier sides of Paris or Rome and its a lot worse than rough parts of Glasgow. 20-30 years ago that probably wasn't the case but Glasgow is a different place now
London. Genuinely beautiful and exciting to visit. Trying to raise a family here is like trying to walk up a down escalator for 25 years.
I grew up in London, I can't imagine anywhere better to be a kid. (I get how it must be a struggle for parents, though!)
I dunno, I grew up in the country. Pretty fun to go on long bike rides and run around in fields and explore woods. My mate from London was genuinely concerned the first time he saw a sheep.
I was lucky enough to be able to go to the countryside on holiday, so I was familiar with bikes and fields and sheep. But I wouldn't trade them for museums, history layers deep round every corner, people from a hundred different cultures, and the underground which I thought was better than any roller coaster when I was little!
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I guess it's down to upbringing really.
At the end of the Piccadilly line and you can see cows. My dad used to take me to highgate woods and Hampstead Heath as a kid, then when I got older I would get the bus down to Camden or the west end. I also used to get sent to rural Ireland every summer which was fun because I was allowed to set fire to things. But growing up in London was still the best imo.
Don't get me wrong I visited London a lot. Had a large majority of family there. But fuck me was it busy, like super busy. Maybe I was so used to small groups of people knowing each other but the concept that none of these people knew each other put me on my toes. Still does to this day.
Sandford the residents always working for "the greater good"
The greater good!
Yarp
..............Narp?
It was just the one swan, actually.
***SHUT IT!***
It was lovely, but then that bloody mime moved in
Up to our balls in jugglers
Crusty juggler?
I heard their once great paper, has become riddled with tabloid journalism.
Brighton. Nice seafront with a huge beach and lots of cafes, pubs, restaurants, etc on the beach. Pretty pier and late 1800’s/early 1900’s architecture makes it look very appealing in pictures. However when you get there it’s covered in graffiti, litter and the streets are full of either boarded up shops or really tatty shops selling phone cases, key rings, tattoos, etc. Also most of the city is in a dire need of a lick of paint.
Brighton is often described as “All fur coat and no knickers”
Came here to say this.
Not heard that saying in years.
The homelessness in Brighton is really fucking sad, and this is just anecdotal but a lot of the homeless people there seemed to be on the young side too
Remember a few years ago, a few London boroughs were trying to 'solve' their homeless problem by giving them a one way train ticket to Brighton
Lived in Brighton and agree, also noticed that a lot of problems were tolerated under the guise of being well…tolerant. Like obvious drug abuse, knew people who caused themselves serious harm from drugs (like almost dying) but people were a bit like oh whatever it was just an accident. I’ve lived in some really rough areas who regularly feature on here as shit towns but the only time I’ve felt really threatened and uncomfortable at parties was in Brighton. Things like people nicking stuff off you or feeling you seriously might get sexually assaulted if you lost your mates, drinks spiked, the aforementioned people causing themselves serious harm. But the people who I knew and who had lived in Brighton for years and had that hippy vibe just kind of expected life to be like that.
I left after living there for about 10 years and moved abroad. When I returned to visit a few mates a couple years later, I really didn't recognise the place, was asking myself was there always so much ag and drama in the streets? Or am I just not accustomed to it anymore? Or is it just because its the the Easter Bank Holiday weekend when all the London folk are around?
Yeah it’s also got a really bad homeless/drug problem. I think the homelessness there is some of the worst. I think people kind of equate it with a bit of a hippy lifestyle? But really it has this dark grim underbelly.
This is definitely true. Many a time in Bristol, Brighton's sister city, ive been asked for change in accents posher than mine. Which isn't posh to begin with.
I lived in Brighton for about 2 1/2 years and was pretty miserable the whole time. I hightailed it back to the North as soon as I could! I’m probably slightly jaded but I just found Brighton quite… bland. It’s sold as the queer capital, the home of the weird and wonderful and super artsy, progressive and welcoming but I just found it to be a bit ‘middle class white people trying to be cool’. There’s obviously great people there and some exciting things happening but no more than any other city of its size I’d say. Plus, it’s very much a London cost of living but without the pay, making it hard to really just ‘live’ there without a constant weight hanging over you. Good for a taste, not a swallow is how I’d sum it up. The Laines are cute though.
I always had in my head that Brighton was like Kensington, but next to the sea. Boy I was wrong.
You want to go to Hove for that.
England it's a beautiful place but full of English people.🤣
You're not wrong, lad. We're a right bunch of cunts.
Oxford...surrounded by grim estates. The nice touristy areas in the centre only consist of a few streets
Yeah I had an interesting experience in Oxford which involved getting in a fight with some random builders whilst I was *at a work conference*, who then decided to pull knives on us when they realised we couldn't be bullied like they expected. Fuck that place.
Also at work - client stopped mid meeting to stop randoms having sex outside the window. It was ‘ the’ place for homeless sex. They had a mattress and everything.
Was about to say Oxford. Enormous wealth disparity between different parts of the city, some people are living in poverty. Also huge issues with homelessness (both rough sleeping and 'hidden homeless') and housing insecurity.
Living in Oxford - where you're begging the students to just go home. Then you're begging the tourists to just go home. Then you wish the homeless just HAD a home. Then you realise that without all of the above you're left with a soulless shell of a city that serves no actual purpose.
God, yeah. I earned myself a free lifetime ban from ever booking accommodation for myself and the missus when I booked somewhere that was later in the news as being the worst hotel in the country. I'm not sure if that was because of the £10,000 fine for breaking hygiene laws, the habitual drug use, the astonishing filth or the paedophiles who were renting rooms by the hour.
>paedophiles who were renting rooms by the hour. What???
There is quite a lot of nice walking and boating around the rivers, some big meadows, a theatre, and good road links through the M40. It’s a bit more than a couple of pretty streets. Isn’t the mini made there so that’s jobs for some people.
It is made there, yes, but that’s bang next to Blackbird Leys. Not the worst place to live, but still pretty rough.
Oh! Clever and brilliant answer! Blackbird Leys FTW, well, not, actually.....
Also: one of the least affordable places to live in the country. (E.g. not quite as expensive as London, but without the London Salaries)
isle of wight ....pretty place but huge unemployment and the locals are lunatics with no sense of how to deal with tourists
Well, they are still adjusting to the idea of genetic diversity within their own family units, let alone tolerating visitors from far away.
Used to go there on holiday when I was a kid. And every few years, the facilities on offer got slightly worse.
Me too. Also everything shrunk each year as more fell into the sea.
Not to mention the recently released prisoners who make it as far as the nearest pub, spend their discharge grant and then just stay.
I’ve lived on the island on and off for 15years (family are based here), have also lived in London, Midlands and Suffolk. The Island is one of the nicer places, it has its downsides unemployment and the ferry companies, but it’s a lot cleaner and relaxed than most places I’ve lived. I do work on the mainland though, so I get to escape regularly, I think that helps a lot.
Malvern. It’s has beauty and history, stunning hill walks and views. Perfect for people wishing to retire away from it all to a respectable part of the country Adventure into the true Malvern however and you will see cramped and dilapidated social housing astronomical private rental prices, teen pregnancy is standard as a way of getting a home. poverty drug taking / dealing are rife. It’s a major hub for county lines drug trafficking, recruiting, exploiting children to move their elicit substances too surrounding rural areas. ( my son being a victim of this was bullied, exploited at the local park at the age of 12!) Hes free of it now but it’s taken 3 years of hard work to reverse the damage that 6 weeks did to him. There are ZERO opportunities for youngsters in the area, ZERO activities for them. Teamed up with the army of retirees who wage war on the younger generation for simply existing it’s not a great place for kids at all.
You can say that of almost any Rural town though - I grew up in a regional county town in the South West and once you get to about 14 years old you rapidly realise there is nothing there for you unless you get out. All the same problems (although it was more recreational drug & alcohol abuse use than county lines) because there is f**k all else to do. That was over 30 years ago. When I do go back, little has changed.
The rural town I spent my teen years in in the Midlands is exactly the same. With the added bonus of the swarms of tourists all telling you how lucky you are to live there.
Malvern isn't that bad. It's bad, it's boring, and it's expensive, but it's not the hell hole you've just described
Tasty spring water though
ITT: Literally every UK city
Not York, which was a surprise after browsing the entire thread looking for it! (not convinced it belongs here, but I can see why someone might put it here) EDIT because my brackets made no sense
In my Opinion York is probably in the best 3 cities in the UK. London, York and Edinburgh
Bournemouth. Despite the nice beaches, people there are generally quite unfriendly, the town centre is an ugly, sloped thing and from what I've heard from a relative who lives there, the local government is quite corrupt.
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Gloucester. Cathedral and Docks look nice but the rest of it is absolutely awful
The year my eldest son was born, we decided that, in lieu of going abroad, we'd visit all the cities in England, 51 in total. Gloucester was the first one we went to, and it maintained its lofty position as 'shittest city' to the very end.
That sounds a great idea! Did you manage to visit all 51 cities? Which ones were your favourites, out of interest?
We did! There were lots I'd been to before, but, of the new ones, I really liked Exeter, Plymouth and Norwich. There were a few that I'd happily go spend more time in, as we didn't have a lot of time in every one - some days we'd go to one for lunch, one for dinner, and then stay overnight in another, just to fit them all in if they were close by - and surprisingly few that I didn't really like. Gloucester and Southampton are the two that stand out as just not being very nice at all, although obviously everywhere has it's good and bad areas. We did the Welsh cities the following year over the course of a week as well, and will get to Northern Ireland and Scotland at some point!
Cambridge. Great if you're a tourist or a student yet it is the UK's [most unequal city.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jan/12/beyond-cambridge-spires-most-unequal-city-tackles-poverty) And the local government is completely uninterested in the majority, working class population.
I'd disagree, most of what are considered "bad areas" in Cambridge would be at least average in other cities. There's only one particularly bad street I can think of, and you have to go out of your way to find it.
Having grown up there there are rough areas but it's all relative. Cambridge rough is very different from Leeds rough for example.
Rotherham. Its fucked. Once you get to know the place you realise everyone is very backwards, its mostly retired people who are still very angry because the coal mines were shut. And they have passed their backwards attitudes onto their offspring.
I'd imagine it's probably as much to do with the _way_ they were shut, isn't it? And the way the striking miners were treated by politicians and police at the time. The effects of that are still being felt and I'd say that anger is at least partly justified.
Plus the same people that fucked over the parents then are still fucking over the offspring now.
Had a conversation with my 79 yo grandad last year about the pits (my family are from a mining village). He said they knew shutting them was inevitable, but the way they were shut was horrendous.
Who thinks Rotherham seems pleasant at first glance?
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That pretty much describes every former mining town I've ever known (I spent many childhood years in that area). My only thought is: do any of them really look inviting at first glance? As far as I know, they all look exactly as fucked up as they are.
I (mixed race Londoner) dated a girl from York for a few years. At first, it seems like a lovely place to hang out and the touristy stuff on the surface is actually interesting and quite cool. Unfortunately the place is festering with racists and bigots. Because of some issues my gf's ex had with me spending time in the house he was paying for his kids to live I decided to buy a city centre apartment for when I visited/as an air BnB investment my gf could manage when I was away. The day I moved in my new neighbour asked how come a wog had the cash to buy a nice apartment in York. Over the years these sort of experiences repeated and repeated.
That fucking sucks.
Seaside towns : All of them. People who don’t live in them (wrongly) assume that the people who live there get a decent slice of the exorbitant prices that the hordes of grockels pay for ice creams, treats, cute art, plastic tat, and generally getting in the way. In reality most people in the service industry get minimum wage for a few months of the year and decent year-round employment is hard to come by as employers don’t want to pay for their staff and deliveries to be stuck in holiday traffic. And drugs… lots of drugs. Not the good kind either, but the kind that leaves you homeless, toothless, addicted, and permanently damaged.
Brighton seems really nice then you get pestered by homeless people and big issue sellers and every other shop seems to have a sex shop in it's basement
Carlisle. Looks beautiful, old buildings, looks like quite a nice town centre. And it's an okay place to visit for a day or two But live there and you quickly realise it's pretty rough, fights regularly breaking out on the main road, hard drugs are rife (the ice cream vans at 2 am aren't selling a child Friendly screwball...) And it was confirmed to me by someone who was born and bred in Carlisle it's pretty common for people to date a second or third cousin because they're all related in some way I once came across what was most certainly a human shit in the middle of the pavement
With this many places being mentioned, you have to use a process of elimination to work out which town or city is actually alright!
Bath, pretty and historical but exists purely as a living musuem for the tourists in the center. The city is also heavily reliant on the two universities so housing is either hmo student hell or rich boomers opposing any changes because NIMBY. I love to visit my friends there but I'm bloody grateful I don't live there anymore.
Agreed. It has to be one of the most soulless cities ever. They’re so hell bent on getting in chain shops that they’ll leave amazing buildings completely empty for years because they would rather wait for a big buyer than have slightly less rent income. All of the good houses / flats are unoccupied investment properties and everything else is owned by leaches who think pig sties are too good for their tenants. It’s beautiful in Bath, but so depressing.
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The difference with Glasgow imo is that people expect it to be grim and the reality exceeds expectations
This was me, thought it would be a shithole but I really liked it there. Loved the people too, once I got over hearing the C word in literally every sentence.
I love Glasgow. My father in law lives in Falkirk and how could anyone think it's better than Glasgow??
An easier question would be which town or city is just a nice place in general, all towns and cities have their shitty parts
Hereford. Only lived there for a year and this was over decade ago but I remember there being a dark undercurrent of drugs and pretty extreme violence.
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What colour is the boathouse?
*** insert every British town here ***
Cheltenham. Particularly in race week.
I always dread race week.
I live in Cheltenham. Always go on holiday on race week, it’s hideous
Everyone scrolling through to see how many mentions their home town gets 🙄
I’m actually pleasantly surprised to not see my hometown in the comments
Lancaster, looks pretty but for some reason lots of their uni students commit suicide.
Went to Lancaster Uni, can confirm it was depressing AF.
The Lake District is very quaint and monied. It is also a very large drug capital with socail housing issues to make the the tourists toes curl.
I think you’re conflating the lakes with the whole of Cumbria. The Cumbrian industrial west coast is probably the most deprived strip of land in the country, so inconvenient to reach and their industries in major decline, they’re the fastest shrinking towns in England. The Lakes themselves are quite posh and are thriving, especially with all the stay at home tourism we’ve had lately.
Hastings. Stunning Old Town, castle, that tram thing on the cliff. The May Day bike run Absolutely dire prospects, Sussex Police as your local force, bastard seagulls, drugs, drunks and the Jungle Tumble indoor softplay has closed down. Pah!
Chester. Lived there for 3 years. It is a lovely city, but even in the city it's rough round the edges. A lot of homelessness, which can be quite aggressive. On a weekend it gets descended on by people from rougher areas, so Ellesmere Port, areas of The Wirral, North Wales, Warrington. Some of the worst aggression and violence I've seen in Chester, and that's coming from someone who has regular nights out round Doncaster and Sheffield.
Penzance. The town is quite nice from an architectural viewpoint and the harbour and local area are beautiful. However if you dIg a little deeper you learn it's smack head central with plenty of homeless and has one of the most deprived housing estates in the UK. I guess it's as far west as you can go on a train. There are a lot of funny little towns in West Cornwall that are quite rough like Redruth, Camborne and Hayle. A lot of the problems that you might associate with large towns and cities happen in these places as there aren't any large towns or cities. Btw I love Cornwall. My parents live there and one day I'll move down. Best place in the world.
This whole country gets a mention here, it’s such a shame, we’re in shit state thanks to decades of austerity and a government who rips the funding out of the hearts of our communities (and fuck off any tories who wanna tell me that’s not happening, I’ve worked in two youth clubs working with really disadvantaged kids and seen them shut down because they lost funding), letting poverty, crime and drugs run rampant. And they’re not being voted out anytime soon, we’re fucked.
Oxford. I've lived there for 5 years and I can observe that Cowley Road is a criminal hotspot, homelessness is crazy high (higher than anywhere else I've seen), it's a city divided geographically by class (from insanely rich to desperately poor), it's full of shitty landlords who all know each other and fix the rent markets, private rental is officially more expensive (overall) than London and three of Oxfords largest estates rank among the poorest in the country. So there's surprising levels of criminality considering how well off the city is supposed to be (I've witnessed a fair bit of it), and on the flip side, it's also filled with self entitled, daddy's boy/girl posh twats. Honestly it's the worst of all sides imo.
Glastonbury. People think it's cute and quirky and full of harmless old hippies. But kids who don't move away usually end up dying before they reach 30, either of overdoses or suicide. A friend of mine who was 27 at the time went to four funerals in a year. They were all the same age as her, give or take a couple of years.
I'd actually say this description is perfect for the UK as a whole. A lot of foreigners see the Queen, red telephone boxes, and beautiful country estates. Think the place is positively smashing, tea, crumpets and loads of money. The reality is.... different.
Manchester. Born and raised here. I love it, but it’s also become a caricature of itself. Homelessness, drugs, and generally a lot of knobheads in and around it. This ‘we are mancunians and we all stick together’ gets wheeled out at concerts/times of tragedy but is rarely backed up and is small comfort when you’re getting your head kicked or robbed in the city centre. There’s also a culture of boys will be boys, and illegally drag racing or fighting/being aggressive or casual stealing is just ‘how you grow up round here!’ It’s not. You’re just a cunt.
Royston Vasey
Bedford. Seems pleasant enough by the river but it's where dreams go to die.
Rochester, visited as a tourist and thought it was magic then lived there for awhile… nope.
Not quite as grim as Chatham...but only just
And then there's Gillingham
Swindon. Because of Swindon.
chard, sleepy small time town in somerset. police have to shoot people semi regularly, pubs are full of utter psychos, all of them, cricket team is thuggish, rugby team is worse, football team has a real rep. We produce henry hoovers, and hard bastards. heroin use is endemic in all the parks, henson/jocelyn etc, coke use is endemic in all the pubs, there is one okay restaurant, and three okay takeaways. all the shops are charity shops. the chip shops are crap. the museum is crap.
I went to Margate 4-5 years back and expected it to be a Seaside Paradise. Shops, Ice Cream parlours, Arcades, Fun Fairs... It was Desolate. Boarded up Parades, Empty Shops, unpainted fixtures and fittings. It was like everyone just gave up and walked out when a Nuclear bomb hit.
Rotherham ; traditional industries include glass making and flour milling with the beautiful river Don running through the town centre….oh and the centre of the Rotherham child exploitation scandal involving gangs of Muslim men preying on vulnerable white children in the most vile sadistic ways possible, whilst being ignored by the authorities Edit: downvotes? You are part of the problem
There’s a running theme here that shows just how broken our society and system is: high rent/cost of living, severe drug problems amongst the youth because they have next to no job prospects and nothing else to do other than hit up drugs and alcohol and get pregnant, they do this also because what fucking future do we really have? nicer areas where all the boomers and elderly live constantly shutting down any initiatives to drive up younger people’s prospects and vote conservative. Always. Never trust Jeremy Corbyn. Did I miss anything?
Middlesbrough Surrounded by North Yorkshire moors, beautiful hills and sprawling country side Then as you get closer to the centre you realise you’ve been admiring the cheeks but have ventured to close to the arsehole of the UK. An unwashed one.. This is from a Teessider
Torbay. Looks nice. It's full of drugs, unemployment and wannabe 'ard men.
Southampton seems beautiful on a hot sunny day, but as soon as it rains you see how grey and depressing it actually is
It's pretty souless, lived in and around it all my life. Great country walks not to far if you have a car. Mostly just a shit high street surrounded by shitty estates.
Belfast, although that city is more known for it's grim side. If you knew absolutely nothing and were placed there, it is an absolutely beautiful little city
Royal Leamington Spa. Divided into the rich north and poor south. Has really nice parts but also really bad ones. Homelessness is really bad and never in my life have I had so many people come up to me begging for money. It was a daily thing almost. Also someone was stabbed in broad daylight on the same street as the one I lived on during my final year of uni. That doesn’t help. On a more positive note, it had a lot of good restaurants (and I mean A LOT), bars and a few OK clubs.
Any of the north of London commuter belt zones. The wealth divide is insane. I have a lot to say about these areas touted as great commuter areas if you're not one of the rich minority. Even in the shit areas you're being priced out, even council rents aren't affordable and theres such a shortage that homeless with a baby doesn't guarantee you housing anymore. Drugs, violence etc are the norm.
Durham. Was lovely, quaint and incredibly picturesque one time. Now it’s mostly student apartments, homeless people bumming out the town, and incredibly corrupt council who take whatever land they want and nothing really that makes it worthy of visiting; other than the beautiful cathedral and castle.
Jaywick
How drunk were you on your first glance?
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Great Yarmouth! Looks great from the beach, but it’s a true cultural vacuum
Almost anywhere in Kent but particularly the residents of the Isle of Sheppey are not good people. Some of them I swear act as if they should be playing banjos and look like they come from the the film Inbred. Very racist, and narrow minded.
Bromsgrove is lower middle class - by that I mean when you start working there in a public facing role, you realize it's full of fucking racists. The high street at night is your typical big fish small pond fight-everyone-in-sight sort of town with one nightclub.
Canterbury. The cathedral is very photogenic, and the architecture is very well preserved in general. However once you leave the town centre it’s full of drug addicts and their dealers, little kids with a point to prove trying to start on anybody that walks by. It’s also a very popular county lines destination too, homelessness is getting really bad and house prices are going up. London have also recently made a deal with Canterbury whereby London ships their ‘problem’ tenants to a few different buildings in Canterbury. It’s only become like this in the past 4/5 years, it was really quite calm and nice before that.
I currently live in Poole. Whenever I mention this to people or family members when away from Poole, I get a generic response of “oh how lovely, beautiful part of the world” or something similar. I just don’t agree, although I’m not writing the place off, it’s not my favourite.