To feel so sad about what happened to our town?

You might think that...

My local towns are full of young men wearing jobbie catchers that can barely speak.
One town is heroin the other is spice.

WTF happened in the late 90s? Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are what happened. Almost everything they did has had disastrous long term consequences for the UK and the Blair-lite Tories have just continued it.

@CatamaranViper thank you! I must admit that since the library was updated I’ve not been back. I use to go to a lovely vegetarian shop/ cafe back in the day.
Do like the new library, but I do get asked for money regularly if I alight bus at John Dobson street. So I now alight at Eldon Sq.
Because it unnerves me.

•County lines
•Depleted mental health support
•Crappy Tory education system
etc etc

It's also worth noting that the cost of living crisis has effectively been ongoing for at least 10 years, but has only been discussed recently because it's starting to really bite the middle classes.
They're more listened to and more likely to voice their objection in the first place.
Similar thing with immigration. It's been an issue for many years and the bad handling of mass immigration has ruined a lot of communities, but until now you'd be branded as a racist for bringing it up. Back when it used to only be poor estates where councils housed immugrants, now that the problem has grown large enough to affect the middle class, is it being taken seriously.

May not be the same everywhere, I can only talk about my town.

The street food area is going to be outside the library in princess square. It'll be like Edinburgh street food which is amazing. I actually think it'll be really good for the area as at the moment it's home to a bunch of druggies doing deals in broad daylight

You have a vote.

Use it.

Not a town, but the nice London suburb I grew up in has literally gone to the dogs the last couple of years. I once never saw myself leaving here but now we can't wait to escape. My adult son describes it as "an absolute shit hole". He's not wrong.

Yes but no one really picks up crack and heroin one day for a laugh when their life is all peachy.
Generally the people who become drug addled are from extremely traumatic/ impoverished backgrounds/ ex care/ been abused etc etc. A smaller proportion are rich kids that thought they were clever abusing drugs but their parents usually bail them out of the lifestyle with private medical care.

There are many towns in France and Spain with the same problem, so the root cause goes beyond just politics.

I do think the teeth/ unintelligible language is due to drugs. The local town square where I work has a group that congregate in the main square. It’s a real shame as it used to be quite a tourist town.

i live in a town in the NE, you probably would be surprised to know it was one of the most profitable in the country until recently because of the huge catchment of shoppers.
It’s still busy but there’s nothing left, not because people don’t want to come and spend money. But because companies in London buy all the buildings and would rather see them empty than reduce their massive rents.
The government could do something, but they won’t. There should be an empty shop policy of some sort to force down rents and get units filled.

I go to Southport often, the M&S is still open!

I live in a city, and the smell of skunk, drug dealing, sirens, random mentally ill people kicking off, homelessness etc have been an "issue" since I moved here more than 25 years ago. Definitely more visible homeless people now, and also loads of antisocial electric scooter and bike riders. I don't think it's remarkably worse,but maybe it wasn't great to start with!

People are genuinely working mad hours for what is very shit pay and believing that they're so high and mighty because they're not roaming the streets with no teeth.
I mean really, this country is an absolute shadow of what it was only a couple of decades ago.

It's interesting to note how other towns / cities are going downhill as, after way too long of neglect, our local city is finally looking to be on the up. Our previously useless Labour council are actually going full pelt on redevelopment for leisure / housing / offices / green space, including a new footbridge to link developments north and south of the river. If it all comes off as planned it is going to be really good, and the new businesses so far are developing a buzz for night life.

Despite the empty units and pound shops and losing almost all of the department stores (and the last, M&S, is due to close next month), the city centre doesn't feel that bad, and it definitely doesn't feel unsafe. It's a long time since it was chocka at the shops, but it recovered fairly quickly from Covid as it doesn't currently rely on trade from workers, it's actually the local shopping area for central parts of the city.

Sunderland if anyone is interested in the actual location.