To feel so sad about what happened to our town?

It's not even the fittest though it's only those who happened to have been born into considerable wealth already that can be used to generate mkrw wealth. Often times they're actually quick thick and or a bit inbred.

Ideally capitalism would at least generate good ideas/ tech but that requires the brightest having some sort of a chance. No one who isn't born into wealth has a chance now. They want you to believe hard work brings wealth but does it fuck.just simply set yourself up to be exploited by inbred wanktards.

Can I ask where the square built in the 70’s will be? Please.
I still enjoy a visit to Newcastle, enjoy Grainger market.
Durham city is a disgrace, but the cathedral is still beautiful.

I live in Southeast London. The shops are busy. I don’t see wild kids or adults. It feels safe.

It depends. There are no issues in the town we currently live in (touch wood). However, my home town (also DW's) seems to have gone to the dogs and is a complete shithole now.

There needs to be the decisive will and the legal ability to sanction people who break a reasonable social contract. We will not get out of this otherwise, I really can't see it.

@Churchview when was the last time you went to Central London?! And I guess which bit. Maybe around Parliament is like that, or St James end of Haymarket.

The only places that look as smart and optimistic as they did 15 years ago are monied hot spots (often lived in by Tory Ministers) and central London.

When I go to Central London I see the swept streets and smartness and feel a real pang for how my home city used to look.

As I said I work in this area and see a LOT of the kind of people you are talking about, and in most cases they are not ‘vulnerable’ - they’re aggressive, intimidating and care nothing for anyone but themselves. It’s quite soul destroying seeing the money ploughed into trying to help them, only for them to not engage with any support offered and simply carry on. They’re a black hole of ‘need’ and very very very very few ever go on to live a remotely productive life. The justice system, A&E, the benefits system, police - they exhaust public services and merely keeping them alive costs a fortune. And in return, as you say they make our towns and cities a destructive or oppressive place to be.

I work in this area too and just wanted to say thank you for expressing this so well - this is exactly my experience and I feel like there is so much resistance to just stating the situation outright.

I left my home town in the early 2000s, as have most of my friends and family.

I don't recognise the place I grew up in during the 70s and 80s.

High street changed beyond recognition and the whole place run down, grubby and a high crime rate.

There is a FB history group of the town and it makes me so sad to see how it is now compared to how it was when I grew up.

Wtf has sending an m&s card got to do with anything?! 😂

I am seeing here in Canada too, in most of our cities, and smaller towns

Globally? It's primarily 14 years of Tory austerity policies. People have been conned into voting for this. Billions have been taken out of central government funding for basic council services. Levelling up, my arse.

The same in my town too. Druggies/drinkers, empty units, mostly phone shops, vape shops, and Turkish barbers. It is bloody horrible.

@AbstractThought OP, you mention being Gen X. At 48 years old, I feel I have seen this cycle many times, I'm surprised you haven't seen it. Do we notice more as we get older?

I also think people who drive everywhere are less likely to notice these problems.

I can't allocate blame to any government in particular because of what I've seen, but I do feel more hopeless this time because well ....partly because Labour don't seem to ever say anything. Unless I'm missing it, I don't hear any proper concrete plans to tackle the problems that we have. I'm not aware of any plans afoot in the US either.

In London in my 20s, local parents used to do a needle run in the morning, collecting needles before they took their kids to school. I saw that post about Gregg's and it didn't surprise me at all. Big part of the reason public toilets were closed.

One of my older friends bought a flat in Old Street back then. Drug users and homeless people used the courtyard thingy to drink, shoot up etc. this was in the 90s. Of course she sold it for an absolute fortune about 10 years ago.

Interesting you mention effect of seeing this on mental health, I never thought about that except when the local homeless guy you chat to everyday... dies. They tend to die young. Stupidly, that's really upset me a few times.

I lived in my most recent patch of London for 20 years, which practically makes me a unicorn, but it's interesting to see how things change and when and why....if you can really put an analysis on it.

Or, has it been perceived as a very inner city problems and is now spreading out?

All of the authorities and safety net organisations have been so undermined by Tory budget cuts that they no longer serve people who need them. No NHS dentists, no mental health support, long NHS waiting lists, can't see a GP, less police, no investment in education.

Covid pulled the rug from under so many people's feet. People couldn't go to therapy, church, clubs, clinics - all the things just about keeping people on an even keel gone in the blink of an eye.

People who are struggling have nowhere to go as a result.

More people are struggling because of the cost of living crisis.

Town centres withering due to high rents, prohibitive parking costs, poor public transport, appalling roads. Local councils funding is stripped to the bone to that in my local town the road signs were cleaned by a group of volunteers because people were unable to read them and a team of pensioner volunteers pick up litter in the unswept streets. Litter, because the council have boarded up bins as they can't afford to empty them.

I live near a suicide hot spot. When some poor soul takes their life we know because the sirens start and the helicopter goes up. This used to be monthly at most.....now it is several times a week. The local paper no longer even reports this, the rumour is because it would attract more desperate people to come to the area to do the same.

All the money that should be spent on serving society is being siphoned off to pay shareholder dividends or line the pockets of the friends of those at the top.

How do we rise out of this in the UK?
It's election year. Please stop voting Conservative.
The alternative might not be perfect, but we cannot go on like this.

It sounds very much like county lines and drugs have come to town.

Places go downhill rapidly when drugs infiltrate on a big scale.

We have the same here. Add to that one of the major hotels near the centre given over to migrants and businesses at that end of town struggling

why they can't make the dentists trained by the NHS do at least some NHS work, I don't know...it is bizarre we are training dentists every year and then 99% of dental surgeries have no NHS appointments, why are we training them to do private practice essentially?

I hard a thing on the radio recently about how dentists can’t survive doing NHS work. It’s because of a kind of points system brought in in 2006 that basically doesn’t pay them properly or predictably and because the cost of energy, wages, equipment etc has gone up it’s no longer viable. They have to be at least partly private or have some other form of income.

I’m not sure mopeds and delivery drivers are the same as crack addicts and deprivation on every corner.

In my area, many of the mopeds and delivery drivers are delivering something other than takeaways! A helmet and a pizza bag makes a great disguise. So mopeds and crack addicts are not as far removed as you might think.

I don't think that's true on any count. There was plenty of navel-gazing and doom-mongering after the event but what use is that? I voted to remain.

The conservatives since Margaret Thatcher set the rot in train - and Brexit can't be blamed for that. Shitty government out for itself. That's what has caused this and it is a tragedy. I can't see how it can be fixed either.