UK city so dirty

Oh OP, do you think people would pay to visit your holiday destination if it was scruffy and grim? Of course not, in exactly the same way as foreigners wouldn’t visit the Cotswolds if it looked like the worst parts of Bradford.

we went to Sicily in the summer, stayed in Taormina, beautiful Italian village overlooking clear waters in the sunshine. Spent the day in Catania just wandering the city and went a bit off track. Just five minutes walk out of the city the streets were filthy, covered in graffiti, groups of very dodgy looking men hanging around and prostitutes sat outside little stone houses on chairs waiting for business.

It’s the same the world over, at least where I’ve visited including the far east, US, Australia and most of Europe. Good and bad, beautiful and grim.

no way, cities are so much cleaner than they were 30 years ago! I'm not going to name them coz the argument will never end but I'm thinking north and south major areas I did and do visit, loads cleaner and tidier. I take it you want higher taxes pmsl?

Rather than vast majority perhaps other words would have made more sense but basically the biggest spending council departments relate to social care.

The funds local authorities receive for education, social care etc are all ring fenced. The funds for libraries, waste collection, street cleaning are not. Often social care costs more than the government provide the council (based on specific funding formulas) so councils effectively subsidise these services with non ring fenced funds.

It would make more sense for social care to be integrated into the NHS and councils to focus on other activities. The vast majority of the budget is social care for most councils (approximately 50%).

DH is from Vancouver and whenever we visit there the UK looks filthy for a bit. Parts are very run down looking now. But it's true much of the world is far worse. The light in the UK, versus med or tropical sun, makes dirt and dinginess look worse than it is sometimes.

Nailed it

When I stayed in brussels with my dog for a few days I couldn’t believe how much dog poo was on the pavements. No-one picked it up. Disgusting

I can assure you that not everywhere is like your city. I live in North Yorkshire and it's clean & tidy. With beautiful countryside - we're on the edge of an AONB

Many places abroad are dirty too. I mean look at NYC

@Ontobetterthings Budapest is horrible! Filthy place

I'm in Japan at the moment and you could eat your dinner off most pavements. Its pristine.

That's what I thought in London in the 80s and 90s - that the pavements desperately needed scrubbing.

That said, Manchester a few years ago for work; what a dump.

We went to Sicily in early summer, the crazy recycling system is unmanageable and therefore people dump rubbish everywhere.

Greece late summer was very tidy and clean, but a work trip to Portugal is dog poo dodging on a grand scale. It’s like France or going back to UK in the 70s

If places are littered and dirty then it is the occupants to blame for not respecting their surroundings. Holiday destinations usually are kept smart in order to attract tourists.

Some bits of the Midlands are indeed shitholes. Dudley, Cradley Heath, Brierley Hill, Blackheath and West Brom come to mind. Boarded up shops, takeaways everywhere, busted up streets, weeds, dog shit and rubbish about. Silence or shouting, nothing inbetween. My bit is sort of in a no man's land between a really scruffy bit and a spotless bit. If you go one way it is a dump. If you go the other it's lovely. There's barely any bugger about in the streets of either. I think that adds to a feeling of desolation, even amongst the lovely houses down the road.

Twenty five years ago! I wouldn't say it is now at all.

To be fair I had the exact same feeling returning to my midlands city from the Lake District!

When I moved back to the UK from Sydney my eyes were fully opened to just how filthy the UK was - London in particular. Also, everywhere seemed to stick of piss and weed. I was obsessed with how funky London smelt for a while until my nose readjusted to the stench.

I've been to Japan a few times and I live in London. Honestly I get culture shock coming home! 😂

Japan is so clean, the people are so polite, everything is so orderly. I totally relax and become a "softer" version of myself. Come back to London and it's so filthy, people are rude and inconsiderate. It takes me a week or so to grow back my shell!

It's sad really. There are numerous reasons why this country is as it is but it won't change. Not much we can do.

I do think people see stuff through a different lens when they're on holiday. They tend to not see (or overlook) the shit people who live there see every day. They tend to go to the more tourist areas which are always kept nice. You visit the tourist/ popular places in London, and they're amazing, but there are some also some shit areas of London, that no tourist would ever think of going

I went to Rome on a coach trip, years ago. Absolutely gorgeous. But we left via a different route to how we arrived - graffiti, boarded Ilya windows, absolutely filthy with piles of rubbish. We all agreed we were glad we hadn't arrived that way - it would have spoilt how we saw the city.

It really does depend on the area, to a degree.

I've spent a lot of time over the last few years in brisbane and the surrounding towns, and on my first visit I remarked how clean it was compared to my area of the UK

When I visited London in the late 80s from Melbourne, Australia, I was taken aback at how filthy it was. Serious contrast to home and to Paris, which had been scrubbed and decorated for the 200th anniversary of the Revolution.

@Catza yes, even in the seventeenth century Paris was noted for its stench!

Yes I agree OP am in the midlands too and everything looks so grotty after being in France