That everywhere has got busier?!

[JudesBiggestFan]

I can't decide if it's because I'm older and less patient or whether everywhere is just busier? I find myself frustrated so often...sitting in traffic on the way to work, on the way back, on the school run. Queuing for hours in the barbers to have my sons' haircuts no matter when I go, never being able to find a parking space when I go to to the supermarket/cinema, shops just mad all the time! I live in a decent sized town near Birmingham but then I've always lived here...it just seems so busy! Is there anywhere in the Uk that feels more peaceful that's still hear a big town for work etc?! I feel I would be so much calmer if I was t always in a bloody queue!

Where I live is not crowded but other cities i visit are.

Think it's a combination of more people, both couples working, often longer distances commuting, kids enrolled in after school activities, lack of infrastructure investment, new housing estates built for maximum profit not considering community needs. No wander life is stressful.

Other ways will have to be found to pay and care for the elderly an ever increasing population cannot work

Then people will have to save more and work longer to pay for themselves. But that’s gone down like a shit balloon for every politician that’s tried to suggest it. Politicians are short term because the electorates are. People don’t want to hear hard truths and so they vote for comfortable lies.

Same here in Dublin. Traffic is crazy all day long, busses are packed no matter what time you travel, the car park outside Tesco was full at 9.30 this morning.

I grew up here and the difference in the last 15 years or so is crazy.

@Prevegen4U are you John Cleese?

We buy much more. It must be the food packaging I think. We got a box of groceries a week in the 60s. Already had a bag of potatoes and milk was delivered.
So much shopping nowadays. I suppose our expectations of varied and tasty food are higher,
If you read some of the books written in the 40s /50s life was simpler. You spent the day at home unless invited out, or if you were the housekeeper, the day you went food shopping.

I live in Korea and it is unreal in the entire Seoul region. As in, when I go to London, it feels empty in comparison. Even Oxford Street at Christmas didn't feel crowded at all.

It took us near three hours the other day to drive the 20 odd miles to the centre of Seoul. That's just a usual day in rush hour. (Normally we'd take public transport but we had the dog and you can't take them on.)

There are certain subway lines that they literally shove you onto in the morning, I mean an employee is there cramming people on physically. One such line, line 9, is designed to take 200,000 passengers a day, but actual takes 600,000. It's fucking madness.

The problem is the same as the UK. Everything is too centralised. In a country of 55 million, 20 million live in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do, the area surrounding Seoul (like Greater London).

On the other hand, hospital appointments are not as issue here (tons of hospitals) and the birth rate is so low that schools aren't an issue either (in my husband's generation, 50 or 60 to a class was normal- now it's 15 or 20). Things like museums, art galleries, popular restaurants, newly opened malls...if you're going during the weekend, just forget it because you're not going to be able to move or get in. People will queue for two hours for certain restaurants.

Countryside towns are dying on their arses though, everyone just keeps moving to Seoul.

If you read some of the books written in the 40s /50s life was simpler. You spent the day at home unless invited out, or if you were the housekeeper, the day you went food shopping.

I’m not overcome by nostalgia!

No, but there is something to be said for staying at home, without the pressure to go out and "do" something.

I think learning how to amuse yourself at home is a skill worth having and one worth passing onto our children.

You don't have to be out all the time, joining queues for traffic, a ticket, a cup of tea. It isn't a great time to be had by all that you will miss out on!

The whole family doesn't need to go food shopping and if anyone does, because they look on it as an outing or 'family time' then they need to get learning sooner rather than later!

Second reason, people work in less regimented ways now, so they're nto necessarily out of the way 9-5 but working from home, going out in the middle of the morning, etc. So there are more people around all of the time, it's not as quiet at certain times as it used to be.

I’ve noticed this since I retired and am free to go places on weekdays. There aren’t any quiet times any more.

2020newme

This makes for an interesting read - 93% of the UK is not urban...

The UK includes the Cairngorms where few people can live and work. Look at SE England. Look at light pollution increases and the amount of broken-up countryside.

I WFH 1-2 days a week and still enjoy being able to do food shopping/gym at random times when there aren’t as many folk about. I’m in the South West.

I’ve been excessively busy the last few weeks tho so had no choice but to grocery shop on a Saturday and noticed that the shops are insanely busy.

I’m also totally baffled by the large numbers of elderly people doing big trolley shops on the weekend. If you’re retired and can go anytime you must be mad to on a Saturday with the world and his wife!

Mrstswift - i feel the same way about private car ownership and people who choose to drive everywhere even when there are alternative modes of transport available

@bettybattenburg I'd sooner die than move to Canada.

Out of interest, what do you dislike about it? I wouldn't want to live there either really (those winters!) but it is a lovely place.

It doesn’t help that it’s hard to work locally. Many businesses have spent the last twenty years consolidating premises into city centres and those awful business parks that are difficult to get to via public transport (and where there are never enough parking spaces). All the people who would have worked in local bank branches now have to commute to hubs. Bring on remote working!

Exactly. In our small city, we used to have "proper" branches of banks, insurance companies, branches of national firms of accountants & solicitors, stockbrokers, etc. All that's gone and been centralised in London and a few largest cities. In a nearby town, there was the head offices of 2 national insurance/pension firms- both fully closed down after moving to London. Anyone wanting a "professional" job in a national company now has to commute 2 hours to the nearest big city. It's absolute madness. Our city centre is now an assortment of low paid employment being coffee shops, charity shops, an ever reducing number of retail chain stores, etc. Where are the decent jobs in all the smaller cities and towns? No wonder people never go back to their home towns after university - there aren't any decent jobs for them.

find myself frustrated so often...sitting in traffic on the way to work, on the way back, on the school run.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 I wondered who the traffic was on the rds... now I know it’s you

Did you seriously not realise you are the traffic you complain about? I hear so many people say this completely oblivious 😉

This is why I live somewhere semi rural and relatively quiet, though it certainly has its moments with traffic. And some developers would like to turn it into suburbia.

People used to enjoy being at home more and didn’t see it as some sort of punishment

I also wonder why all these solo people sat in long queues of cars, they take a sofa & armchair with them - why? Surely it’d be better to have an armchair to sit in an a couple of fold up stools behind, then it’d make so much more room and less congestion

I live in Korea and it is unreal in the entire Seoul region. As in, when I go to London, it feels empty in comparison. Even Oxford Street at Christmas didn't feel crowded at all.

Yes, I did think when reading the thread that people need to get out of the UK and see how the rest of the world lives rather than assuming something has gone wrong in the UK. (Would also give the Brexit voters pause for thought I think to see what the global competition really looks like)

Population has increased - in the last 20 years we've grown by approx. 10 million people in the UK.

There have also been changes to wealth which have a knock on effect on travel. It's common now to live further away from family - either for work or affordable property or both - so you get more people travelling to visit relatives than previously. My grandmother and extended family were within 10 minutes of us when I was very young. Our most distant relative was a whole 30 minutes away! You also have more tourism as more countries become upwardly mobile and their citizens want to go on holiday and see the world along with everyone else.

As PP have said, most of the UK's infrastructure - roads, public transport, schools, GPs and dentists - hasn't kept up with population growth. Yet naturally the 10m additional inhabitants all need to go to school, work, the doctor - and also want to go shopping or socialising at the weekends.

People used to enjoy being at home more

But now lots of people live in poor quality housing with paper thin walls and houses so densely packed that you have little outdoor space and are constantly overlooked. It's not so much fun being at home if you have next door's bass pumping out for 12 hours or the other side bang the wall if your children are running around.

DH has to drive for work as he has tools and materials to carry.

I don't drive and we moved from Essex with pretty good transport that I used to somewhere with a bus every 2 hours that stops at 6pm.

I don't go out nearly as much as I did. I am quite happy indoors reading, doing crosswords, knitting, watching tv etc.

Simple - 2 reasons. 1. Population increase. 2. Concentration of decent jobs into the few major cities which have left a vacuum behind in towns & villages in the regions. So the cities get busier, the towns & villages have lost their jobs, facilities, infrastructure, etc - thus driving even more people into a few big cities. We definitely need to start moving people away from the busy cities with creaking infrastructure towards the smaller cities and towns in the regions where schools are closing due to falling numbers, bus routes have been closed, even some GP surgeries have closed due to not enough patients. It was madness to concentrate everything in just a few big cities.

I wonder if it's the fact that if you're home you are watching the tv or on your ipad so the only way to get away from them is to go out. This might apply to DCs, the only way to get them off computer games is to go outside. We don' know how to amuse ourselves without the internet.