I'm in your boat. I hate where I live too. I'm in Manchester and originally lived in an area in South Manchester that is lovely. Very green, village like, lots of community spirit, I lived there all my life, my parents were just round the corner and my children attend lovely small church school and had all their school friends close by. Then 3 years ago me and my partner were both made redundant...on the same day...within the same phone call...while I was on maternity leave! We both worked for the same company you see and it went under very suddenly and unexpectedly.
So everything changed. We had no jobs suddenly and 2 children, 1 of which was 2 months old at the time! Hubby took the very first job he could immediately find to pay the bills, which was a late shift at a bookies, and we could no longer afford our lovely 3 bed house in our town.
So...we had to pack up and take the only thing that we could afford, which is a 2 bed terrace 8 miles away in Salford!
Oh my god. Let me tell you, the street I'm on now is like an episode of Shameless. There are plenty of children on the street but they are wild. Our first month here a 6 year old pretended he needed help whilst laying in the road while I was walking back down the street with some shopping, but when I approached him to help - he water ballooned me and ran off cackling. The kids howl and scream and fight in the street all day, the parents stand in the front doors all day smoking and gabbing over the fences to each other one day, then swearing and spitting and fighting the next day because their kid was lamped by the other. They burn things in metal trash cans in the front yards, they stuff rubbish in other people's wheelie bins so that the bin men don't take them (the bin men don't take bins that are overflowed here, but hey, the scum bags got rid of their rubbish at someone else's expense so what do they care?!) There's fly tipping, dogs on chains barking in front yards all day, unspeakable amounts of stray cat poo all over the front yard every day, music thumping out of every wide open front door. Because they all sit with their front doors wide open all day so you can see and hear everything that everyone is up to!
I hate where I live too. You are not unreasonable, I'm totally with you. My children are lonely here too, especially my oldest who is 9 and is certainly old enough to deeply miss where we've come from and loathe where we now are. I regularly cry with guilt and deep sorrow at bringing them here. Over my dead body do I want them going out to mix with the kids on the street and none of their existing friends parents want to drive all the way up here for play dates or anything like that. I wouldn't ask them to be honest. I'm way too embarrassed at the episode of shameless that I live in now.
I know I haven't been helpful with advice but I just wanted to say I'm with you! It sucks and I despise where I am too, and I agree that it's not that easy to make new friends anymore. My mum reminisces that when they first moved to their current house and my childhood home 30 years ago, neighbours knocked on the door to introduce themselves and invited them to join neighbourhood watch and a lottery syndicate. Now everyone just puts their heads down and ignores everyone else, never floating out of their core groups, even for a little bit just to introduce themselves to someone new and nervous and possibly isolated.
xx