To ask why the North is generally seen as ‘poor’?

[Jules585]

Discussing the clear north south divide in Covid cases/restrictions with various people and often hear comments like ‘Well there’s a higher risk where there’s higher levels of deprivation/poorer areas etc.’, ‘poorer people and ethnic minorities worst affected’- suggesting in basic terms that there’s more Covid ‘up north’ as it’s poorer.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that London is the centre of finance/business etc. and yes, there are a lot of very wealthy Londoners. House prices are obviously extortionate but they’ve been inflated for a number of reasons.

But WHY is there this classic ‘grim up north’ perspective of anything north of the Home Counties really?

Having lived in the north, as well as in London, I can honestly say I found parts of London immensely ‘grim’ and deprived, there are millions of people working in low paid, precarious jobs. A huge amount of ethnic diversity. Most people can only dream of owning a house and end up spending an extortionate amount of rent on tiny, sub-standard accommodation.

I know there are various ‘northern’ cities that are often viewed as grim - but my experience even of the most commonly slated cities is that they all have lovely parts, often much closer to countryside and people are able to live a much better standard of living as wages are fairly similar (which they actually are in a lot of sectors and areas of the U.K. now!) and they can actually afford to buy a proper house.

I know for a fact that there isn’t as much of a London vs everywhere else salary divide now - and a lot of people still commute to the major cities as well.

Where does this snobbery come from? Is it as obvious as fact that the Royals are based down south etc etc?

I went to an infamously posh/snobby university and the teasing, snobbery and often insulting attitudes to anyone north of about Oxford was awful and I look back in amazement.

Thoughts? Where does it stem from and why is it still a thing?

@Flumpaphone

I think there is poverty and deprivation in both but I think the North is more honest about the problem, makes it more visible and therefore does more to tackle it. Deprivation exists so we know we have to do something to deal with it. Years of chronic under investment in infrastructure, health and education don't help. The Southern based media also love a story of Northern deprivation with their pet example towns always used to illustrate the narrative they have already constructed, Middlesbrough got it in the neck for a long time but they seem to have moved on to Burnley now.

I spent some time in Oxfordshire over the summer and the contrasts really struck me. Obvious real wealth in chocolate box commuter villages with every house done out in identikit Farrow and Ball. The villages were lovely to look at but god they were soulless.

But, if you look not even very hard you see how others live, if you are anywhere near the canal you see people living on tiny boats shored up with tarpaulins just for somewhere to live and make ends meet whilst they try to hold down low paying jobs. Tents pitched on pieces of out of the way waste ground. The lack of social housing bringing over crowding into tiny flats. I also went Brighton last year and have never seen so many homeless people.

So I think there is poverty in the South but the population live with it as long as it is squirreled away tidily and not too close to anyone affluent and people expect the media to be complicit in helping them to ignore it. Being able to pretend it's not there won't make it go away.

I totally agree, the "hidden" aspect of poverty in Oxford really got to me. I went to uni there with some colossally privileged people who would think nothing of popping £50 bottles of champagne all over each other. City centre, Summertown, etc. are all filled with million pound houses and well to do professionals, there's barely any bargain shops, but once you get to Blackbird Leys it's a completely different world, one of the most deprived areas in the country, and most of the students don't even know it's there. Not to mention the insanely high levels of homelessness.

I live just outside Newcastle now and obviously you get pockets of privilege and deprivation, but it doesn't feel shoved to the side and "hidden" like it does in Oxford, and the city centre feels like it caters to both much more.

Also, as an aside, I really dislike the way "low income" and "grim" have been equated throughout this thread. I live in an area which is not very well off at all, but it's still tidy and well kept, there's plenty of green spaces, good schools, etc. It's not grim at all.

It would be good if WFH did help. It might to some extent (although lots of jobs can't be done from home). Unfortunately I suspect it might just spread out the housing crisis. New areas will see house prices rising (and locals priced out of a home) but already expensive areas will stay like that, because lots of people will still want to stay there (or keep a second home investment).

I hope I'm wrong. I tend towards pessimism! I think more and more people are slowly realising how this housing division is so harmful to society as a whole. Hopefully we'll see a better fairer future.

Caravans and motor homes are generally the cheap holiday option compared to overseas hotel holidays! Keeping them on your drive is cheaper than paying a storage place. I wouldn't say they are a sign of excessive wealth unless they are the giant American type ones. Also the Midlands/North could be said to be closer to scenic holiday areas.

Also, as an aside, I really dislike the way "low income" and "grim" have been equated throughout this thread

The reason why people are using these words together is because in many areas of high density housing, green areas are few and far between. While playgrounds are built to accommodate the ‘needs of children’, it is scarce to see mature trees and villages that grew organically in size. Instead developers built hundreds of identical houses and as land became more expensive, the houses were built closer together. Railings surround new ‘green areas’ instead of trees. Everyone has a tiny box garden, every house is identical, every area has the same chain of small retail outlets. If you have ever lived in such an area, you would know it is grim.

The people who live in these areas can’t afford a house in an older established and nicer area because their household have a lower income.

Grim and low income is a very fitting description of these locations.

Because council spending is linked to council tax which is linked to house prices which are linked to income.

So the rich areas get nicer the poor areas get more grim as they cant afford to improve so richer people move away theres less money and so on...

The attached photo and link are interesting. The report shows that the most deprived areas are in the North but you can see on the map that deprivation is a problem all over the country.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/835115/IoD20199StatisticalRelease.pdf

It's ignorance, and some middle-class born and bred Londoners/people from home counties can be most ignorant, parochial and snobby about the rest of the country than anyone. They consider themselves terribly cosmopolitan, and of course they are absolutely not racist, but their view of the rest of the UK is just a series of stereotypes.

Yes, that's about the size of it Gracie.

Some middle class and/or SE/Londoners do have a lot to say about northern and/or working class people that as a northern working class person, I absolutely do not recognise as being typical of people like me or the area of the country in which I live. Note that I'm saying some not all.

Even more horrifying is how openly such people look down on us and openly admit to it. I hope none of these people are in recruitment, the way they talk about the accent being wrong/unacceptable, or assume that things like manners or confidence may be lacking.

It's like the last taboo. No-one would express racist, sexist or homophobic views but it doesn't seem to be seen as wrong to talk in a derogatory fashion about 'the north' or its people.

Some of it is that it's easier to go to most of France, say, from the south east than it is to reach a lot of the UK. Whereas from Manchester you can get pretty much anywhere in a day. Half a day, even. I've been to Scotland, Wales and NI so many times both for holidays and work and to most of England. I do live in the SE now (married a southerner) and regularly come across well-off middle class southerners who have barely been up the M1, let alone to other countries in the UK.

Of course, HS2 will resolve all that 😏 🤑

elsewyre it’s also a problem in Devon/ Cornwall despite the high house prices - so many of the expensive homes are owned as second homes which get a council tax reduction.

Of course, that's what the real benefit of HS2 will be, widening the range where people in London based high paying jobs can live and commute in a sensible time. Of course, no-one needs to do that any more.

@Alongcameacat

Also, as an aside, I really dislike the way "low income" and "grim" have been equated throughout this thread

The reason why people are using these words together is because in many areas of high density housing, green areas are few and far between. While playgrounds are built to accommodate the ‘needs of children’, it is scarce to see mature trees and villages that grew organically in size. Instead developers built hundreds of identical houses and as land became more expensive, the houses were built closer together. Railings surround new ‘green areas’ instead of trees. Everyone has a tiny box garden, every house is identical, every area has the same chain of small retail outlets. If you have ever lived in such an area, you would know it is grim.

The people who live in these areas can’t afford a house in an older established and nicer area because their household have a lower income.

Grim and low income is a very fitting description of these locations.

I’m not saying there are no areas which are both low income and grim (obviously there are), I’m saying that low income and grim are not necessarily the same thing

And the only place I ever hear the word “grim” is mumsnet and it sounds so sneery.

I’m saying that low income and grim are not necessarily the same thing

They are not the same thing as the words have different meanings obviously but they go very much have in hand. I know what you mean though. Yesterday I went to a particular store in an industrial park and drove through a very grim area. It looked rough and has a reputation for being very rough. There were green spaces but no trees. Very little planning went into the area. It was built to serve a housing problem. It is now an area of high unemployment.It is grim.

I live in an area that is full of housing estates. The houses look nicer from the outside and the developers planted trees as part of the development. All the houses are similar looking though not the save (variations of red brick)
and while I wouldn’t consider them grim looking, the area is soulless. It consists entirely of houses that are under twenty years old.
My sibling who lives beside the coast thinks where I live is very grim indeed and I can understand why. Sibling lives in a small village/community. Everybody knows each other and the village is made up of original houses, detached houses and very small housing estates of non identical houses.

I have never thought this.

Well if you think that trees equates to not grim, you must think Orkney and Iceland (the country, not the shop) are very grim indeed.

And the only place I ever hear the word “grim” is mumsnet and it sounds so sneery

Yes, it sounds like 'not naice enough for me, but it doesn't matter because I have enough money to be able to avoid that area/shop/school'.

BarbaraofSeville It would be nice if you read my comment about the lack of trees in context. There aren’t any trees in Qatar and there aren’t any tulip fields in Australia but it is irrelevant to the discussion surely!

The image perception is similar for people who come from the North though.

All Mancs are like Frank Gallagher from Shameless

All Scousers are robbing jobless pickpockets

All people who live in Cheshire are posh Tory voters

All people who live in traditional Northern Towns are inbred.

It’s heard a lot and that’s from within the North West boundaries.

I think that perception is more of a London thing, than surrounding southern counties. I lived in London for a number of years, and now live in Yorkshire. I saw, and still see on visits, a lot more social deprivation on the streets of London than where I am now. People living on the streets in large numbers, massive divide there between the rich and the poor. Doesn’t feel safe. Just awful. And a very superior attitude that the city is the place to be (and it’s really not). I think the fact that some southerners perceive the north as poor and deprived is based on ignorance. I love the lifestyle up here and would never swap it for London living. The scenery and friendliness up here are second to none, but I think you can only probably appreciate it if you’ve experienced living somewhere like London.

My completely uneducated, born of childhood view, as a 'Southerner' was that the closing of industry in the North had caused some of the poverty of yesteryear. These days I don't think it's that different. There are pockets of poverty and money in most areas of the UK.

I would expect to see the gap between North and South closing more and more. We will be just one of the many people who are no longer tied to an office and therefore are taking our wages and our lives further North for a slice of country life instead of sitting in the middle of suburbia watching the green around us disappear as it built on and on, growing the town and shrinking the countryside.

I remember a friend from down south back in the 80s asking me in all seriousness if there was any countryside in Yorkshire. She was lovely, well educated, but her only impressions of the North were the miners' strike and unemployment. She was genuinely stunned when she visited my home (admittedly not typical dark satanic mills, I grew up just outside Ilkley and fully admit that I'm fairly privileged), I think she thought it was all flat caps and whippets, and was pleasantly surprised that we all knew how to use the correct cutlery

I think she thought it was all flat caps and whippets, and was pleasantly surprised that we all knew how to use the correct cutlery

Cutlery that was probably made in Sheffield!

@BarbaraofSeville and @Livelovebehappy totally agree with both of your posts.

DP and I have recently been watching the old TV series ‘Faking It’, and the typical theme is ‘let’s all make fun of the quaint northern person with their funny accent’.

I’m from Newcastle, and have always remembered attending a dinner party with a crowd of Formula 1 racing types near Oxford when I was about 20. The starter was salmon, and the woman next to me clearly thought it was totally fine to comment: ‘well, this must be a treat for you (the salmon), coming from up north’.
WTF! I was so shocked by her total ignorance, that I just sort of stared and didn’t reply. All these years later, I wish I’d had a cutting response!

I have moved from the south to the north and it is so much nicer. We also have so much more expendable money than in the south due to cost of living. I don't thin the wages have been that different for us but if you are earning minimum wage your better off doing it in the north than the south.

@Alongcameacat

Also, as an aside, I really dislike the way "low income" and "grim" have been equated throughout this thread

The reason why people are using these words together is because in many areas of high density housing, green areas are few and far between. While playgrounds are built to accommodate the ‘needs of children’, it is scarce to see mature trees and villages that grew organically in size. Instead developers built hundreds of identical houses and as land became more expensive, the houses were built closer together. Railings surround new ‘green areas’ instead of trees. Everyone has a tiny box garden, every house is identical, every area has the same chain of small retail outlets. If you have ever lived in such an area, you would know it is grim.

The people who live in these areas can’t afford a house in an older established and nicer area because their household have a lower income.

Grim and low income is a very fitting description of these locations.

I agree that areas like this are depressing, but ew estates like this are necessary because we need more housing and haven't built enough at any point since the 1970s.

Aslo, people living in these identikit new build homes with small gardens may not have a high enough income to buy a period home, but they're really not low income - those homes sell for upwards of £200k-250k, even up north.

I think what you define as low income is what most people would consider to be fairly average. People on genuinely low incomes aren't buying new build houses with small gardens, they're renting flat and small terraces.