To feel so sad about what happened to our town?

[AbstractThought]

I wasn't born here, DH was, and I have seen it discussed on MN in the past. I am aware that many towns across the UK are in a similar situation, so this probably isn't anything special, but since most people talk about shop closures I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

In the past decade we have a ton more issues in the town than previously, often relating to homelessness and addiction, and the town centre, what's left of it, has become completely over run by these problems with groups of people fighting and street drinking. A lot of these people are in extreme difficulty, whether mental health related and/or drug issues. Crime shot through the roof, and even about 8 streets away from this it spills outwards to us in what was once a fairly quiet place to live.
We now have a constant stream of siren noise, day and night, helicopters are daily and whilst we personally haven't felt in any actual danger there is a horrible sense of decay and hopelessness. Just nipping to the closest supermarket is depressing, there are a lot of neglected animals and people having meltdowns in the streets.

It is how it changed so quickly though. I can't get my head around where it all started or why. I am aware of the contribution of politics, covid, all of that stuff, but it seems so incredibly extreme. The siren noise is the worst, it is piercing and never seems to end. This also seemed to explode around the same time as the area went downhill. Probably a mix of police and emergency vehicles. It is difficult to work or relax at home and if you are a light sleeper it can have an impact there too.

What I am wondering is if this is commonplace now, in what was once a thriving town? It is the sheer amount of troubled people which seems to have escalated the most, and I can't get my head around how this has evolved, in such a short space of time. It is like they weren't here, then suddenly appeared, it is difficult to describe it. Obviously the council can't do a great deal to help and I have no idea what the answer is. The most upsetting thing is that a lot of these people are so messed up that they can barely talk in a way that is decipherable. This includes children, and there is a growing amount of people who have barely any teeth. This is a fucking severe problem and I have no idea what will help it. We have mucked in with a few local charities but it barely scratches the surface in my opinion.
We are moving due to work relocation soon, so whilst it may not be 'our' problem after we have gone, this isn't the point. I am just so sorry that it has come to this, in likely even more places than just here. WTF happened??

To what extent? does it compensate for low wages, a dire health service, no dentists and roads that wreck your car?

So what if someone on a low ends up with £900 a year from a workplace pension.

Pension schemes invest across a very wide range of stocks, bonds & gilts, property, commodities...

Once again, these profits & low tax rates benefit the most wealthy disproportionately e.g Sunaks US based investment funds give him a very healthy income of millions per year and a tax rate of 20%, quite how that benefits the average man in the street i do not know?

Sunak of course isn't the only one taking adv of very low tax rates and in many cases 0% rates (those with large ISA holdings)

btw workplace pensions are not compulsory, any employee can opt out... the compulsion is that the employer must put an employee in the scheme but after that...

I think the OP was correct in feeling that the end of the last century felt ‘hopeful’ , in much of Europe and in North and South American. I remember for example travelling and working in Italy in the late Nineties and feeling that the Italians thought they had turned a corner: public life was less corrupt, there was more social openness, prosperity.

The Wall had come down, Russia was opening to the West and leaving the more oppressive aspects of Communism, loosening their hold on East Europe. There was a lot of talk about the Brics economies and their potential contribution to global prosperity.

So….something has changed . If Western civilisation survives in any recognisable form ( which is dubious IMHO) it’s possible that scribes working in unheated cells may identify three major ‘events’ .

The global financial crisis 2008, where the concept of trading nonexistent assets fell off the cliff; have the developed economies ever recovered?

The MiddleEastern crisis 2015 which saw unprecedented inflows of displaced persons (mainly young men) who were welcomed by the host nations, based on an unfounded hope that they would become ‘like’ the native population. That’s a door which cannot be shut, it would seem.

The Covid lockdowns, an unprecedented enforced social change with dire consequences. ‘He who would save his life, will lose it’.

All this set against the cult of the individual, and the destruction of ‘ rules and regulations’ which kept our worst instincts in check. The ‘super rich’ exemplify this, they have no ties to any nation, society, creed or country, they go where they are best served. This is unlike previous elites who had some interest in maintaining their localities because they would be impacted by too much disruption. Voilà!

The idea that religion can hold things together is interesting but only goes so far. The values we've replaced it with, mostly consumerism, aren't compatible with any religion. Which is why for example immigrants from Islamic countries struggle to integrate as their home countries typically depend on women staying at home, which for the majority of households is no longer possible in the UK. It is a valid pokt that people need role models other than business people and people who make their money from their appearance eg influencers.

I agree that women have always "worked" but in a far more natural setting that had meaning for the family and community. Baby's aren't excluded in this, they are carried as all tribes have done and continue to do.

"Life in all its fullness is Mother Nature obeyed.”

‘Yes those things were written down several hundred tears after the "fact", translated numerous times etc. Just because something has been embedded in history, which is written largely by the Victor's, doesn't make it absolute truth. ‘

The earliest Gospel is reliably dated to 65 -75 CE ( by north Christian scholars). Given that the events related happened around 28 - 31 CE , this is hardly ‘ several hundred tears (sic) later’. Pliny the Younger , who witnessed the eruption of Vesuvius so is easily datable by non Christian (‘ the Victor’s ‘ ) sources, had to deal with an organised Church in one of the Provinces he was appointed to govern. That was well short of a hundred years after the Crucifixion .

Not ‘absolute truth’ ( What is Truth? , as Pilate said) , but well researched evidence, as opposed to the Amon Ra school of ‘history’.

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen excellent post, I agree that those are the three recent key events.

Agree with financial crisis and covid but rather than the Arab crisis I would put the twins towers as the big event that changed us.
It launched the west into an invisible cultural war that is still ongoing, it marked the beginning of the terrorism that has resulted in tighter restrictions and surveillance in our western countries, which IMO has had a lasting emotional impact on our societies.

Pregnant outside marriage? They took your baby away and locked you up for life.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5018190-heart-breaking-photo-of-dolly-who-was-incarcerated-for-being-pregnant?page=1

I think you have rose tinted spectacles on. Older girls often looked after babies while mothers worked. There was childcare in Victorian times, but it could be very basic. Mothers toiling in fields would sometimes leave babies on the edge of fields while they worked.

I don't think I do, I grew up around extended family. My grandmas stayed at home, my mum stayed at home, my aunties stayed at home (at least in their children's younger years) just because my lived experience is different to yours, that doesn't make it rose tinted.

@Soggywelly except you were not talking about your own experience. You were talking about what more generally happened with mothers working and babies.

I forgot to mention, does anyone else suffer issues with vehicle noise?
Something else that's exploded here in recent years, not just the crazy exhausts and farting noises but seemingly regular cars. At fist I thought it might be the road surface but apparently not. We hear a lot of senseless revving, really loud bikes in public paths and just a thundering mess of noise from local traffic.
If I go even 2 miles out of this place it calms down. Possible a town centre thing, as it's painfully close to us? Perhaps these turds show off more in places that are more heavily peopled.

Road noise in general has grown, probably due to more of us doing it than before. I often feels like roads have taken over here, but it might easily be shitty town planning.

The car noise problem is a policing issue, a car has to be below a defined decibel level that is easy to tell via a noise meter but nobody can be bothered to check

The problem is some residents en masse reject any type of modernity. DP lives in an old mill town in the north.
It attracted some investment.
Yet already the locals are moaning about outsiders spending money and proclaiming everything is too expensive either the goods as in fashion or services, the bars and restaurants. Some have been open to a great hurrah, and now 4-5 years later the town is regressing back to carling, kebabs and unruly anti-social behaviour.
I do believe Rishi cancelling the HS2 northern leg was a poor decision. The government should be not only completing all the high-speed rail but also the electrification of the northern lines and the planned road expansions.
Get people moving quickly instead of being trapped in a quagmire of poor logistics and under-investment.

And? I was adding my thoughts to the OP's post. I'm really not interested in debating you, you'll have to find someone else.

@Missamyp You seem to be suggesting the only way to improve somewhere is to to drive out the old residents and attract new people?
In fairness gentrification has been used all over and of course people who live there complain about it.

@Soggywelly you were answering my comment.
Its fine I will move on. I forgive you for not understanding either my comment or how social media works.

The USA is often given as an example for what lower taxes can do... yes great, tent cities for the poor, no national health service

The problem in both the US and UK is thinking money will solve this. San Francisco has literally spent billions trying to humanely solve their homeless problem but it only gets worse. MN solution is always that social services needs more funding … but America shows that a lot of this is a bottomless pit people still shovel money into and expecting a certain result..

No they haven't, well not sorting the problem, it was about £400m last year, much of which went on legal fees fighting whether the 'city can move on the homeless who declined a shelter.

Homelessness isn't solved by putting people in a shelter, its a long term term problem where some focus has to be on prevention, which takes money, education and early years intervention.

I agree money isn't the only solution but without it, social issues just get worse, just as a lack of it on an individual basis is a problem too.

Unfortunately, the right wing always sits back and does nothing until the public demand action, at which point its often too late and large amounts of money are wasted on "firefighting" e.g see how the Tories throw money at the NHS each autumn to deal with "winter pressures" :( how about long term regular funding instead?

Alexandra
Isn’t the homelessness problem in some American cities such as San Francisco largely caused by drugs and the easily available fentanyl and other opiates?
I don’t know how anyone from the right or left is going to tackle this.

San Francisco also has massive housing problems due to high rents driven by the tech explosion there.

Like i said Prevention is the long term solution.

We have homeless problems too, do nothing and we will end up like the US.

I feel like drugs aren't mentioned enough on this thread, talking about San Francisco have you not heard of fentanyl? No amount of "nice" ideas is going to stop that. I know someone who was arrested for selling crack and heroin and out of prison within one year.

Homelessness fueled by drug addiction is the result in part of corruption higher up the food chain. It's a black economy industry and if you think that law enforcement, councils, transport companies and even politicians haven't benefited from it since the explosion in the 60s you are extremely naive.

Look it up. Look up how drugs were allowed to proliferate in the US partly as an experiment to see what would happen. LSD was actually put into circulation in some towns as part of MK-Ultra operations. This is not tin foil hat conspiracy theory, it is documented fact.

The sheer scale of today's problem may be an unintended consequence but it is a consequence. Like it or not, drug money helps the world economy keep turning, and pissing about with raids here and there and criminalising low level dealers of weed is sticking a plaster on an arterial spurt.

Cartels in South America keep whole towns in line by helping the locals using part of their profits. At a cost of course. A brutal, bloody cost.

Traces of cocaine have been found on toilet cisterns in the House of Commons for Heavens sake. When those at the heart of power are having a little pick me up but can afford to, you realise what we're up against. And honestly some of the policy making in recent years makes me wonder just how high some of our ministers are most of the time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking_allegations#:~:text=The%20CIA's%20front%20company%2C%20Air,the%20Laotian%20military%20doing%20it.