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??

@AbstractThought OP, you mention being Gen X. At 48 years old, I feel I have seen this cycle many times, I'm surprised you haven't seen it. Do we notice more as we get older?

I also think people who drive everywhere are less likely to notice these problems.

I can't allocate blame to any government in particular because of what I've seen, but I do feel more hopeless this time because well ....partly because Labour don't seem to ever say anything. Unless I'm missing it, I don't hear any proper concrete plans to tackle the problems that we have. I'm not aware of any plans afoot in the US either.

In London in my 20s, local parents used to do a needle run in the morning, collecting needles before they took their kids to school. I saw that post about Gregg's and it didn't surprise me at all. Big part of the reason public toilets were closed.

One of my older friends bought a flat in Old Street back then. Drug users and homeless people used the courtyard thingy to drink, shoot up etc. this was in the 90s. Of course she sold it for an absolute fortune about 10 years ago.

Interesting you mention effect of seeing this on mental health, I never thought about that except when the local homeless guy you chat to everyday... dies. They tend to die young. Stupidly, that's really upset me a few times.

I lived in my most recent patch of London for 20 years, which practically makes me a unicorn, but it's interesting to see how things change and when and why....if you can really put an analysis on it.

Or, has it been perceived as a very inner city problems and is now spreading out?

The same in my town too. Druggies/drinkers, empty units, mostly phone shops, vape shops, and Turkish barbers. It is bloody horrible.

Globally? It's primarily 14 years of Tory austerity policies. People have been conned into voting for this. Billions have been taken out of central government funding for basic council services. Levelling up, my arse.

I am seeing here in Canada too, in most of our cities, and smaller towns

It might shock you to discover that a lot of these issues are a wee bit older than the referendum.

@CatamaranViper The 'this is our town' mentality never struck me as a particularly middle class sentiment. It depends on what levels of insularity we are talking about here - not a typical MC trait. We might be talking about two different things though !

Wtf has sending an m&s card got to do with anything?! 😂

my aunt loved her Southport M&S. she'll be sad if it's closed down. if youre looking for a slanging match you'll just have to go and play with your own tits

I left my home town in the early 2000s, as have most of my friends and family.

I don't recognise the place I grew up in during the 70s and 80s.

High street changed beyond recognition and the whole place run down, grubby and a high crime rate.

There is a FB history group of the town and it makes me so sad to see how it is now compared to how it was when I grew up.

As I said I work in this area and see a LOT of the kind of people you are talking about, and in most cases they are not ‘vulnerable’ - they’re aggressive, intimidating and care nothing for anyone but themselves. It’s quite soul destroying seeing the money ploughed into trying to help them, only for them to not engage with any support offered and simply carry on. They’re a black hole of ‘need’ and very very very very few ever go on to live a remotely productive life. The justice system, A&E, the benefits system, police - they exhaust public services and merely keeping them alive costs a fortune. And in return, as you say they make our towns and cities a destructive or oppressive place to be.

I work in this area too and just wanted to say thank you for expressing this so well - this is exactly my experience and I feel like there is so much resistance to just stating the situation outright.

The only places that look as smart and optimistic as they did 15 years ago are monied hot spots (often lived in by Tory Ministers) and central London.

When I go to Central London I see the swept streets and smartness and feel a real pang for how my home city used to look.

@Churchview when was the last time you went to Central London?! And I guess which bit. Maybe around Parliament is like that, or St James end of Haymarket.

There needs to be the decisive will and the legal ability to sanction people who break a reasonable social contract. We will not get out of this otherwise, I really can't see it.

It depends. There are no issues in the town we currently live in (touch wood). However, my home town (also DW's) seems to have gone to the dogs and is a complete shithole now.

I live in Southeast London. The shops are busy. I don’t see wild kids or adults. It feels safe.

Can I ask where the square built in the 70’s will be? Please.
I still enjoy a visit to Newcastle, enjoy Grainger market.
Durham city is a disgrace, but the cathedral is still beautiful.

It's not even the fittest though it's only those who happened to have been born into considerable wealth already that can be used to generate mkrw wealth. Often times they're actually quick thick and or a bit inbred.

Ideally capitalism would at least generate good ideas/ tech but that requires the brightest having some sort of a chance. No one who isn't born into wealth has a chance now. They want you to believe hard work brings wealth but does it fuck.just simply set yourself up to be exploited by inbred wanktards.

a depressingly accurate summary, Lagoony.

It's interesting to note how other towns / cities are going downhill as, after way too long of neglect, our local city is finally looking to be on the up. Our previously useless Labour council are actually going full pelt on redevelopment for leisure / housing / offices / green space, including a new footbridge to link developments north and south of the river. If it all comes off as planned it is going to be really good, and the new businesses so far are developing a buzz for night life.

Despite the empty units and pound shops and losing almost all of the department stores (and the last, M&S, is due to close next month), the city centre doesn't feel that bad, and it definitely doesn't feel unsafe. It's a long time since it was chocka at the shops, but it recovered fairly quickly from Covid as it doesn't currently rely on trade from workers, it's actually the local shopping area for central parts of the city.

Sunderland if anyone is interested in the actual location.

People are genuinely working mad hours for what is very shit pay and believing that they're so high and mighty because they're not roaming the streets with no teeth.
I mean really, this country is an absolute shadow of what it was only a couple of decades ago.

I live in a city, and the smell of skunk, drug dealing, sirens, random mentally ill people kicking off, homelessness etc have been an "issue" since I moved here more than 25 years ago. Definitely more visible homeless people now, and also loads of antisocial electric scooter and bike riders. I don't think it's remarkably worse,but maybe it wasn't great to start with!

I go to Southport often, the M&S is still open!

i live in a town in the NE, you probably would be surprised to know it was one of the most profitable in the country until recently because of the huge catchment of shoppers.
It’s still busy but there’s nothing left, not because people don’t want to come and spend money. But because companies in London buy all the buildings and would rather see them empty than reduce their massive rents.
The government could do something, but they won’t. There should be an empty shop policy of some sort to force down rents and get units filled.