My town has really changed

[CatbellsOnTheSeashore]

In a confusing and not very pleasant way.

It was gradually changing for the worse before covid, but the pandemic seemed to accelerate it, and I am wondering if anyone else has noticed anything like this.

It became more insular whilst more populated, the population increased quite a bit over the past 5 yrs. More and more dereliction, low council maintenance and an influx of troubled people housed around the town centre, which is now a no-go zone. Areas surrounding have steadily grown worse also, as it seems to be spilling out.

What does feel really different is that there are now lots of groups of men, hanging around drinking or sat on pavements together (not begging). Drugs took over the local nature paths and canal walks so now there are large groups of people out of their heads lying on old sofas at the locks, it's really grim. Women who used to cycle and run in these areas have more or less moved elsewhere or stopped.

More and more standard sized houses in low to middle income areas are becoming HMO's, yet with poor refuse organisation and not enough parking. I'm not exaggerating when I say there are literally trails of dog shit in the streets in many areas, too, which pretty much hangs in the air and the place stinks. That, and skunk.

We live in a decent part of town but it is coming closer, and I only have that perk due to inheriting my parents bungalow. More and more people are moving out.

On a walk to Sainsbury's yesterday two guys were holding onto a sign pole hovering over a bin. As I passed by one of them vomited into the bin and then spat/gobbed an inch from my feet - he didn't notice me particularly, but it was quite sudden or I'd have given them a wide berth.
This isn't unusual now.

I know people usually blame the cost of living and covid, etc, but this was definitely on the rise before. There is far more noise pollution as more buildings go up, usually industrial, and the roads are a nightmare. Infrastructure for actual people is decreasing.
That said, I don't think most of these people were thriving before, so it isn't a sudden change. It is as if a new kind of culture is growing, that doesn't care a damn about anything. Everything is vandalised or shat on. More and more windows are broken in properties close to the town centre, and I doubt most of these people were thriving before the pandemic hit.

Is this bad luck or is anything like it happening elsewhere?
We are definitely looking to move away.

@Washingupdone yep I agree with that -

I have noticed a rise in street drinking and open drug dealing in my area. It brings theft and burglaries with it. I never used to worry about getting home safely at night but that has changed. I blame austerity. Councils have been strapped for cash for a long time and programs to support the homeless and street drinkers just don’t seem to exist any longer.

The begging is awful too, a handful of persistent offenders now even going inside the station and the staff seem to have given up moving them out. Although I know they are harmless, I find it intimidating to move past them at times. One is quite aggressive in his manner, as are the drug users who openly deal in the high street. The police don’t respond to reports so the problem never gets dealt with. Services like street sweeping are sporadic and add to the general air of grimness. Interestingly, the posher parts of where I live don’t seem to be as neglected as other areas. Even their Christmas lights are bigger and better. When an area starts to look a bit run down people take less care with dog fouling, dumped rubbish and general littering.

I don’t think the extra money allocated to councils in the budget is going to even touch the sides of the problem.

Yes I agree with you, but that's a very simplistic view. Poverty is associated with so many wider factors, stemming from intergenerational poverty, poor education, causes stress and mental health issues. If you don't have the support then you aren't going to have the motivation or resilience to make the right choices.

Example:
We all know that we should exercise, eat lots of veg & fruit, get 8 hours sleep. Yet few people do. If we are all know about healthy eating and exercise and generally looking after ourselves, why are obesity levels on the rise? Why are there so many chronic diseases linked to poor lifestyle choices?

Quite simply, we're human and we don't do what we are meant to do. Some people can prioritise some areas of their life better than others, no one is perfect and unfortunately those that need the most help have little to none.

There was borstal as well. Kids just do what they want now. They grow up without discipline or boundaries at home (in a lot of cases) and in school. Grow up without a father (in a lot of cases).

It's a societal decline.

I think that it's really sad that we can no longer discuss subjects like immigration without so much unpleasantness. Surely as a country, being able to discuss it and hear everyone's concerns is the only way we can move through it?
This goes for both 'sides'.

I have asked a few times in this thread for people's real reasons for thinking immigration is a sole contributor to the UK's deprivation, house prices and social issues. No one has actually answered me calmly, which is a shame.
I wanted to know why they thought immigration had caused white men to become disenfranchised, drug users taking up ore public space, people collecting aggressive dogs and leaving shit in the streets.

I would like to know if immigration is causing people to soup up their cars to unacceptable noise levels.

We can't have a conversation if no one is willing to kindly explain. No one will support an opposing idea if it is presented with anger and stroppiness.

Personally, I am not inclined to believe immigration is causing these complex and multiple issues. I believe it is endemic in our culture in many places across the West. It has likely been propagated via the internet, over time. And her we just are.

I don't want someone to blame, but I would love to have hope of some recovery. I'm not feeling too optimistic at present.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed. It is good to hear many viewpoints, when presented respectfully. I have learned a few things from this thread.

Who let Katie Hopkins in?

Absolutely spot on, people need to stop being so judgmental of those who are different’ and start realising that for peace to prevail we need tolerance on all sides. Tolerance is what we are lacking, entitlement is all we are seeing.

'Human rights' are for people illegally entering the country and for people who shouldn't be here manipulating the system to stay here. They're for criminals and anti social teats to justify doing what they want.

They certainly aren't for law abiding citizens who want the right to a peaceful life.

And to add to my last comment - I don't know enough about immigration to make a judgement. It may or may not be a problem. However, I do not think that it is causing the issues that I have seen growing in Wigan and areas like it over the past 20 yrs.
All that i do know is that no politician or tabloid is telling us the truth about this subject, and those who are the most vocal are the least convincing.

Actual, undistorted information is thin on the ground these days. One thing is certain, something has turned us all against one another, and that's the most scary thing of all.

So, there you are bringing it down again, for a blink of an eye it’s not doing as well as a few others, overall the Britain is fucking great when you look at what it has done for the world. Maybe if we weren’t down on it all the time it would be doing even better. Everyone living here should be fucking proud to live here.

Yes if we just cheer up it will all go away.

God that’s awful.

Someone I know decided to rent their hour out instead of selling before buying another property. Greed I guess. They moved a tenant in. Who illegally sublet it… took them months to evict them and they trashed the place.

Who said that immigration was the sole cause of all our problems. Non one that I have noticed on this thread. But they are contributing eg by increasing demand on housing so the prices stay so high, by being mainly men from patriarchal societies which are very corrupt - hardly the ideal immigrant to improve our country.

The banking crisis in 2008, we had to bail out the bankers, the loss of our manufacturing industries to the east ( because we all want cheap goods), foreign gangs, and foreign countries (Russia etc) subsidising these gangs so that drug dealing and taking is rife, Brexit, Covid costing mlliions.

These are the causes. Not just immigration.

Sooooo..... we should be proud to live in a country where its nuclear test veterans suffering from conditions linked to radiation are gas-lighted and belittled when they try to get access to vital health records?

Where it was more important not to upset the tech bros or unbalance the books when a post office computer system error saw people bankrupt, imprisoned and committing suicide?

Where infected blood was administered to vulnerable people due to lack of due diligence, killing a good number of them?

Where dodgy contracts and other mismanagement during Covid saw the biggest wealth transfer into the hands of the already rich in recent history? Not to mention some of the inhumane behaviour forced upon us for reasons that had very little to do with "science" ?

I can think of plenty more reasons why I feel more like an enemy of the state than a patriot.....

Oh. I can explain - I hadn’t seen your questions. Since 2010 the migration numbers have apparently equalled the population of Wales. All those people need to live somewhere. When demand outstrips supply it pushes up house prices.

Why are working class white men becoming disenfranchised? Because no one is fighting their corner. We see so many people saying we must look after ethnic minorities, there is real or perceived two tier system where some groups are given more advantages than others. Many will know people in the armed forces who have been treated applauding after hi in so much to their country, yet being passed over for housing yet immigrant familes are housed. They see immigrants housed in hotels, fed and warm. They struggle to be able to do this for their kids. Yet they are constantly told they are “privledgrd” and before you state the spiel about what privilege means that’s just an indication of how certain groups of people don’t understand the position of these men.

Why are these men going round with noisey exhausts? - well no one is listening to what they say, maybe they just want to be heard? Maybe multiculturalism has caused society yo be so fragmented society’s norms and values are no longer clear (or indeed do not appear to exist)

Yes there are many issues, materialism, lack of decent education dumbing down.

But immigration without integration is causing the fragmentation of British society. We need to stop embracing all cultures and start embracing all people who embrace our culture when they move here.

Parts of our city have really come on over the past five to ten years. Mostly the city centre though. With the decline of the high street there are less shops, but they seem to be steering things in the direction of entertainment and leisure pretty well.

We live pretty close to the centre, just over a mile, but there has been a lot of change round here over that same time period. There's a busy shopping street at the end of our road. Gradually it's become not too nice an area. The quality of the shops has dropped and started to attract people shoplifting and stealing. Being a busy area it's started to bring in people begging too. The council don't seem to spend as much on keeping the area clean so it all feels a bit grubby.

There are quite a few new build housing estates popping up on the outskirts of the city and we're looking to move there. I think a lot of people are. Just travel into the city centre when we need to.

I think the erosion of the social contract is clear.

the burden of social care on local authority budgets. local councils that were not the same as the ruling party were often left out of funding initiative for the last 14 years.

small local and retail jobs have disappeared with nothing similar to replace the so many people are festering in unemployment with limited real permanent job opportunities.

loss of third spaces for young people so they're just collectively aimless in the only places that don't cost money - the street.

A countrywide pervasive hopelessness that derides anyone who dares to dream or hope to strive for better quality of life. who doesn't think we have to fight for the lowest common denominator.

All those types of things happen in many other countries too, they’re not peculiar to Britain. Yet Britain has done some smazing things. Running the country down is a major part of the problem. Of course we should discuss issues, but they are not unique to Britain. They happen all over the world.

Oh - and everything we have done for the world?

Decimated indigenous populations and their cultures in the guise of "civilisation" Asset stripped the colonies? Involved ourselves in conflicts based on lies and for pure disaster capitalism? Detonated large numbers of nuclear, hydrogen and atomic bombs in tests that have rendered some areas permanently uninhabitable, displacing the indigenous people's and wreaking havoc on the environment because "peace" allegedly depended on it?

Nope, still not particularly proud.

Morris dancing is OK though.

It also depends where you live with regards to immigration. People who are all for it (I.e. the political class) tend to live in nice houses in good areas.

If you live in a poor area then you tend to get the worst of immigration because you'll get poverty and within that you'll get crime and aNti social behaviour. But depending where you live that could be more of a white male problem. Let's be honest, immigrants or whites, it's men that cause these problems.

And those countries are fed up as well.

Hard right parties doing well everywhere mainly over immigration

Again, none of that is peculiar to Britain and any successful empire builder has done the equivalent- this is the way the world develops and humanity grows. There have always been winners and losers in the Empire game.Winning that game on one spin of the wheel says nothing negative about a country. Do you have issues with the Greeks, the Italians, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Mongolia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico , Peru etc etc. better to be an empire builder than part of some else’s.

So I live on the edge of an estate, I would definitely say a poorer estate, lots of council houses, flats, HMO's, Multicultural & had lots of problems for lots of years!

We have created a Street Association, we've built relationships with the PCSO's & local councillors report drug issues problems & antisocial behaviour on 101! Hold monthly meetings for residents

We use FIX MY STREET for over grown paths& bushes, fly tipping, vandalised bus stops, broken street lights.
Applied for funding for some benches for the park, a defibrillator on the wall of the Community centre, worked with a local charity & have a 'Little Library where people donate & borrow books! Regular litter picks & built relationships with the school & got them involved in the litter picks etc!

Gradually & I mean gradually, we're 18 months in we are starting to pull things around, the benches haven't been vandalised & neither has the little library! All our street lights work, people are getting to know one another! It's safe to walk round the estate in the evenings.
Instead of drunks & drug users in the park in the summer evenings we had families out playing cricket

I don't want come across as being idealistic & all 'Pollyanna', I know our society has huge problems, & town centres are different but we're only 1 Km from our run down town centre.

I think I'm going to get flamed for posting this but honestly if you can try & find like minded people you can make changes, most people do care & don't want to live in a no go zone!

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Although I do take a different view of this part:

Why are these men going round with noisey exhausts? - well no one is listening to what they say, maybe they just want to be heard?

Surely you can see the irony here?
I have to disagree here, I'm afraid. This is noise pollution and ought to be illegal. It also stinks. I can't defend this one, nor give them my sympathy. Anyone who isn't disturbed by excessive, violent noise is possibly happy to make it themselves.

I am tired of how toxic masculinity is becoming excused. It isn't helping them, and it isn't helping anyone. Making excuses for shit attitudes in disaffected men isn't going to fix it.
It's like saying we must put up with it and sit back in submission because, well, they're angry.
So am I, but I don't aggressively shit all over my neighbourhood.

I have issues with torture, oppression, genocide etc, and the fact that no-one appears to be able to learn the lessons of history. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. I'm not a fan of children being collateral damage because of greed and power.