To think our towns and cities are just so run down lately, and our standard of living has decreased significantly?

[blahhhhg]

I don't know if I'm just feeling a bit down and bitter lately but I just feel like lately our country seems to have gotten very run down. I went out into town today and couldn't help but notice how grotty and rundown everything looks. Litter everywhere, security guards everywhere - in nearly every clothing shop there is security on the door now, security wandering up and down the high street. It makes you feel really unsafe but they must be there for a reason now? Shops are dirty; filthy floors and used Starbucks cups just left off the shelf for some poor worker to clean up. Clothes for sale that are covered in makeup stains. I just found it really depressing. It's just not one town either, I've noticed it nearly everywhere I've been. I'm in my late 20s so it's not like I've had decades of life experience to draw from and I have a rose-tinted view of yesteryear, but it seems that in the last 5ish years things have really declined.

The ones in my town are run by Turkish people. But that's not the point. It's the number of them - three barbers in a small town. We don't need that many barbers! Three restaurants all selling the same cuisine within less than a mile of each other. There simply cannot be enough customers in our town to keep all these businesses afloat. We're barely bigger than a village. The maths don't make sense.

Now you've mentioned it and I'm thinking about it, we also have an over representation of nail bars and 'beauty spas'. Run by a variety of nationalities, but I suspect at least some of those run on modern day slavery.

In my city this isn't always the case. My son and DH go to an excellent Turkish barber and have got to know a lot about them.

@SpottedDonkey Went to Glasgow in February and their city centre M and S had closed. Also Sunderland was earmarked for closure so probably has closed by now.
In cities abroad, you have to pay city tax. You might get something for that (Basel gave you free transport on the trams round the city and half price to some museums) and you might not (Rome gave nothing and the area round The Coliseum was a disgrace, so much litter there).
So maybe we need to start charging tourists a city tax and using that money specifically for that city where tax was paid, to tidy up and make it nice again.

The Turkish barbers here are ran by mostly Pakistani nationals. Just all seem to use the name. All have the exact shame chairs with the metal in fake gold. A music Chanel showing on tv lots of golden clippers and such. Mini fridges with pop and the actual chairs empty 90% of the time I go by. Often a sign implying you’ll get a discount by booking rather than being a walk in yet his still sat there with no customer. Maybe a few of them just sat there chatting on their phones no hair being done. In most not all. There is one that’s always rammed then again maybe that’s the dodgy one 🤔

I'm in the South-East for context. I agree with all the barber shops and vape shops... Also the American candy shops and tech shops that sell things like phone cases that you never see anyone buy. It's very depressing. I also agree with some of you who have said there is a weird, aggressive energy about, I think it begun during the pandemic. Like if you looked at someone the wrong way a fight would break out. Drivers are more aggressive, even dog owners seem to be more aggressive and shouty.

I understand that councils have to spend most of their budget on social care - and this issue is going to only get worse. It feels like we're heading towards some kind of societal collapse...

I agree. I won't go into the city centre ( Leicester ). tThee last time I met friends for lunch there it was £7 to park for two hours. The only store I did go for was M&S and that has shut now as you say. I no longer feel safe. We went out for a meal in the Highcross area a few weeks ago and there were gangs hanging round and a teenage girl beaten up. We saw this gang it must have been just before the attack took place and felt lucky we had just got back to the carpark. I've lived in Leicester for 45 out of my 57 years but hope to leave when I can.

I am in a "naice" area. The only reason that it stays nice is because every weekend there is a team of "in bloom" volunteers who are out maintaining and litter picking.

Basically the Government and most service providers eg banks, the Post Office etc have withdrawn from many of our towns and cities.

Wages as a percentage of GDP are dropping and the distribution of earnings is increasingly unequal. At the same time housing costs are rising.

Services are being cut and maintenance of the 'public estate' - roads, public buildings etc has been cut so they are now deteriorating.

We need to spend more, tackle housing costs and improve pay.

I live in a small market town that has quite a nice high street, although markedly less nice than 15 years ago. What I do notice that makes everything look run down though is the state of the roads. The surfaces are terrible, the markings dangerously unclear, the verges unkempt. Not to mention the litter and fly tipping. I drive a couple of times a year in Northern Europe and the difference is marked.

Totally agree @blahhhhgand others. It’s especially stark when you go to other, better run, better cared for countries. Local amenities, public spaces and town centres are just better than the UK’s. And I’m not just talking about tourist destinations.

I’m in Scotland and it’s the same here. Rubbish in the streets, shoplifters, antisocial behaviour and drugs everywhere. Really depressing. Visited Germany a few months ago and it was a different ball game - clean, steeped in history with architecture that was actually looked after and everything was just much, much nicer. We’ve let this country go to the dogs.

I moved to the U.K. in 2008 and felt like those were some glorious twilight years. I’ve lived in the same area of London since 2014 and even in spite of investment into the high street, the litter and antisocial behaviour has got a lot worse. Or should I say, it used to be anti-social behaviour and now it’s frequently violent crime happening at 4pm on a weekday. I still love it here though.

It is quite eye opening when we go back to my home country, where there doesn’t seem to be as many of these kind of issues.

Yep, it's a slap in the face when council tax, tax, and everything else is going up in price and in return we get worse conditions. Water companies are pumping literal shit into the waterways on the go ahead from the gov ffs let alone everything else. I don't see how it'll be getting any better either.

Money laundering. There's always a new Mercedes with blacked out windows lurking nearby and shifty looking men going in and out of the shop. Ours has even taken their shop front sign down to cut down on genuine customers. I went into a phone shop once to ask about a screen replacement and he couldn't have been clearer that he couldn't be bothered to do it. This was before I knew about the money laundering thing.

Oh, and our streetlights have been dipped by 40% to save money. I hate walking home in winter, I'm scared for the first time and use a blinding head torch now.

Our past few governments have decided that giving people a free life because they're from backwards countries/ never intend to work/ in a large number of cases, both of these, is top priority. This is despite the voting population showing clear displeasure with this for decades now. All so that the money is funnelled straight into property investments keeping them unnaturally inflated. It really is a joke to be honest.

Rubbish has picked up here since Christmas. It’s depressing to see.

I live abroad and swear that in the UK it's down to online shopping - something not so prolific on the continent. We have local shops with actual queues outside - butchers, cake shops etc. Our high street is buzzing. The local market is crowded. People like to go and choose clothes/meat/sofas etc and don't so much subscribe to having it all delivered. If you want shops in the High Street you have to use them - unfortunately I fear it's too late in many places.

Ipswich has never had a very positive reputation but it was miles, miles better in the 80s and 90s than it is now. It’s as if there’s been a deliberate policy of destroying anything good in the town and running the place into the ground.

I agree. When I was in my teens/20's I was spoilt for choice of shops on the high street of my very ordinary town. I could hop on a train to Birmingham or Leicester and again, thriving city streets but it's no longer the case.

Online shopping hasn't helped the high street, neither have huge retail parks, but if you don't use the stores that remain they will close.

and if you are ever in Tring, pop into Grace's Hardware you won't be sorry

I’m in Cambridgeshire and regularly visit Norwich and Cambridge, as well as nearby market towns. I have absolutely noticed an increase in street drinkers and mentally ill people. During and immediately after COVID the rubbish by the roadsides was awful, though it seems to have improved now. In general though I’d say they are still really nice, safe places with plenty going on.

Is it also a better work life balance so you have the time to pop to all the different shops rather than trying to squeeze everything in.

People forget that we work long hours here, often with long commutes & our pay is shit so people have less time to get to the shops hence the reliance on delivery.

It's been a downward trend from 30-40 years ago. Mid 90s was the start. Our seaside town started going downhill back then, M&S closed down, closely followed by lots of other "High Street" shops, and the terminal decline started. It was all charity and bookies about 20 years ago, and has just got even worse, now, with all the money laundering shops, selling vapes, ethnic foods, nail bars, Turkish barbers, American candy shops, etc. Lots of other towns up here in the North West have been going the same way over the past few years, such as Barrow, Bradford, Bolton, etc. It's not just derelict/run down town centres, there's so much dereliction everywhere - boarded up houses, litter, and so much deterioration in behaviour with low level crime, anti social behavior, illegal parking, etc.

I think people are finally starting to notice now that it's spreading to "naice" places in previously unaffected areas. But nothing will happen to turn the tide until it starts to hit London badly - then suddenly the politicians will wake up because they can't have it happening on their door-step!

It's so sad that the country is becoming so run down - some places are starting to look like third world slums.

Well many areas of London were grim when I was young eg Hackney which then gentrified beyond belief.