Is our town a shithole..

[FroggletTowers]

Or is this happening anywhere else?

I have been discussing this with friends, family and colleagues recently so won't name our town for privacy reasons, but it is a regular, large town in England, UK.
Nothing particularly special or awful about it, previously.

Since the pandemic, the entire vibe has changed. Almost unrecognisable.
Yes, we have some heavy shop closures like many towns, but the council kept it looking decent as much as it could. Some nice buildings and nature areas, etc.

What stands out most, apart from the general vandalism and dog shit is the weird accumulation of male groups hanging around boozing in public.

So far they have taken over the local park, river walks and nature reserves. They often cluster beneath bridges or across paths where people like to run, cycle walk dogs or take children, making it less safe and filling these areas with waste. Off road bikes have ruined the nature reserves, so less people visit

Sadly the authorities don't seem to be doing much about it, it is as if these people don't have to abide by laws that the rest of us have to. Some buildings adjacent to these areas have windows put through on a regular basis, even in what you'd call 'nice' areas.
Many of them cluster at river bridges and block the path for others, most are very drunk or out of generally.
It isn't unusual to see a large man passed out across the pathway, blocking anyone getting past. If you had a pram or bike it would be really uncomfortable to have to rouse a large drunk at 2pm in the afternoon. Most are local men, with a growing amount of middle eastern men. The vast majority of them are unstable.

We see less women out cycling, walking or exercising now, and this encompasses both MC and WC areas. These people seem to have just multiplied and spread across the entire borough and have taken over all public space.
We live in a decent area that is now seeming to go downhill.
It isn't unusual to see day drinkers sat alone, surrounded by cans on a quiet residential street. And they won't move to let you past.

It's really depressing.

Ah, true, not aware of kids and social issues in general, but the male drinking thing is rife.

The middle eastern guys are only interesting because it is new, never witnessed them in the drunk and distressed crowds previously.
I don't know if it is unemployment or something else.

Where? I'm in London and the crime, filth and dodgy men are getting a bit much! Time to leave I feel but not sure where....

My town itself has had some decent investment of late, and is looking a lot nicer than it was.

The kids are getting a lot more feral, and dishing out horrendous racist abuse to local shopkeepers. Seems to be a mix of parents supporting reform and parents who just cba to parent anymore. I'm not sure why shit parenting is on the rise tbh.

Similar in my town OP - and actually the ethnic demographic has changed massively too.

It's not just since covid - it's since Brexit. The obvious diversity of the town has increased because the EU staff have been replaced with staff from non-EU countries. That diversity is very evident now and marks a massive change. I can see why it's an easy target for e.g. Reform because it's been very fast and is very striking.

Ah, someone noticed I mentioned Middle Eastern men.
How predictable.

You still haven't explained this - no one mentioned it.

I think people who live in Southampton might disagree with you.

I’m in the outskirts of Doncaster, and it’s the same here OP.

So many off road bikes causing a nuisance on parks, roads, canal paths. There’s been a few deaths of teenagers in accidents.

Shops and pubs shutting. Boarded up, derelict, buildings vandalised and set on fire by youths. Lots of decent shops replaced by Turkish barbers and Vietnamese nail salons.

Young children as young as 8-9 roam the streets after school in groups, littering, swearing, damaging cars and people’s front doors.

I live in an outer London borough. There are lots of homeless people and day drinkers/drug users around the main town centre. Littering has got worse and there are several boarded up shops. But it's far less depressing than several other town centres I know of , and the other "high streets" in the borough are much nicer. It's a good place to live overall.

A lot of the problems I think are to do with the proliferation of HMOs. Usually filled with single men, often in low paid work or unemployed, quite often with a history of poor family relationships due to alcohol or anger management issues so not really rooted in society. They are not welcome in places like pubs or cafes,and can’t afford them any way, there are often no communal spaces in their HMO because every viable room has been turned into a bedroom, so they take their supermarket booze out into parks ( or in our local area into bus stops) because those are the only places they can socialise. There are often follow on effects from this as well , like encouraging prostitution, increase in street urination and defecation.

We have always had a decent mix of cultural diversity here, it is only now that we see a lot of hopeless or intimidating (mostly white british) men hanging around.

It isn't uncommon to see police having to deal with them at the train station, usually pretty frightening scenes with fighting, smashed glass, etc.
Never used to be like this at all.

I wonder what they all did previously - drank indoors??
I am mystified by this.

Sounds like Peterborough..

I think it’s because the OP said it was white British men and Middle Eastern men mainly doing it in their town.

Another poster then called the OP a Daily Mail reader, and/or reform voter.

What else is there to say?? Its not fascinating. You live in a shit hole. Likely as a result of complex factors primarily rooted in (won't say the P word)... Certain failures of the system to support the people to achieve a reasonable standard of living?

Well shops used to be owned by shop owners who also worked in them -cleaned the shop front and pavement. Now it’s charities or some huge chain that owns them and staff are volunteers or minimum wage -they are unlikely to clean up dog shit.
Also huge numbers of rented homes where again no one maintains the front or pavement.
Lastly we have hundreds of immigrants in hotels -they are sitting in the town square but not drinking or loud.

I live in Dudley.

You want to experience a shithole, come here. Just off to do the school run. Watching the parents on the playground is like Jeremy Kyle live.

Since the vast majority of these are white british men, I am not sure about HMO's. There are a good amount of those in the town centre, but to my knowledge the tenants are immigrants who are busy working and trying to survive. I don't associate HMO's with this particular issue.

There definitely are a lot of single person council flats in that area too, most with severe vandalism issues (furniture thrown from windows, smashed doors, etc). I presume many of these drinkers come from these.

Congratulations, you win the 'how many times can I print the word shit hole for 2025 award!'

I am guessing you have been scarred by living in one? I hope you can move, I appreciate many people are permanently stuck.

But I think it’s also our welfare system where ,as I’m in Scotland, the cooncil are expected to deal with everything - litter, parking, etc
It’s no one’s responsibility to tidy the town.

In villages round about they do regular litter picks of mainly McDs stuff and beer cans.

I get videos about this topic on social media. It might be the editing but some places look like they’d match your description.

I live in the rural countryside, no day drinkers to step over round here 😁

Managed decline. Successive governments seem to have set out to actively destroy the country through one means or another. I don't know why.

We don't go into our city centre due to antisocial behaviour and drunkenness. There's apparent drug abuse too. It used to be a tourist place and has a UNESCO site in it, but most of the nice shops have closed and have been replaced by money laundering places.

It's happening throughout the UK and appears to be deliberate.

What is it with all the hair salons and nail bars? It does baffle me. We have about ten nail bars in the high street.

Here we go 🙄. Stating facts is allowed without this kind of stupid statement, usually made because the person making it thinks it shouldn’t be spoken about but left to fester.

I don't know about the drinking aspect however I was in our town at 3/4pm a couple of weeks ago and noticed it was eerily quiet beside groups of homeless men congregating. At the same time some of the older school kids were out including girls in PE kit and it made me really uncomfortable that these men were really the only people around with the kids.

Pretty much every town and city used to have its handful of truly shit pubs: cheap drinks, run down interiors, the types which were frequented from early in the morning by their usual crowd. Not the ones you’d ever go into for a quiet glass of Pinot whilst you read you read your book. Vastly increased costs mean that these pubs have largely been among the first to disappear - and their clientele aren’t in a position to find a new local, because fancy places won’t allow them in and even if they did, they can’t afford £7+ a pint.