To feel our quality of life in the UK gets lower every year?

[Playingvideogames]

Off the back of another thread where I mentioned my childhood homes being bought by my parents for under 300k in the late 90s/early 2000s, and are now all selling for 700k+.

I feel like our quality of life just dwindles every year. Everything becomes more expensive. Housing is low quality, small and extortionate. The weather is awful 70% of the time. Everything feels so overcrowded with fewer green spaces and natural beauty as more housing estates go up. The roads are awful, choked with traffic and potholed. Constant roadworks here yet nothing ever seems to get solved. Customer service is a bit rubbish, nothing really works as intended. More and more rules about what you can and can’t do. People just seem stifled and stressed.

I’m sure people will rush along to say how wonderful the NHS is and similar, but I sometimes feel really envious of people living in places where (although not perfect) they have something reliable to enjoy - great weather, a nice big house, just more space and less overcrowding.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable but I wonder if you do!

It definitely has.

But honestly so much of this is self inflicted, particularly in the last decade. It was patently clear what the economic impact of Brexit would be and widely covered across all mainstream media (even if presented as “project fear” in some places), but people voted for it. The rest of Europe is doing much better than us right now. What do you even say to that?

disagree with you on house building though - only 11 per cent of the uk is developed and we have a huge accommodation crisis.

11% is massive, we are the most densely populated country in Europe bar the Netherlands and that’s only because the Highlands sway the numbers. 11% doesn’t sound like a lot but when it comes to urbanisation it really really is

This isn't just the UK. We've hit peak 'quality of life' generally as a species.

There are now simply too many humans consuming too many resources and it's not going to get better absent any major technological advancements.

It's rather beyond the power of any one govt or country to change.

Surely you need to be comparing to other countries where the quality of life is improving as the years go by in order to specifically state it’s decreasing in the UK.

I think throughout most of the world the quality in some ways is negatively on a decline, although medically things are typically improving (not that people’s access to medicine necessarily is).

I think we've become far too reliant on the convenience of cars and society is built around car ownership. People complain about the traffic and forget they're part of the problem. We need more investment into reliable public transport to give an affordable alternative to driving.

My bright mum had to leave school at 14. she had two options as a working class rural woman - the dairy or secretarial college. Her dad would not allow her to learn to drive to like her brother.
She never had access to cheap travel or and stayed in the area she grew up in as her mum had leg ulcers and she was expected to provide daily care for her.
She worked till she got married and had kids she didn’t really want. Her life was a sad and later a bitter one.
Yes she and my dad bought a cheap house in the early 1970s and have made a few quid as a result. Yes she was a SAHM and they managed to run a car and
have a uk holiday once a year.
Would I swap my life, or that if my happily childfree daughter who is struggling to get on the property ladder - dear god no- not for five houses!

would my old mum have loved to swap her life trajectory with me or my daughter should she have her time again - hell yes !

I get this. I try to stay positive and find low cost and simple ways to have fun for myself and family but I feel like there are fewer options. Things like eating out are getting poorer value for money and lots of places feel uncomfortably crowded or difficult to travel to.

I'm making the best of what I have and trying not to think too much about it.

Are you an anthropologist?

This is a great and abundant time to be alive in so many ways, try to enjoy it. Focus more on the good stuff.

No there isn't too many humans using the available resources, there's too much greed and resource hoarding by those at the top and still by so-called first world/ western countries.

Populations are getting smaller and there's enough to go around, there always has been.

But putting that aside, the most economic damage in the UK has been due to austerity and brexit.
Countries that spent on infrastructure and development came out of the 2008 global financial crisis quicker and better.

The UK chose austerity, then they chose brexit when globalisation was doing what it was always meant to do. Ie raising living standards and development and business/ economics globally so so-called first world countries no longer take the largest undeserved cut.

Now they talk about productivity and never discuss what damage brexit and austerity have done.

Plus the damage done by the pandemic. Im actually surprised people even ask why we are poorer and have worse living standards now.

Some really crucial things are getting worse. But a lot is far better.

People's expectations went through the roof in 1990-2010s.

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. No central heating. No car. No phone. No social media or computers, obviously. Very rarely new clothes. My shoes got glued or had new tips put on them if I outgrew them. For your birthday, a main present would be one LP of music or a sweater or coat that you needed anyway. Without a car, we never got lifts anywhere, so we walked everywhere, in rain, hail, snow, miles to school, to friends' homes, or very late at night back from parties or clubs in our teens.

To buy basics like clothes and shampoo, I had a job after school and on Saturdays from age twelve.

NHS had far less calls on it then, because people had less access to information and much lower expectations. No one sued the hospital if someone died post surgery. It was just life.

Far fewer people owned a home or expected to. Or went to uni or expected to.
The food was bland. Racism was rife. Life expectancy was far lower. Neurodivergence was just laughed at. Dyslexics were thickos, autistic people were weirdos, ADHD sufferers were lazy or naughty. Sexism and sexual predatory behaviour was totally normal and it was never the men who were blamed but the young girls who were ridiculed as sluts. Domestic violence was not tackled by police. Rape in marriage was legal. Homosexuality was an aberration. Having children outside of marriage was such a social disgrace, that perfectly capable women were forced to give up their babies for adoption.

We came a long way. And now we are back sliding. For me, the mix of outrageous house prices and very low wages/zero hours/job insecurity these days is a moral and societal disgrace that no leaders seem to have any commitment to overturning. But a lot else is far better.

The weather has always been what it is.

not going to disagree about the rest. The last decade or so has seen a decline.

Totally agree

You’re consuming depressing news. Look locally- my area is getting a new playground, people volunteer to help each other on local Facebook pages, there are always people helping with injured or lost pets.

on a larger scale, look at the massive moves forward in medicine, so many more people are surviving illness nowadays.

special education needs are identified much earlier.

Look for more positives - they are there, you just have to find them

I payed 48k for my first house. I was just musing today that that's around the same amount of student debt our kids will have.

You know, there is one good saying “Everywhere is good where we are not”. You should try to move and live in another country, to fill how better is your place. I have been living for two years in not my own country and I really want to go back. Every country has its own problems, everywhere you will face them, so just look around and find something that can make you happy) i think, only in your own country you can fill real support just been there

You don’t need to be to comment on this thread. It’s a casual chat.

It’s true but I don’t think this is just limited to the U.K. It’s a global problem.

But I don’t have special educational needs. With the greatest respect, these sorts of ‘positives’ aren’t the kinds of positives I’m referring to. I mean general yardsticks of quality of life that apply to most people.

Sorry not the weather etc but cost of living. The weather is better in other countries. However at least we don’t have hurricanes.

I’ve had weather warnings, flooding and high winds for 2 weeks solid.

Yes well it’s winter. There aren’t many countries where the weather is perfect all year round.

Ours is never perfect, or very rarely!

This!
To be honest I’m absolutely furious with people that voted Brexit. Then some of the same people are planning on voting for Reform because they think the country’s problems are because of their refugee neighbours not the fact they voted for all our economic ruin. I find it totally infuriating.