What was the demographic of your childhood street?

[NewLion]

Families with young children

Council estate in tiny village with a pretty even mix of families with small children, middle aged people with adult kids and and elderly in bungalows. Us kids were sent on errands for the elderly or poorly neighbours.

Only one family lived in benefits alone, the mums all worked and helped with looking after each others kids. Most of the dads worked in the local factory.

Im mid 40s now and it’s pretty much the same. The same families living in the same houses.

One side of the cul de sac was bungalows and the other side was 3 bed semis. Mostly elderly ladies in the bungalows and families with kids on the other side. Lovely street to grow up on. Always someone to play with and few cars .

3 detached houses. One side had 2 girls my age, the other was a couple in their 50s. Working class earning decent money.

Terraced houses, mostly divided into maisonettes. A real mix of families, young couples, professional singletons and retired people. We lived next to a mosque and there was a gurdwara 100m down the road - we went to a lot of random parties. I loved it, always felt safe and part of a community. We moved far away before I hit my teens but I've driven down that road a handful of times since, just to have a look. Everything seems a lot smaller now!

Quite a mix! We had one of a terrace of 6. Rented. There were 4 council houses at one end and a pub at the other. There were 4 bungalows, Victorian semis and 4 better detached Edwardian houses. In one of those was a couple with 10 children. In other houses and the bungalows were people aged 60 plus and some were family homes - semis and terraced. All white British but we were a rural small market town. Most people were friendly - we knew most of them.

Nearly all were families with children where the dad had a professional job and the mothers rarely worked. There was absolutely no ethic diversity. I can’t recall any non white person living anywhere near us.

Now the same road is a mix of elderly widows in huge houses or families with young children where both parents have high level professional jobs.

1960s new build street. 3 bed semis. Lower middle class suburbia. My parents were the first owners of our house. Lots of young families with kids. A real "playing out" street.

We then moved, when I was 8, to a similar street, but with 4-bed detached houses. Older kids. Quiet. No playing out. Rubbish.

Big mix. Families with children of all ages from new born to adult. Retired people, some single people (mostly men). It was mainly working class (factory at the end of the street where a lot of people worked, shop workers, receptionists, etc.) and lower middle class (teachers, managers, the owner of the corner shop/post office, etc.). But there were a couple of fancy houses with a doctors in them. Absolutely everyone was white.

Grew up in the 90s in Bolton. The street was a mix of terraces, bungalows and semis. All the kids played out/ were in and out of each other's houses. It was a mixture of retired people and families mainly. All the mums I knew worked, I don't recall any stay at home mums. They also worked in various types of jobs, my neighbour was a social worker and my mum was a shop manager. It was a white working class area.

I don't think it's vastly different today, probably fewer kids playing out and more cars.

My street was a road in the country, and I grew up on a farm. Surrounded by other farms with families. I think all of them had children, within a few miles anyway. Most of the houses were large rambling traditional stone houses overlooking the hills.
A few scattered bungalows where the retired farmers lived.

New build estate, SE, early 80s - mid 90s.

Mainly detached houses, some bungalows, and about 4 semis. All in two large cul de sacs.

Mostly families with children. Retired couples in the bungalows. A few middle-aged empty nesters, or with a young adult still at home. One single Mum.

It was very white, lower middle class. Skilled rather than professional. A lot of the men worked for the big local employer. The women with children didn't work until the youngest reached secondary school age, and even then it was usually part-time retail or admin.

It was quiet and safe. People were friendly, we kids used to play out in the street and the nearby common and woods.

Our parents used to socialise with some of the neighbours but I wouldn't say there was a great community spirit. People mostly minded their own business.

Mostly terraced houses in the middle of a northern town. Almost exclusively families but a handful of elderly couples and younger single people too. Almost all people living there had grown up in the area. People had generally lived on the street for years and I can only remember one rental where a few families came and went. There were a couple of B&Bs around and a masonic hall at the bottom of the road, as well as a nightclub which was on the corner of an adjacent street which led on to one of the town's main streets. Loads of kids my age to play out with. Everyone knew everyone and my parents never worried about us playing out as there were plenty of eyes on us when we were out and about.

The sad thing is that none of the people who lived around where I grew up would be able to live there now. The houses are worth well over a million and probably pushing up towards 2 million. It’s extraordinary to think about.

They were detached houses and when I was growing up, we had an accountant on one side and university professor nearby. This wasn’t a big city accountant; he was just an accountant in a small, local firm. No university professor could ever afford to buy the house now. My parents wouldn’t be able to afford the house now. It makes me so sad.

The people across the road just had ordinary jobs. One was a teacher, one was a translator, another was an actor. Actually, they were quite a few actors around.

Absolutely nobody, nobody of the people I knew could even dream of living in that area now.

It was a shock to me when I realised that I wouldn’t be able to afford to buy there. Prices of houses have just gone bananas.

80s/90s. Detached early 20th century houses in a rural town. Probably 50% families with school age children, 25% families with young adult kids/empty nesters and 25% pensioners. Zero diversity, lower middle class white British demographic. Men all worked and some of the women did. People all knew each other and very occasionally socialised but no close friendships as far as I remember, children played out together though. Our immediate neighbours were all lovely.

Council estate, with a mix of families where parents worked and people in abject poverty. Some folk fleeing Amin were moved in and the area became more diverse overnight. People knew each other and looked out for each other - not at all unusual for an older person to knock on their window to ask me to pop to the shop for them while I was out playing. Groups of siblings would play in the street and someone would feed all the kids whether they belonged to them or not. Very strong sense of community, the men would deal with teenage boys who got a bit out of hand, you could spot the visiting social worker a mile off and the local police were respected and reviled in equal measure.

We lived between a slaughterhouse and a halting site. Council cottage.

All 4/5 bed detached houses in a new estate almost all families with young children. Mainly white with some Jewish and Indian (Hindu). Professional families, kids mainly at private school or the nice local primary. Secondary private or grammar.

Two large houses opposite one another on a small cul de sac with a sprinkling of semis and bungalows, all 1930s. Fields and woodland at the bottom, where we kept our ponies and grew some market garden type crops.
My parents and their best friends had the first two built, then sold off plots, for income.
This was in the south east, in a small hamlet with just a pub, garage and small shop, a few miles outside a seaside town.
In the 50s and early 60s when I was a child, it was exclusively white and middle class. (We fostered some black children at one time, which was unusual. They were the only black kids at school in the town.)
In the late sixties and early seventies, the land was sold off and a new cul de sac was made, off one side, with more houses, mostly semis.

Late 60s new build 4 bed detached with large front and back gardens on a small estate( about 20 houses) in a village about 8 miles outside a city. All white families. We moved there from new.

Middle class educated professional demographic - accountants, university lecturers, headteachers, lawyers, surveyors etc. Mostly in their thirties with young children, the occasional couple downsizing after children had left home. Wives didn't work when children were young, some went back when children went to secondary school.

Loads of families and some elderly we did have some flats near us that where a bit dodgy that often had druggies and criminals in but nothing to major. Someone did get murdered a couple of doors down and we got burgled and our windows smashed in a few times. My dad also got stabbed in the garden when he intercepted a robbery. Actually now I think about it, it was dodgy and I can't believe my parents let us just roam the streets from being really young. I remember once there was a pedophile on the run in our area and we was still allowed out to play. Such a different time 🤣🤣

Same!

Social housing and benefits/working class. Not very demographically mixed, but both white British and settled Romani backgrounds highly represented. Mostly families with a few grandparents, usually related to another family there.

Seaside town, v small, fields rolled down towards the beach. 90% 50 plus. There were about 8 of us between about 8 and 12. We had a wonderful time.

It was very safe. Very middle class. Half of us went to private schools; half to grammar. Not at all diverse and still isn't. A couple of miles East, ot was a different story.

Very mixed, all ages.

Families mainly, with some OAPs. It had a proper community feel and everyone knew each other.

Now Serco are renting the majority and most have been turned in HMOs.

What once was a lovely place is now an absolute shit hole and it breaks my heart. My dad is still there and refuses to leave.