Do people say this about other places?

[Schoolchoicesucks]

I was at a family birthday over the weekend and chatting to a friend of theirs I hadn't previously met.

They asked where I was from and when I said "Xxxx in north London", they immediately pulled a face and said "Oh, poor you, I'm in London all the time for work, hate it".

This isn't the first time someone's said similar to me - on a work related training course - held in central London - a couple of weeks ago, the trainer was talking to me and another attendee. There was a tube strike so we'd already talked about our disrupted journeys and where we'd travelled from, both of them started saying how much they "can't wait" to leave London at the end of the work day.

Do people ever say this about other places - you meet someone, ask where they're from and when they respond "Preston*" you immediately say "Oh I went there once, what a shithole, couldn't wait to leave it"?

(* Preston chosen at random, don't think I've ever been there. I'm sure it's perfectly lovely. Or has a mix of lovely and less lovely parts just like everywhere else. Including London).

Isn't it rude to be so negative about where someone lives? Why do people do this?

YABU - people say it all the time about loads of places
YANBU =people only say it about London

People say it about pretty much everywhere and I wouldn’t take any notice at all. I think it’s a silly, uneducated and ignorant comment but I wouldn’t necessarily retaliate.

People say it about everywhere. I’d just ignore it.

Haha

I’m from Preston.

it’s not quite a shithole but a lot of my friends from school now live elsewhere.

I now live in the drugs capital of the fens which is known for it’s crime so yes people are regularly very rude about it.

It's quite funny that you chose Preston as a random example, because that's the place I've more consistently heard described as a shithole than any other place in the country 🤣 (I'm from Lancashire and know it well!)

People don't do this about everywhere, no. In my experience there are three categories of place that can rightly be described as shitholes: run down Northern towns, garish seaside resorts, and massive cities.

Haven't voted as I don't agree with either option.

Option 1 is wrong as people don't just say it about London. There's a lot on social media at the moment of people near Blackpool saying how the good bits of the town are never seen and it is always just shown and referred to as a shithole.
It isn't fine though, rather rude to insult places other people live whether it's London or elsewhere so Option 2 does not feel right to me either

Certain areas of the town I live in.
North X? Oh I couldn't live there it's rough as fuck.
X road? Not a chance etc

I think London is more on the news so it stuck with people, that’s why they think they are allowed to comment. But it’s still very rude and weird tbh.
I envy you OP, London is lovely.

I’m originally from Bradford. Yes people say this. I find it’s most often people who have never even visited Bradford and so believe the Islamophobic media hype about it being akin to Afghanistan. Or the hype about it being terrifying and crime ridden.

It has its issues but I’ve never personally felt unsafe in Bradford and there are many beautiful areas. I also personally love the fact that in my friendship group growing up we had a half-Jew (me), gay guy, black Jehovah’s Witness, Muslim and Sikh. That is part of what makes Bradford, and indeed London and other areas like Manchester, beautiful imo- diversity.

I'm not voting because I don't agree with your options OP.

Of course people say this about other places. They totally dismiss them and rubbish them, often without visiting them. It's very rude and totally unfair on the decent people who live there and the peoole who enjoy living there.

Many years ago I worked for the then DHSS. We had a street in our office patch which was absolutely notorious in the whole city. If people lived there they would get turned down for jobs just by stating their address. The council eventually pulled down some of the tenements, moved out some of the residents, built some new decent houses and actually renamed the street in an effort to destroy it's bad repuration. But people still referred to it as the street that used to be ( original street name) and it still had a reputation.

I know of many places in Scotland that are routinely absolutely dismissed and pilloried and looked down on by people who have never ever visited.

They don’t say it about everywhere else the way they say it about London.

If I said I’m from Preston or whatever other run down northern town (and I’m not from far away!) people might think ’poor you what a shithole’ but I think most people would still have some awareness that it would be rude to say it, and only the most proudly ‘call a spade a spade’ type wankers would actually come out with it to your face. People might think it’s a shithole, people from there might talk about it being a shithole, people from outside of there might talk about not wanting to live/ visit there - but I think it would be unusual for them to outright say to your face ‘oh what a shame for you’.

With London it’s almost a point of pride for a lot of people to dislike it and bang on about how they could never live there, it’s terrible, the people are so unfriendly, nobody says hello to you in the street etc etc. When I used to live there and travel home, the amount of people who felt compelled to tell me ‘couldn’t be me, I’d hate to live there, went once and couldn’t wait to get home’ - I’ve lived in a lot of different places before and since, with varying reputations from lovely to shithole, but none of them have ever provoked so many people to tell me how awful it was like London did!

For the record I really enjoyed my time there.

I tend to say I’m from Manchester when asked - not strictly true but close enough, and there will of course be the odd ‘jokey’ comment about that, but it’s really not the same level.

You notice it when its the place you live.

I’m from Preston and people do say to my face “what a shithole”.

just as a point of evidence.

@Octavia64

Wisbech by any chance? I used to luve there and am not far away now. Some beautiful parts , history etc but its definitely gone downhill since I was a child!

People generally shit-talk their own town, plus their towns main rival town, and they shittalk their capital city.

Places they visit on holiday when it's sunny, they glorify

People think where I live is a bit of a shit hole, it’s not - it’s really lovely!
The town centre itself is run down and is now a collection of fast food shops, some independent restaurants, charity shops, second hand furniture shops and some pubs - most of the big chain shops have long gone.
However we have access to lovely parks and some amazing facilities if you step outside the vicinity of the immediate town centre. We have loads of green spaces and nature reserves, an arts centre and a theatre, fantastic transport links and good health centre options.
I don’t take any notice of people saying where I live is crap, I just presume they don’t live here themselves and for the most part have never visited.

She is jealous that you are lucky enough to live in London!

People say it about loads of different places. Try coming from Birmingham, every one slags Birmingham off.

Capital cities are generally considered quite different from the counties in which they are located. There is often resentment about the disproportionate attention they get. Ie 2 inches of snow in London oh no the sky has fallen - 2 feet of snow in Snorterdale, Yorkshire - nowt.

Eeeh it's grim up north London

Ah, I buggered up the poll options. Sorry.

Sounds like people have heard it said about other places too. If I thought I'd inadvertantly slagged off someone's hometown before knowing they lived there, I'd be mortified! I can't imagine thinking it an apporpriate response to someone who has just told you they live there.

Guess some people are just rude.

Yes, I think this is true. You're 'allowed' to bash London vocally to a far greater extent than elsewhere because it's not (generally) poor/deprived.

For what it's worth, I adored living in London and when I got that kind of guff from people, I would look pitying and say 'Well, out of towners often find it difficult to adjust to the energy, of course' and move on.

People definitely say it about Hull although sometimes someone who went to university there or has visited will rave about it.

This post nails it 👏

You see it on here all the time- people feel licensed to slag off London in a way they wouldn't dream of with anywhere else.

I think it's because it's perceived as punching up, even by people who genuinely don't like London. It's a bit like how people who wouldn't dream of criticising a celebrity for being too fat will happily call someone too thin, despite that being just as personal and unpleasant. Because London is expensive and (for some) desirable, some people take that as permission to be a dick, as if being very rude about a place that other people spend £££ to live in makes them special and interesting, rather than just very rude.

My friend told a couple from the Midlands that he lived in central London and their faces dropped. They thought it was incredibly dangerous and asked why he lived there?!

He said by choice and it's not remotely dangerous.

He was obviously thinking how much he'd hate to live in some isolated rural Midlands village but he wouldn't have been so rude as to say so.

I had to put up with this when I worked in the North. People would openly talk negatively about anywhere in the South and then say ‘oh sorry forgot you were there’. I had no idea the North loathed Southerners until I moved there. And can honestly say Southerners do not talk about Northerners in the same degree and breadth of dislike. It was quite odd.

Some of it was banter. Fine. No problem. I can tell the difference.
But clearly a lot of it really really wasn’t.
And it wasn’t about being blunt either.