To dislike Birmingham?

[redeoof]

I’ve worked in the city maybe 4 years now .. there really isn’t much appealing about it. I once overheard a woman on the train say she does guided tours for Manc, London and Birmingham - and Bham is a hard sell.

I’ve been coming into New Street station for years and there’s always been construction and it’s never seemed to progressed to anything.

I walk down New Street and actually feel unsafe. It’s depressing and dreary .. and it should be so much more

Following a recent revisit (I grew up in the Black Country), I've resolved to go back more often. It's a pain in the arse for me and I have to stay several nights, which makes it expensive. My trip reminded me how much I love Brummies and miss the multiculturalism; I want more of this in my life. Now I'm going to have to make Primark a destination!

I’m born and bred in Birmingham and have worked in Bham Centre a fair bit too. The city centre has definitely gone down and there are city centre areas there I wouldn’t walk at night and a few dodgy places I don’t like walking in the day. It still has lots of fab places to visit, culture, diversity, food etc BUT it looks tired, run down and dirty for a city centre that’s been under renovation for decades. Traffic is also horrendous whatever time you go. On the plus side the centre has 3 train stations, a tram system and loads of buses from all over the city. It’s not what it used to be though and I go there very rarely.

It's been under construction since it was flattened in WW2. Some damaged cities recreate what was lost, some build anew. A lot of Birmingham had been industrial & low-quality housing, so it opted for continuous reinvention.

I used to know my way around but, since leaving at 18, it's been a different city every time I go back! It's disorienting and also stimulating: what's new now? What's changed; what's in the process of changing? What hasn't changed, and is it being cleaned up?

Birmingham is like Slough on a grand scale, similar demographic, similar dirtiness about it, similar developments, similar crime levels.

I don’t think the centre is any better/worse than any other large city in the U.K. There’s definitely more homelessness and drug addiction than there used to be, but again that’s true of other big cities. The posters saying they’re ‘terrified’ of being stabbed presumably don’t have much exposure to cities and are also cowering in fear if they visit Manchester. Plus there’s always snobbery and racism coming into play whenever you talk about Birmingham. My partner is white and has a West Midlands accent, although not actually from Birmingham. Can’t tell you the number of times people assume he’s a Brummie and have made comments to him about the city being full of Muslims and ‘P*kis’.

It’s grim but so are other cities, like Sheffield or Bradford. It’s better than it used to be. Compared with somewhere like Manchester though, it’s pretty grotty.

@littleburn
Oh come on now! It’s no more or less multicultural than any other large city! Not one person commenting has even mentioned anything remotely racist. If people really are making comments like that to your partner (which I find hard to believe!) it says more about the people he’s mixing with. People are allowed to have negative opinions about things without race coming into it.

It's as if people haven't set foot in any other major city since 2010. 2010 is when our visible homeless problem started in Birmingham, prior to that there was literally only a handful of homeless people in the centre and many people new them by name. The problem then got significantly worse after 2020.

I've been to Manchester a couple of times recently and one of their major squares literally has people lying down passed out all over it. The square has everything going for it in terms of design that should stop that happening, shops all around and bus stops, loads of people so loads of passive surveillance, even a little play area. But I never thought of it as a reason to bash Manchester, it's a symptom of the political state of our country. London has the same problems too. Manchester and Birmingham are both rapidly improving cities with some of the friendliest people around.

Snobbery (accent-based) and racism do come always come into play whenever discussing Birmingham. I don’t believe every poster is motivated by that no, but it’s part of the bigger picture. And do you really find it hard to believe in the current political climate that people don’t feel emboldened to make comments like that to my partner? Really?? It’s not people he ‘mixes with’ it’s when travelling for work or being on holiday and some stranger inserts it into the conversation.

There's a massive multistorey car park at the QE. There's also a train station right by it (called university). Really no need to worry about getting there. It's very easy. Hotels I can't say because I live here. But I'm sure they don't have bed bugs!

Went back recently, it’s been 30 years since I lived there. Some bits of the city I still loved but it pained me to see other bits which were really bleak. The museum is in a stunning building but seemed to think that Birminghams history only started in the 1960s. Nice piece of history rewritten to make it as woke as possible. I still have a huge soft spot for the people of Birmingham as they are ace, although I’m sad to say some of the areas I used to live in now feel very unsafe as a non-Muslim. It didn’t used to be like that.

I’m not sure you’ve a right to judge anyone using language like that!😂🫪

So you feel unsafe because of the colour of people's skin?

Did she mention skin colour? As a Catholic, I wouldn’t fancy being massively outnumbered by Muslim people, lovely as some of them may be. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I imagine a Muslim person may well say the same if faced by a majority of say Catholic folk.

Thing is, as has been said, it's a big city with a large population, so of course it's going to have some crime and danger... Most cities do, but Birmingham has so much else going for it, as many people have said on this thread.

Not specifically, but come on. It was obvious what is being alluded to.

What exactly would make you feel unsafe?

I’m a Catholic. If someone was to say that as a non-Catholic they felt unsafe in any certain area because of Catholics I’d think they’d lost a few marbles.

You know they’re just people, right.

Can you explain this?

Bham has actually managed to maintain housing prices at a more sensible level in lots of areas, so you can actually have a good quality of life on a lower wage.

Don't knock it, this has a lot of perks. When my sibling needs work doing on the house, their quotes are always far lower than where i live in the spenny south east, because the tradespeople dont need to earn 80k to live, there's never any vat etc.

Her local takeaway is much cheaper than mine. There's good public transport, decent hospitals, good schools. If you dont like living in an urban environment there are plenty of nice market towns nearby too.

I find this easy to believe. So many people are negative about Birmingham, and many bashers have never even been there.The snobbery with the accent is off the charts. No other British accent gets such hate and derision.

.

I find it bewildering and stressful to navigate. Our son in studying there and living near the Aston campus. There are some lovely green suburbs but the city has barely a tree or bit of grass. Depressing. It is growing on us but none of us will set foot there again once he graduates!

Well I believe you @littleburn

Never been to Northern Ireland I take it?

Many times.

Where did I say that? Islam is a religion not an ethnicity. Anyone can be Muslim.
For those at the back, I used to live in those areas as a minority white person. It was good, safe and full of lovely people. Some of those areas I used to live in have changed massively. Women in face coverings were a rarity 30 years ago. They are common now. Forgive me but being surrounded by men of a religion that treats women as second class citizens in that way does not make me feel safe.

Are you quite an anxious person in general? Because I find people with anxiety often struggle in cities.