How do you know if you live in a crap area?

[UrbanDad]

I live in an OK area between two shit areas (that's how UK cities are invariably set up), but it is important to know which you are in. I have some thoughts on this and believe the indentifying factors are:
a proliferation of betting shops,
mums pushing pushchairs and wearing school uniforms,
despite a pervasive air of poverty, the mums appear to have unlimited access to foods high in sugar, fat and refined carbohydrates,
the shops have shutters and close early, but the Solicitors are open 24-7,
the playgrounds always have teenagers loitering around trying, despite the laughable incongruity of it all, to look tough and streetwise,
in the newspaper shop, every paper is a red-top,
you can identify less than half a dozen of the fruits outside the greengrocer's shop,
takeaways which look like downmarket KFC,
lots of people wearing conspicuously new and shiny clothes using new and shiny mobile phones (why is it no mattter how poor people are they can always afford shiny new pay as you go phones?), repeating the matra "call me back, I'm running out of credit"
cars with blacked-out windows and body-kits which suggest that the owners were not permitted to play with meccano or technical lego and get it out of their system at an early age,
dog poo everywhere (not sure why this is, but maybe cleaning up after your dog is a middle-class thing).

Sounds like the estate i used to live in as a child.
Lots of homes boarded up with metal panels because they burn the wodden ones to break in.
People living in narrow street but they have more than 5 cars per familly (not kidding).
People who have bought their council house but still think the council will cut the grass for them (and not they are not elderly).
Youths hanging around the corner shop even if it is a little shop.
Souped up cars makes you wonder if they have declared the modifications to their insurance companies.
Counting more than 3 cars on the street with out of date tax discs. One even had a VERY old tax disc but was using it because it was the right colour.
Yobs wearing all white tracksuits and white baseball caps with shaven heads (these are the true yobs).
In the evening the local souped up car brigade race up and down my parents street and then the yobs from up the road get their dirt trail bike out that has no lights and no number plate and race that up and down.
My Dad has set up a security camera up and some of the things he has seen in the street would make your hair stand on end.
I'm glad i moved away a long time ago.

Oh, yes and every few months the people living in the flats at the end of the street have a running battle with each other and throw bricks around and the local shop (tiny) has invested in a mosquito device to keep the yobs away.
The church further down the road and the pub have to have metal railing around them to protect them.
And this is in the CF5 area of Cardiff (if anyone cares to do the Occado test).

blimey
that upmystreet has my neighbourhood down to a tee!

In answer to your question I guess it would be a neighbourhood where people actively don't want to live.

All the wealthier/poshish parents I know dress their kids like ragamuffins, lots of hand-me-downs. Really expensive kids' clothing is, like an expensive mobile phone, very non-U. (Or at least, non-middle-class ...)

Oh, I see. But the expensive clothes shops are in town and city centres and shopping centres, surely?

A Netto is opening up in our area soon.

I can't wait, my food bills are going to plummet!

So true, so true.
We live in a very nice area, nearish to a not so nice area!
The nearest town apparently has the highest number of takeaways within a one mile rdauis in the country!
The problem with this nice area between 2 not so nice areas is that when you apply for a primary school place and don't get the school of your choice (as we didn't), you are then given a place at the nearest school with available place. Not a chance in hell!!! Didn't know who would surivive the longest, me or DD! The authority will not build a school in our villge though because of the surplus places within the authority, which children from our village will not go to! Mad!!!!

er, if you don't like it? What a pompous op

upmystreet couldnt have it more wrong

Family income Low wrong. Wound here you're poor if your child doesnt own a pony.

Interest in current affairs Low - well I cant judge but I suspect not true

Housing - with mortgage Medium - not all have mortgages some own their mansions right out.

Educated - to degree Low - publich school then oxbridge

Couples with children Low - at least 2

Have satellite TV Medium - I suspect most people have

I can tell I am in a crap area when not one newsagent sells the Observer.

Um, the area I live in meets quite a few of op's requirements.

It's a nice area though I think, and v expensive (north london).

Personally I like living in an area with a wide range of people. Would hate to live in a middle class enclave.

Wound? Round

I'm one of the poorer ones round here. My poor children don't have a pony and we still have mortgage to pay.

I can afford the mortgage repayments

No, UD. I live in a half-gentrifying and half-poor area. We have a street full of shops. No banks. Lots of betting shops. A Greggs. Various fast food options. And until recently there were two wildly expensive kids' clothing stores. One of them closed - I think the gentrifying got it.

I'm not talking hand-woven organic cotton stuff, I'm talking D+G or similar. I used to go into one of them and rifle through the sale rail, got some nice stuff that way.

My veg shop doesn't even sell courgette as "people round here don't eat them!"
But it is attached to a fishmongers, not many people in non crap areas have that I bet.
Crap area = free sure start kids activities, brilliant!

(There are two expensive adult clothing stores, too, to be fair. And a lot of cheap crappy shoe stores.)

Maybe pointydog, but true. Be honest, would you let your child mix with anyone or do you like to 'guide' in the right direction?

?

I let my children mix with anyone. They are sensible girls, granted. But I don't do 'guiding'.

according to Upmyarse I live in an area full of latte-slurping, sandal-wearing, Guardianista, liberal, yoghurt-weaving,Woodcraft-type, carbon-offsetting, repressed, inter-personal fascist types.

Yep. About nails it.

LOL at Upmyarse. I think some of the categories they use are way out of date. Use of "satellite TV" (do they count cable as well? Sky or freeview?) is pretty much classless these days. The only people I know with the five bog-standard channels and nothing else are aged relatives who are still on analogue.

And how do they gauge what people's "interest in current affairs" is? What counts? Being able to tell the difference between Barack Obama and John McCain, or being able to explain the intricacies of the economic downturn in detail?

If you see pitbulls/rotweillers/alsations all going for walks in pairs for safety, then you know you live in a bad area!

I used to live in a place like the OP describes. On UpmyStreet it was described as 'cosmopolitan' 'young' and 'trendy'.

I now live in a middle class area where everybody has two cars at least, lots of them have their own businesses, kids do stage school and riding lessons, etc. It's bloody horrible and I'd go back to the old area in a shot if it wasn't for the children.

People there had characture, and were friendly. When I moved there, there were lots of unidentifiable veg and fruit and I had great fun learning what they were! I had friends from different cultural backgrounds who cooked them for me. Now, I have to drive 30 miles to buy them, and nobody here will even pass the time of day.

I really dfon't understand why it is seen ok to sneer at poorer communities.

Pantigone ... are you Pan?

UQD - I think the satellite television indicator on UpMyArse (tm) is an indicator of a downmarket area rather than a more m/c area, isn't it?

My area is a mix of impoverished lentil-weavers, 'cosmopolitan' families (why can't they just call them minority ethnic groups? ), and single/young couple wage slaves nurses, teachers, and voluntary sector types. There is only the occasional satellite dish to be seen- the majority of my neighbours do just have 5 channels and analogue, and a fair number don't even watch television at all (including our family ).

Though maybe that is changing.... along with the new 'Peacocks', a family moved into the next road with a plasma tv!!!
The street glows outside their house now, in the evening

That's what I mean - maybe UpMyArse should update their categories.

Suggest:

Plasma TV Ownership

Number of holidays taken in English-only-speaking resorts

Proportion of dads with shaven heads and tattoos

Percentage of houses hanging out England flags during World Cup or Euro championships

Families with children called Jayden, Kayden, Kallum, Chevorne, Shaneece, Armani and Tianna-Mae

National Lottery ticket buyers

Average purchase of MacDonald's per year

Amount of slap and jewellery worn by mum

Are you looking to move to one of these areas specifically UQD?
Sounds like you've been doing a lot of research!

Could also add the amount of 'house bling' at christmas time....

Proportion of buggies (for girls) in vile Barbie pink...

Number of cars with weird blue lights underneath (what are they lighting up?)