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).

When did they phase out white dog shit?

Round our way it's only truly dodgy if there's a car up on blocks in the front garden and a pram lying on its side next it, one wheel slowly rotating. Although the guy who ripped out his bathroom last year and has still to clear it from his garden is lending a new take on the theme.

LOL not very PC but that is soooo true, I live in a very much working class area but it is very old fashioned and even the neds say hello. If you have too much junk in your front garden the local wifies will target you and tut until your ears hurt, I have a small collection of dead cars and things so I think I am next on their hit list. Seroioulsy still a lot of local pride, but the good pub lplace went into liquidation so hope it reopens soon as it is the only boarded up place here.

All very true skrimbo.

The other tell tale factors are that old ladies insist on giving small amounts of money to new babies - DD1 got about £12 in all, DD2 about £8.

Most people smile and say hello in the street.

Neds apologise if they swear in front of your kids ("Sorry Pal, didn't see the wean.")

You know all of your neighbours.

Hang on... this doesn't sound so bad does it?

Hmmm...

That up my street site has my town down to a tee, "Interest in current affairs - Low!" I've heard of some locals who have never left the town, never mind it being a hot spot for incest It's full of charity shops, card shops and fast food outlets and even then the only named branded one is Maccy D's!

Yes we have that too the wee wifies that do all the tutting and complain about the school charging too much for the bingo or cakes are still the ones that turn up for everything, they also put money in new babies prams here too.

The neds round here are allright really, a while back when my MIL's street flooded all the neds that were skiving school came round and helped shore up the houses and tried to redirect the flood water to save as many houses and gardens as they could, aw all their little white trainers and trackies were soaking.

Just looking at the up my street profile for my area and it is so wrong, says its mostly older people in flats, er no flats inthe village. Plus I would say it is very mixed with families, older people and singles. The high school it mentions is not the one for our catchment area.

Yeah ours say that it's terraced housing with some flat conversions. Being Scotland it's all tenements and colonys and hence purpose built flats from about 1850!

Several (I believe) interconnected events have occurred in one of the aforementioned sub-prime areas.

(1) Two estate agents have been replaced by shops which, railing against all sane thinking, purport to "sell money". There are two pictures of a scally in a baseball cap and the female counterpart respectively both laughing open-mouthed (presumably having been delighted at the bargain money they bought at "The Money Shop").

(2) Two new betting shops have opened. These are in fact branches of HM Revenue and Customs which responsibility for taxing: (a) blind optimism, (b) stupidity, (c) a poor appreciation of mathematics, and (d) the least well-off in society (and usually all four simultaneously).

(3) MFI and another "buy-now pay-later" furniture emporium have shut their doors. I suspect that quite a few bought their sofa now and turned out not to be able to pay later (at least if the sofa's repossessed, they can use the old one - it's still in the back garden).