To be fair, every major European city has similar issues to Manchester if you look for them.
Portugal had such a bad heroin/crack cocaine problem, their government were forced to take the sensible measure of treating drug misuse as a medical issue, as opposed to a criminal one & it's helping clean the country up.
I suppose avoiding these typical inner city scenes is why the well-to-do opt to live in the wealthy areas of Cheshire where your average spice head couldn't afford to sleep rough, let alone live... \0/