Is Manchester a tough place to live in?

[Lavinda Past]

Little has changed and everything has changed, Manchester is now one of the most unequal cities to live in the UK. That is the price you pay under Capitalism and Conservative party policies.

Cities throughout the world have always been magnets for crime, they have always attracted people who are not as well off (lowlifes as you disgustingly describe them) who are looking for work and to better themselves. That is because the great cities have always thrived on an inwards flux of people, they are the future units of production needed to drive the economic engine.

There was a mass transit of people away from the centre centres in the late 40s , 50s and into the 60s because of slum clearances and the new social contract that built council housing on so called Overspill estates such as Wythenshawe, Handforth and others.

That trend is being reversed because our city centres are becoming gentrified. A terraced house in Rusholme can now command nearly £200,000, go to Chorlton and double that. Leafy suburbs are now becoming the home of the super wealthy, not just the averagely well off.

The Average price for dwellings in the city centre is now. Detached £431,892. Semi-detached. £177,436. Terraced. £240,329. Flat/Apartment. £221,331.

City centres are becoming the preserve of the wealthy because it is closer to work, closer to cultural amenities such as theatre, art galleries etc. The poor are being pushed towards the periphery, in London now those who live outside the M25 are in general not as well off as those who live in Kensington. The same is happening in Manchester with the M60. The Satellite towns of Greater Manchester outside the M60 are becoming poorer as the City centre booms.

I was out on Chapel Street in Salford on friday and the growth of the City centre is now taking over that area of Salford, it is new flats, apartments, cafe culture living, it is becoming like Didsbury, but closer to the City centre, Salford Central station has been revamped and is now a gateway to Deansgate, meanwhile in Salford even the likes of Ladywell have been rebuilt, the Regent Road corridor that used to have some of the worst housing in the UK is now smart and a good place to live because of Media City.

Your idea of Manchester is shaped in the past, notice i have not mentioned ADUG either, because the City centre and the inner city areas are getting better anyway, although they have helped with East Manchester of course.

The only place in Manchester now that is a real dump is where them cunts play, but deprivation still exists and pockets of Manchester has some of the worst poverty rates in Europe. Like I said everything has changed, but nothing has changed.

I tip my hat in your general direction Rasc, but that is no more than the usual overlong socialist rhetoric I've heard pumped out for years.
People make a town/city what it is. If they don't care about it, it turns into a dump. Blaming governments of any colour is the lazy way out.
Much of Manchester is pretty grim looking because people have given up bothering what goes on outside their own home. Streets are shabby and gardens are little more than car parking. Long gone are the days when proud people used to maintain the areas around their homes.
Yes, it's like that in many places, but I see it as being worse in Manchester because I remember when it was a much nicer place to live.
Society is fucked because people don't care, and turn a blind eye to blight. Piccadilly Gardens in particular is a classic example of how far Manchester has declined. The scum of the earth on full display and no-one seems to care about it.
Sadly, Manchester isn't the city it was... People can build it up and celebrate it's history etc, but scratch the surface and the gloss soon disappears. Let's not kid ourselves...Like most big towns in the UK, it's a polished turd.

 

[Grassland Blue]

who says you cannot live and work in the eu? just fill out the forms, not difficult!

Really!

 

[Phil1]

Some people have this inbuilt thing where they feel it's their duty to defend their place of birth at all costs.
It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. It's what makes you happy that's important and if living in Manchester does that then good on you. If Manchester isn't your bag then move away.
Every city on the planet has its faults as well as its positives. Its not a competition.
Personally I'm happy with my decision to leave as a 17 year old and see a bit of the world but I'm always happy to go back for short visits.
I've no intention of ever living in the UK again but that doesn't make me any wiser than those who will never leave.
Just crack the fuck on and enjoy your lives for what they are, not everything has to be a pissing contest.

 

[Grassland Blue]

For all of you weather moaners..lived in Townsville Australia. Missed the seasons, missed the pubs, missed my family and missed the banter. Went there and was down the beach every day for two weeks and got bored. Then it gets to 40c in summer,the humidity,the tropical rains in spring and then 3 months of nice weather in winter.Its so hot you run between the aircon in your car and the aircon in shopping malls.Then you get the skin cancer,the sea where you cant swim because of stingers and sharks, the pubs full of nobs that are far worse than Manchester believe me. The girls all have STDs. Scenery great and scuba diving great. England is home and a bloody great country,north or south.

I would say that there are a lot of other places to live between Manchester and Townsville Oz.
You don't need to travel so far away to live an (un?)enjoyable life.

 

[Grassland Blue]

I left Manchester over 40 years ago and haven't missed it one bit. Since my mam died, I've only ever gone back to watch City.

I've lived in (that) London, and lived in/worked for longer than a few weeks, a good number of other cities in UK and Europe over the years. in my humble opinion, Manchester comes very low down on my list of places to live in Europe. All cities/major towns have their problems - the smaller the city, the more concentrated the problems.

Manchester is a small and often dangerous city to live, with more police 'no go areas' in the suburbs than you can shake a stick at. The "amazing restaurants" (compared to London and major European cities they're definitely not amazing) and bars, provide no more than a superficial sheen over an otherwise unexciting city.

Everywhere has drug problems nowadays, but the people of Manchester apparently have to tolerate public displays of wandering spiceheads etc around the city - If that happened in Southern Europe, the people would have insisted something was done about it, and it would be.

Airports, wherever they are located, are no more than travel hubs. They're not a measure of a great city; they're hop-off points for travellers. It's like saying that Luton and Crawley are great places.

For me, the only things positive about Manchester are City, and the fact that it's not as bad as Birmingham or Liverpool.

Rusholme chippy...

 

[Grassland Blue]

Greater Manchester has a higher GDP than the whole of Wales combined. Also more millionaires than anywhere outside of a London. Are the real opportunities sheep?

Some woolly thinking there...

 

[Lavinda Past]

Rusholme chippy...

Are they taking reservations yet...?

 

[Lavinda Past]

The Midland holds a special place in Manchesters' history.

Albert Tatlock was a long term resident at the Midland. His Coronation Street address was a cover for his stolen baccy empire that Ken Barlow took over.

 

[JULES]

Really!

yes really

 

[Rascal]

but that is no more than the usual overlong socialist rhetoric

There was no Socialist rhetoric at all, there was a statement of fact that the capitalist policies this country has followed over the last few decades has led to huge inequalities and it is a matter of fact that the UK is now one of the most unequal countries on the planet.

Those inequalities lead to poorer parts of the country being neglected, that is not Socialist rhetoric that is a statement of fact.

If you close a library in Ancoats, it will have far more effect on the local populace than if you closed a Library in Alderley Edge, why? because the people in Alderley Edge are on the whole more wealthy and can buy books, the people of Ancoats can not.

Again not Socialist rhetoric but the Gini-coefficient on education has the UK just above Latvia, right at the bottom of the pile. At the top the pile is Finland, there education system is the best world, why, Finland is one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Not Socialist rhetoric but the UK Govt expenditure is 35.4% of GDP , in Finland it is 56.1% of GDP

It is not Socialist rhetoric to suggest that increasing Government spending reduces inequality, it is a fact as I have just shown,

The cutting of Government spending to the likes of Manchester has resulted in the inequalities that you describe, that is not Socialist rhetoric it is fact, it is the failure of Neo-Liberalism that has created inequalities in great cities like Manchester, where you can have multi-millionaires buying City centres apartments and 1 mile away you have people in poor housing relying on foodbanks.

Under a social-democratic welfare regime, poverty relief should rely first and foremost on the state, as opposed to the market or civil society, this is the Nordic model and as I have shown it works. In the UK we do not subscribe in the same manner as Nordic countries and rely on free markets, individualism and increasingly Libertarian initiatives that just exacerbate inequality and cities like Manchester suffer.

It becomes very easy then to demonise the people of Manchester's poorer areas as being feckless, idle, druggies, etc etc, because the RW media owned exclusively by very rich white men guard their wealth and do not want to share any of their fortune with the poor of Manchester. This notion of the sovereign Individual much beloved by the Rees-Mogg faction of the RW nutjob factory is freedom for those with wealth and servitude for those without wealth. Manchester in effect goes back to the days of the dark satanic mills, with a huge underclass whose only saleable asset is their labour and they are beholden to the fabulously wealthy in their city centre apartments looking down on them. It is almost a master -serf relationship, which is in danger for want of a better synonym becoming like Gotham city, with criminals running the streets because their is no other way out of their predicament.

Now if you wanted Socialist rhetoric i could have given it to you in spades, I haven't though, but I do care about my city, i do care about the people, I work trying hard to improve the lives of Mancunian people because in my mind it is a great city with great people that sadly happens to be in a country run by cunts.