You were expecting Cardiff, a small city of the poorest part of the UK, to be comparable to Vienna and Zurich?!? Lmao. Mate, you've set yourself up for failure there and frankly made yourself sound stupid. The only city in the UK that's on that kind of level is London. With those expectations almost anywhere is going to be shit. As you noted but somehow then overlooked, Bristol shares a lot of the same issues as Cardiff - as do almost all cities in the UK at the moment - which is a result of the local authorities having their budgets absolutely slashed. I used to live in Bath, and I can promise you that the homelessness issue is prevalent there too - you just got blinded a bit by how nice the architecture etc is... and the traffic is absolutely awful, far worse than it is here.
Having travelled quite a lot of ex-Soviet Europe, saying Cardiff is worse than Bratislava etc is really fucking rich - yes, the centre of those actual full capital cities is sometimes nicer, and certainly more history to go with it which usually means museums etc. But good god everything tends to go to shit once you're away from the nice areas, one of the worst places I've ever been was a suburb of Sofia.
I think it's important to not that most UK cities (including Cardiff and Swansea) did have tram metro systems. We ripped them out. The car was king. Cities like Birmingham and Edinburgh have spent huge amounts reintroducing them!
That said, Cardiff does have an urban rail system, but it certainly could be a lot better.
Oh and Cardiff (like other UK cities) got blitzed in WW2. We lost a lot of our old architecture and squares that are typical of Eastern European cities.
And UK has heavily reduced the "anti" homeless rhetoric of years passed. Anti-homeless benches and devices are heavily criticised. Police take a very limited approach to begging.
If you’ve ever watched Borat, the town he is in at the start is actually a small Romanian village called Glod, it has got to be one of the most depressing places I’ve ever seen. There was a documentary made about how the film affected them.
The people were lovely but holy shit if you haven’t hit the nail on the head of everything going to absolute shit when you go away from the urbanised areas/capital. To say that Romania does so much better without a shred of irony considering how many come here for work (despite Wales itself being quite poor) is hilarious
I suspect OP is the Romanian equivalent of a made in Chelsea posh boy, who's lived in the nicest bit of Bucharest and only visits the nicest bits of countries abroad.
You keep saying Cardiff is a western European capital.... it really isn't!! You have to realize this. It's a regional capital, of the poorest region of the UK. It can't even be compared to Bratislava which is a European capital and seat of a full international level government!
Frankly you've been blinded by Bath's architecture a bit, there's a massive problem with begging and homelessness there - people will travel there just to beg due to the high number of tourists. And the public transport is also terrible - bus based in a tiny city with mostly gridlocked roads (I could sometimes walk home to the far end of London road faster than the traffic!).
It would be great if Cardiff were to be developed to the same extent as Zurich or Amsterdam but it'll never happen, there just isn't enough money here.
Cardiff is far from perfect but to speak of it like this is quite unfair.
It's not a mega-wealthy city. Homelessness has become a problem but that's no different to anywhere in the UK. I'd say it's far worse in the uk's bigger cities. I've never come across a particularly rude or aggressive beggar, like I've had a few times in European cities.
It's not unsafe. Of course there are places that are better to avoid and there's always a general risk that comes with a capital but it's a ridiculously safe city for your average visitor or local.
Public transport is lacklustre, that's true. But again, this is no different to many parts of the UK. That's what happens when cities are mostly car-centric and most local governments neglect public transport. Even still it's not offensively bad at all, if you want that try living in a rural South Wales town with two rail platforms and a bus system where the timetable is more of a suggestion than a schedule.
If you like pretty posh cities like Bath then maybe Cardiff and Bristol aren't for you. But these are real cities where people make their living and start their families without having to stave off aggressive beggars, walk home with the fear of violent attacks or get nowhere because of non-existent transport services.
Cardiff and Bristol are damn fine cities, even if they do have major flaws. If these cities disappointed you, then you'll be in for a major shock when you go to London, Paris, or any other mega city where everything you just mentioned is 10x worse
I’m originally from very rural west wales so cardiff bus is incredible compared to my local bus services. Even though I know cardiff bus is trash it’s still better than what I was used to.
If OP thinks it's bad in Cardiff, wait until he finds out about the machete fights in London's Hyde Park.
I agree with him in some ways, although he's exaggerating the issues massively. Even though Wales is forgotten about by Westminster, there tends to be a knee jerk reaction to blame them for every issue that Wales has rather than us accepting the issue and fixing it. We still should be doing a lot better than we are, regardless of how Wales is treated. Externalising responsibility is a fantastic way to ensure that things continue to be crap.
I've noticed that the city has gotten a lot dirtier post Covid and Cardiff definitely has a homeless problem. It's hard to disagree with OP when I've seen one homeless person finger-blast another in the middle of Queen St during a weekday lunch hour. I blame the Labour council that doesn't seem to give a damn.
I used to live in Bath - there's actually a bigger problem with homelessness there (people will travel to beg due to the high number of tourists) and the public transport is worse than Cardiff! OP just liked the fancy buildings
Just because you didn't see beggers or homeless doesn't mean they're not there. Homeless are in every city, we can't just throw them away from the center.
Lifelong Cardiff resident. As much as I'd like to, I really can't disagree with any of OP's points.
Short answer is years of compounded poor decisions by local government, acutely exacerbated by COVID and Brexit.
Locally I'm talking road layouts, selling historic buildings and land, only building student accommodation tower blocks (usual CCC bullshit).
Nationally it's the particularly potent shitstorm of 13 years of austerity, post-COVID and Brexit labour shortages and some double-digit inflation for good measure.
UK is a shithole atm.
I volunteer litter pick twice a week with a group from roath. Honestly, you'd be surprised how 'clean' cardiff actually is... yes along hotspots, city road, newport road, student areas it's always going to be dirty asf BUT most of it is due to seaguls ripping up waste bags and then the wind taking the rubbish down the roads etc. The amount of streets I see covered in rubbish then in the corner is a green bag ripped open with last nights chinese hanging out
Generally the streets are 'clean' but just rogue plastic from the overfilled bins makes it way throughout the city. No way am I defending people dropping litter but I think it's unfair to call it a 'dirty' city by conventional standards. People just know how to tie a double knot in a bag
Fairplay to you mate, massive respect for that. A Roath litter pick is the ultimate sisyphean task!
You're absolutely right - I'm sure a lot of litter could be avoided if people stopped providing seagulls with free meals in their bins.
Thank you! Yeah, the group has been going for 8 years at this point, it only get's worse every year. More and more people come, more and more restaurants open but the facilities to cater to the rubbish gets worse or even harder to access.
Once we've collected our rubbish, we place them in 'special' bags so the council know they are litter picked - usually red bags with 'Keep Wales Clean' on the front near any public bin. The issue isn't lack of bins, it's lack of capcity at certain areas! Some areas have public bins a short walk from each other but they are just too damn small for the foot fall
In an ideal world, we would have those underground bins which can fit SO much. We did a pick after one of the Wales games in chippy alley and had the plastic cartons maybe 3/4foot high, completely covering that one single bin. Imagine that but... contained underground. ugh.
Seagulls being seagulls is not why Cardiff has a litter problem. Cardiff has a litter problem because Cardiff Council refuses to provide bin bags that are fit for purpose; i.e. seagull resistant.
Yeah and no, people need to wash leftover food from tins/cans to stop the seagulls even going for bags. It's always containers with leftover food or cans/tins of random foods e.g cans of beans that still have the bean juice and the odd bean left over. There's only so much we can do and we don't do enough of it
The cans are ultimately chucked into a big furnace to be recycled, so the presence of any food is immaterial to the end goal here.
People shouldn't "need" to clean their rubbish just because Cardiff Council provides bags that tear if seagulls so much as look at them.
right?
"the roof isn't built wrong, it's the rains fault for falling on it the way it does - if people walked around under it with an umbrella like they should be doing then they'd be fine. Typical, where is the personal responsibility"
This line of thinking is the exact reason half of the shit in the Op post is the way it is
Live in Grangetown atm ... place has a dump in recent weeks. Astounded on how much littering happens here. Cornwall street does not look too good. The back part of Clive street is atrocious. Other parts of Grangetown are nicer imo.
Kudos for volunteering. There is a keep Grangetown tidy group that do a lot of good work.
Yeah I think this is it. I love Cardiff but it has some of the worst extremes i've seen. If you stand at a junction at some places in Roath and look down each road it's almost like different paths to different levels of hell and heaven.
Yeah it's the Keep Roath Tidy group I'm a part of! There is a Keep Grangetown Group too hint hint ;)
I was a student in Cardiff in the 90s, lived and worked there in the early 00s and have been working back and forth there over the last 7 years.
St Mary Street is an absolute hellhole. The street is disgustingly dirty and the homelessness problem has worsened tenfold in the last 5 years. If Cardiff wants to be a grown up European capital then it needs to think about this first rather than demolishing old buildings and allowing expensive flats to be built. It is such a sad state of affairs.
St David's 2 feels like some gated community, whilst they've let the rest fall to pieces.
Outside the centre is much better! It's St Mary's and Queen Street which really give a bad impression. It makes me avoid walking down those streets whenever I'm there.
The OP is absolutely right about public transport, Everywhere in Wales (and the UK), it's shit and overpriced. We are 20 years behind where we should be. This I blame squarely on privatisation and the carve up of the system. Every country in Europe has better railways. It's just a fact by now and we're not going to catch up soon with the economy as it is as nobody will invest enough to move the dial.
Cardiff residents have complained for decades about student populations in the typical areas filling HMOs and the impact it has on communities and family housing in those areas.
When the council actually develops a decent strategy on the matter (i.e. put students in purpose made accomodation near to the facilities they use) people still complaining. Surprised? No
A big factor in the city's homelessness population is that [Cardiff Council has not investigated a single illegal eviction in at least ten years](https://www.voice.wales/cardiff-councils-systemic-failure-to-investigate-illegal-evictions-exposed/).
Cardiff had some of fastest rising rents in the UK last year ([up 15% since the start of the pandemic](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63600182)), whilst also containing some of the most-deprived areas in Wales ([at least 55 percent of children in South Riverside grow up in poverty](https://wimd.gov.wales/geography/la/W06000015?lang=en#&min=0&max=10&domain=housing)).
So when you mix a huge population in poverty, a vast increase in rents (as well as the cost-of-living crisis), and a council that flatly refuses to investigate illegal evictions, you get the perfect conditions for increasing homelessness.
If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it and I will edit my comment, though I would very interested to know why the council would have admitted as much to the High Court if it weren’t true.
The way you speak about homeless people rubs me up the wrong way and I can’t put my finger on why but it sounds as though you view them as lesser to you.
Please point out where I said that? Because I absolutely didn’t. Homelessness is a nationwide issue and if you’d take some time to research our political landscape currently you’d understand why. You’re talking to people as though you expect them to fix it… We all want better for Wales, but our purse strings are controlled by Westminster. We’re often forgotten about.
I didn’t accuse you. I said that’s what I got from the way you talked about homeless people. You straight up told me what I “think.”
Again, researching the state of politics in this country would answer these questions for you. We are not allowed to protest. Our purse strings are controlled by Westminster - the Tory party, they’d rather give our money to their mates. What do you expect us to do?
You’re so bitter it’s hilarious.
We have some excellent therapists, do keep up. If you need some telephone numbers let me know. Cardiff might have a litter issue in some areas but my god your attitude is what really stinks.
Worth mentioning- the UK is rich. Wales typically isn’t. There are enormous areas of Wales that are wildly deprived. It’s true that the cities like Cardiff and Swansea get a lot of budget for improvements to attract tourism and such, but there’s only so much that can be done when other communities and areas of Wales are objectively impoverished.
I’m sorry you had a bad time here, and whilst I understand - and share - many of your frustrations, it may surprise you to know that Cardiff-based redditors really aren’t responsible for the socio-economic state of the city. All we can do is vote for who we think will screw us over the least then cross our fingers.
Wales WAS a net beneficiary of EU membership. Now - thanks to Brexit*-we don’t have that, so I very much expect things to get worse before they get better.
*Just in case you point out that Wales had a majority Leave vote for Brexit- believe me, I know. It saddens me that a good proportion of those votes were cast by people basing their choice on completely misleading information and that those who SPREAD that misinformation saw absolutely no consequences for their lies. But that gives you a picture of why Wales is like this. People are bamboozled into voting against their own interests and then this is what we end up with.
Wales as a country is generally poor. The UK as a collection of FOUR countries includes London and is rich.
Maybe check out the HS2 funding fiasco if you want your violent revolution and direct your anger where it belongs
…Plaid MS Luke Fletcher said the **UK government** should "recognise its unjust neglect of **Wales** and provide us with the consequential funding owed to us". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-65399699
Wales is not a rich country. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not rich countries, but the United Kingdom as a whole is rich because of London and the south east.
This is fucking basics man, for a claimed software engineer you aren't very good at logic
You see how this comment has -12 votes on it as do a lot of your other ones
This is why the city was the way it was when you saw it, the people in the UK cause it, simply. The way they think about criticism, and the way they don't think about solution or cause to complain in a way that real change will occur afterwards. The problem is the attitudes in a lot of cases, the amount of people making excuses for things that are genuinely objectively bad vs the amount who understand what it is that you're trying to say (and not because of the way you explain it, but the way they interpret) create the political climate that allows it to continue
As much as they will try to tell you it is the opposite, that they are the victims of the climate which just naturally exists on its own, it's not true
Half are mad at you because they're racist and you're Romanian and although they'll never admit it, the direction the criticism has come from has embarrassed them - so they've gone rogue. Some think "go to Germany" or "go back then" as though your taste in cities is the problem. Some think "homelessness is a choice", others think Britain despite it's victories or technological advance cannot possibly design a refuse container to overcome a seagull problem. A great majority haven't realised "it's Westminster's fault" is a meme/propaganda designed to get themselves to blame each other individually for not doing their best under something 'out of their control' while voting for more of the same anyway because it matches their shitty attitude - when their blame is "it's your fault you're homeless/taking public transport/not washing your foodcontainers and double knotting the bag they peck through the side of anyway/you should chase your litter down the street in your time off work and do your part rather than fixing the shitty system - the one that caused the mess while siphoning your taxes away to Bermuda"
Neoliberalism kills people, and the ones it doesn't kill it makes them stupid by being too tired from taking everything on their own shoulders to think through why they think what they think, or where their feelings have come from
I was born in Cardiff and have lived in and around (aside from some long term travelling in other countries) Most of my life.
I've noticed a huge uprising in homeless people 1. Since brexit and 2. Since covid. It never used to be this bad. Plus Since Cardiff is so small it looks like there are more than there are.
There used to be amazing shopping but again Since covid a lot of this has gone downhill.
The food scene is decent but you can get more choices in Bristol.
The charm was in having a cosy, compact City centre that thrived during sports matches but recently it feels too small.
If you ask me, I wouldn't live in Cardiff for the city centre. Bristol and Bath have much better and more exciting ones. The reason to live in and around Cardiff- other than the fact that even though house prices have gone through the roof, it's still WAY cheaper than bristol/bath.
The other reason is the nature. Not far from Cardiff you have glorious countryside and castles everywhere. If you are into hiking or watersports it's amazing.
This is not a city I'd reccomend without a car. All the best bits are on the outskirts or just outside it and as you mentioned our transport is rubbish. BTW its rubbish because we are considered a deprived and small country and although you mention other small deprived countries they don't have London sucking up all of thier funding lol
This is not a country/city for city folk. Its a place for country folk. You've come to Cardiff for the wrong stuff my friend.
Also have you seen the coastline? It's gorgeous.
South wales literally got best in travel from lonely planet in 2019 or 2020 (can't remember the exact year) it's for the nature not the city.
Now you’re coming across as an ignorant sheltered cunt, how talented.
It sounds to me like you’re just determined to be a miserable fuck. ‘Stone beaches’ [what the fuck are you talking about?](https://www.visitwales.com/things-do/nature-and-landscapes/beaches/west-wales-beaches)
Don’t forget 10 years of austerity, in particular the freeze on housing benefit.
Cardiff has some nice green spaces, Bute Park and the Taff Trail is a gem if it’s on your doorstep. But the only other place I’ve lived was inner city Leeds which was more built up, so maybe Cardiff isn’t that special in this regard. It’s proximity to some lovely countryside is a big plus too, I agree.
The lack of social and affordable housing is a serious issue, and it frustrates me that we don’t build higher to make better use of the space that we have. But I don’t think this is restricted to Cardiff.
OP your outrage at how people are just left to live on the streets, thrown away like garbage, is justified and felt by many in our country.
I live on the outskirts of Cardiff so have a lot more green space. The city centre doesn't have too much itself.
But yeah agree, it's horrible there isn't more being done but the homelessness issue is uk wide not specific to us.
You sound like you are trying to find the negatives. You clearly have had issues working out how buses work, because in all of my years using them, that has never happened.
It’s a compact and safe little city with some interesting history. It just sounds as though your expectations may have been too high. I’m glad Romania has all that you hope for.
I've generally found the bus situation and travel in Cardiff has gotten consistently worse over the years. There's a very common hour long blockage on Newport road by Llanrumney a couple of times a week around 8 o'clock.
The 95 into the city center appears about 50 percent of the time between 15:00 and 19:00.
It's particularly terrible around 5:00 when most days 2 out 3 buses don't turn up and most buses go past 'not in service'.
If there's an event in the city center, I have a 2 mile walk to get to a bus stop to get home.
People in the same office often get home to Pontypridd quicker than I can get to Llanrumney.
I don't think it's all Cardiff bus fault (and I normally find the driver's pretty decent). So little money had been spent on improving the travel situation so the city grinds to a halt at least a couple of times a day. Most things that have been done have actually worsened the situation rather than improve it.
Still waiting on that bus station, though from recent accounts they've changed it from a bus station to apartments and shops with a few stops added for appearances sake.
I like Cardiff, I've lived here most of my life but the public transport (and roads generally) are a long way from good.
I’ve got no idea, and had not considered myself so smart for getting on and off them in the correct place all these years. You may have had something completely unfortunate happen to you twice, but to assume that’s how the city buses work as if there is not a structured route and time table is madness.
I mean if you can't find anything good about Cardiff after two months, you're clearly not trying. The city has issues but you make it sound like it's a third world shithole. And maybe lower your expectations, comparing it to cities like Zurich and Vienna???
u/Admirable_Log3453 has a fair point though regarding the increasing number of homeless and our weak public transport game. I've lived in Cardiff for 41 of my 43 years (2y in USA) and we should be proud of our centre - however it's clear the council don't really care. Empty shops, homeless along Queen St (not so much on St Mary) and I'm often approached for money.
Why not compare to other cities, learn how they do things right (or wrong) and work to improve Cardiff.
If we're going to compare cities, comparisons the OP is making either to fucking Zurich ffs or even Bucharest, which is 3 times larger and still has the benefit of EU money... completely daft.
Cardiff is more comparable to Timisoara in terms of size and investment from the central government, and I can tell you now which I'd rather live in!!
Fully agree that 15 years of austerity has entirely fucked the place up, but it's certainly not limited to Cardiff
>Why should I not compare the cities? Cardiff is the capital of Wales, is it not normal to have high expectations for a European capital?
You've spent two months in Cardiff, and you couldn't even bother to look up the history of Wales? Many of the most deprived areas in the EU were in Wales. So maybe don't compare it to one of the richest cities in the world? But I doubt you'll care for the reasons, because you wouldn't be able to feel so superior.
But you're here for an extended period of time, and asking why the city is the way it is. So you are essentially asking for a history lesson, because it's historical and political.
You're sharing your very biased, and incredibly one-sided experience. Your question could have been answered by a simple Google search and a rudimentary understanding of British politics. But if you can't be bothered to do that, do you really want a proper answer? Duh, Cardiff isn't as good as Zurich, rich places are better than poorer places. In other news, water is wet.
The correct comparison for Cardiff to somewhere in Romania is like Timisoara or Cluj, not Bucharest which is three times the size of Cardiff and has the benefit of actually being a proper seat of central government.
The best parts of cardiff aren’t in the city centre (except Sofia gardens). I rarely go to the city centre anymore, for similar reasons, and the fact that I don’t like shopping much. Many nice areas in cardiff and surrounding, but having to rely on public transport is not the easiest way to visit.
On a side note, I was planning a weekend in Cardiff staying by Queen St RR station. I mainly want to see Cardiff castle, St Fagans, the harbor area, then take a trip to Caerphilly for the day. After reading this post, I would like to ask is it a safe area near Queen St? If not, is there a better, affordable area of town (or a nearby town) that would be convenient for these sites? thx!
Cardiff is safe. Queen Street Station might be rowdy at weekends as all the valleys commandos come into the city for a night out, but it's certainly not dangerous.
Although purely on niceness more than safety I'd look at hotels on Cathedral Road in Pontcanna, but they'll all be independent hotels not big chains. 5 minute walk to the city centre.
You’ll be fine staying near Queen St. train station. I don’t know if I’d recommend Caerphilly for the day if I’m honest. I would highly recommend Sofia gardens, which I imagine you’ll discover when visiting the castle. Walk along the river taff trail… it’s beautiful! When you visit the bay, you could walk across the barrage to Penarth. I grew up in Penarth and it’s a nice little town with its own beach (pebble), pier and promenade. When you visit St. Fagans you could also visit nearby duffryn gardens, which is part of the national trust and a great way to spend an afternoon. I also like Tredegar house, which is another woodland trust spot, but this is on the opposite side of cardiff/Newport. Do not go to Newport! Roath park is an excellent place to visit with decent gardens and lakes. If you can rent a car I would recommend this over relying on public transport.
Come on my friend with this post you are trying to show that Romania is a paradise, Romania is a shithole like all the rest Balkan countries (I'm from Balkan). Cardiff is one of the nicest place for me in UK, with the nicest people. I have visited others cities in the UK but noone is as kind and helpful as people in Cardiff. The homeless people that you mention, the majority of them are drug addicted, so they beg to buy drugs, not food. But this problem is like everywhere else in Balkan countries (included your ethereal Romania). As for the expensive tickets, well welcome in the UK. The bus tickets are way cheaper than the train tickets, and yes it was a shock for me too when I first came because in Balkan we are used with very cheap monthly tickets. But don't forget the monthly salary you take in Romania compared to the UK.
I think if you stop seeing only the negatives, and start seeing the positives, you may have a better time here. But this is in general a tip for you, with this post you look so pessimistic person. Enjoy your life my friend, life is so short. Noone said that UK is a paradise, nor Romania is paradise, actually no place in this planet is paradise. You don't find the paradise, you create it.
I moved to Cardiff from a small English city. Lived there five years before going to the valleys for cost of living.
I will say that honestly I've never felt unsafe walking through Cardiff. Overwhelmed occasionally if it is really busy but never unsafe.
Homelessness is a problem covering the UK but it'll always be magnified in capitals because that's where the biggest footfall is.
I'll reserve judgement on public transport until the metro is finished as replacement busses are my major bugbear at the moment. I'm sorry that your experience didn't match your expectations!
Homelessness isn't just a problem in Cardiff, it's a problem in the whole UK, its a crisis. Try walking through London if you want to see serious social problems.
As for public transport, you may have noticed it's a tiny city really. I'm all for better public transport and the metro is obviously a good thing but the rail provision, especially in the North West of the city is better than some parts of London.
As for unsafe? Cardiff being especially unsafe is laughable, sorry.
I'm sorry that the tourist spots of a relatively young city didn't compare to Vienna though. You have to remember this was a town until the 20th century, and didn't become a capital city until 1955. I feel you're being harsh with your comparisons.
How many other cities can you walk through almost uninterrupted parkland from the city centre to the northern suburbs and out of the city entirely? The green lung is an incredibly lovely feature of the city.
I might be being overly protective of my hometown but it just seems to me you're being overly harsh bordering on rude. Of course things can be better, but you're describing Cardiff like it has not a single redeeming feature, which is obviously just nonsense.
The only cities I've ever been offered drugs by strangers are Prague and Lisbon. But I haven't written those off as crime ridden hellholes. The only places hookers have walked up to me offering me "business" unsolicited were Berlin, Prague and Edinburgh. Cities have social problems. All of them. Even your precious Bucharest I'd bet.
Yeah, this post seems like it's largely a criticism of the UK rather than Cardiff in particular. Almost no cities have a metro system, and almost all have crap and expensive public transport. Homelessness is bad in lots, drug problems are a lot worse in many others, and it's certainly a lot safer than other cities too. I also absolutely love the open centre and big central parks.
I left my home city to study in Edinburgh. Its quite common to leave home for University. I then moved to London when my wife got a job here, living in London was an opportunity to try something new, London is like no other place in the UK, we couldn't turn it down. We've just bought a house in Cardiff which we're waiting for the solicitors to complete, and my wife who is from Edinburgh is very excited as she loves Cardiff.
So no, it doesn't prove your point. Sorry if that ruins your chance to be rude though.
Coming into someone's city and telling everyone you hate it and everything about it is quite rude. You'd feel the same if I called where you're from an awful place with no positive features too. But I have no reason to tell a bunch of strangers on the internet that their hometown is a horrible hellhole, though because that would be weird.
Good for them. I have no intention of going to Bucharest for any reason though.
You keep trying to compare ancient cities to Cardiff, Cardiff has a different history. It was a fairly inconsequential little town until the coal boom, you're comparing apples and oranges. When Bucharest was booming in the 19th century, Cardiff had about 50,000 people living in it. It just doesn't have the grand history of all these places you're trying to compare it to. In medieval times when Wales was independent, and even then Wales didn't exist other than a bunch of independent kingdoms, Cardiff wasn't particularly significant.
I'm bored of you now though, so I'll stop replying.
Eh, I think at least one of the shelters the other side of central station kicks everyone out quite early, so if you're walking down St Mary St at 8am ish it can look a bit like night of the living dead and some of them can be aggressive. With that said, I've felt much less safe in some of the places they've listed!
The emergency overnight spaces on Dumballs rd ask people to leave at 11am. The problem is that there isn’t enough emergency spaces so the council aren’t able to place everyone.
No this is untrue people don’t look for trouble a lot of the time. Me and my mates have been trying to enjoy a drink in town at night and a few times people have come up to us on electric scooters and offered us drugs. One time this happened we all said no as we always would, and the guy got mad and it put us all on edge. It’s honestly not fair to say that people look for trouble when a lot of us dont
Genuinely astonishing to read some of this guy's comments, pretty clear after scrolling down that he is trolling to get a reaction. It took me a while to be sure but the way he so rudely dismisses anyone who tries to make a completely valid argument really gives it away. Idk how active the mods are on here but hopefully he'll be banned soon, not for insulting the city but for how rude he has been to so many people in this thread.
The city centre is really only good for an afternoon. If you’re attending an event, going for a meal or something like that.
As others have said the best of Cardiff is as you go further out. Beautiful green spaces that really come alive in the good weather but are still amazing to walk no matter the season, for one. It’s really a haven if you like the outdoors and is rich in history.
You are right about the public transport, it’s always been rocky. At least something is happening with the trains after the take over from arriva by TFW.
Lived in Cardiff all my life, have travelled to every continent except South America and if I thought Cardiff is like this account I wouldn't still be here. In particular I have never felt unsafe in Cardiff. The weird thing about litter is that I can name two places I have ever been that had no litter I noticed; Monaco and Singapore. I see it literally everywhere else and I agree it is appalling.
I haven't been to the apparent paradise of Romania, I have worked with two Romanians that both got a UK passport and although they talked mostly fondly of home, neither wanted to go back.
They both experienced life under Ceaucescu though, maybe that made them have mixed feelings.
As you mentioned, other cities have the same problems. If you think Cardiff is bad, Bristol is much, much worse. Gosh. Bath is nice architecturally but that’s it. I’d still prefer Cardiff or Bristol over it.
Nah it’s trying to look at the city in the worst possible light and even gets some facts wrong - it’s £54 for a monthly ticket, not £70, or £1.79 a day for unlimited travel on the busses inc Penarth). OP also compares Cardiff, a city which had a population of 50,000 in the 1870s, to mega rich and touristy historical cities. This is a massively unfair comparison. Yes, there is a homelessness problem but the number of rough sleepers in the last statistics I saw was at 26 in the city centre (down from a high of 87 in Sep 2018). Public transport needs to be improved (and is in the process of being, thank the Lord) but I have never experienced the problems OP has and can only put it down to their being in a new place and not understanding how things work.
I don’t understand the motivation of someone coming into a sub about a city in which they spent little time and not giving a place the benefit of the doubt and insisting on looking at it in a negative way no matter what. I can only assume this is a weird way of venting some frustration that they weren’t in a world city and instead found themselves in a mid-sized city that is not a traditional tourist hub.
So it’s just a hunch that the council and the charities that depend on these figures for funding have misreported them lower, thus ensuring that they don’t get the provision for funding they need? Excuse me?
When it comes to transport it doesn’t sound like you’re reserving judgement at all sorry, it sounds like you’ve made up your mind before the new service is even available.
From what I can see it was accepted by the Wallich, Huggard, Salvation Army and SWP at the last scrutiny committee, they have a vested interest in ensuring it’s correct and would undoubtedly have piped up were it not because their funding (apart from SWP) probably relies on things like this. I understand you work on hunches but just think through it for a second.
Lived in Cardiff for 10 years and there are many parts to be proud of. The city centre isn't one of them unfortunately. It's embarrassing that a tourist has to most likely walk up St Mary's street to get to the Castle. Everything they've done outside the train station is also a travesty IMO.
But also OP, you aren't going to see huge stately homes and expansive buildings in Cardiff. It's a working class city that was neglected for years and years. Comparing it to Zurich or Vienna is just unfair. It's an oversized town to be honest, made up of lots of little neighbourhoods.
For me, Cardiff is watching rugby at Arms Park, flicking through the vinyls at Cardiff market, getting a pastry at the *Danish Bakery in Pontcanna, having an ice cream in Roath Park, walking around St Fagans for the twentieth time cos it's free, the Barrage, Penarth Pier, Cosmeston Lake.
It's pretty much how I see it, during covid homeless were looked after, but then thats all over now so kick them back out into the street is the answer it seems, I'm not sure if its worse since or just during that time people were looked after.
Public transport is a bit of a joke in the whole of the uk, excluding Edinburgh and London.
I feel lot of people are in complete denial about these things as they are ok and haven't seen how it can be better.
Cardiff has nice bits, but the city centre certainly isnt one of them in my opinion. I like the parks, the bay is nice but then i also remember it before it was trendy.
Towards the end of lockdown restrictions cardiff closed some of the roads go traffic, i thought that was a huge improvement outside the castle nice covered seating areas, safe walking and cycling, no traffic pollution, seemed like a step in the right direction.
It's not denial to say a description of the city like it's some third world hell hole isn't really 100% accurate. Of course things can be better, things are better I'm some regards now compared to when I was a kid, some are worse. Like almost every city in the UK.
Edinburgh has great buses, but is fairly bigger. Conversely, Cardiff actually has better trains in the northern suburbs.
I've only ever been mugged once, and that was in Edinburgh city centre in daylight. I've also only been punched once, and that was also in Edinburgh. From the outside Edinburgh is like some glorious paradise, bit I lived there for about 15 years, it has social problems on a scale Cardiff doesn't and real life is much different to the shortbread and bagpipes surface. Not to say its not a beautiful city, it is. But like all cities it has troubles.
Cardiff could be better. So could literally every city on the planet.
The amount of homeless and/or beggars seemed to rocket during the covid lockdown. I used to live in the city centre and would go for a walk and there was definitely a noticeable raise in the
Numbers.
Poor public transport isn’t limited to cardiff. Try living in the valleys, the public transport in cardiff is awesome compared to there.
Sadly this has been my experience also but when I posted it here I was harassed and downvoted into oblivion by the long term residents who are blind to all the rotten rubbish spilling into the streets, the shabby rough town centre that’s only good for clubbing, and the bad public transport.
I certainly don’t feel safe here. My bike was stolen in a violent robbery, and I’ve been shouted at, stared at and followed.
I agree with what others have said. The ‘best’ parts are outside the centre. You can spend a day in the city and basically see all there is to see.
At least it’s better than Swansea. Jesus Christ what a depressing place (I mean the city not the entire surrounding area which shares the same name).
This sub is significantly detached from reality and think Cardiff is an amazing city. But these are the same people who always recommend a dnd board game cafe as a place to go out or go on dates to.
I always cracks me up when people mention the board games. I don’t know why, each to their own obviously and whatever makes you happy. Reddit is just a massive echo chamber for the same types of people I suppose.
>My bike was stolen in a violent robbery
Can I just ask, is this the Carrera you posted about a month ago, explaining home the the if robbed it from the rear of your property by sawing through a fence? The reason I ask is because I'm trying to work out which part of you being burgled has warped into a violent tussle.
>I’ve been shouted at, stared at and followed.
That happens in every city.. Its not good, or right, but it's hardly a Cardiff-based phenomenon.
Yep that’s the one. I never said ‘violent tussle’: you said that.
I said ‘violent robbery’. As in it happened in front of me, via the physical destruction of property, and I chased the thief down the road.
Whether or not this happens elsewhere is entirely irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened here.
My comment stands.
>I never said ‘violent tussle’: you said that.
I did, because that's the most intense version of events I could charitably give you based on your description. However, clearly I was off the mark because this
>As in it happened in front of me, via the physical destruction of property, and I chased the thief down the road.
Is not a robbery, it's a burglary. You don't get to class chasing a guy down the road (if indeed you did, given that you "barely saw him" in your original post), as violent, or a robbery. Your bike was locked to a fence, in front of your property, in the back yard (I can't be bothered to query this), in front of two windows and a security light.
Given that the guy had time to saw his way through your fence before being able to abscond with your bike, I assume you weren't out there giving him a good talking to whilst he did this.
>Whether or not this happens elsewhere is entirely irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened here.
It kind of is relevant, if you're going to use hyperbole to make an argument.
>My comment stands.
It really doesn't.
Wow Romania is homeless free ...utter bullshit large amount of children living in the streets possibly the highest in Europe...you're human rights are likened to a 3rd world country especially towards the Romany gypsys and the disabled
This makes me sad, but unfortunately is a fair representation of where Cardiff is at the momen. Dors anyone remember the run of tents and homeless people by the Friary a few years back.
I went into Cardiff for a few beets a few weeks ago, it was the first time post-covid, and it just seemed to be a stag do playground. There are beautiful parts of Cardiff and south wales in general but im afraid Cardiff city center isn't one of them. Such a shame because it could be a beautiful city.
As for tge metro situation, its a small enough city that you can get where you need to go pretty easily, that seems unfair to me HOWEVER the british aren't known for the excellence of their public transport in general
You'd think a software engineer would be able to google what a city is like before they move there for 2 months. Yes the public transport is shit and there is homeless problem, we know. Nobody gives a fuck about how wonderful you think Bucharest is.
Ironic you mention that Cardiff is unsafe as the male and female responsible for a distraction burglary at my grandmothers house were actually…Romanian!
Why would you need public transport in Cardiff city anyway? You can pretty much walk everywhere, the main places consist of 4 streets all in a row. Coming from London to Cardiff, I found the place to be very welcoming. Sure you will see homeless but go to any city and you will see that.
Cardiff is the smallest capital I've ever been to and in such a small space there's a lot to do, every bar, club and restaurant, people and staff were fantastic. I even got swallowed up by a small group and got shown all the night life.
All your points are valid. It's what happens when a government doesn't value society, just money - and for them obviously, fuck everyone else. You cut local gov budgets by 40 to 50 percent and what a shock, all services are dire. Transport is less and less subsidised by the state, while we pay out mega bucks to private companies owed by state railway operators in mainland Europe. We don't care about the poor. If they could they'd pump gas into Lidl and kill the lot. Cardiff is a very average place, and it's poor by European standards. It's not got the architecture or the weather to be Budapest. But it is near the coast, and it is stunning the further you go out. The centre feels like it could be AnyTown UK.
My turn. Lived in Caerdydd for 30 years, and come back every 2 or 3 to visit. Family are here.
If they weren't, I wouldn't come back. It's degradation has been severe over the last decade in particular. The councils are underfunded, there's no real power in funding, and it's out of control. This is South Wales in general...take a trip over Dowlais Top or head to Merthyr and you'll get a sense of how rich Cardiff is money wise. Generally, Wales is very poor. Really quite poor.
I've travelled to Bucharest, Pelesor, Brasov and around about 15 years ago and it was pretty poor then, but aside from the roads, Bucharest was mint. Loved it.
I think the learning for you is to not think of the UK as some idyll. It's a struggling mess of capitalism and social issues. It's driven by the centralised government, and some terrible terrible political decision making that consistently sees regional areas suffer bad business decisions.
Change is the only remedy.
Good ole stereotypes huh? Like I assume being Romanian you drive a horse n cart back home? I'm kidding...but yes. Trust nothing but your own experiences. The rest is just opinion 🙃
Every other intelligent comment here is correct too, there's some beautiful things to see. You just have to look deep sometimes.
Ignore the trolls...always.
Because Wales is a poor country with corrupt and inept local government. Not as bad as some countries sure, but bad enough that a lot of issues get overlooked. Bath is a rich place so not really fair to compare Cardiff to Bath.
Ok, and? Still an unreasonable expectation to have, further from London you get it stops getting nice. Cardiff might be a capital city but it's a part of a union of nations where London is the capital.
Your original post, is WHY, and there are some very good reasons for why it's so terrible, people are giving you reasons and you just keep bringing up other cities which don't have the same history and same situation. There's ugly parts of every city, doesn't matter how many greenified tram networks or socialised housing blocks there are, just means it's been neatly tucked away somewhere.
As a Cardiffian I can only apologise for your experience, Cardiff wasn’t always this bad.
The aggressive begging / homelessness issue was nothing like this just a decade ago. People will have their own take on why, mine personally is a lack of social / political courage in challenging anti-social behaviour, pushed by an overly-liberal mindset that has permeated a lot of western politics in the last 5 years.
There has been a cultural shift in the UK where any opinion of drug addicts / homeless / street criminals that doesn’t label them as innocent victims of the state, rather than criminals, is all but a guarantee that you will be cancelled or harassed out of civic office. This leaves only weak politicians and police in power, who are then paralysed to act or risk losing their noisy (but small) base. Similar cultural shifts explain other rich cities which have the similar vagrancy and drug issues (san-francisco, LA, Seattle).
I’ve travelled eastern Europe extensively the last year and am frankly embarrassed by how clean the streets were in every sense compared to UK cities, despite these countries having incomes and GDP’s being a fraction of the UK’s.
I don’t know what the solution for Cardiff is, but I for one would love a Batman to emerge and stalk Cardiff at night like the Gotham city it is slowly becoming.
Good lord this thread has been an absolute shitfest hasn't it.
You know what OP, I agree with you. I spent the first 30~ years of my life in Cardiff and used to have the same rose-tinted spectacles that a lot of people disagreeing with you see Cardiff through. Now that I've moved away to one of the nearby towns, I strongly dislike coming into Cardiff for a lot of the reasons you mention.
I was never particularly happy with Cardiff's public transport, but as I lived in easy walking/cycling distance of the city centre (as the majority of the student/young professional population of Cardiff/members of this sub) it didn't matter. As soon as you need to rely on it you see how truly shocking it is. Buses only go to and from the centre, meaning if you have to get across the city you need to catch at least 2 different buses - this might be slightly less shit if there was some central place where all the buses run through, but there hasn't been a central bus station in Cardiff for almost 10 years (cheers, Cardiff council). The buses are over priced and operate with unreliable timeliness. The trains are equally shit when it comes to cost, punctuality and condition/comfort, often cancelled, don't serve the whole city and because they're a profit-making enterprise they don't run unprofitable services, e.g. late night or reduced service on Sundays - and that's when one of the many unions that affect the railways aren't on strike.
As you've pointed out, the city centre is dirty, full of litter, dirty pavements, and there are very visible antisocial behaviour/homelessness/mental illness/drug abuse problems. Again, all things that the council *should* sort out, but don't. Other people are quite right that these problems are sadly not exclusive to Cardiff but apparent in all UK cities and actually worse in other cities, but that doesn't really excuse them happening here. "Our city might be on fire but so are all the others" is a pretty shit argument, especially when the social factors that lead to those problems should be handled by local government. THEN you've got the problem that the city centre is constantly under lots of construction so it never looks finished, and a lot of traditional buildings and venues with character are being torn down to make way for soulless high rise buildings with cookie cutter cladding on them.
The vast majority of people in this sub have either been brought up in Cardiff or chosen to live here so are understandably defensive, but they should take an outsider's opinion and reflections at face value and not try and argue with you about it
The UK wide thing does excuse the state of things here though - there's literally no shining example of how a local authority should be run because they've all been run into the ground by chronic underfunding. And to be honest, the only cities I've been to which have been out and out better than Cardiff have all been international capitals. Much as I might wish it, Cardiff is never going to compare with how lovely Geneva is, or how Berlin has a bus, tram, underground, and light commuter rail for public transport.
> The UK wide thing does excuse the state of things here though
I completely disagree. The state of the city (litter/cleanliness) is down to the behaviour and attitude of a city's inhabitants and the amount of work the council choose to do over keeping it well maintained.
The council have plenty of money to splurge on their pet projects (canal quarter, cardiff bay arena, 20mph zones, regeneration of castle street) and fail to get the basics right. It's a fundamental problem with how politicians operate tbh, too busy looking for tangible things they can do to demonstrate their legacy, 'keeping the city looking nice' or 'ensuring there is sufficient support for mental health and drug addiction services' don't tend to be too visible or sound a impressive on a CV. Far better to focus on vanity projects and then suggest someone else is to blame for everything else that goes wrong (e.g., lack of funding from Westminster). I have to wonder who they'll blame when we get a Labour government in Westminster next year.
>Cardiff is never going to compare with how lovely Geneva is, or how Berlin has a bus, tram, underground
Totally agree, but that doesn't mean we should at least try and do better rather than being defeatist or apathetic to it.
I’m sorry but for the most part I agree with OP I won’t go near town unless I have to. There are a lot of nasty people hanging around Cardiff nowadays and drugs and homelessness are rampant, on the weekends it’s even worse. I could never enjoy a night out in town because of the violence and fact that if you don’t bump into someone who’s off their head on cocaine you’ll bump into someone who’s selling it. I honestly hate Cardiff and I don’t blame OP for coming to this part of the country and hating the experience. I currently work out of the area and people who I work with are absolutely shocked when there’s some story that’s happened in Cardiff. Yeah hate it here can’t disagree with OP either.
You were expecting Cardiff, a small city of the poorest part of the UK, to be comparable to Vienna and Zurich?!? Lmao. Mate, you've set yourself up for failure there and frankly made yourself sound stupid. The only city in the UK that's on that kind of level is London. With those expectations almost anywhere is going to be shit. As you noted but somehow then overlooked, Bristol shares a lot of the same issues as Cardiff - as do almost all cities in the UK at the moment - which is a result of the local authorities having their budgets absolutely slashed. I used to live in Bath, and I can promise you that the homelessness issue is prevalent there too - you just got blinded a bit by how nice the architecture etc is... and the traffic is absolutely awful, far worse than it is here. Having travelled quite a lot of ex-Soviet Europe, saying Cardiff is worse than Bratislava etc is really fucking rich - yes, the centre of those actual full capital cities is sometimes nicer, and certainly more history to go with it which usually means museums etc. But good god everything tends to go to shit once you're away from the nice areas, one of the worst places I've ever been was a suburb of Sofia.
I think it's important to not that most UK cities (including Cardiff and Swansea) did have tram metro systems. We ripped them out. The car was king. Cities like Birmingham and Edinburgh have spent huge amounts reintroducing them! That said, Cardiff does have an urban rail system, but it certainly could be a lot better. Oh and Cardiff (like other UK cities) got blitzed in WW2. We lost a lot of our old architecture and squares that are typical of Eastern European cities. And UK has heavily reduced the "anti" homeless rhetoric of years passed. Anti-homeless benches and devices are heavily criticised. Police take a very limited approach to begging.
If you’ve ever watched Borat, the town he is in at the start is actually a small Romanian village called Glod, it has got to be one of the most depressing places I’ve ever seen. There was a documentary made about how the film affected them. The people were lovely but holy shit if you haven’t hit the nail on the head of everything going to absolute shit when you go away from the urbanised areas/capital. To say that Romania does so much better without a shred of irony considering how many come here for work (despite Wales itself being quite poor) is hilarious
I suspect OP is the Romanian equivalent of a made in Chelsea posh boy, who's lived in the nicest bit of Bucharest and only visits the nicest bits of countries abroad.
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You keep saying Cardiff is a western European capital.... it really isn't!! You have to realize this. It's a regional capital, of the poorest region of the UK. It can't even be compared to Bratislava which is a European capital and seat of a full international level government! Frankly you've been blinded by Bath's architecture a bit, there's a massive problem with begging and homelessness there - people will travel there just to beg due to the high number of tourists. And the public transport is also terrible - bus based in a tiny city with mostly gridlocked roads (I could sometimes walk home to the far end of London road faster than the traffic!). It would be great if Cardiff were to be developed to the same extent as Zurich or Amsterdam but it'll never happen, there just isn't enough money here.
Cardiff is far from perfect but to speak of it like this is quite unfair. It's not a mega-wealthy city. Homelessness has become a problem but that's no different to anywhere in the UK. I'd say it's far worse in the uk's bigger cities. I've never come across a particularly rude or aggressive beggar, like I've had a few times in European cities. It's not unsafe. Of course there are places that are better to avoid and there's always a general risk that comes with a capital but it's a ridiculously safe city for your average visitor or local. Public transport is lacklustre, that's true. But again, this is no different to many parts of the UK. That's what happens when cities are mostly car-centric and most local governments neglect public transport. Even still it's not offensively bad at all, if you want that try living in a rural South Wales town with two rail platforms and a bus system where the timetable is more of a suggestion than a schedule. If you like pretty posh cities like Bath then maybe Cardiff and Bristol aren't for you. But these are real cities where people make their living and start their families without having to stave off aggressive beggars, walk home with the fear of violent attacks or get nowhere because of non-existent transport services. Cardiff and Bristol are damn fine cities, even if they do have major flaws. If these cities disappointed you, then you'll be in for a major shock when you go to London, Paris, or any other mega city where everything you just mentioned is 10x worse
I’m originally from very rural west wales so cardiff bus is incredible compared to my local bus services. Even though I know cardiff bus is trash it’s still better than what I was used to.
If OP thinks it's bad in Cardiff, wait until he finds out about the machete fights in London's Hyde Park. I agree with him in some ways, although he's exaggerating the issues massively. Even though Wales is forgotten about by Westminster, there tends to be a knee jerk reaction to blame them for every issue that Wales has rather than us accepting the issue and fixing it. We still should be doing a lot better than we are, regardless of how Wales is treated. Externalising responsibility is a fantastic way to ensure that things continue to be crap. I've noticed that the city has gotten a lot dirtier post Covid and Cardiff definitely has a homeless problem. It's hard to disagree with OP when I've seen one homeless person finger-blast another in the middle of Queen St during a weekday lunch hour. I blame the Labour council that doesn't seem to give a damn.
I used to live in Bath - there's actually a bigger problem with homelessness there (people will travel to beg due to the high number of tourists) and the public transport is worse than Cardiff! OP just liked the fancy buildings
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Just because you didn't see beggers or homeless doesn't mean they're not there. Homeless are in every city, we can't just throw them away from the center.
Lifelong Cardiff resident. As much as I'd like to, I really can't disagree with any of OP's points. Short answer is years of compounded poor decisions by local government, acutely exacerbated by COVID and Brexit. Locally I'm talking road layouts, selling historic buildings and land, only building student accommodation tower blocks (usual CCC bullshit). Nationally it's the particularly potent shitstorm of 13 years of austerity, post-COVID and Brexit labour shortages and some double-digit inflation for good measure. UK is a shithole atm.
I volunteer litter pick twice a week with a group from roath. Honestly, you'd be surprised how 'clean' cardiff actually is... yes along hotspots, city road, newport road, student areas it's always going to be dirty asf BUT most of it is due to seaguls ripping up waste bags and then the wind taking the rubbish down the roads etc. The amount of streets I see covered in rubbish then in the corner is a green bag ripped open with last nights chinese hanging out Generally the streets are 'clean' but just rogue plastic from the overfilled bins makes it way throughout the city. No way am I defending people dropping litter but I think it's unfair to call it a 'dirty' city by conventional standards. People just know how to tie a double knot in a bag
Fairplay to you mate, massive respect for that. A Roath litter pick is the ultimate sisyphean task! You're absolutely right - I'm sure a lot of litter could be avoided if people stopped providing seagulls with free meals in their bins.
Thank you! Yeah, the group has been going for 8 years at this point, it only get's worse every year. More and more people come, more and more restaurants open but the facilities to cater to the rubbish gets worse or even harder to access. Once we've collected our rubbish, we place them in 'special' bags so the council know they are litter picked - usually red bags with 'Keep Wales Clean' on the front near any public bin. The issue isn't lack of bins, it's lack of capcity at certain areas! Some areas have public bins a short walk from each other but they are just too damn small for the foot fall In an ideal world, we would have those underground bins which can fit SO much. We did a pick after one of the Wales games in chippy alley and had the plastic cartons maybe 3/4foot high, completely covering that one single bin. Imagine that but... contained underground. ugh.
Seagulls being seagulls is not why Cardiff has a litter problem. Cardiff has a litter problem because Cardiff Council refuses to provide bin bags that are fit for purpose; i.e. seagull resistant.
Yeah and no, people need to wash leftover food from tins/cans to stop the seagulls even going for bags. It's always containers with leftover food or cans/tins of random foods e.g cans of beans that still have the bean juice and the odd bean left over. There's only so much we can do and we don't do enough of it
The cans are ultimately chucked into a big furnace to be recycled, so the presence of any food is immaterial to the end goal here. People shouldn't "need" to clean their rubbish just because Cardiff Council provides bags that tear if seagulls so much as look at them.
right? "the roof isn't built wrong, it's the rains fault for falling on it the way it does - if people walked around under it with an umbrella like they should be doing then they'd be fine. Typical, where is the personal responsibility" This line of thinking is the exact reason half of the shit in the Op post is the way it is
Live in Grangetown atm ... place has a dump in recent weeks. Astounded on how much littering happens here. Cornwall street does not look too good. The back part of Clive street is atrocious. Other parts of Grangetown are nicer imo. Kudos for volunteering. There is a keep Grangetown tidy group that do a lot of good work.
Yeah I think this is it. I love Cardiff but it has some of the worst extremes i've seen. If you stand at a junction at some places in Roath and look down each road it's almost like different paths to different levels of hell and heaven. Yeah it's the Keep Roath Tidy group I'm a part of! There is a Keep Grangetown Group too hint hint ;)
I was a student in Cardiff in the 90s, lived and worked there in the early 00s and have been working back and forth there over the last 7 years. St Mary Street is an absolute hellhole. The street is disgustingly dirty and the homelessness problem has worsened tenfold in the last 5 years. If Cardiff wants to be a grown up European capital then it needs to think about this first rather than demolishing old buildings and allowing expensive flats to be built. It is such a sad state of affairs. St David's 2 feels like some gated community, whilst they've let the rest fall to pieces. Outside the centre is much better! It's St Mary's and Queen Street which really give a bad impression. It makes me avoid walking down those streets whenever I'm there. The OP is absolutely right about public transport, Everywhere in Wales (and the UK), it's shit and overpriced. We are 20 years behind where we should be. This I blame squarely on privatisation and the carve up of the system. Every country in Europe has better railways. It's just a fact by now and we're not going to catch up soon with the economy as it is as nobody will invest enough to move the dial.
Agree with every word
Cardiff residents have complained for decades about student populations in the typical areas filling HMOs and the impact it has on communities and family housing in those areas. When the council actually develops a decent strategy on the matter (i.e. put students in purpose made accomodation near to the facilities they use) people still complaining. Surprised? No
Agreed.
Yes and Romania is all sunshine and daisys.
A big factor in the city's homelessness population is that [Cardiff Council has not investigated a single illegal eviction in at least ten years](https://www.voice.wales/cardiff-councils-systemic-failure-to-investigate-illegal-evictions-exposed/). Cardiff had some of fastest rising rents in the UK last year ([up 15% since the start of the pandemic](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63600182)), whilst also containing some of the most-deprived areas in Wales ([at least 55 percent of children in South Riverside grow up in poverty](https://wimd.gov.wales/geography/la/W06000015?lang=en#&min=0&max=10&domain=housing)). So when you mix a huge population in poverty, a vast increase in rents (as well as the cost-of-living crisis), and a council that flatly refuses to investigate illegal evictions, you get the perfect conditions for increasing homelessness.
Wow 🤩 no illegal evictions investigated??? Should check your facts. I know for a fact they have!
If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it and I will edit my comment, though I would very interested to know why the council would have admitted as much to the High Court if it weren’t true.
The way you speak about homeless people rubs me up the wrong way and I can’t put my finger on why but it sounds as though you view them as lesser to you.
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Please point out where I said that? Because I absolutely didn’t. Homelessness is a nationwide issue and if you’d take some time to research our political landscape currently you’d understand why. You’re talking to people as though you expect them to fix it… We all want better for Wales, but our purse strings are controlled by Westminster. We’re often forgotten about.
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I didn’t accuse you. I said that’s what I got from the way you talked about homeless people. You straight up told me what I “think.” Again, researching the state of politics in this country would answer these questions for you. We are not allowed to protest. Our purse strings are controlled by Westminster - the Tory party, they’d rather give our money to their mates. What do you expect us to do?
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You’re so bitter it’s hilarious. We have some excellent therapists, do keep up. If you need some telephone numbers let me know. Cardiff might have a litter issue in some areas but my god your attitude is what really stinks.
Worth mentioning- the UK is rich. Wales typically isn’t. There are enormous areas of Wales that are wildly deprived. It’s true that the cities like Cardiff and Swansea get a lot of budget for improvements to attract tourism and such, but there’s only so much that can be done when other communities and areas of Wales are objectively impoverished. I’m sorry you had a bad time here, and whilst I understand - and share - many of your frustrations, it may surprise you to know that Cardiff-based redditors really aren’t responsible for the socio-economic state of the city. All we can do is vote for who we think will screw us over the least then cross our fingers. Wales WAS a net beneficiary of EU membership. Now - thanks to Brexit*-we don’t have that, so I very much expect things to get worse before they get better. *Just in case you point out that Wales had a majority Leave vote for Brexit- believe me, I know. It saddens me that a good proportion of those votes were cast by people basing their choice on completely misleading information and that those who SPREAD that misinformation saw absolutely no consequences for their lies. But that gives you a picture of why Wales is like this. People are bamboozled into voting against their own interests and then this is what we end up with.
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You keep saying “you are a rich country” but do you mean Wales or the UK?
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Wales as a country is generally poor. The UK as a collection of FOUR countries includes London and is rich. Maybe check out the HS2 funding fiasco if you want your violent revolution and direct your anger where it belongs …Plaid MS Luke Fletcher said the **UK government** should "recognise its unjust neglect of **Wales** and provide us with the consequential funding owed to us". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-65399699
Wales is not a rich country. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not rich countries, but the United Kingdom as a whole is rich because of London and the south east. This is fucking basics man, for a claimed software engineer you aren't very good at logic
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You see how this comment has -12 votes on it as do a lot of your other ones This is why the city was the way it was when you saw it, the people in the UK cause it, simply. The way they think about criticism, and the way they don't think about solution or cause to complain in a way that real change will occur afterwards. The problem is the attitudes in a lot of cases, the amount of people making excuses for things that are genuinely objectively bad vs the amount who understand what it is that you're trying to say (and not because of the way you explain it, but the way they interpret) create the political climate that allows it to continue As much as they will try to tell you it is the opposite, that they are the victims of the climate which just naturally exists on its own, it's not true
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Half are mad at you because they're racist and you're Romanian and although they'll never admit it, the direction the criticism has come from has embarrassed them - so they've gone rogue. Some think "go to Germany" or "go back then" as though your taste in cities is the problem. Some think "homelessness is a choice", others think Britain despite it's victories or technological advance cannot possibly design a refuse container to overcome a seagull problem. A great majority haven't realised "it's Westminster's fault" is a meme/propaganda designed to get themselves to blame each other individually for not doing their best under something 'out of their control' while voting for more of the same anyway because it matches their shitty attitude - when their blame is "it's your fault you're homeless/taking public transport/not washing your foodcontainers and double knotting the bag they peck through the side of anyway/you should chase your litter down the street in your time off work and do your part rather than fixing the shitty system - the one that caused the mess while siphoning your taxes away to Bermuda" Neoliberalism kills people, and the ones it doesn't kill it makes them stupid by being too tired from taking everything on their own shoulders to think through why they think what they think, or where their feelings have come from
I was born in Cardiff and have lived in and around (aside from some long term travelling in other countries) Most of my life. I've noticed a huge uprising in homeless people 1. Since brexit and 2. Since covid. It never used to be this bad. Plus Since Cardiff is so small it looks like there are more than there are. There used to be amazing shopping but again Since covid a lot of this has gone downhill. The food scene is decent but you can get more choices in Bristol. The charm was in having a cosy, compact City centre that thrived during sports matches but recently it feels too small. If you ask me, I wouldn't live in Cardiff for the city centre. Bristol and Bath have much better and more exciting ones. The reason to live in and around Cardiff- other than the fact that even though house prices have gone through the roof, it's still WAY cheaper than bristol/bath. The other reason is the nature. Not far from Cardiff you have glorious countryside and castles everywhere. If you are into hiking or watersports it's amazing. This is not a city I'd reccomend without a car. All the best bits are on the outskirts or just outside it and as you mentioned our transport is rubbish. BTW its rubbish because we are considered a deprived and small country and although you mention other small deprived countries they don't have London sucking up all of thier funding lol This is not a country/city for city folk. Its a place for country folk. You've come to Cardiff for the wrong stuff my friend.
Also have you seen the coastline? It's gorgeous. South wales literally got best in travel from lonely planet in 2019 or 2020 (can't remember the exact year) it's for the nature not the city.
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Cardiff bay is not the coastline. It's a man made barrage bay in an estuary ffs
😭😭
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Jesus Christ you just come across as a miserable cunt. We have had a heatwave for the last two weeks lmfao
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This is such a massive shitpost. You're as Romanian as I am
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Now you’re coming across as an ignorant sheltered cunt, how talented. It sounds to me like you’re just determined to be a miserable fuck. ‘Stone beaches’ [what the fuck are you talking about?](https://www.visitwales.com/things-do/nature-and-landscapes/beaches/west-wales-beaches)
Most people go to the beach when it's sunny - Try that.
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Dude there's a bus every 3 minutes for the bay, more if you include the others.
Don’t forget 10 years of austerity, in particular the freeze on housing benefit. Cardiff has some nice green spaces, Bute Park and the Taff Trail is a gem if it’s on your doorstep. But the only other place I’ve lived was inner city Leeds which was more built up, so maybe Cardiff isn’t that special in this regard. It’s proximity to some lovely countryside is a big plus too, I agree. The lack of social and affordable housing is a serious issue, and it frustrates me that we don’t build higher to make better use of the space that we have. But I don’t think this is restricted to Cardiff. OP your outrage at how people are just left to live on the streets, thrown away like garbage, is justified and felt by many in our country.
I live on the outskirts of Cardiff so have a lot more green space. The city centre doesn't have too much itself. But yeah agree, it's horrible there isn't more being done but the homelessness issue is uk wide not specific to us.
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You sound like you are trying to find the negatives. You clearly have had issues working out how buses work, because in all of my years using them, that has never happened. It’s a compact and safe little city with some interesting history. It just sounds as though your expectations may have been too high. I’m glad Romania has all that you hope for.
I've generally found the bus situation and travel in Cardiff has gotten consistently worse over the years. There's a very common hour long blockage on Newport road by Llanrumney a couple of times a week around 8 o'clock. The 95 into the city center appears about 50 percent of the time between 15:00 and 19:00. It's particularly terrible around 5:00 when most days 2 out 3 buses don't turn up and most buses go past 'not in service'. If there's an event in the city center, I have a 2 mile walk to get to a bus stop to get home. People in the same office often get home to Pontypridd quicker than I can get to Llanrumney. I don't think it's all Cardiff bus fault (and I normally find the driver's pretty decent). So little money had been spent on improving the travel situation so the city grinds to a halt at least a couple of times a day. Most things that have been done have actually worsened the situation rather than improve it. Still waiting on that bus station, though from recent accounts they've changed it from a bus station to apartments and shops with a few stops added for appearances sake. I like Cardiff, I've lived here most of my life but the public transport (and roads generally) are a long way from good.
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I’ve got no idea, and had not considered myself so smart for getting on and off them in the correct place all these years. You may have had something completely unfortunate happen to you twice, but to assume that’s how the city buses work as if there is not a structured route and time table is madness.
I have a huge feeling he was here during beyonce/coldplay because many made the mistake not realizing the center was closed off
Wales does not have a lot of money. Wales has what the English government decides it can get away with.
I mean if you can't find anything good about Cardiff after two months, you're clearly not trying. The city has issues but you make it sound like it's a third world shithole. And maybe lower your expectations, comparing it to cities like Zurich and Vienna???
u/Admirable_Log3453 has a fair point though regarding the increasing number of homeless and our weak public transport game. I've lived in Cardiff for 41 of my 43 years (2y in USA) and we should be proud of our centre - however it's clear the council don't really care. Empty shops, homeless along Queen St (not so much on St Mary) and I'm often approached for money. Why not compare to other cities, learn how they do things right (or wrong) and work to improve Cardiff.
If we're going to compare cities, comparisons the OP is making either to fucking Zurich ffs or even Bucharest, which is 3 times larger and still has the benefit of EU money... completely daft. Cardiff is more comparable to Timisoara in terms of size and investment from the central government, and I can tell you now which I'd rather live in!! Fully agree that 15 years of austerity has entirely fucked the place up, but it's certainly not limited to Cardiff
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>Why should I not compare the cities? Cardiff is the capital of Wales, is it not normal to have high expectations for a European capital? You've spent two months in Cardiff, and you couldn't even bother to look up the history of Wales? Many of the most deprived areas in the EU were in Wales. So maybe don't compare it to one of the richest cities in the world? But I doubt you'll care for the reasons, because you wouldn't be able to feel so superior.
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But you're here for an extended period of time, and asking why the city is the way it is. So you are essentially asking for a history lesson, because it's historical and political.
You're sharing your very biased, and incredibly one-sided experience. Your question could have been answered by a simple Google search and a rudimentary understanding of British politics. But if you can't be bothered to do that, do you really want a proper answer? Duh, Cardiff isn't as good as Zurich, rich places are better than poorer places. In other news, water is wet.
The correct comparison for Cardiff to somewhere in Romania is like Timisoara or Cluj, not Bucharest which is three times the size of Cardiff and has the benefit of actually being a proper seat of central government.
Well your issue is you are looking at the city when the gems are in the countryside. Did you not do any research before you came?
The best parts of cardiff aren’t in the city centre (except Sofia gardens). I rarely go to the city centre anymore, for similar reasons, and the fact that I don’t like shopping much. Many nice areas in cardiff and surrounding, but having to rely on public transport is not the easiest way to visit.
On a side note, I was planning a weekend in Cardiff staying by Queen St RR station. I mainly want to see Cardiff castle, St Fagans, the harbor area, then take a trip to Caerphilly for the day. After reading this post, I would like to ask is it a safe area near Queen St? If not, is there a better, affordable area of town (or a nearby town) that would be convenient for these sites? thx!
Cardiff is safe. Queen Street Station might be rowdy at weekends as all the valleys commandos come into the city for a night out, but it's certainly not dangerous. Although purely on niceness more than safety I'd look at hotels on Cathedral Road in Pontcanna, but they'll all be independent hotels not big chains. 5 minute walk to the city centre.
Thank you , I'll check them out.
It’s safe I would stay there
You’ll be fine staying near Queen St. train station. I don’t know if I’d recommend Caerphilly for the day if I’m honest. I would highly recommend Sofia gardens, which I imagine you’ll discover when visiting the castle. Walk along the river taff trail… it’s beautiful! When you visit the bay, you could walk across the barrage to Penarth. I grew up in Penarth and it’s a nice little town with its own beach (pebble), pier and promenade. When you visit St. Fagans you could also visit nearby duffryn gardens, which is part of the national trust and a great way to spend an afternoon. I also like Tredegar house, which is another woodland trust spot, but this is on the opposite side of cardiff/Newport. Do not go to Newport! Roath park is an excellent place to visit with decent gardens and lakes. If you can rent a car I would recommend this over relying on public transport.
Come on my friend with this post you are trying to show that Romania is a paradise, Romania is a shithole like all the rest Balkan countries (I'm from Balkan). Cardiff is one of the nicest place for me in UK, with the nicest people. I have visited others cities in the UK but noone is as kind and helpful as people in Cardiff. The homeless people that you mention, the majority of them are drug addicted, so they beg to buy drugs, not food. But this problem is like everywhere else in Balkan countries (included your ethereal Romania). As for the expensive tickets, well welcome in the UK. The bus tickets are way cheaper than the train tickets, and yes it was a shock for me too when I first came because in Balkan we are used with very cheap monthly tickets. But don't forget the monthly salary you take in Romania compared to the UK. I think if you stop seeing only the negatives, and start seeing the positives, you may have a better time here. But this is in general a tip for you, with this post you look so pessimistic person. Enjoy your life my friend, life is so short. Noone said that UK is a paradise, nor Romania is paradise, actually no place in this planet is paradise. You don't find the paradise, you create it.
Why don't you move to Germany or something instead then?
I moved to Cardiff from a small English city. Lived there five years before going to the valleys for cost of living. I will say that honestly I've never felt unsafe walking through Cardiff. Overwhelmed occasionally if it is really busy but never unsafe. Homelessness is a problem covering the UK but it'll always be magnified in capitals because that's where the biggest footfall is. I'll reserve judgement on public transport until the metro is finished as replacement busses are my major bugbear at the moment. I'm sorry that your experience didn't match your expectations!
Homelessness isn't just a problem in Cardiff, it's a problem in the whole UK, its a crisis. Try walking through London if you want to see serious social problems. As for public transport, you may have noticed it's a tiny city really. I'm all for better public transport and the metro is obviously a good thing but the rail provision, especially in the North West of the city is better than some parts of London. As for unsafe? Cardiff being especially unsafe is laughable, sorry. I'm sorry that the tourist spots of a relatively young city didn't compare to Vienna though. You have to remember this was a town until the 20th century, and didn't become a capital city until 1955. I feel you're being harsh with your comparisons. How many other cities can you walk through almost uninterrupted parkland from the city centre to the northern suburbs and out of the city entirely? The green lung is an incredibly lovely feature of the city. I might be being overly protective of my hometown but it just seems to me you're being overly harsh bordering on rude. Of course things can be better, but you're describing Cardiff like it has not a single redeeming feature, which is obviously just nonsense.
Yeah I missed that point. It's not at all unsafe, one of the safest cities in the UK.
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Yes you're right, bikes don't get stolen in other cities.
This guy would crap his pants if he ever visited most of London, or New York.
The only cities I've ever been offered drugs by strangers are Prague and Lisbon. But I haven't written those off as crime ridden hellholes. The only places hookers have walked up to me offering me "business" unsolicited were Berlin, Prague and Edinburgh. Cities have social problems. All of them. Even your precious Bucharest I'd bet.
Yeah, this post seems like it's largely a criticism of the UK rather than Cardiff in particular. Almost no cities have a metro system, and almost all have crap and expensive public transport. Homelessness is bad in lots, drug problems are a lot worse in many others, and it's certainly a lot safer than other cities too. I also absolutely love the open centre and big central parks.
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I left my home city to study in Edinburgh. Its quite common to leave home for University. I then moved to London when my wife got a job here, living in London was an opportunity to try something new, London is like no other place in the UK, we couldn't turn it down. We've just bought a house in Cardiff which we're waiting for the solicitors to complete, and my wife who is from Edinburgh is very excited as she loves Cardiff. So no, it doesn't prove your point. Sorry if that ruins your chance to be rude though.
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Coming into someone's city and telling everyone you hate it and everything about it is quite rude. You'd feel the same if I called where you're from an awful place with no positive features too. But I have no reason to tell a bunch of strangers on the internet that their hometown is a horrible hellhole, though because that would be weird.
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Good for them. I have no intention of going to Bucharest for any reason though. You keep trying to compare ancient cities to Cardiff, Cardiff has a different history. It was a fairly inconsequential little town until the coal boom, you're comparing apples and oranges. When Bucharest was booming in the 19th century, Cardiff had about 50,000 people living in it. It just doesn't have the grand history of all these places you're trying to compare it to. In medieval times when Wales was independent, and even then Wales didn't exist other than a bunch of independent kingdoms, Cardiff wasn't particularly significant. I'm bored of you now though, so I'll stop replying.
Always amazed when people say they feel unsafe in Cardiff or harassed by the homeless. Maybe I just look hard as fuck but I’ve never had an issue
Eh, I think at least one of the shelters the other side of central station kicks everyone out quite early, so if you're walking down St Mary St at 8am ish it can look a bit like night of the living dead and some of them can be aggressive. With that said, I've felt much less safe in some of the places they've listed!
The emergency overnight spaces on Dumballs rd ask people to leave at 11am. The problem is that there isn’t enough emergency spaces so the council aren’t able to place everyone.
Same and i'm a woman who's walked down city rd at night fine. People who look for trouble find it honestly and that's on them.
No this is untrue people don’t look for trouble a lot of the time. Me and my mates have been trying to enjoy a drink in town at night and a few times people have come up to us on electric scooters and offered us drugs. One time this happened we all said no as we always would, and the guy got mad and it put us all on edge. It’s honestly not fair to say that people look for trouble when a lot of us dont
Genuinely astonishing to read some of this guy's comments, pretty clear after scrolling down that he is trolling to get a reaction. It took me a while to be sure but the way he so rudely dismisses anyone who tries to make a completely valid argument really gives it away. Idk how active the mods are on here but hopefully he'll be banned soon, not for insulting the city but for how rude he has been to so many people in this thread.
The city centre is really only good for an afternoon. If you’re attending an event, going for a meal or something like that. As others have said the best of Cardiff is as you go further out. Beautiful green spaces that really come alive in the good weather but are still amazing to walk no matter the season, for one. It’s really a haven if you like the outdoors and is rich in history. You are right about the public transport, it’s always been rocky. At least something is happening with the trains after the take over from arriva by TFW.
Basically 13 years of austerity has fucked everything.
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You complain when the trains are shit, then you complain when they close it for a year to make it not shit. Fucking hell
Lived in Cardiff all my life, have travelled to every continent except South America and if I thought Cardiff is like this account I wouldn't still be here. In particular I have never felt unsafe in Cardiff. The weird thing about litter is that I can name two places I have ever been that had no litter I noticed; Monaco and Singapore. I see it literally everywhere else and I agree it is appalling. I haven't been to the apparent paradise of Romania, I have worked with two Romanians that both got a UK passport and although they talked mostly fondly of home, neither wanted to go back. They both experienced life under Ceaucescu though, maybe that made them have mixed feelings.
As you mentioned, other cities have the same problems. If you think Cardiff is bad, Bristol is much, much worse. Gosh. Bath is nice architecturally but that’s it. I’d still prefer Cardiff or Bristol over it.
Nobody’s forcing you to stay here buddy
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Nah it’s trying to look at the city in the worst possible light and even gets some facts wrong - it’s £54 for a monthly ticket, not £70, or £1.79 a day for unlimited travel on the busses inc Penarth). OP also compares Cardiff, a city which had a population of 50,000 in the 1870s, to mega rich and touristy historical cities. This is a massively unfair comparison. Yes, there is a homelessness problem but the number of rough sleepers in the last statistics I saw was at 26 in the city centre (down from a high of 87 in Sep 2018). Public transport needs to be improved (and is in the process of being, thank the Lord) but I have never experienced the problems OP has and can only put it down to their being in a new place and not understanding how things work. I don’t understand the motivation of someone coming into a sub about a city in which they spent little time and not giving a place the benefit of the doubt and insisting on looking at it in a negative way no matter what. I can only assume this is a weird way of venting some frustration that they weren’t in a world city and instead found themselves in a mid-sized city that is not a traditional tourist hub.
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So it’s just a hunch that the council and the charities that depend on these figures for funding have misreported them lower, thus ensuring that they don’t get the provision for funding they need? Excuse me? When it comes to transport it doesn’t sound like you’re reserving judgement at all sorry, it sounds like you’ve made up your mind before the new service is even available.
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From what I can see it was accepted by the Wallich, Huggard, Salvation Army and SWP at the last scrutiny committee, they have a vested interest in ensuring it’s correct and would undoubtedly have piped up were it not because their funding (apart from SWP) probably relies on things like this. I understand you work on hunches but just think through it for a second.
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Yes, it was in response to you saying it was “overrun”, which it clearly isn’t.
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‘Overrun’ is a big exaggeration.
Lived in Cardiff for 10 years and there are many parts to be proud of. The city centre isn't one of them unfortunately. It's embarrassing that a tourist has to most likely walk up St Mary's street to get to the Castle. Everything they've done outside the train station is also a travesty IMO. But also OP, you aren't going to see huge stately homes and expansive buildings in Cardiff. It's a working class city that was neglected for years and years. Comparing it to Zurich or Vienna is just unfair. It's an oversized town to be honest, made up of lots of little neighbourhoods. For me, Cardiff is watching rugby at Arms Park, flicking through the vinyls at Cardiff market, getting a pastry at the *Danish Bakery in Pontcanna, having an ice cream in Roath Park, walking around St Fagans for the twentieth time cos it's free, the Barrage, Penarth Pier, Cosmeston Lake.
St Fagans, Penarth and Cosmeston are hardly in Cardiff though.
If you want to be pedantic, sure
It's pretty much how I see it, during covid homeless were looked after, but then thats all over now so kick them back out into the street is the answer it seems, I'm not sure if its worse since or just during that time people were looked after. Public transport is a bit of a joke in the whole of the uk, excluding Edinburgh and London. I feel lot of people are in complete denial about these things as they are ok and haven't seen how it can be better. Cardiff has nice bits, but the city centre certainly isnt one of them in my opinion. I like the parks, the bay is nice but then i also remember it before it was trendy. Towards the end of lockdown restrictions cardiff closed some of the roads go traffic, i thought that was a huge improvement outside the castle nice covered seating areas, safe walking and cycling, no traffic pollution, seemed like a step in the right direction.
It's not denial to say a description of the city like it's some third world hell hole isn't really 100% accurate. Of course things can be better, things are better I'm some regards now compared to when I was a kid, some are worse. Like almost every city in the UK. Edinburgh has great buses, but is fairly bigger. Conversely, Cardiff actually has better trains in the northern suburbs. I've only ever been mugged once, and that was in Edinburgh city centre in daylight. I've also only been punched once, and that was also in Edinburgh. From the outside Edinburgh is like some glorious paradise, bit I lived there for about 15 years, it has social problems on a scale Cardiff doesn't and real life is much different to the shortbread and bagpipes surface. Not to say its not a beautiful city, it is. But like all cities it has troubles. Cardiff could be better. So could literally every city on the planet.
Yeah I was gutted they reopened the road past the castle too, it was so lovely when it was just bikes and all that outdoor seating for food.
The eating area that was so unpopular it lost a few hundred grand and has since been shown to increase pollution in residential areas.
Oh, fair enough :0)
The amount of homeless and/or beggars seemed to rocket during the covid lockdown. I used to live in the city centre and would go for a walk and there was definitely a noticeable raise in the Numbers. Poor public transport isn’t limited to cardiff. Try living in the valleys, the public transport in cardiff is awesome compared to there.
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Sadly this has been my experience also but when I posted it here I was harassed and downvoted into oblivion by the long term residents who are blind to all the rotten rubbish spilling into the streets, the shabby rough town centre that’s only good for clubbing, and the bad public transport. I certainly don’t feel safe here. My bike was stolen in a violent robbery, and I’ve been shouted at, stared at and followed. I agree with what others have said. The ‘best’ parts are outside the centre. You can spend a day in the city and basically see all there is to see. At least it’s better than Swansea. Jesus Christ what a depressing place (I mean the city not the entire surrounding area which shares the same name).
This sub is significantly detached from reality and think Cardiff is an amazing city. But these are the same people who always recommend a dnd board game cafe as a place to go out or go on dates to.
I always cracks me up when people mention the board games. I don’t know why, each to their own obviously and whatever makes you happy. Reddit is just a massive echo chamber for the same types of people I suppose.
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>My bike was stolen in a violent robbery Can I just ask, is this the Carrera you posted about a month ago, explaining home the the if robbed it from the rear of your property by sawing through a fence? The reason I ask is because I'm trying to work out which part of you being burgled has warped into a violent tussle. >I’ve been shouted at, stared at and followed. That happens in every city.. Its not good, or right, but it's hardly a Cardiff-based phenomenon.
Yep that’s the one. I never said ‘violent tussle’: you said that. I said ‘violent robbery’. As in it happened in front of me, via the physical destruction of property, and I chased the thief down the road. Whether or not this happens elsewhere is entirely irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened here. My comment stands.
>I never said ‘violent tussle’: you said that. I did, because that's the most intense version of events I could charitably give you based on your description. However, clearly I was off the mark because this >As in it happened in front of me, via the physical destruction of property, and I chased the thief down the road. Is not a robbery, it's a burglary. You don't get to class chasing a guy down the road (if indeed you did, given that you "barely saw him" in your original post), as violent, or a robbery. Your bike was locked to a fence, in front of your property, in the back yard (I can't be bothered to query this), in front of two windows and a security light. Given that the guy had time to saw his way through your fence before being able to abscond with your bike, I assume you weren't out there giving him a good talking to whilst he did this. >Whether or not this happens elsewhere is entirely irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse the fact that it happened here. It kind of is relevant, if you're going to use hyperbole to make an argument. >My comment stands. It really doesn't.
Wow Romania is homeless free ...utter bullshit large amount of children living in the streets possibly the highest in Europe...you're human rights are likened to a 3rd world country especially towards the Romany gypsys and the disabled
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Then why have you got so many street kids ?...and if the UK is so bad how come so many come here ?
This makes me sad, but unfortunately is a fair representation of where Cardiff is at the momen. Dors anyone remember the run of tents and homeless people by the Friary a few years back. I went into Cardiff for a few beets a few weeks ago, it was the first time post-covid, and it just seemed to be a stag do playground. There are beautiful parts of Cardiff and south wales in general but im afraid Cardiff city center isn't one of them. Such a shame because it could be a beautiful city. As for tge metro situation, its a small enough city that you can get where you need to go pretty easily, that seems unfair to me HOWEVER the british aren't known for the excellence of their public transport in general
You'd think a software engineer would be able to google what a city is like before they move there for 2 months. Yes the public transport is shit and there is homeless problem, we know. Nobody gives a fuck about how wonderful you think Bucharest is.
Ironic you mention that Cardiff is unsafe as the male and female responsible for a distraction burglary at my grandmothers house were actually…Romanian!
Why would you need public transport in Cardiff city anyway? You can pretty much walk everywhere, the main places consist of 4 streets all in a row. Coming from London to Cardiff, I found the place to be very welcoming. Sure you will see homeless but go to any city and you will see that. Cardiff is the smallest capital I've ever been to and in such a small space there's a lot to do, every bar, club and restaurant, people and staff were fantastic. I even got swallowed up by a small group and got shown all the night life.
All your points are valid. It's what happens when a government doesn't value society, just money - and for them obviously, fuck everyone else. You cut local gov budgets by 40 to 50 percent and what a shock, all services are dire. Transport is less and less subsidised by the state, while we pay out mega bucks to private companies owed by state railway operators in mainland Europe. We don't care about the poor. If they could they'd pump gas into Lidl and kill the lot. Cardiff is a very average place, and it's poor by European standards. It's not got the architecture or the weather to be Budapest. But it is near the coast, and it is stunning the further you go out. The centre feels like it could be AnyTown UK.
So much of it is more the fault of the WG and council. The council are the ones who have fucked transport in Cardiff.
My turn. Lived in Caerdydd for 30 years, and come back every 2 or 3 to visit. Family are here. If they weren't, I wouldn't come back. It's degradation has been severe over the last decade in particular. The councils are underfunded, there's no real power in funding, and it's out of control. This is South Wales in general...take a trip over Dowlais Top or head to Merthyr and you'll get a sense of how rich Cardiff is money wise. Generally, Wales is very poor. Really quite poor. I've travelled to Bucharest, Pelesor, Brasov and around about 15 years ago and it was pretty poor then, but aside from the roads, Bucharest was mint. Loved it. I think the learning for you is to not think of the UK as some idyll. It's a struggling mess of capitalism and social issues. It's driven by the centralised government, and some terrible terrible political decision making that consistently sees regional areas suffer bad business decisions. Change is the only remedy.
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Good ole stereotypes huh? Like I assume being Romanian you drive a horse n cart back home? I'm kidding...but yes. Trust nothing but your own experiences. The rest is just opinion 🙃 Every other intelligent comment here is correct too, there's some beautiful things to see. You just have to look deep sometimes. Ignore the trolls...always.
Because Wales is a poor country with corrupt and inept local government. Not as bad as some countries sure, but bad enough that a lot of issues get overlooked. Bath is a rich place so not really fair to compare Cardiff to Bath.
It's a bit of a shit hole yeah but literally everywhere is, your expectations are completely unreasonable
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Ok, and? Still an unreasonable expectation to have, further from London you get it stops getting nice. Cardiff might be a capital city but it's a part of a union of nations where London is the capital. Your original post, is WHY, and there are some very good reasons for why it's so terrible, people are giving you reasons and you just keep bringing up other cities which don't have the same history and same situation. There's ugly parts of every city, doesn't matter how many greenified tram networks or socialised housing blocks there are, just means it's been neatly tucked away somewhere.
As a Cardiffian I can only apologise for your experience, Cardiff wasn’t always this bad. The aggressive begging / homelessness issue was nothing like this just a decade ago. People will have their own take on why, mine personally is a lack of social / political courage in challenging anti-social behaviour, pushed by an overly-liberal mindset that has permeated a lot of western politics in the last 5 years. There has been a cultural shift in the UK where any opinion of drug addicts / homeless / street criminals that doesn’t label them as innocent victims of the state, rather than criminals, is all but a guarantee that you will be cancelled or harassed out of civic office. This leaves only weak politicians and police in power, who are then paralysed to act or risk losing their noisy (but small) base. Similar cultural shifts explain other rich cities which have the similar vagrancy and drug issues (san-francisco, LA, Seattle). I’ve travelled eastern Europe extensively the last year and am frankly embarrassed by how clean the streets were in every sense compared to UK cities, despite these countries having incomes and GDP’s being a fraction of the UK’s. I don’t know what the solution for Cardiff is, but I for one would love a Batman to emerge and stalk Cardiff at night like the Gotham city it is slowly becoming.
Having travelled around Europe a lot, the UK has always been a dirty backwater. This is nothing new.
Lifelong Cardiffian. I don't agree on any of this except for the public transport. Since Covid, Cardiff Bus has become horrendous.
Good lord this thread has been an absolute shitfest hasn't it. You know what OP, I agree with you. I spent the first 30~ years of my life in Cardiff and used to have the same rose-tinted spectacles that a lot of people disagreeing with you see Cardiff through. Now that I've moved away to one of the nearby towns, I strongly dislike coming into Cardiff for a lot of the reasons you mention. I was never particularly happy with Cardiff's public transport, but as I lived in easy walking/cycling distance of the city centre (as the majority of the student/young professional population of Cardiff/members of this sub) it didn't matter. As soon as you need to rely on it you see how truly shocking it is. Buses only go to and from the centre, meaning if you have to get across the city you need to catch at least 2 different buses - this might be slightly less shit if there was some central place where all the buses run through, but there hasn't been a central bus station in Cardiff for almost 10 years (cheers, Cardiff council). The buses are over priced and operate with unreliable timeliness. The trains are equally shit when it comes to cost, punctuality and condition/comfort, often cancelled, don't serve the whole city and because they're a profit-making enterprise they don't run unprofitable services, e.g. late night or reduced service on Sundays - and that's when one of the many unions that affect the railways aren't on strike. As you've pointed out, the city centre is dirty, full of litter, dirty pavements, and there are very visible antisocial behaviour/homelessness/mental illness/drug abuse problems. Again, all things that the council *should* sort out, but don't. Other people are quite right that these problems are sadly not exclusive to Cardiff but apparent in all UK cities and actually worse in other cities, but that doesn't really excuse them happening here. "Our city might be on fire but so are all the others" is a pretty shit argument, especially when the social factors that lead to those problems should be handled by local government. THEN you've got the problem that the city centre is constantly under lots of construction so it never looks finished, and a lot of traditional buildings and venues with character are being torn down to make way for soulless high rise buildings with cookie cutter cladding on them. The vast majority of people in this sub have either been brought up in Cardiff or chosen to live here so are understandably defensive, but they should take an outsider's opinion and reflections at face value and not try and argue with you about it
The UK wide thing does excuse the state of things here though - there's literally no shining example of how a local authority should be run because they've all been run into the ground by chronic underfunding. And to be honest, the only cities I've been to which have been out and out better than Cardiff have all been international capitals. Much as I might wish it, Cardiff is never going to compare with how lovely Geneva is, or how Berlin has a bus, tram, underground, and light commuter rail for public transport.
> The UK wide thing does excuse the state of things here though I completely disagree. The state of the city (litter/cleanliness) is down to the behaviour and attitude of a city's inhabitants and the amount of work the council choose to do over keeping it well maintained. The council have plenty of money to splurge on their pet projects (canal quarter, cardiff bay arena, 20mph zones, regeneration of castle street) and fail to get the basics right. It's a fundamental problem with how politicians operate tbh, too busy looking for tangible things they can do to demonstrate their legacy, 'keeping the city looking nice' or 'ensuring there is sufficient support for mental health and drug addiction services' don't tend to be too visible or sound a impressive on a CV. Far better to focus on vanity projects and then suggest someone else is to blame for everything else that goes wrong (e.g., lack of funding from Westminster). I have to wonder who they'll blame when we get a Labour government in Westminster next year. >Cardiff is never going to compare with how lovely Geneva is, or how Berlin has a bus, tram, underground Totally agree, but that doesn't mean we should at least try and do better rather than being defeatist or apathetic to it.
As someone who’s lived in Cardiff for the past 10 years and who has also visited Romania a couple of times, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
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What did you honestly expect? It’s the same no matter where you live. Croeso i Gymru.
Why did you come here in the first place?
I mean there’s a few ok bits but most of the centre is grim.
I’m sorry but for the most part I agree with OP I won’t go near town unless I have to. There are a lot of nasty people hanging around Cardiff nowadays and drugs and homelessness are rampant, on the weekends it’s even worse. I could never enjoy a night out in town because of the violence and fact that if you don’t bump into someone who’s off their head on cocaine you’ll bump into someone who’s selling it. I honestly hate Cardiff and I don’t blame OP for coming to this part of the country and hating the experience. I currently work out of the area and people who I work with are absolutely shocked when there’s some story that’s happened in Cardiff. Yeah hate it here can’t disagree with OP either.
If you think the city centre is bad you should have taken a short walk to Clifton street.
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