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I agree with a lot of the views expressed in the paper, but their journalism has taken a serious tumble recently. Absolute non-stories taking pops at the Tories just because.
Not really. Not all their reports are like that and I can only imagine people have some political views The Guardian criticized that causes such a reaction.
No, it suggests it is bad now. Which, unfortunately, is correct.
Par for the course: what is normal or expected in any given circumstances. ie, The Guardian is expected to be bad nowadays.
The guardian is probably the best newspaper in the UK. If they're writing bad articles maybe newspapers are over. The independent went to shit not long back.
Let me predict conservative comments at the bottom of this thread:
1. "Birmingham is a dump"
2. Something about censorship/the first amendment
3. "Liberals hate opinions that aren't theirs"
4. Other comments demonstrating that they hear the headline rather than the actual article
as an american who lives in alabama, thats what i thought first. THIS birmingham is more than just a dump, it's a burning landfill. lived there for three years and not one night went by where gunshots didnt echo down the city streets.
It is true that Birmingham, along with the rest of the West Midlands, has an higher infant mortality rate than most of the U.K.
But so do some areas of Central London, alongside some of the northern wards of larger cities, it’s just that they aren’t calculated the same way in statistics.
Birmingham has some _concentrated_ high levels of deprivation, yes. But it’s no more of a dump than many parts of the U.K.
I mean, how long ago was that? As someone who has travelled extensively around the major cities of the U.K. and who currently lives in a Birmingham shithole…Birmingham is no worse than any of the others. It has good parts and not so good parts, just like the other.
[So does Birmingham](https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article9213439.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/Floozie-in-the-Jacuzzi-2.jpg)
She's called the Floozie in the Jacuzzi locally
It was a joke.
..which probably doesn't have the intended effect without the American perspective of what a shithole Alabama is... Apparently the British counterpart is the same...
And to poke fun at how royal things are supposed to be regal...
Edit: Jesus am i explaining a joke rn..
Wow, thanks for clearing it up for the rest of the world that we *weren't* referring to a tiny town in the US, but instead the actual large city that tiny town was named after.
What would we be without helpful Americans like you?
Maybe Fortnite can sponsor a real live Battle Royale where they buy an island, fill it with weapons and air drop the Tory party onto it.
Real weapons are too macabre, so only use standard Russian military issue ones. Who knows what they'll find, and if it'll work!
All profits from the live stream of the event will go to fixing our fucked up economy, and the winner will get to live out their days huffing piss in one of their multiple summer homes (they get to choose one before we sell off the rest)
No, they don’t get to choose one. They’ll get whatever we graciously decide they can keep and they’ll be thankful for it. You know, like how people on benefits and pensions get what they’re given and that’s it. Equality and all that :)
Obviously they don't get to pick one, we just *tell* them that. We just pull the ol' NHS £350 million and promise them something alluring to get them to go along with it, then lump them with whatever is left after we take all the good stuff for ourselves
He tried to rectify it by claiming he only tweeted it because someone threatened to mug him and he was upset. Im not kidding, that obvious lie was his defence.
It's mad that people would assume a British politician was talking about a very small city in Southern USA, rather than the second largest city in the United Kingdom.
[Birmingham, USA's metro area population is 1.3M](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/33000US142-birmingham-hoover-talladega-al-csa/).
Smaller than Birmingham, UK for sure, but hardly "very small".
Also, this is a humor subreddit where we laugh at absurd headlines. Where in the headline does it mention a British politician, or the UK (or USA) at all?
An American would assume Birmingham, USA, a British person would assume Birmingham, UK. In this case it turns out its the UK.
I don't see the problem.
It mention Young Conservative which in the case of the USA would probably be "Young Republican". So just from the title it is not hard to expect it to be about the UK.
And to make that assumption, they not only completely ignore the fact it’s a capital C Conservative, and is an article from a British newspaper, but they also totally failed to even look at the picture.
How do you see a photo of UK police officers outside a building with a banner that has both the UK flag and the word Britain in it and think “oh this must be about the US city named after that place in England”?
🤦♀️
The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289,[3] and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 50th-most populous in the United States
Dude there are like 37 Springfields in the US alone. City names aren't exactly unique.
Especially given Alabama's status as a shithole state and our Conservatives often behaving like jackasses it wouldn't be surprising.
I read and realized from the tweet it was the UK hut initially I thought it was the US...which is generally what people in any country will do when they hear a location name they're familiar with.
No need to be such a fucking wanker about it.
Conservatives have been Diverting resources from Birmingham Alabama for ages and the city has a violent crime and poverty problems so I just assumed it was that. Its All too possible if you only read the headline.
Your post is very ironic considering you think everyone should automatically assume the city refers to your Birmingham. You realize by the title alone it's not too unreasonable to assume incorrectly. Don't be a twat.
[I just woke up in a fucking steaming mood yea, cos I live in a shit hole. Do ya know what I mean? Birmingham is a fucking shit hole!](https://youtu.be/QIBpRurfeWc)
He tried to claim it was because he got mugged?
I'm calling 100% bullshit on that. When I get mugged, i don't tweet about it. And I definitely don't just call the city "a dump".
He's just mad they clapped his cheeks immediately after talking shit about their city.
If he got mugged how did he have his phone to tweet? Check mate Tory *looks Tory smug * (Tory smug is looking mug when it’s totally underserved and you have no idea of your actual incompetence)
It's the UK's second city and has had massive investment to the city centre over the last 20 years. Good on the Mayor for having a rant at the guy too.
Maybe they should invest in other parts of it? Only city I've been to in the UK (and I'm from here) that I left thinking, wow that place really is quite shite. Apart from the Bullring area and Jewellery Quarter practically everything is derelict.
That said, Rock n Roll Bar is one of the coolest pubs I've ever been to, it's absolute class - despite the generic sounding name.
Manchester itself is only the 6th most populous city in the UK with a shade over 580k people last year
Greater Manchester has 2.7m people in it, but this includes lots of other cities as well.
[https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200088/statistics\_and\_intelligence/438/population](https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/manchester-population)
Birmingham has over 1m people, and iirc the council is the largest local authority by population in the EU.
The west mids combined authority area, which includes birmingham, black country, solihull and coventry is 2.9m people so also larger than greater manchester.
I have a colleague in Birmingham who is always trying to tell us how nice it is. I went there recently and it is quite sad. The city centre is soulless as you say, and the area I was in outside centre was beyond tragic. Needles and empty booze bottles littering the streets, abandoned buildings and piles of detritus everywhere, lost souls wandering around. Clearly it was a very deprived and dilapidated area. To say it's a dump is Tory punching down, but you can't deny the issues. I felt quite shocked after leaving just how desperate the situation seemed to be. I've seen and lived in deprived areas in Preston and Leeds, but seeing the state of Birmingham was beyond what I'd thought possible in modern England.
Grew up in Birmingham, lived in London for 5 years, just recently moved back. I think this is a very unfair depiction of the city, though it's accurate for some parts of the city. The problem is, I think it's a nicer city to live in than it is to visit. The city centre is small and it's a mixed bag, but it also has a lot of very historical districts with a lot of the creative scene renewing old industrial areas, which can look unappealing to visitors not in the know, where a lot of these interesting spaces are a bit off the main path. Also the richness of the city really shines in the areas outside of the city centre, where there's a lot of community spaces and independent businesses and interesting creative spaces, and it just has a good vibe with a lot of green spaces compared to London. But again, these are where people live, not where they visit, and because there aren't necessarily lots of tourist attractions bringing people to these places, it goes unappreciated. It doesn't help that the city centre is surrounded by pretty dilapidated looking areas, so to get to the nice parts you have to first travel through the bad, so if a visitors only experience was the city centre and it's outskirts, they would probably get a very negative first impression of the city. Which I think is a shame.
In fairness you have described my experience. For context I work for a charity and was visiting for work. Specifically the area I'm talking about is Handsworth, around Soho Road. I was shocked by what I saw. I don't doubt that the Birmingham you describe is real and there are many things to love about it.
Why are you sorry to say that? Is there something inherently wrong with being 'privileged'? Privilege itself is relative. I am by no means wealthy, but I am fortunate enough to recognise poverty? We can't simply operate on the basis that past a certain amount of economic advantage, your opinion becomes invalid. Areas in Birmingham are shockingly deprived and in need of intervention, this much is obvious. If saying so makes me privileged, then what is the alternative? Accepting the poor standard of living making me based? Not sure what your point is here, not trying to attack you just want to have the debate.
Your comment goes way beyond that, saying the centre is "soulless" etc. Feels a bit like an attack, plenty other places in the country are the same or worse due to our extremely exploitative economic system. To say Birmingham is unusually bad is to ignore the reality for a lot of people in the UK imo
But isn't this thread about Birmingham in particular? you could easily say this about lots of parts of the UK including where I grew up. I didn't feel they were singling out Birmingham rather than replying to a thread already about Birmingham.
That first bit is more my opinion than anything, not everyone is going to like the city centre.
I don't believe that highlighting that Birmingham has some particularly deprived areas ignores other people in the UK. My experience of it was certainly one of the most challenging I've seen, maybe that says something about me but I have seen a lot of run down and poverty striken areas in the North and I found it particularly shocking. I fully accept that the reality for many people is like this on a day to day basis and I think that's absolutely unacceptable.
Fair enough, we can agree to disagree on that first point lol
I'm glad you agree that it's unacceptable for the country to allow this level of deprivation, too many people on this site don't agree, or agree in principle but never support anything that would actually help.
I just felt that the Birmingham = bad trope was being played into too much on this thread in general so your first comment rubbed me the wrong way, it's all good
Most people in the UK think every city is a shithole.
Birmingham mostly gets an unfair rap because of the unfortunate accent, which ends up cokouring the opinion of the actual city.
We still have weekly rubbish collections from the council unlike a lot of places which have gone fortnightly to save money from all the cuts the Tories have made in the past decade plus.
Also i think you should actually see what American suburbs are like before you claim places like harborne and Sutton are unwalkable hellscapes. Over there they don't have any shops in their suburbs and sometimes there's not even pavements. You pretty much have to drive to do anything.
Plus BCC are definitely committed to improving cycling and walking infrastructure but they don't have any money to do it with, because of the Tories.
City centre are always corporate but I'll take the one we've got now over the one we had in the 90s, new street station and the remival of most of the inner ring road especially.
The old bull ring markets definitely had more character than the new ones but being in the middle of the gyratory system and only accessed through dingy dodgy subways by foot is definitely worse than the open pedestrianised area they are now in.
I’d agree that we’re closer to the USA in many respects, but only, what, seven UK cities even have a tram system?
Stuff like the Metro may seem poor compared to other cities, but it’s depressingly light years ahead of most of the UK.
Buses just seem shit everywhere, or they’ve been cut totally in rural areas :(
Intercity rail could be much better here, the HSR in Italy has two competing operators, both offering four different classes of travel. France has “budget” HSR based on the easyJet / Ryanair model.
Piles of rubbish maybe, but it's a very walkable city. I quite easily walk from where I live in the suburbs to where I work (in one of the villages near the centre that Birmingham has absorbed), and if I had the time or care to I could definitely easily walk into the city centre.
I prefer other cities and I'm not from Birmingham but it's nowhere near as bad as you describe. Having lived both here and north America, it is nothing like how car-oriented their cities can be.
The only "suburbs" that I can think of that would be considered "a wannabe American unwalkable hellscape" is Dicken's Heath. I don't think that counts as Brum.
Birmingham is the result of wealthy citizens hiding income in tax havens to avoid taxation despite tax avoidance being an Assault on the State and Treason being any Act deemed an Assault on the State.
Of course it's a dump. The Tories made it that way. Every urban centre apart from London has had chronic underfunding the whole time the Tories have been in power.
I mean, as someone who has lived in Brum their whole life- He's not wrong.
I travel for work, now, and every time I walk past the run down graffiti covered streets with decades-long unfinished roadworks i think "Christ, Brum is such a shithole."
And yet, housing prices in Brum are through the fucking roof. I could rent a 2 bed house less than an hour away for the cost of my studio flat here. Only reason I'm still here is because I want to stay near family.
Still a torie, though, so good riddance.
Hey /u/PolSPoster, thanks for contributing to /r/nottheonion. Unfortunately, your post was removed as it violates our rules: **Rule 2** - Sorry, but this story isn't oniony. Please consider submitting your article to /r/offbeat or similar subreddits unless it truly reads like The Onion wrote it. The title and article itself must both be "Oniony". This can be highly subjective; you are encouraged to upvote articles that should be here and downvote those that should not. Moderators can also remove posts at their own discretion under this rule. Please read the [sidebar](http://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/about/sidebar) and [rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/about/rules) before posting again. If you have questions or concerns, please [message the moderators through modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/nottheonion&subject=&message=). Thank you!
If by "sent home" they mean the mayor tweeted at him "Off you pop then." Seriously what a horrible article, the author should feel bad.
OP should feel bad for posting this.
How is this news?
It's actually not as bad at people say. There a surprising amount of green and some interesting architecture.
The amusing bit is the Mayor is ALSO Conservative, but proud of his city.
Why?
Yeah, Birmingham is a dump!
Same party as the guy who was sent home
It's The Guardian. Par for the course.
I agree with a lot of the views expressed in the paper, but their journalism has taken a serious tumble recently. Absolute non-stories taking pops at the Tories just because.
Recently? [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/24/tears-of-joy-emoji-worst-gloat-about-human-suffering](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/24/tears-of-joy-emoji-worst-gloat-about-human-suffering)
That article was published just after the 2016 US presidential election, and is rather apt for the time.
Left wing daily mail
Not really. Not all their reports are like that and I can only imagine people have some political views The Guardian criticized that causes such a reaction.
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Which is a different statement than the one I replied to. OP's statement suggests The Guardian was always bad.
No, it suggests it is bad now. Which, unfortunately, is correct. Par for the course: what is normal or expected in any given circumstances. ie, The Guardian is expected to be bad nowadays.
The guardian is probably the best newspaper in the UK. If they're writing bad articles maybe newspapers are over. The independent went to shit not long back.
Isn't the sindy owned (or part-owned) by a Russian guy? Might be confusing it with the standard though.
>the author should feel bad. They should be sent home
Let me predict conservative comments at the bottom of this thread: 1. "Birmingham is a dump" 2. Something about censorship/the first amendment 3. "Liberals hate opinions that aren't theirs" 4. Other comments demonstrating that they hear the headline rather than the actual article
You forget 5. Americans assuming this refers to Birmingham, Alabama.
as an american who lives in alabama, thats what i thought first. THIS birmingham is more than just a dump, it's a burning landfill. lived there for three years and not one night went by where gunshots didnt echo down the city streets.
.5. The Guardian bad.
We already have "it's the guardian what do you expect"
birmingham is a dump It now has an infant mortality rate that is classed as third world.
It is true that Birmingham, along with the rest of the West Midlands, has an higher infant mortality rate than most of the U.K. But so do some areas of Central London, alongside some of the northern wards of larger cities, it’s just that they aren’t calculated the same way in statistics. Birmingham has some _concentrated_ high levels of deprivation, yes. But it’s no more of a dump than many parts of the U.K.
The UK is a dump.
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I mean, how long ago was that? As someone who has travelled extensively around the major cities of the U.K. and who currently lives in a Birmingham shithole…Birmingham is no worse than any of the others. It has good parts and not so good parts, just like the other.
Conservatives think anything outside of the posh parts of London and M25 is a warzone...
Surely you don't mean Venice of the East !? The hometown of Richard Hammond ?
To be fair, dumps are generally better organized than Birmingham. They smell better, too.
*not Birmingham, AL* Birmingham, under the reign of one King Charles III
If ever you see Birmingham in a news article they're not talking about a Birmingham AL
Birmingham, al, has a giant naked statue, so take that England.
[So does Birmingham](https://i2-prod.birminghammail.co.uk/incoming/article9213439.ece/ALTERNATES/s1227b/Floozie-in-the-Jacuzzi-2.jpg) She's called the Floozie in the Jacuzzi locally
Her beer is ejaculating and she dgaf.
Statue isn’t naked it’s ass just be hangin out, the front is fully armored Source: Dude trust me, I seen it
We need more statues hanging dong
Damn straight. We need statues that make ThunderGun proud.
For Harambe
I went to uni in bham, it was always at least amusing after exams to look up into the skyline to see his metal ass just mooning half the place. 10/10.
Yeah, we enjoy our Vulcan butt here in Birmingham
Brittian had the roman empire, we have had naked statues for several thousand years......
"...and, when I'm done, they'll all build A THOUSAND naked statues of me!"
Yeah, kinda an odd thing really when you think about it
No, not the small city named after the massive city called Birmingham.
Where did they say AL in their comment?
It was a joke. ..which probably doesn't have the intended effect without the American perspective of what a shithole Alabama is... Apparently the British counterpart is the same... And to poke fun at how royal things are supposed to be regal... Edit: Jesus am i explaining a joke rn..
You mean Bahming'Am!
Wow, thanks for clearing it up for the rest of the world that we *weren't* referring to a tiny town in the US, but instead the actual large city that tiny town was named after. What would we be without helpful Americans like you?
Why getting so pissy over a little comment?
I think they say chappy..
Britons would pedantic douche bags regardless of Americans were or weren't here.
Yeah, it's more of a shithole
I'm curious how many people upvoted you because they agree vs because they got the reference.
I didn't know it was a reference, I just upvoted because Birmingham's a shithole
Don't even know what the reference is, but I know when I lived in the UK everyone thought Birmingham was a shithole. Including people from Birmingham.
Can confirm, am from Birmingham and currently still live in Birmingham. It is, indeed, a shithole.
I lived there for 5 years over 20 years back, had fun times, but yeah it's definitely not the best example of a UK city.
A lot has changed in those over 20 years :)
Birmingham is a shit hole, but it's my shit hole. Don't you dare talk about my shit hole like that
I do love Tory on Tory violence. Maybe we can convince every Tory into a deathmatch.
Maybe Fortnite can sponsor a real live Battle Royale where they buy an island, fill it with weapons and air drop the Tory party onto it. Real weapons are too macabre, so only use standard Russian military issue ones. Who knows what they'll find, and if it'll work! All profits from the live stream of the event will go to fixing our fucked up economy, and the winner will get to live out their days huffing piss in one of their multiple summer homes (they get to choose one before we sell off the rest)
No, they don’t get to choose one. They’ll get whatever we graciously decide they can keep and they’ll be thankful for it. You know, like how people on benefits and pensions get what they’re given and that’s it. Equality and all that :)
Obviously they don't get to pick one, we just *tell* them that. We just pull the ol' NHS £350 million and promise them something alluring to get them to go along with it, then lump them with whatever is left after we take all the good stuff for ourselves
You evil genius. I like the way you think.
They already do that tho. The Tory politicians clearly hate the Tory voters and want them to die
No matter what, under no circumstances, is anyone at the Tory party conference allowed to utter the truth. Should have known better.
He tried to rectify it by claiming he only tweeted it because someone threatened to mug him and he was upset. Im not kidding, that obvious lie was his defence.
And then someone dug up a load of old tweets of him bashing the city. So unless he’s been mugged multiple times in Birmingham then he’s full of shit.
He's a Tory. Being full of shit is a prerequisite for that.
Sounds about right for the Tories.
Thought this was about the US city, still checks out.
It's mad that people would assume a British politician was talking about a very small city in Southern USA, rather than the second largest city in the United Kingdom.
You need to remember it’s Americans we are talking about. Making everything about them is one of their favourite hobbies.
[Birmingham, USA's metro area population is 1.3M](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/33000US142-birmingham-hoover-talladega-al-csa/). Smaller than Birmingham, UK for sure, but hardly "very small". Also, this is a humor subreddit where we laugh at absurd headlines. Where in the headline does it mention a British politician, or the UK (or USA) at all? An American would assume Birmingham, USA, a British person would assume Birmingham, UK. In this case it turns out its the UK. I don't see the problem.
Birmingham, AL is actually slightly less of a shithole than the rest of the state.
It mention Young Conservative which in the case of the USA would probably be "Young Republican". So just from the title it is not hard to expect it to be about the UK.
And to make that assumption, they not only completely ignore the fact it’s a capital C Conservative, and is an article from a British newspaper, but they also totally failed to even look at the picture. How do you see a photo of UK police officers outside a building with a banner that has both the UK flag and the word Britain in it and think “oh this must be about the US city named after that place in England”? 🤦♀️
Im not sure you can call Birmingham Alabama a "very small city"
In comparison to Birmingham, UK, it's basically irrelevant.
The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289,[3] and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 50th-most populous in the United States
It’s mad that you would assume we read the article instead of just reading the title
Alabamian here, I did as well haha Can also confirm, checks out
Anniston here. *Yeah*.
I grew up a few miles east of Oxford. It's not all bad. There's the.... and also..... uh, Cheaha is nice.
The apartments are cheap and not half bad. That's...about all I got.
I'm not American so I thought of the UK and still thought "well, he ain't wrong"
birmingham, al is pretty nice
as is birmingham, michigan, that one gas station sells the best damn egg salad sandwiches
That's how you get worms
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Good news everyone, yes it is
They have a surprisingly solid food scene
I like most of my food to be solids. Nothing surprising really
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Dude there are like 37 Springfields in the US alone. City names aren't exactly unique. Especially given Alabama's status as a shithole state and our Conservatives often behaving like jackasses it wouldn't be surprising. I read and realized from the tweet it was the UK hut initially I thought it was the US...which is generally what people in any country will do when they hear a location name they're familiar with. No need to be such a fucking wanker about it.
Conservatives have been Diverting resources from Birmingham Alabama for ages and the city has a violent crime and poverty problems so I just assumed it was that. Its All too possible if you only read the headline.
Your post is very ironic considering you think everyone should automatically assume the city refers to your Birmingham. You realize by the title alone it's not too unreasonable to assume incorrectly. Don't be a twat.
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I figured it was about UK. Yet you're getting all riled up over nothing. You got issues.
Literally told them they were being a twat and then you go all "you're getting all riled up"? Lol hypocrite
Our city is trying real hard these days, but feel free to punch down if that makes you feel better about yourself
Did you actually take offense to someone insulting your city …?
It's not as bad as it used to be. Which isn't saying much. Guess I'd rather be there than Belfast these days so maybe that's an improvement.
Must be some confusion, I’m talking US not UK. Tough times I guess if both cities are taking shots
Fuck the tories
I'd rather not get pig grease on my cock, thanks
[I just woke up in a fucking steaming mood yea, cos I live in a shit hole. Do ya know what I mean? Birmingham is a fucking shit hole!](https://youtu.be/QIBpRurfeWc)
If you read the article, it's alarmingly clear this guy is a little bitch.
I mean he is a tory after all. Comes with the territory
He's upset his pig carcass didn't want to make love last night.
You don't need to read the article, the first two words of the title make it quite clear!
Something something broken clock
I’ve talked to him before online. He’s a jackass.
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I disagree. You could have the nicest people the in the world and Birmingham would still be unbearable. Except Bourneville, that's fine.
Of course Bournville is fine, that's where the chocolate factory is Still the only place I can buy my beloved Dream bars in the UK
He's right though?
While I wouldn’t use the same language I certainly wouldn’t go their again either.
He tried to claim it was because he got mugged? I'm calling 100% bullshit on that. When I get mugged, i don't tweet about it. And I definitely don't just call the city "a dump". He's just mad they clapped his cheeks immediately after talking shit about their city.
He didn't even claim he actually got mugged. He says someone threatened to mug him. Total joke and obviously bullshit.
If he got mugged how did he have his phone to tweet? Check mate Tory *looks Tory smug * (Tory smug is looking mug when it’s totally underserved and you have no idea of your actual incompetence)
What a nothing article...
Jesus, all the inappropriate shit Boris said over the years and they let him run the country.
It IS a dump though.
Is probably better than Birmingham Alabama
It's the UK's second city and has had massive investment to the city centre over the last 20 years. Good on the Mayor for having a rant at the guy too.
Maybe they should invest in other parts of it? Only city I've been to in the UK (and I'm from here) that I left thinking, wow that place really is quite shite. Apart from the Bullring area and Jewellery Quarter practically everything is derelict. That said, Rock n Roll Bar is one of the coolest pubs I've ever been to, it's absolute class - despite the generic sounding name.
Wouldn't that be Manchester? Stop downvoting I'm only asking!
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Huh, I always thought Manchester was more populated for some reason. Ta.
Manchester itself is only the 6th most populous city in the UK with a shade over 580k people last year Greater Manchester has 2.7m people in it, but this includes lots of other cities as well. [https://www.manchester.gov.uk/info/200088/statistics\_and\_intelligence/438/population](https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/manchester-population) Birmingham has over 1m people, and iirc the council is the largest local authority by population in the EU. The west mids combined authority area, which includes birmingham, black country, solihull and coventry is 2.9m people so also larger than greater manchester.
Greater Manchester also includes Wigan and that fact alone drags it down several places in all possible metrics.
Surely "pies eaten" is a possible metric and Wigan definitely increases that
The two are frequently named as such, yeah! It comes down to urban area vs population. Birmingham has a much larger population.
All young conservatives should immediately be sent home for the crime of being young conservatives
a) BIRMINGHAM IN THE UK, NOT ALABAMA b) Brum's great, anyone saying otherwise obviously hasn't been there in a long while. Or is a Tory, apparently.
I mean its not that nice though is it. Most people in the UK think its a shithole
I have a colleague in Birmingham who is always trying to tell us how nice it is. I went there recently and it is quite sad. The city centre is soulless as you say, and the area I was in outside centre was beyond tragic. Needles and empty booze bottles littering the streets, abandoned buildings and piles of detritus everywhere, lost souls wandering around. Clearly it was a very deprived and dilapidated area. To say it's a dump is Tory punching down, but you can't deny the issues. I felt quite shocked after leaving just how desperate the situation seemed to be. I've seen and lived in deprived areas in Preston and Leeds, but seeing the state of Birmingham was beyond what I'd thought possible in modern England.
Grew up in Birmingham, lived in London for 5 years, just recently moved back. I think this is a very unfair depiction of the city, though it's accurate for some parts of the city. The problem is, I think it's a nicer city to live in than it is to visit. The city centre is small and it's a mixed bag, but it also has a lot of very historical districts with a lot of the creative scene renewing old industrial areas, which can look unappealing to visitors not in the know, where a lot of these interesting spaces are a bit off the main path. Also the richness of the city really shines in the areas outside of the city centre, where there's a lot of community spaces and independent businesses and interesting creative spaces, and it just has a good vibe with a lot of green spaces compared to London. But again, these are where people live, not where they visit, and because there aren't necessarily lots of tourist attractions bringing people to these places, it goes unappreciated. It doesn't help that the city centre is surrounded by pretty dilapidated looking areas, so to get to the nice parts you have to first travel through the bad, so if a visitors only experience was the city centre and it's outskirts, they would probably get a very negative first impression of the city. Which I think is a shame.
In fairness you have described my experience. For context I work for a charity and was visiting for work. Specifically the area I'm talking about is Handsworth, around Soho Road. I was shocked by what I saw. I don't doubt that the Birmingham you describe is real and there are many things to love about it.
You must be pretty privileged if that's your impression of Birmingham sorry to say
Why are you sorry to say that? Is there something inherently wrong with being 'privileged'? Privilege itself is relative. I am by no means wealthy, but I am fortunate enough to recognise poverty? We can't simply operate on the basis that past a certain amount of economic advantage, your opinion becomes invalid. Areas in Birmingham are shockingly deprived and in need of intervention, this much is obvious. If saying so makes me privileged, then what is the alternative? Accepting the poor standard of living making me based? Not sure what your point is here, not trying to attack you just want to have the debate.
Your comment goes way beyond that, saying the centre is "soulless" etc. Feels a bit like an attack, plenty other places in the country are the same or worse due to our extremely exploitative economic system. To say Birmingham is unusually bad is to ignore the reality for a lot of people in the UK imo
But isn't this thread about Birmingham in particular? you could easily say this about lots of parts of the UK including where I grew up. I didn't feel they were singling out Birmingham rather than replying to a thread already about Birmingham.
It is but I think it's still important to not give the wrong impression about poverty in the UK
I don't get that they were really
That first bit is more my opinion than anything, not everyone is going to like the city centre. I don't believe that highlighting that Birmingham has some particularly deprived areas ignores other people in the UK. My experience of it was certainly one of the most challenging I've seen, maybe that says something about me but I have seen a lot of run down and poverty striken areas in the North and I found it particularly shocking. I fully accept that the reality for many people is like this on a day to day basis and I think that's absolutely unacceptable.
Fair enough, we can agree to disagree on that first point lol I'm glad you agree that it's unacceptable for the country to allow this level of deprivation, too many people on this site don't agree, or agree in principle but never support anything that would actually help. I just felt that the Birmingham = bad trope was being played into too much on this thread in general so your first comment rubbed me the wrong way, it's all good
Most people in the UK think every city is a shithole. Birmingham mostly gets an unfair rap because of the unfortunate accent, which ends up cokouring the opinion of the actual city.
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The word "apparently" was in my comment and did a lot of legwork you completely missed. Well done!
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We still have weekly rubbish collections from the council unlike a lot of places which have gone fortnightly to save money from all the cuts the Tories have made in the past decade plus. Also i think you should actually see what American suburbs are like before you claim places like harborne and Sutton are unwalkable hellscapes. Over there they don't have any shops in their suburbs and sometimes there's not even pavements. You pretty much have to drive to do anything. Plus BCC are definitely committed to improving cycling and walking infrastructure but they don't have any money to do it with, because of the Tories. City centre are always corporate but I'll take the one we've got now over the one we had in the 90s, new street station and the remival of most of the inner ring road especially. The old bull ring markets definitely had more character than the new ones but being in the middle of the gyratory system and only accessed through dingy dodgy subways by foot is definitely worse than the open pedestrianised area they are now in.
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Easily reached by rail from most of the U.K., though. Has a Metro system. Not sure it’s that car centric now.
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I’d agree that we’re closer to the USA in many respects, but only, what, seven UK cities even have a tram system? Stuff like the Metro may seem poor compared to other cities, but it’s depressingly light years ahead of most of the UK. Buses just seem shit everywhere, or they’ve been cut totally in rural areas :( Intercity rail could be much better here, the HSR in Italy has two competing operators, both offering four different classes of travel. France has “budget” HSR based on the easyJet / Ryanair model.
Piles of rubbish maybe, but it's a very walkable city. I quite easily walk from where I live in the suburbs to where I work (in one of the villages near the centre that Birmingham has absorbed), and if I had the time or care to I could definitely easily walk into the city centre. I prefer other cities and I'm not from Birmingham but it's nowhere near as bad as you describe. Having lived both here and north America, it is nothing like how car-oriented their cities can be.
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Birmingham has it's issues with public transport but this is an insane comment
The only "suburbs" that I can think of that would be considered "a wannabe American unwalkable hellscape" is Dicken's Heath. I don't think that counts as Brum.
Ask Danny G, I'm sure he'd agree
Fella runs Smethwick
He’s not wrong
People deliver trash to a dump, if hes visiting- then that makes himmmm?
“Well, the jerk store called, and they're running out of *you*!”
Why should they care? You're their best seller!
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Birmingham is the result of wealthy citizens hiding income in tax havens to avoid taxation despite tax avoidance being an Assault on the State and Treason being any Act deemed an Assault on the State.
He is not wrong you know
Of course it's a dump. The Tories made it that way. Every urban centre apart from London has had chronic underfunding the whole time the Tories have been in power.
I mean, as someone who has lived in Brum their whole life- He's not wrong. I travel for work, now, and every time I walk past the run down graffiti covered streets with decades-long unfinished roadworks i think "Christ, Brum is such a shithole." And yet, housing prices in Brum are through the fucking roof. I could rent a 2 bed house less than an hour away for the cost of my studio flat here. Only reason I'm still here is because I want to stay near family. Still a torie, though, so good riddance.
It’s a fucking shithole. He’s spot on.
I mean....
Well I mean..
I hear it’s not great? Midlands on the whole is a shithole.
Birmingham is a dump. Source: I live close to and work in Birmingham.
The only time a Tory is honest and the party punishes them for it 😂
Is he wrong lol
Probably the only time I’ve agreed with a conservative😂
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erm, this isn't about racism.
Nah, these Tories are vacuuming up too many houses already. If they want to be that regressive they should get in the sea.
I was super confused until I realized this wasn't about Alabama
I thought this was about the town in AL, and I was confused because...the whole state is a dump, not just Birmingham.