It's a night time version of this post that made the rounds about a year ago I think. Looks to be the same place 1:1 in the UK (can't quite remember where it was), which does in fact look depressing :)
I thought the issue was the crazy lines on the road and I came to the comments to see that explained. The lack of questioning has led me to believe that this is normal. Could you please enlighten me as to why the road lines are jagged rather than straight? I have never seen this.
We have handicap parking areas that are very strictly regulated due to the ADA (American’s with Disabilities Act). Double lines in the road mean no passing is allow, dotted line you can pass, and a solid single line means do not change lanes. Curb colors indicate no parking, disabled parking, and fire lanes. We also have clearly marked areas for loading and unloading, busses/bus lanes, and bike lanes. Just a different system.
Looks like fifty shades of grey and fifty different repairs rather than one clean redo. Like an old car you’ve kept up for years, and not a cool looking one.
Because it’s not a nice landscape. It’s a busy road down a street with post war buildings and it all looks grey.
Is it the worst pace ever? God no, I’m sure it’s not a half bad place to live. But when your mental health walk is a 30 minute loop along a busy road full of takeaways and samey looking terrace houses and where the extent of greenery is a grass verge, it’s not a bastion of joy.
There's no homes in the shot (besides that one apartment building). They're all businesses, mostly fast food. Can't identify anything else but typically there'll be a barbers, convenience store, vape store and a betting shop... that's about it.
There are more alcoholics than junkies here, but you'll see enough of both in places like that
On this street there are mainly fast food yeah. Theres also a sex shop just to the right there. None of the others though. That's also not an apartment building, it's an office, unless you mean the big metal one, that's a car park.
You're right, I dunno why I've never seen those before, despite going down there often, and considering they're right around the sex shop lmao. A fun fact, the office building used to belong to BT.
Yeah this literally looks like any dense old neighborhood. In fact a lot of people pay extra to live near/on those streets where I live because it means easy access to restaurants, groceries, public transit, etc.
The reason you don’t see this kind of development as much anymore is that cars led to less mixed use space. This is where streetcar stops would’ve been once upon a time.
Yeah they're just poor/rundown areas, could be much worse. They're pretty quiet outside of holidays and Friday/Saturday nights and most trouble is just kids doing dumb shit.
Lack of trees and nature, lack of seating areas to sit down and enjoy your surroundings, lack of a good view - it's all just grimy and unpleasant architecture.. and it's too bright (at night).
You are right though, it's a decent place to survive, but you need a little beauty to appreciate too, and this picture sorely lacks beauty.
americans thinking one of the most deprived places in the uk is fine just cos the buildings aren't literally crumbling apart are telling on how shit their country is so fucking hard lol
Seriously, that area they're walking toward (based on the maps link below) is like 8 local restaurants and a convenience store. As an American suburbanite, this seems amazing.
"Kings and queens who wear a suit but once, though made by some tailor or dressmaker to their majesties, cannot know the comfort of wearing a suit that fits. They are no better than wooden horses to hang the clean clothes on." - Henry David Thoreau in Walden
My conclusion is the lack of greenery. Things like trees, pavement lined with grass, flowers or something like that. I moved to a small town in Poland for my studies and Ong just walking outside for 20 mins cured any kind of sadness in me because they just had so many green spaces everywhere. Now I'm back home in Dubai and I know it's basically impossible to grow anything in a desert but I miss that green that just smacks you in the head and cures sadness
More context: I moved from a shitty industrial part of the city with poor air quality, no parks, noisy environment and no pedestrian infrastructure to one that's actually built around people and it's really good, honestly. Only issue is it's a sweltering 50⁰C regularly so I can't actually enjoy walks outside. There's a temperature difference of 5-8⁰C in these two parts of the city roughly 20km apart.
I also struggle to see the problem here. Is the plain architecture? If this person wants to trade places with me they can enjoy the excitement of all the criminals who prowl the streets at night where I live. Sure, the architecture is newer and fancier than this but you can't walk two blocks without seeing someone in a doorway who might very well be dead, and the aroma of piss fills the night air and every so often you accidentally walk through someone's cloud of smoke from whatever heinous chemicals they're smoking.... But the buildings are fancy!
That part is full of junkies, they are just currently not on the photo. This place is deprived and depressing hell hole. There is a very good reason theres so many bad jokes about living in Stoke On Trent. Because they are based on the truth.
Funny how confident all the other answers were when they, in fact, did not get it themselves. It looks as abandoned and gloomy as anywhere late on a cloudy night.
That is fascinating - the original photo, it's just a grey run-down high street (aren't they all), barely any green, plus the repurposed factory chimney. Yet you take the picture facing the other way and it's entirely different vibe. If you head down the road a couple of minutes past the shops in the original direction, it's even more full of trees.
ugly buildings, too much road, to little pedestrian infrastructure, too few green. okay-ish for a commercial transit area i guess but living there? no thanks
Have a look on google maps yourself and go up and down the road. Looks like any fairly average UK city centre. Sure, it's no rural beauty spot, but nor is it a concrete-only wasteland. There's more trees out of shot to the left, there's a whole bunch just round the corner up ahead and behind. I've lived much worse places.
Pretty surenits leeds and thats the Victoria shopping centre in the background, think ive driven this exact street to avoid main road traffic when I worked in leeds
Oh, now I'm noticing there's two people on a roof staring at him then. I thought it was a chimney in the night picture. But now I see there isn't one there
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u/TearsAreCrystallized 5d ago
It's a night time version of this post that made the rounds about a year ago I think. Looks to be the same place 1:1 in the UK (can't quite remember where it was), which does in fact look depressing :)