Ah, Manchester. A refuge for people who seek to find a platform to express themselves. A place for people abroad to come and get a taste of the norths busiest city. A place to experience history which has helped to transform the world. A place for one of the most recognised and highly sought after universities in the country. A place for shopping! A place for staying in hotels before transferring to the nearby airport or main Piccadilly train station. A place for culture, diversity, promising career prospects and living the picket fence dream!
Sadly it’s now also a place full of drug dealing, violent and dangerous people who have come to Manchester seeking asylum from abroad, murders, ****, theft and a massively underfunded and overstretched police force. It’s also among the top spots for the most antisocial behaviour in the UK. Upon taking note of the surrounding areas in the city centre, if you take off your rose tinted glasses, and pay attention, you will notice a few things:
Lots of Homeless People
Manchester has a very large amount of homeless people harassing tourists and shoppers for money. Linked with that fact, you will also find urine, faeces, empty beer bottles and piles of rubbish littering the streets and voices of sick homeless people fighting over a ****** deal. Homeless people are often sleeping in the streets with decades old worn and half chewed up Subway drinks cups for begging and hopefully receiving coins. They are often fighting each other and have grown to take a large amount of space up in the city centre.
Lots of Drug Dealing
There is a lot of drug dealers/dealing, especially on Piccadilly Gardens. Linked with this has been increased rates of knife crime, assaults, theft and sexual crimes and increased numbers of gang members offering their wares to passersby essentially turning the city centre into a **** stain that never washes out of your kecks.
Overcrowded Streets
Manchester’s city centre has overcrowded streets full of self righteous shoppers. They bump into each other in a desperate bid to be sucked blindly into spending their hard earned money on things they will be throwing out months down the line, despite initially scalping a fellow shopper for a half price pair of jeans from Primark. The high street is a gauntlet for anger issues and for showing to the world how unhappy you are and so be prepared to play human pinball with other fellow humans.
Immigrants
There are lots of immigrants who have no regard for anyone and who are often found in Piccadilly Gardens in large intimidating gangs shouting, drinking and generally making others around them anxious and worried about their safety. These people have mainly come over to take advantage of the better living conditions and higher wages and yet sadly bring with them all the problems of their home country.
Crumbling Infrastructure
Broken streets with broken paving, guttering, smashed windows, lighting, decaying street furniture, bins which are often either set on fire or robbed of their cigarette ends and did I mention litter? It’s become so bad now in the city centre the council have begun employing officers to issue fines for people dropping litter, quite rightfully so but how bad does it have to be to have to employ people to stand in one or two spots for 8 hours a day sniping litter bugs?
Stressed Out Suits
Manchester city centre is full of angry over worked and stressed out suited individuals. They spend their wages every month on looking the part. However, most live in a crumbling shared house with the roof caving in and fellow house mates who aren’t anywhere near mates in the friendliest of ways. Therefore the centre is FULL to the brim of ego. People looking to recreate the false dream they are sold in reality TV shows and Western culture. Yet not one of these sorry sacks of **** are happy! Glance up at your fellow species and you will see bitterness, resentment, disapproval and anger dripping off the faces of the many who flock to Manchester to be pretend to be somebody.
The Great Pretenders
The above fact tends to create a class of individuals who believe they are the heartbeat of the city centre and yet realistically are like everyone else, minimum wage slaves. However, this special breed of narcissists and sociopaths are wrapped up in fancy wrapping. Beware of the ego suits! These are often the guys who are in their mid to late twenties who have spent hundreds if not thousands on their appearance, yet are as hollow and unhappy as a rotting oak tree cursed with a rotting disease and these will often frequent the big chain leisure gyms and hip bars and shops. Why they don’t frequent the counsellors room I have no idea. Some people really need to sort their **** out!
Abusive Civil Servants
Abusive city centre civil servants, namely officials who work for the tram services who are evidently chomping at the bit for a free riding ticket avoider on the trams and will resort to abuse anyone who has legitimate travel provisions and/or has legitimate reason for non-payment of fare, like when the machines break as they often do or simply because 99% of those in the city centre attempt to avoid paying tram fares. Watch when the officials get on how the tram magically empties!
Scruffy Streets
Scruffy third world level appearance of many streets, especially in the city centre where riffraff and their shenanigans and the failing maintenance of the streets and areas (as already stated) make the city centre look like the ghetto in downtown Somalia.
Rubbish Nightlife
The nightlife of the city centre which nowadays consists of the occasional drunken revellers on their way home, handfuls of travellers and families or, drug addicts, gang members, homeless, *** offenders, illegal immigrants, fights, knife attacks, *****, attempted murders and general nefarious activity. All this should paint the centre in an ugly light and why I now try and avoid what is essentially meant to be the pinnacle of nightlife in the city centre, but now looks like a mix between Basra after being bombed by the US, and Skid Row in LA.
Extortionate Prices
Extortionate prices for pretty much everything. Prepare to pay upwards of 1 pound for a ******* bottle of water that costs 50p half a mile down the road! Those robbing ******** looking to mug off the blind naive noob travellers and tourists.
The worst McDonald’s in the UK
Piccadilly McDonalds. Wow. Just, wow. Where do I begin here? It’s like Shameless, the TV Series, but in a fast food restaurant. It’s got so bad they now have a permanent collection of security guards in and outside of the building to prevent drugged up creatures, drug dealers and general lowlifes from ruining the plastic food experience of the golden arches for the rest of us. Spot a decent worldly person in here and I owe you a Big Mac! Good luck! This place is ROUGH! It attracts all the lowest forms of human society, pushing their way forward, scrapping for their dose of high sugar **** food. Last time I visited, a human which resembled a goblin was fighting with the security guard over why he had been banned from entering. He couldn’t work out that banging on the windows and shouting into the restaurant that he was going to **** someone somehow. Apparently that didn’t equate to a good enough reason to be kicked out on his skinny little ****.
Ugly Architecture
Ugly architecture taking over the beautiful historic architecture Manchester has always been known for. Say goodbye to the Victorian architectural masterpieces because some rich toff from out of town is now plonking a generic ugly skyscraper on top of it. All so Manchester can house an endless stream of even more unhappy sociopathic office workers, desperate for a promotion in order to live the city life dream (which is essentially depression and severe mental illness coated in denial and delusion).
Manchester is seeing an increasing number of historic buildings completely gutted and even demolished in order to build hipster ego maniac headquarters for fledgling social media age companies and their eccentric socially challenged insecure execs and counterparts. Great. Why can’t we just appreciate the history of Manchester and its amazing dwindling collection of beautifully designed buildings? Oh because the sheep in their masses would rather compliment their Gucci suit (and attached 10k credit card debt and spiralling emotional issues to boot) with the fancy glittering new work premises despite all the effort our forefathers put into building these monumental feats of engineering. How empty our society is these days. Such a shame!
Conclusion
Honestly, I used to love Manchester. Like many naive converts to metropolitan city life I believed I had upgraded my life. The reality is Manchester has gone downhill over the last 5 years, especially the city centre. Its focus purely on bringing in business from billionaires whose only aim is to destroy the landscape with modern offices and working environments and with little regard for the historical significance of the existing buildings, makes it a very superficial neglected place.
It’s also a place people come hoping to make a name for themselves and yet many fail and simply join the rat race, running on a never ending conveyor belt. A hamster wheel that promises happiness, yet leads them to a grotty house share out of town for a ridiculous price with tenants who often who have their own best interests at heart and will do as much as they can to ruin your personal life.
Manchester is a place which is disposable for many and a place which is focused purely on money and superficial attraction. Many people are transient travellers and leave a wake of rubbish and disregard for what was once a pivotal part of the UK in cultural and economical development. Its become a cess pit. Then we have the students who just don’t give a **** about anything or anyone. They wreck everything and then go back to their hedge funds and manors in the Cotswolds.
We have the immigrants who come over in bucket loads and clearly don’t care about the people who have lived here all their life. Granted some are great, but many are simply here to exploit the resources. It’s a deadbeat city and unless you have enough money to buy your own home out right, settle in a nice area and build your own life, the chances are you’ll simply be a little useless cog in the endless machine which is Manchester. A failing crime ridden underfunded and overcrowded dump, where the dream is very much dying for many. All that keeps the centre open now is the Arndale and that is a like a beehive that has been whacked with a cricket bat at the best of times.
Manchester is therefore the ***** of the UK. Used, abused, dumped, manipulated and ****** over and then left to pick up the pieces and ****, the government cant even do that, hence the massive increases in crime, disorder and endless problems the city now seems to face. The neighbouring areas, just a bus journey away, are largely no better and it literally does get better the further out you go. However, along with the distance away usually comes further increased prices as people swarm to attempt to live a decent life in areas less crowded and better looked after. Salford is the toilet of Manchester. It is the gutter of the city and simply now plays the role of housing people who simply come and go, just like a visit to a ***** house. What is left is… well… you can picture the scene.
Overall
Manchester is a good place if you’re here for a short time. A bad place if you’re here for a long time. If you’re passing by – good. If you’re thinking of staying… you know that nice 2 bed you were looking at on Zoopla out by the outskirts of the countryside for a decent monthly price? Just ponder on that option for a moment. Think real hard. Make the right decision.
– a guy from out in the sticks who came to Manchester to experience “city life”, and **** me, I’ve had enough.
