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I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

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Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#191

Post by robocat »

physicsguy wrote: post #88

I remember laughing at this, my hometown was included it’s worth saying. I suspect the purchasers were largely people who lived in one of the ‘crap towns’ I’m not sure how anyone could have read it and not understood it was a joke. At the same time, I do think that he’s right that it wouldn’t get published today, not because the content wasn’t true, but people are much more quick to take offense over things like this…

I have always admired the British[1] ability to take the piss out of themselves with humour. Underlying the self-deprecation, there's always a sense of pride (misplaced?).

Perhaps things on the isles have turned to shite over time, and the pride has dwindled?

[1] maybe British is the wrong word since the Scots and Irish do similar. I'm from the ex-colonies so the correct words for UK country and peoples are confusing to me.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#192

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

gnfargbl wrote: post #155
jl6 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.

What has actually changed is that thirty years ago, the ratio between house prices and average earnings was about 4. By twenty years ago it had doubled and, most importantly, it has been at that level ever since with no real sign of dropping [1]. This is a structural change. We now have at least one, and perhaps two, generations of people who can't really alter their economic situation through hard work. That's the c…

And as with so many modern issues, the housing problem was largely created by Thatcher - her Right to Buy policy.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#193

Post by acatnamedjoe »

mattrad wrote: post #160
acatnamedjoe wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was curious - what was the angle on Hythe in the book? These days Hythe seems like a posh seaside town with a Waitrose, a nice canalside park, a cute steam railway, lots of boutiquey shops and cafes, etc. I know a lot of places in the area (e.g. Folkestone, Margate, Whitstable) have all been heavily "gentrified" in the last few years, but I sort of assumed Hythe was always this way? Is that not the case? And even a…

Crap Towns called Hythe "...quite possibly the most spirit-crushingly tedious town in Kent." and "...the place that makes nearby Folkestone look like Las Vegas." As someone who grew up in Hythe in the 80s and 90s I'd point out that the Rotunda was a far cry from Vegas. https://www.warrenpress.net/FolkestoneThenNow/The_Demolition...

> quite possibly the most spirit-crushingly tedious town in Kent.

This is an extremely high bar to hit in a county that also contains Ashford.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#194

Post by acatnamedjoe »

jl6 wrote: post #87
JimDabell wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I was going to say. Back then, a book like this would have been perceived as the UK making fun of itself. Now it’s perceived as being cruel to those less fortunate. I think it’s worth putting into context that the economy was doing great in the era this book was first published and huge progress was being made with things like homelessness, inequality, and poverty. It felt like the country had turned a c…

The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.

I think the argument is less that inequality has increased overall, and more that the country is increasingly stratified by geography - with greater concentrations of wealth in the South East relative to the rest of the country.

This is especially true in formerly undesirable areas of London (e.g. Hackney, #10 on the 2003 list) and towns within commuting distance of London (e.g. Hythe, #3).

Presumably this is due to the gradual shift to a London-centric services economy as well as the increasingly ludicrous price of houses in Central London.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#195

Post by notahacker »

arrowsmith wrote: post #181
labrador wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concluded Noah's Arc was bollocks when I was 8 so I don't know why he goes on about it at his age

Because it was edgy and transgressive when he was doing it 15 years ago. Nowadays not so much.

To be honest, like most of his subsequent attempts to be edgy and transgressive, it wasn't really 15 years ago either. His entire career as a standup and Twitter commentator feels like an extension of the Brent "I don't live by The Rules you know" persona

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#196

Post by jdietrich »

jl6 wrote: post #87
JimDabell wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I was going to say. Back then, a book like this would have been perceived as the UK making fun of itself. Now it’s perceived as being cruel to those less fortunate. I think it’s worth putting into context that the economy was doing great in the era this book was first published and huge progress was being made with things like homelessness, inequality, and poverty. It felt like the country had turned a c…

The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.

>What has actually changed?

The value of grants paid from central government to local government have fallen by over 80%. In 2005, the poorest local authorities received most of their funding from central government; today, they're dependent on council tax and business rates for the vast majority of their income. During that time, demand for social care has vastly increased, disproportionately so in the poorest local authorities, eating away at the already shrinking resources of local authorities.

The result of those cuts have been drastic for people living in poorer communities, particularly the poorest members of those communities. They quite justifiably feel abandoned by society. Youth clubs and children's centres, social work, homelessness provision, subsidised bus routes, parks and libraries have all been cut to the bone. None of that is captured in the Gini coefficient, but it's felt acutely by the people who rely on those services.

The wealthy are largely unaffected by this, because they live in local authorities that were never particularly reliant on central government funding and because they never really relied on council services anyway. For the very poorest, the impact of austerity is often dominated by one big failure of provision - being stuck in unsuitable temporary accommodation for months or years because there's no social housing available, being denied support for a disabled child etc. For the majority, it's just a slow but pervasive erosion of their quality of life - their kids have nowhere to go after school, their street is full of potholes, the bus they take into town has been cut from four an hour to one an hour, their back alley is full of rubbish because the council can't afford to deal with fly-tipping.

https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/NEF_Local_Government_...

https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/cbrwp51...

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#197

Post by notahacker »

Yossarrian22 wrote: post #12

The problem is those towns weren’t crap within living memory when the books were written. Now anyone who remembers otherwise is close to dead

Nah, several of them were always running jokes, some of them were a lot worse a decade or three earlier, and some of them were picked far more for their snobbishness or for being homogenous sanitised suburbia than their decline.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#198

Post by sokoloff »

taurath wrote: post #170
chgs wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major change to income levels has been the massive increase in minimum wage. This removes the incentive to work hard and get skills because they aren’t valued, especially outside of London. The other major change is the continual divergence of wealth. If you are a 20 year old living near London you can get a crap paying junior job and live rent free for 5 years with parents while you save a 100k deposit (which us…

Shocking how similar the fates of the US and the UK are similar. I’m in my 30s and the divergence is starting to become extremely stark between people who had middle class financially supportive parents and those who didn’t. Kids who’s parents who are well off but wouldn’t pay for college is an entire cohort who are functionally locked out of the housing market. For most of my generation, there is little opportunity,…

> Kids [whose] parents who are well off but wouldn’t pay for college is an entire cohort who are functionally locked out of the housing market.

That can’t be a particularly large set. Parents well off is already a small minority case and only a minority of that small minority won’t give support to their kids.

For people in that tiny sliver, I’m sure it feels bad but it doesn’t seem like a solution that works for other “starting from zero” young adults would need changes to also work for this set.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#199

Post by rikroots »

acatnamedjoe wrote: post #193
mattrad wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crap Towns called Hythe "...quite possibly the most spirit-crushingly tedious town in Kent." and "...the place that makes nearby Folkestone look like Las Vegas." As someone who grew up in Hythe in the 80s and 90s I'd point out that the Rotunda was a far cry from Vegas. https://www.warrenpress.net/FolkestoneThenNow/The_Demolition...

> quite possibly the most spirit-crushingly tedious town in Kent. This is an extremely high bar to hit in a county that also contains Ashford.

Ashford at least has a high-speed rail connection to London. If nominations were to open today, I'd vote Dover.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#200

Post by drawfloat »

dave333 wrote: post #116

The Connections series by James Burke from around the same time posited that politics is irrelevant and progress is mostly due to science. The consumer society of today is much better than when Crap Towns was written although improvement is not uniform. But even the least improved towns are better now than they were due to all the regional, national, and international improvements in services.

Unfortunately I’m not sure this is true. My home town is one of the Crap Towns and in the last 25 years more or less the entire high street economy has collapsed and nothing has replaced it. It increasingly exists as a cheap undesirable housing spot with a 30 min commute to the next city.
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