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What is wrong with city and town planners who are laying waste to England's town and city centres? Opportunities for real development and the chance to create a vibrant, pleasant, living environment are being wasted by these unimaginative and thoughtless town planning committees. Manchester is a prime example of this and I am sure there are countless other places around the country like it.
Walk around Manchester city centre and you'll feel your spirits sink...
The city centre is rapidly turning into a grey, dirty, 'retail park-like city', with temporary structures that will either be knocked down in 10 or 20 years time, or will come tumbling down with decay and neglect, a sad indictment to the twentieth century and early twenty-first century people who are failing to leave any lasting legacy of beautiful, innovative buildings that are worthy of lasting care and attention.
Walk around Manchester city centre and you'll feel your spirits sink as you are bombarded at every turn with the 'grey', the 'concrete', the 'dirt', the 'bleakness'. Grey walls and grey paving stones predominate. Look for any green oasis in this concrete wasteland and you will almost certainly fail to find one in Manchester because they are almost non-existent. The closest is Piccadilly Gardens, dominated by a grey, concrete wall, ideal as a point of urination at the weekends as is testified by the smell on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It has a noticeable lack of focal point, with a floor level 'gimmicky' fountain sided with patches of grass, all of which lend to a 'bleak', inhospitable environment.
Manchester's city centre planners should be ashamed of themselves.
By: miserablemoaninggit
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I agree partly with you but how recent and how much of the centre of Manchester are you referring to?
In one way it would be 100% agreeable but widening the radius and time span I could only agree with you about 70%.
Still I agree with you where your views are based on the centre.
I know you were talking about the centre of Manchester but was trying to point out there are some attractive buildings as well as ugly ones and this holds all over.
My reference to Blackpool, Preston, Coventry and Milton Keynes were in response to others comments about these places as I am familiar with all and what I was saying about them was what I said about Manchester.
I don't know of any town or city that doesn't have this contrast or is purely one without the other.
Let us have your views on other towns and cities.
They all have their grey concrete images in dull weather but there are some very nice places in all of them.
Hillfields, Wood End are not too good in Coventry (I lived in Hillfields) but there has been a lot of development in other areas. Some of the older areas have some heritage about them like Spon End.
Mereside and Grange Park as well as parts of Layton and near the centre of Blackpool are rather run down but Marton, Bispham and Squires Gate are quite nice as are other parts. I could quote one street I think looks a bit intimidating but that would be unfair.
The Callon estate and areas around New Hall Lane in Preston are a bit rough but other parts of the city are quite nice. There are grey areas but that doesn't affect how I feel.
Last but not least, Manchester has its good sides as well as its bad sides. The centre has come a long way like its neighbour Salford with development of the Lowry and Salford Quays. There are some rough areas like Moss Side, Longsight and other areas around the city but as with any city you have the industrial and rougher communities and also the nicer ones. A lot of buildings in Manchester are not "gloomy grey".
To sum up they all have their good sides and bad sides but I have never felt they are worthy of being gloomy capitals. They all have something different.
Unless you live in a wealthy area take a look along some streets nearby and you are likely to see some tacky or gloomy grey buildings nearby - some of them have some history behind them. You can sometimes be more welcome in what appears to be rough areas as there is often more community spirit in some.
By the way Milton Keynes has its unusuality too with all the roundabouts and concrete buildings but that is different too. Have any of you looked at Milton Keynes Village nearby? It all adds to the variety in life.
A badly planned ring road system, old fashioned dirty subways, a s^#t hole of a town centre full of cavs.
Coventry, a badly planned town.
Don