What is birmingham like to live in?

NVP said:
I've been in Solihull the past 5 years, it's just full of wannabe-posh chavs attempting to be pretentious. As an example: @deuse, where you from? ;)
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Is that "North Solihull" tho... that area, especially Chelmsley Wood (and also bits around Shirley) can be fairly Chavvy... Chelmsely Wood is basically populated by the descendants of a load of Brummies council tenants who got relocated there.

Villages to the south of Solihull are generally fairly nice.
 
dowie said:
Chelmsely Wood is basically populated by the descendants of a load of Brummies council tenants who got relocated there.
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I went to their shopping centre once, this explains so much! I'm in the "nicer" area, yet the attitudes are all the same, dated.
 
NVP said:
I've been in Solihull the past 5 years, it's just full of wannabe-posh chavs attempting to be pretentious. As an example: @deuse, where you from? ;)
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What part of solihull?

So you live around the car makers plant.
That's the lower end added on by Thatcher
 
Don't understand why Birmingham gets such a bad rep....in the last 5 years the city is now unrecognisable! Grand Central is a game changer for the city, now with trams connecting Grand Central to the Jewellery Quarter and the Mailbox. People who hate on Brum when is the last time you have been to the centre honestly?! Outside of London has the most Michelin starred restaurants, lots of history, great bars and shops, as well as good facilities like the Genting Arena, NIA, lots of theatres, Universities and Cinemas

Miles better then most cities like Sheffield, Liverpool, Glasgow, Stoke....live in Manchester now but Birmingham city centre is far superior to Manchester although as a city as a whole prefer Manchester as there is a much better 'vibe'. Inner City Birmingham can feel moody at times but that's changing with all the new infrastructure. Every where you look there is a new building or new building in process

Inner city areas in Birmingham like Aston, Sparkbrook, Alum Rock are all dirty and dangerous but there are some great areas like Moseley, Harbourne, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull.

Think the hate Brum gets is more a stereotype and expectation then actual fact. I always assumed the steel city Sheffield would be great, the way the Yorkshire locals rave about it. Was shocked at what a dump Sheffield was. A real eyesore of a city. Like stepping back in time. Is there any cities more depressing then Milton Keynes, Stoke or Wolverhampton??

Brum needs better marketing that's for sure.
 
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Amplus said:
Don't understand why Birmingham gets such a bad rep....in the last 5 years the city is now unrecognisable! Grand Central is a game changer for the city, now with trams connecting Grand Central to the Jewellery Quarter and the Mailbox. People who hate on Brum when is the last time you have been to the centre honestly?! Outside of London has the most Michelin starred restaurants, lots of history, great bars and shops, as well as good facilities like the Genting Arena, NIA, lots of theatres, Universities and Cinemas

Miles better then most cities like Sheffield, Liverpool, Glasgow, Stoke....live in Manchester now but Birmingham city centre is far superior to Manchester although as a city as a whole prefer Manchester as there is a much better 'vibe'. Inner City Birmingham can feel moody at times but that's changing with all the new infrastructure. Every where you look there is a new building or new building in process

Inner city areas in Birmingham like Aston, Sparkbrook, Alum Rock are all dirty and dangerous but there are some great areas like Moseley, Harbourne, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull.

Think the hate Brum gets is more a stereotype and expectation then actual fact. I always assumed the steel city Sheffield would be great, the way the Yorkshire locals rave about it. Was shocked at what a dump Sheffield was. A real eyesore of a city. Like stepping back in time. Is there any cities more depressing then Milton Keynes, Stoke or Wolverhampton??

Brum needs better marketing that's for sure.
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Lets be honest, any city in the UK where its diverse and multicultural is going to get a bad rep and be called a dump by default. The main problem with Birmingham and many cities in the UK, is more and more beggars on the streets, which makes it look untidy.

They can plough as much money into the area with new builds etc as they want but the beggars on the streets needs addressing too.
 
It gets them a bad rep because most of the time it's deserved.

My nearest town was a nice place years ago. But then "cultural enrichment" was enforced. Which apparently involves multiple Asian drug gangs stabbing and shooting each other all over town.
 
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Britain still doesn’t seem to have taken urbanity to its heart. I actually think it goes all the back to the industrial revolution, when cities were (quite rightly in most cases) seen as a filthy, squalid mess, where frail, soot covered workers trudged to the mills for a day of back breaking labour, as depicted in many a Lowry work. Birmingham was one of the most successful and wealthiest cities in the UK and Europe, even during the post-war period. I remember reading that unemployment in the West Midlands in 1950 was something like 0.4%- virtually non-existent. The city was so strong economically that government policy in the 1960s was designed to stop growth congregating in Birmingham, and aimed to spread it further round the country.

They needn’t have bothered, because by the 70s the city and region were haemorrhaging jobs at a terrifying rate thanks to high interest rates and uncompetitive industries, a trend which continued until the 90s. Public perception of the city probably wasn’t helped by the wholescale remodelling the city centre by Manzoni, which saw much of the Victorian (and older) street patterns and buildings ripped up for the Inner Ring Road and other road systems. Modernist planning hasn’t aged very well in this country and is poorly favoured- look at the perception of Coventry, Plymouth, Slough and the other many new towns which sprang up in the post war period. It’s widely seen as a nadir in British architectural and planning history due to stark aesthetics, often cheap and compromised construction methods and materials, private vehicle dominance in streets, poor pedestrian provision, and so on.

It’s telling that many of Birmingham’s biggest steps forward in the last 20 years has been the demolition of these types of structures- part of the Inner Ring Road, the Brutalist Library, the old Bull Ring, the 1960s New Street Station, and so on. Sadly, public perception does take a long time to update, and people are quick to latch onto the negative and adopt the prevailing media view, even if they haven’t visited a place themselves. It was similar with Nottingham and gun crime back in the mid-2000s. There had been a few high profile incidents that (excuse the pun) got blown out of all proportion in the national press. They were tragic incidents, but similar events were happening in other large cities up and down the country, least of all London- a city where over 140 murders can take place in a year with seemingly minimal impact on the place’s reputation.

My feeling on Birmingham is that it has a lot to offer, but perhaps until recently has always felt less than the sum of its parts, or that it wasn’t quite punching its weight. Both it and Manchester sit at the heart of 2.5 million+ sized conurbations, yet it is the latter that has felt a more complete and vibrant offer. With big new realm improvements, tram extensions, the potential of HS2 and the inflow of high profile blue chip companies such as HSBC, it definitely seems like its trajectory is pointing upwards. For anyone wanting to know more about a place, I’d really implore you to do lots of research, visit yourself, and don’t listen too much to the opinions of others, especially if they’re based on a visit from decades ago. Be open minded and give places a chance, then form your opinion.
 
Birmingham is one of few places I know that I'd never live personally.



I think it's probably just another city but to me it just felt like a concrete jungle.

For reference I like the outdoors. Although Birmingham has some nice countryside near by its just too far to go

I like Cardiff so if you don't you might like Birmingham! :D

(I like outdoors)
 
The canal bits around the Sea Life center and leading to The Mailbox are nice (The Basin?).Some really nice bars/pubs. (Remember them? :( ). All the new development going around the symphony hall is impressive but is literally never ending.
Interesting walking around the Chinese quarter and looking at the back to backs in the jewelry quarter.
I prefer to live in my little Cotswold town but nice to go there every so often.

Some bits not so nice though.. An old missus was in a student house next door to the Saddam Hussein mosque in the late 90s. Near Lozells. Not a friendly area for a scared *middle class white guy. (Probably said more about me than anything else though lol)
 
I went once in 1985 whilst I was on a college placement in Evesham.

Went to the Bullring to do some Christmas shopping & when I got back to the carpark, my motorcycle had been nicked.

Left a nasty taste so have never been back but I’m sure it’s probably lovely otherwise.
 
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