A year living in Northfield while I was at Birmingham Uni. At Griffin Close - which got basically condemned and sold off shortly after I left.
This was at the same time that the Longbridge car plant shut down, so it was a very depressed area. And I was - even more than most - a penniless student. While everyone around me was living on £50 a week or more from their parents, my dad managed to give me a tenner once - as mine were struggling rather at the time too. What I did have was a very cheap Astravan, insured through my dad's commercial insurance so costing nothing but petrol to run. So I did a pizza round twice a week till 2 in the morning. It was the only thing that kept my head above water throughout that year, but it wasn't a nice experience. Looking back now, 20-odd years later, I can't believe I willingly stuck it out. The most memorable occasions would be:
Driving past a car on fire in the middle of the road.
Another car embedded in a tree and abandoned.
Several occasions of people playing 'chicken' with me.
Various threats and attempts to steal food.
One occasion on the top floor of a hi-rise when a pregnant lady answered the door and started claiming she should have the food for free because she was pregnant. Then two massive blokes came out of next door and backed her up. Through sheer patheticness I managed to convince them to pay me or I'd lose my job.
Outside of that, in my student flat basically no-one ever cleaned or washed anything. At one point I was using consecutive pages of the yellow pages as fresh 'plates' for my food.
It's probably totally unfair, but it completely put me off the idea of living in a city ever. I can just about manage a weekend break in one, but the crowds and noise still get to me even in that short time.