Question from an American - what are considered the roughest areas in Britain?

[Fenster]

You seem to have a decent amount of money, I know you travel for work and that you flew to the U.S. to see Pacquiao - Hatton, so why do you live where you do (if you don't mind me asking)?

I think how I live probably gives you the impression there's more than there is. The travel was for a work placement in Europe, so they covered my travel & living costs. The money that went on Hatton-Pacquiao, (which when taking hotel, flight, fight ticket, spending dough into account was about £2000) was money both me & my girlfriend had saved up together over the previous year for a holiday. I mean, by the standards of where I live, my family is pretty well-off, but I think if you compared us to most people in Britain, we'd be considered 'poor' by some.

I still live here, because it's where I grew up & even with everything wrong with it, it's the place I feel comfortable & all my friends & family are still here. I probably would have been just like most of my friends growing up headed either to jail or an early death, if it hadn't been for 2 teachers I had in my community college, who basically changed my life & because of them I've now got 2 degrees & at least some possibilities at 23. I know that the area isn't going to get better whilst the only role models are drug dealers & sports stars long gone, so I feel like if I just leave than I'd basically be selling out. I might feel different once I have kids as I don't know if I'd want them growing up here as it is now, but until then I want to actually at least try to do something positive for my community & leaving it behind won't do that.

You make me laugh the way you describe south London - it sounds like Boys in the Hood

In 33 years i've never seen anyone shot, shot at or stabbed to death (know of it but not actually seen it).

Where is the estate you live on in Lewisham?

[jamiebhoy]

I am from Glasgow and it gets a bad rep some times. Many parts of it deserve the name but it's a good City to visit for museums and parks and the nightlife is good in the centre.

Go to a housing estate at you own peril though, as someone said it's stab happy. I have had friends involved in some real nsty shit and my cousin was killed a few years back in a stabbing incident because he had an argument about someone switching channels on the TV in the pub

I have been chased by people with knives and hammers and axes , was all a bit mental growing up at times. I used to watch running battles with gangs from my Grans 4th floor window at weekends.

I tend to not notice things in other cities at times becasue I got a bit immune to it , can be a bit dangerous as I tend to take things for granted and don't take much shit from local upstarts

[BIG H]

I am from Glasgow and it gets a bad rep some times. Many parts of it deserve the name but it's a good City to visit for museums and parks and the nightlife is good in the centre.

Go to a housing estate at you own peril though, as someone said it's stab happy. I have had friends involved in some real nsty shit and my cousin was killed a few years back in a stabbing incident because he had an argument about someone switching channels on the TV in the pub

I have been chased by people with knives and hammers and axes , was all a bit mental growing up at times. I used to watch running battles with gangs from my Grans 4th floor window at weekends.

I tend to not notice things in other cities at times becasue I got a bit immune to it , can be a bit dangerous as I tend to take things for granted and don't take much shit from local upstarts

I've never been to Galsgow, but it scares the sh1t out of me When I was at school we had a lad move into town that was from Easter house, he was an absolute loon lol

[jamiebhoy]

I am from Glasgow and it gets a bad rep some times. Many parts of it deserve the name but it's a good City to visit for museums and parks and the nightlife is good in the centre.

Go to a housing estate at you own peril though, as someone said it's stab happy. I have had friends involved in some real nsty shit and my cousin was killed a few years back in a stabbing incident because he had an argument about someone switching channels on the TV in the pub

I have been chased by people with knives and hammers and axes , was all a bit mental growing up at times. I used to watch running battles with gangs from my Grans 4th floor window at weekends.

I tend to not notice things in other cities at times becasue I got a bit immune to it , can be a bit dangerous as I tend to take things for granted and don't take much shit from local upstarts

I've never been to Galsgow, but it scares the sh1t out of me When I was at school we had a lad move into town that was from Easter house, he was an absolute loon lol

Bet he was mate, that's the next estate across from where lived, got picked up by the cops one night and they took me to the station in Easterhouse, told me it was more fun letting me walk home than taking me inside to charge me. That was a long night walking in the shadows to avoid being seen !!

[JazMerkin]

I am from Glasgow and it gets a bad rep some times. Many parts of it deserve the name but it's a good City to visit for museums and parks and the nightlife is good in the centre.

Go to a housing estate at you own peril though, as someone said it's stab happy. I have had friends involved in some real nsty shit and my cousin was killed a few years back in a stabbing incident because he had an argument about someone switching channels on the TV in the pub

I have been chased by people with knives and hammers and axes , was all a bit mental growing up at times. I used to watch running battles with gangs from my Grans 4th floor window at weekends.

I tend to not notice things in other cities at times becasue I got a bit immune to it , can be a bit dangerous as I tend to take things for granted and don't take much shit from local upstarts

Your guys up there are mad. I remember seeing one Glaswegian guy fighting 7 armed Cypriot police in Ayia Napa, with blood pouring down his face, & the lil fucker (he was about 5'7) was actually winning until one clubbed him over the back of the head with a rifle butt. Actually come to think of it, most Glaswegians I've met have either been frightening lunatics or crackheads. Guess we won't be meeting up for a pint anytime mate

[jamiebhoy]

I am from Glasgow and it gets a bad rep some times. Many parts of it deserve the name but it's a good City to visit for museums and parks and the nightlife is good in the centre.

Go to a housing estate at you own peril though, as someone said it's stab happy. I have had friends involved in some real nsty shit and my cousin was killed a few years back in a stabbing incident because he had an argument about someone switching channels on the TV in the pub

I have been chased by people with knives and hammers and axes , was all a bit mental growing up at times. I used to watch running battles with gangs from my Grans 4th floor window at weekends.

I tend to not notice things in other cities at times becasue I got a bit immune to it , can be a bit dangerous as I tend to take things for granted and don't take much shit from local upstarts

Your guys up there are mad. I remember seeing one Glaswegian guy fighting 7 armed Cypriot police in Ayia Napa, with blood pouring down his face, & the lil fucker (he was about 5'7) was actually winning until one clubbed him over the back of the head with a rifle butt. Actually come to think of it, most Glaswegians I've met have either been frightening lunatics or crackheads. Guess we won't be meeting up for a pint anytime mate

Here was me looking forward to a nice game of dominoes down the pub too

I hear what you are saying about shit going down though, it's usually some little toss pot starting shit for nothing at all. It's always been the teaming up against one person that gets me in some places.

The worst Glaswegian is a mix of your experiences , the loony crackhead who also happens to be drunk and in a bad mood.I will say one thing for us though, we do like to stand our corner if we're in the right (or at least our version of right)

[RozzySean]

I am from Glasgow and it gets a bad rep some times. Many parts of it deserve the name but it's a good City to visit for museums and parks and the nightlife is good in the centre.

Go to a housing estate at you own peril though, as someone said it's stab happy. I have had friends involved in some real nsty shit and my cousin was killed a few years back in a stabbing incident because he had an argument about someone switching channels on the TV in the pub

I have been chased by people with knives and hammers and axes , was all a bit mental growing up at times. I used to watch running battles with gangs from my Grans 4th floor window at weekends.

I tend to not notice things in other cities at times becasue I got a bit immune to it , can be a bit dangerous as I tend to take things for granted and don't take much shit from local upstarts

I have some very good friends from Glasgow and spent a bit of time there. I stayed on the west side and it's pretty nice in that part of town, but my friends from there warned me about the rough spots and reminded me of of the old joke "what do you call a knife fight between two Weegies? A square go!"

[JazMerkin]

You make me laugh the way you describe south London - it sounds like Boys in the Hood

In 33 years i've never seen anyone shot, shot at or stabbed to death (know of it but not actually seen it).

Where is the estate you live on in Lewisham?

I live on Lethbridge. Which bit of South were you from?

I don't find it funny or cool watching people I grew up with going to jail or becoming drug addicts. One of my friends was shot dead in his car just 3 months ago over some stupid shit, so I certainly don't find it at all amusing. I'm not Lefty, I don't think this hard man shit is cool, I think most of the people doing it are just looking for some small, pathetic way to feel important. The problem is these dickheads have taken over as the idols for most of the young boys in the bits, even me when I was 14 & stupid. They have all the nice shit, everyone acts like they're really somebody. There's a lot more decent hard-working people in the area than these fuckers, but we've yet to make someone getting up & working as a postman or a bus driver a desirable job, so kids won't see it that way.

It isn't like Compton or West Baltimore, I certainly don't want to give that impression, I should probably be more specific in some stuff I say, we don't have loads of people just walking along the street shooting each other or pulling drive-bys in broad daylight. The murder rate is barely comparable here to the US thankfully. But, people are still getting killed & it's getting worse. The big problem is drugs, which many people see as the easiest way to money. I'd say 95% of shootings are over drugs or gang wars over drugs. The stabbings are the thing that tend to be over minor issues, like somebody looking at someone wrong or moving to the wrong girl. It's also not like Glasgow where I heard people get stabbed like 85 times.

[Fenster]

You make me laugh the way you describe south London - it sounds like Boys in the Hood

In 33 years i've never seen anyone shot, shot at or stabbed to death (know of it but not actually seen it).

Where is the estate you live on in Lewisham?

I live on Lethbridge. Which bit of South were you from?

I don't find it funny or cool watching people I grew up with going to jail or becoming drug addicts. One of my friends was shot dead in his car just 3 months ago over some stupid shit, so I certainly don't find it at all amusing. I'm not Lefty, I don't think this hard man shit is cool, I think most of the people doing it are just looking for some small, pathetic way to feel important. The problem is these dickheads have taken over as the idols for most of the young boys in the bits, even me when I was 14 & stupid. They have all the nice shit, everyone acts like they're really somebody. There's a lot more decent hard-working people in the area than these fuckers, but we've yet to make someone getting up & working as a postman or a bus driver a desirable job, so kids won't see it that way.

It isn't like Compton or West Baltimore, I certainly don't want to give that impression, I should probably be more specific in some stuff I say, we don't have loads of people just walking along the street shooting each other or pulling drive-bys in broad daylight. The murder rate is barely comparable here to the US thankfully. But, people are still getting killed & it's getting worse. The big problem is drugs, which many people see as the easiest way to money. I'd say 95% of shootings are over drugs or gang wars over drugs. The stabbings are the thing that tend to be over minor issues, like somebody looking at someone wrong or moving to the wrong girl. It's also not like Glasgow where I heard people get stabbed like 85 times.

Ah right, I know where you mean, big estate. I've just moved after living for ten years up the other end of Lewisham high street near the hospital. I've lived in quite a few different places in London, I'm from Bermondsey.

I don't think you're a bullshitter, gloryfying or a fantasist mate. It's funny how we live in the same place but experience things differently. I don't really know about these youth gangs. The only dealings i've had with them was when they robbed a bar/club I was working in a few years ago (3 times). Thankfully they didn't shoot me or carve me up ().

[HattonTheHammer]

Happen to live in east london which is supposedly populated with drug gangs and of course my beloved football hooligans yet can hand on heart say i or my family have never had a single problem with the area.

you do the odd pikey kid flying around on a scooter and giving you lip while your walking the dog but apart from that its relatively a trouble free zone.


Having followed west ham up and down the country i can hand on heart say the one place in britain i hate to visit is liverpool.

When we play liverpool/everton away its the only 2 times of the year your pretty much told if you take your car and park in and around the stadiums its at your own risk. Dont acknowledge talk to or even make eye contact with the locals. It really is that bad.

[Scrap]

I love going to Liverpool, visit my Hubcaps.

[Kel]

Worked in Ilford for 2 years (Seven Kings) which is said to be tough but it's not at all, never had any fuss in London either or Southend where I live (well there was one thing but not a biggie). Had much worse in Bradford and Leeds.

Moss Side is dangerous. Had a mate work down there who went for a piss some place, a public toilet or something.....and a guy put a gun under the cubicle door and demanded keys for his truck lol.

[superheavyrhun]

As has been mentioned, I lived in east London for a few years, and never really felt truly threatened there, though I was in the University areas (Bow and Mile End). Only fights I got into were of my own making, though the owner of Kennessy fried chicken in Stepney once chased me down the road and hit me with a stick after I pinched one of the baseball caps of the guys working there.

However, there was always stuff in the paper about the estates not half a mile away from where we were (Ocean estate), but apart from some minor gang arguments on open mic rap nights in the local was alright.

I think some of the provincial towns which have lost industries can be much worse than the cities....if a small town loses its main employer, drugs, violence, muggings and robberies just go through the roof. I'd much rather park my car on an estate in the East End than on an estate in Caernarfon.

[JazMerkin]

Ah right, I know where you mean, big estate. I've just moved after living for ten years up the other end of Lewisham high street near the hospital. I've lived in quite a few different places in London, I'm from Bermondsey.

I don't think you're a bullshitter, gloryfying or a fantasist mate. It's funny how we live in the same place but experience things differently. I don't really know about these youth gangs. The only dealings i've had with them was when they robbed a bar/club I was working in a few years ago (3 times). Thankfully they didn't shoot me or carve me up ().

Yeah, I found that a lot, that people who're a bit older than my generation & younger can live here without ever really seeing what we see. Although tonight was an almost comical take on that as a Yardie bouncer decided to try & mug me of my pick & mix

Are the areas described - South London, parts of Manchester, and Glasgow (is that Scotland?) - comparable to US tough? The last time I was in London I was under the impression the more destitute areas were bad in the sense there were crackheads and fistfights, but they weren't horrible. Also, in the states, most of the bad areas in the major west coast and east coast cities although not all (Youngstown, Ohio where KP is from is pretty hard from what I gather), are predominately african american or latino, are the bad areas in the UK predominately one racial group? Mixed? Russian (JOKE - like in Eastern Promises)?

Growing up in LA, I was jumped a dozen or so times, and I lived in a good area, but it was in the middle of the city. It kind of came with the territory that would happen if you know what I mean.

I think during the last comparative year, which was 2007, those 3 cities, London, Glasgow, Manchester, had roughly similar violent crime levels to somewhere just above New York, but quite a bit below LA, in terms of per capita (so that means the number of murders for every 100,000 people in the city for the simpletons among you). New York was 6, London was about 7 or so, whilst LA was 10. There was a thing in all the papers about London & Glasgow being worse than NY. So it's comparable in that sense, but it simply can't be compared with the worst of your cities like Baltimore, Detroit & St Louis in terms of violence. Those all have murder rates in the 40s.

I hear both NY & LA have improved a lot in the past decade, so it's probably more due to the crime rate falling a lot there, than the UK going up substantially. So like I said it's probably comparable with certainly New York, but not the worst of the places in the US. The only thing with not noticing it is we have far less of a boundary between different classes. Like it says above, Fenster & I live in basically the same area but have very different experiences of the level of violence. Although obviously these areas aren't on any tourist maps or any mainline tube lines, so people who come here largely don't know they exist.

In terms of how they are racially, I think Glasgow is pretty white, although jamie will know better than me, the areas in Manchester are supposed to be quite mixed, but I'm not from there so don't really know. As for this bit of South London, it is a mainly black area, but not exclusively, there's still a lot of white people & other ethnic groups around here. It doesn't seem as ghettoised as American cities appear to us, but Brixton, Peckham & Lewisham are predominantly black.

Oh & Peckham is a horrible shithole. There's a saying among people who live in some of the worst places in South London...

'At least I don't live in Peckham'

[jamiebhoy]

Yes Jaz, Glasgow is mostly white and the ehtnic mix has come traditionally from the Asian community (Pakistan,India). It does piss me off a bit when violence that has crossed over between the groups is put down to racism though.

When I was growing up it was more or lett based on territory which is pretty much it worldwide at least as far as gang violence. our estate had a fish and chip shop , the surrounding ones didn't , therefore our shop, now pisss off and don't come here , so lots of fights and full on battles over a bag of chips !!!

Ahh for the good old days