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

[Gandalf]

In truth everywhere has bad areas, obviously the major citys have got bigger areas.

Manchester is pretty bad in certain area's Salfords not that bad really, depends on which area of Salford, South Manchester Gorton,Longsight there rough as bears arses.

To be fair I haven't lived up there in a fair few years. I was younger and a little more wide eyed then, so it certainly seemed very rough and you wouldn't want to hang out in the local pubs too much.

A friend of mine working in local government around there said that apparently the local government has spent a fair bit of cash trying to regenerate parts of Salford, but I haven no idea how accurate this is or what level of success it had.

In all my time living in Salford and Manchester I never got into a single confrontation and that was despite me being a typical student and spending a lot of time in bars. I've been punched on the nose more in Korea and had many more confrontations here. Despite that I still percieve Northern England as far more dangerous. I think perhaps my character has changed somewhat.

What are you doing in Korea? Seoul? My best friend lives in Seoul. I'm a big fan of the city.

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 teach English out here. Seoul is alright, but not my cup of tea. There are too many Koreans there! I like to visit every now and then to get certain shopping fixes, but it's too mental for me to live in. It's the same in the UK really, as I would never consider living in London. But London is far less busy than Seoul and doesn't have everybody crammed into high rise project style apartments. London also has a lot more to see IMO. I much prefer smaller cities and towns though, where you learn to navigate and know where everything is.

I find it strange how places develop with all this attitude and toughness. It's one of the reasons I enjoy living where I do. Nobody is ever going to pull a gun on you and the worst you are ever going to get is a dirty look. Even when I went home to England in Harrogate (which is a relatively decent small town) last time out I remember me and some friends pulling up for some petrol and there were these teenagers none of us knew all shouting over "You twats. Do you want to start? Come over here!". We just looked at them and did wanker hand gestures and drove off....but still...where do these pricks come from? And why do they do it? I've never seen that kind of behaviour from kids living out here and they wouldn't dare. But back home they just don't give a shit. It's fucked up.

Not exactly tough stuff, but still pointless and wrong. It's just that if they were conditioned in a rougher area they might be mopre prone to stab you.