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On holiday in Blackpool

I'm enjoying the 'I'm more working-class than what you are' and 'the chip on my shoulder's bigger than the chip on yours, pal' vibes.

I am working class in the sense that I don't own the means of production and sell my labour in the job market....that probably quite a lot of people.
 
What if you or one of your family has a sudden medical emergency whilst out and about in Blackpool - are you going to refuse help from a stranger who says they are a nurse because they have tattoos and a northern accent.
I was in downtown tourist central, in the bingo hall, up the tower, on the piers. I doubt I saw any locals falling over, fighting, buying cock shaped sticks of rock etc.
 
Years ago I spent three days there and I did like it! A bit dodgy at night, we didn’t feel very safe in some places. But on market day it was great, very colourful and it looked like a miniature version of Lagos. Next time we fly into London we’ll return there for sure.
 
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Years ago I spent three days there and I did like it ! A bit dodgy at night, we didn’t feel very safe in some places. But on market day it was great, very colorful and it looked like a miniature version of Lagos ! Next time we fly into London we’ll return there for sure.

I have worked there. I don’t like the town centre, but that’s a matter of taste and certainly on a sunny day (today) you could think you were in Lagos, and that exoticism is fun at first. Peckham Rye has one or two streets which are rather gentrified. My friend owns a gallery there which has received significant grants to bring contemporary art and classical music to Peckham as part of a regeneration programme, pre Covid they used to put on a popular (i.e. for the people) classical music festival in a multi story car park just adjacent to the gallery building

http://hannahbarry.com/
 
A few years ago I set a 3rd year BA Advertising brief to 'Revitalise Blackpool/change attitudes to it', part of the research was a trip to Blackpool. The Uni requirement for a Risk Assessment had me in stitches -it wasn't where do I start rather how many pages have you got? Thankfully sanity prevailed and a condition of 'observation only and no rides' was deemed sufficient. On arrival that commitment lasted all of 20 seconds-the students had a whale of a time and produced some good work at the end of it.
The Fylde coast is beautiful, Blackpool makes no apologies for what it is or what it offers, I quite like the total absence of pretentiousness, One student tag line summed it up perfectly "It's like Vizland only better". The rock picture upthread had me laughing too.
Most town/city centres are now positively Hogarthian after about 11 pm these days, no need to get all untermensch about it.
 
article in guardian yesterday on sea side towns and poor health
The climate on the Fylde coast (which includes Blackpool) is mild, year round, which is a draw for the infirm. And, unlike other areas nearby, which are somewhat middle class, Blackpool has always stuck to its determinedly working class brief. So property is cheaper and the town caters well for those with less cash in terms of shops and amenities. You can see why elderly, infirm and therefore skint people would gravitate to it.
 
Why? Why is Blackpool a magnet for people with chronic health problems?
It's not just Blackpool, you'll find the same situation in any coastal town. It's the pace of life, cost of living is usually cheap, there aren't many hills and many think that living by the sea will improve their health.
 
there aren't many hills

Hastings has a number of cracking hills.

Anybody see the latest report from Michael Marmot, this time on the heath problems of Britain's coastal towns? Apparently, GPs in Blackpool have developed their own diagnostic term for the multiple physical, mental and social problems that beset many of the residents –– 'shit life syndrome'.
 
It's not just Blackpool, you'll find the same situation in any coastal town. It's the pace of life, cost of living is usually cheap, there aren't many hills and many think that living by the sea will improve their health.

Clacton's much the same, we all used to go on holiday in UK and there were a lot of coastal industries. In our case fishing and supplying London with food.

My grandfather used to go there for holidays every summer.

As this economic model dissolved they were left with surplus housing and costs fell; great hotels became HMOs and price became the main determinant of any business success.

Most of our fish now comes from Billingsgate by road and our barley heads inland for malting instead of round the coast to London breweries.

People don't go there for their health, it's because housing is unaffordable elsewhere.

These places have been allowed to decline, they could have been helped but you chose cheap holidays in Spain and cheap fish from anywhere.
 
Hastings has a number of cracking hills.

Anybody see the latest report from Michael Marmot, this time on the heath problems of Britain's coastal towns? Apparently, GPs in Blackpool have developed their own diagnostic term for the multiple physical, mental and social problems that beset many of the residents –– 'shit life syndrome'.

That's slightly better than "heart sink" as in when they come into the consulting room, the GP's heart sinks......
 
People don't go there for their health, it's because housing is unaffordable elsewhere.

These places have been allowed to decline, they could have been helped but you chose cheap holidays in Spain and cheap fish from anywhere.

As stated upthread I’ve not been to Blackpool or similar for 20+ years now, but I guess the change in taste for holiday destinations (Ryanair, Easyjet cheap flights etc) will have changed the whole economic model and left huge swathes of hotels, B&Bs and other rental property surplus and devalued that have since been repurposed for DHSS benefits, retired folk etc.
 
If it's any help I've been to Lagos and Peckham and I do know what Cheese is getting at about the markets. The similarity sort of ends there though. Peckham is, these days, just a largely forgotten locality with a high proportion of ethnic minorities where Southwark council divert the traffic to from the leafy predominantly white suburbs of Dulwich and Herne Hill.
 


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