Anyone in the US (or just anyone really) considering visiting Blackpool to see what is driving this equivalence from our end - don't. Historically, it was a pl

Anyone in the US (or just anyone really) considering visiting Blackpool to see what is driving this equivalence from our end - don't. Historically, it was a pleasant seaside resort town. The rise of cheap flights combined with a decades long neglect of northern England has meant that all of these Victorian era holiday destinations have fallen to ruin, with Blackpool falling the farthest. Left alone, it would just have been a shabby, run-down place - but to make matters worse, the cheap guest houses and B&Bs became the ideal place for drug addicts to live, or homeless people to be shoved out of the way. Blackpool hangs off the bottom of the rest of the UK districts in terms of life expectancy because of the normal health downsides of poverty, combined with the extra problems associated with excessive levels of drug and alcohol abuse.