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Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shop

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged to the same broad spectrum of bland mediocrity. Today, I think it's clear who would be being laughed at by whom. The fates of places have so radically diverged that we no longer have a sense of collective identity. All of the places listed in Crap Towns are now unrecognisable, for better or worse. Those familiar shops are now gone; in some places they have been replaced by artisan bakeries and pop-up boutiques, while in others they have been replaced by charity shops or nothing at all. Half the leisure centres have shut and we all know which half. The upper middle class might have become more humourless and puritanical, but I think that's a subconscious self-defence mechanism, a manifestation of noblesse oblige without real obligation. The working class are too angry to laugh and certainly aren't willing to be laughed at. We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it.

parpfish 1y ago
Well put. A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.
  - rhubarbtree 1y ago
    You’re looking at the wrong numbers. Wealth, not income. Wealth inequality is through the roof. Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts. If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving, then you have no idea about the reality of living in the UK. Visiting some of the towns in this book would be a starting point.
    - chgs 1y ago
      The problem in the U.K. is the availability of housing.
      - arrowsmith 1y ago
        If only our problems could be reduced to a single "the".
        chgs 1y ago
        Pretty much all other problems stem from that. Well there’s the weather I guess.
    - arrowsmith 1y ago
      > Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts. Is that supposed to prove me wrong? I said that everybody is getting poorer. > Wealth inequality is through the roof. Wealth inequality, while high, is still roughly where it was in 2007. (Source: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/) > If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving I said it's a problem, not the problem. And it's not just the ultra-rich who are leaving, but vast swathes of the middle classes. Many poor people would leave too if they had the means. You and the other replier seem to think I'm defending the status quo. How on earth did I imply that? You think I think it's a good thing for the entire country to get poorer?
- nickdothutton 1y ago
  The chief economist of the resolution foundation spoke about this quite eloquently. The divide began in the 80 with the “new industries” (finance, pharma, technology, telecoms), it’s just that it is less visible during good times. When the tide retreats it uncovers the ugly rocks and the unevenness of the underlying strata.
throwaway519 1y ago
A popular protestantism is not a bandwagon the current political circus troupe will fit on.
zmgsabst 1y ago
I’d argue that your last paragraph has the cause-and-effect reversed: We’re entering into a populist phase because the managerial class is incapable of addressing the problems experienced by most people — so they’re going to try dismantling the current elite systems and rebuilding them. To say that the problem is elites inability to suppress populism is to miss that the elites own chronic failures is what caused the populist surge. Similar to populist waves circa 1900, where aristocratic systems were replaced with managerialism via populist revolts. Now, managerialism has failed so we’re again seeing the stirrings of change. At a broad scale, communism, fascism, and progressivism were all different technocratic managerial solutions to the problems and excesses of the late 1800s and early 1900s. I think it’ll be interesting to see what comes next.
- ffsm8 1y ago
  The only issue is that - in the past - weapons had to be wielded by people. The same working people that revolted. There is very strong evidence that this will not be the case by the time this wave you have imagined gets really rolling. I hope it does not happen for decades yet, because frankly: I cannot see the working class (of which I am part of) win that conflict.
  - zmgsabst 1y ago
    Currently, weapons and logistics are not automated to that extent; I don’t think it’s meaningful to guess about decades from now, given the current flux. I’d argue that your perspective means that the time to revolt is now (ie, next few years) — while the technical and social systems are in mutual flux and before a new regime solidifies. A regime that might be more autocratic totalitarian in nature (as you suggest will be the case). People will reasonably come to different conclusions.
  - graemep 1y ago
    Change does not have to be violent, let alone be a violent internal conflict. I think between the rise of China, America's reaction to it, and the general shift in economic power to Asia from the west, and the lack of trust in government in the west, things will change.
bufferoverflow 1y ago
[flagged]
- Spivak 1y ago
  These are… specific examples. Something on your mind? Puritanical cultures do have an association with being sex-negative lack of a better term because purity culture sounds circular. But they're far from the only aspect of culture that can embody puritan thinking.
- khazhoux 1y ago
  They've been a naughty girls, they let their knickers down!
- pydry 1y ago
  puritanism is often linked to a backlash against this type of thing. Weimar berlin was very open about this stuff too and was followed by a puritanical backlash. The world feels like it is going through something very similar.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- graemep 1y ago
  There is more to puritanical attitudes than sex. It generally means anti-pleasure. One thing the real puritans are against that people have turned against very strongly is alcohol. It never stopped being a problem in the US, of course, but there are far more preachy teetotalers in the UK than there used to be, and government policy is very anti too. Then there is the push for achievement and the acquisition of wealth. You are supposed to dedicate your life to the cause of high achievement, rather than stop to enjoy it. Sex acts online actually fit in with all this as they are safe and controlled alternative to enjoying sex in real life.
- okkdev 1y ago
  How is this your #1 problem? We have so much serious issues and you are hung up on women having sex? Let them fuck how much they want. Nobody stopped men from fucking and if it works, doesn't that indicate a different problem?
JimDabell 1y ago
This is what I was going to say. Back then, a book like this would have been perceived as the UK making fun of itself. Now it’s perceived as being cruel to those less fortunate. I think it’s worth putting into context that the economy was doing great in the era this book was first published and huge progress was being made with things like homelessness, inequality, and poverty. It felt like the country had turned a corner from the lows of the 80s. Since then, we’ve had the global financial crisis, local councils being bankrupted, and a huge rise in homelessness and inequality. The rich have more and the poor have less. If you published that book today, the contents might be the same, but the story it tells would be quite different.
- jl6 1y ago
  The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    Look at the graphs as a whole, not just individual points. Compare the 90s to the 10s.
  - quantumgarbage 1y ago
    Switzerland and Afghanistan have an almost equal Gini coefficient. My point is: the Gini coefficient might indicate what your country's income distribution looks like, it however does not tell anything about actual life conditions.
    - jolux 1y ago
      Sure but that’s a bit silly. Switzerland’s GDP is something like 50x that of Afghanistan. UK GDP in 2025 is much higher than in 2003, too. Of course not 5000%
Neil44 1y ago
That seems an extremely cynical take to me, I don't think that's true at all. It divides people into monoliths and makes assumptions then uses those assumptions to restrict and hold back.
pinoy420 1y ago
[dead]
tomaytotomato 1y ago
> in some places they have been replaced by artisan bakeries and pop-up boutiques, while in others they have been replaced by charity shops or nothing at all. Charity shops, vape shops (used for money laundering), Turkish Barbers (used for money laundering), Automated Laundrettes (used for money laundering), Car Washes (used for money laundering), Phone shops (used for money laundering), Kebab shops (used for money laundering)
- TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
  Banks and privatised utilities (used for money laundering.) Politicians (used for money laundering.) This is the UK's entire economy now - extracting the wealth of the people who work in the UK and moving it to foreign owners. London looks rich because some of the money sticks to the sides while it's passing through, but it's still being siphoned from the provinces through the City and out - to tax havens, foreign mafias, foreign aristocrats, and giant foreign corporations. It's important the population isn't allowed to understand that the UK is a colonised country. So there's a huge media machine making sure the peasants blame "immigrants" for small-scale criminality, and poor people for being feckless and unproductive. It's useful to make sure everyone keeps fighting about racism/immigration and gender issues to keep them from looking at structural economics and the destruction of democracy.
  - switch007 1y ago
    Too real for a Saturday morning. Sigh
  - throwaway2562 1y ago
    How can invest in money laundering? Serious question. No crypto please, I do have some limits.
- switch007 1y ago
  We really do excel at money laundering. Go UK !
tarkin2 1y ago
> We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it. This, I believe, is because the problem is psychological more than political: social division and alienation. Of course, an increase in economic prosperity will lessen populism. But if people continue to be alienated then they will be drawn to populists offering collective causes against perceived wrongdoers. The large majority of online activities increase social alienation and social division. Local, apolitical activities that breed cohension rather than division will decrease the psychological benefits that populism offers the alienated. I see no other solution.
h2zizzle 1y ago
Yet another signal of the sad state of affairs is that you probably genuinely think we're "on the brink" and not well over the cliff, Wile E.-style. Buildings burned during leftist protests (whether or not leftists actually set the fires is up for debate), and the Capital was ransacked by a mob looking to overthrow an election. That was half a decade ago. The interim has consisted of a corrupt centrist presidential administration that spent most of its time denying that things are getting worse ("It's not a recession"; "We didn't fumble the Afghanistan draw-down"; "Those weren't significant bank failures"; "That's not a genocide"), followed by a corrupt fascist admin that is openly dedicated to making things worse. All the while, the intellectuals who understand what is happening - not just what will happen, what is happening - have been begging anyone who will listen to take the situation seriously - to understand that their attempted conservation of the previous normal is actually vascillation, while the ground falls out from under us. But my property values! But my American dream! But my rules-based order! They're already dead. And we can't start rebuilding until people with money and influence face it.
- frereubu 1y ago
  I think you're from the USA and the commenter you're replying to is British, which probably explains the difference. Those shop names are recognisably British.
  - h2zizzle 1y ago
    Ah, I'd thought that that Woolworths and Dixons were defunct regional chains (of which America has many, that Americans from other regions would not recognize or would have only heard about in passing). My bad. Still, GP accurately describes much of the American East, Midwest, and South. Likewise, I would have to /s if I were to say that the British upper class were known for their down-to-Earth character. No one who is "posh" has ever been described as out-of-touch or "living in a bubble", particularly on the development of populist issues, after all. (/s)
- thelaxiankey2 1y ago
  I've not heard a compelling description of what 'facing it' looks like, and I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter
eleveriven 1y ago
If you recognize deep inequality but feel powerless (or complicit), doubling down on seriousness might feel like the only "responsible" move.
rvz 1y ago
But we were promised that "AGI" will save us and humanity and AI will be able to clean up the crap towns and turn them into cool towns.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
amelius 1y ago
> but the majority of towns belonged to the same broad spectrum of bland mediocrity Isn't it to be expected that the majority of X are average (mediocre)? I mean, you could have a statistically skewed distribution, but would that be very desirable?
brickfaced 1y ago
[flagged]

parpfish 1y ago

Well put. A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.

arrowsmith 1y ago
What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis. 14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer. The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.
- rhubarbtree 1y ago
  You’re looking at the wrong numbers. Wealth, not income. Wealth inequality is through the roof. Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts. If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving, then you have no idea about the reality of living in the UK. Visiting some of the towns in this book would be a starting point.
  - chgs 1y ago
    The problem in the U.K. is the availability of housing.
    - arrowsmith 1y ago
      If only our problems could be reduced to a single "the".
      - chgs 1y ago
        Pretty much all other problems stem from that. Well there’s the weather I guess.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    > Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts. Is that supposed to prove me wrong? I said that everybody is getting poorer. > Wealth inequality is through the roof. Wealth inequality, while high, is still roughly where it was in 2007. (Source: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/) > If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving I said it's a problem, not the problem. And it's not just the ultra-rich who are leaving, but vast swathes of the middle classes. Many poor people would leave too if they had the means. You and the other replier seem to think I'm defending the status quo. How on earth did I imply that? You think I think it's a good thing for the entire country to get poorer?
nickdothutton 1y ago
The chief economist of the resolution foundation spoke about this quite eloquently. The divide began in the 80 with the “new industries” (finance, pharma, technology, telecoms), it’s just that it is less visible during good times. When the tide retreats it uncovers the ugly rocks and the unevenness of the underlying strata.

throwaway519 1y ago

A popular protestantism is not a bandwagon the current political circus troupe will fit on.

zmgsabst 1y ago

I’d argue that your last paragraph has the cause-and-effect reversed: We’re entering into a populist phase because the managerial class is incapable of addressing the problems experienced by most people — so they’re going to try dismantling the current elite systems and rebuilding them. To say that the problem is elites inability to suppress populism is to miss that the elites own chronic failures is what caused the populist surge. Similar to populist waves circa 1900, where aristocratic systems were replaced with managerialism via populist revolts. Now, managerialism has failed so we’re again seeing the stirrings of change. At a broad scale, communism, fascism, and progressivism were all different technocratic managerial solutions to the problems and excesses of the late 1800s and early 1900s. I think it’ll be interesting to see what comes next.

ffsm8 1y ago
The only issue is that - in the past - weapons had to be wielded by people. The same working people that revolted. There is very strong evidence that this will not be the case by the time this wave you have imagined gets really rolling. I hope it does not happen for decades yet, because frankly: I cannot see the working class (of which I am part of) win that conflict.
- zmgsabst 1y ago
  Currently, weapons and logistics are not automated to that extent; I don’t think it’s meaningful to guess about decades from now, given the current flux. I’d argue that your perspective means that the time to revolt is now (ie, next few years) — while the technical and social systems are in mutual flux and before a new regime solidifies. A regime that might be more autocratic totalitarian in nature (as you suggest will be the case). People will reasonably come to different conclusions.
- graemep 1y ago
  Change does not have to be violent, let alone be a violent internal conflict. I think between the rise of China, America's reaction to it, and the general shift in economic power to Asia from the west, and the lack of trust in government in the west, things will change.

bufferoverflow 1y ago

[flagged]

Spivak 1y ago
These are… specific examples. Something on your mind? Puritanical cultures do have an association with being sex-negative lack of a better term because purity culture sounds circular. But they're far from the only aspect of culture that can embody puritan thinking.
khazhoux 1y ago
They've been a naughty girls, they let their knickers down!
pydry 1y ago
puritanism is often linked to a backlash against this type of thing. Weimar berlin was very open about this stuff too and was followed by a puritanical backlash. The world feels like it is going through something very similar.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
graemep 1y ago
There is more to puritanical attitudes than sex. It generally means anti-pleasure. One thing the real puritans are against that people have turned against very strongly is alcohol. It never stopped being a problem in the US, of course, but there are far more preachy teetotalers in the UK than there used to be, and government policy is very anti too. Then there is the push for achievement and the acquisition of wealth. You are supposed to dedicate your life to the cause of high achievement, rather than stop to enjoy it. Sex acts online actually fit in with all this as they are safe and controlled alternative to enjoying sex in real life.
okkdev 1y ago
How is this your #1 problem? We have so much serious issues and you are hung up on women having sex? Let them fuck how much they want. Nobody stopped men from fucking and if it works, doesn't that indicate a different problem?

JimDabell 1y ago

This is what I was going to say. Back then, a book like this would have been perceived as the UK making fun of itself. Now it’s perceived as being cruel to those less fortunate. I think it’s worth putting into context that the economy was doing great in the era this book was first published and huge progress was being made with things like homelessness, inequality, and poverty. It felt like the country had turned a corner from the lows of the 80s. Since then, we’ve had the global financial crisis, local councils being bankrupted, and a huge rise in homelessness and inequality. The rich have more and the poor have less. If you published that book today, the contents might be the same, but the story it tells would be quite different.

jl6 1y ago
The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.
- JimDabell 1y ago
  Look at the graphs as a whole, not just individual points. Compare the 90s to the 10s.
- quantumgarbage 1y ago
  Switzerland and Afghanistan have an almost equal Gini coefficient. My point is: the Gini coefficient might indicate what your country's income distribution looks like, it however does not tell anything about actual life conditions.
  - jolux 1y ago
    Sure but that’s a bit silly. Switzerland’s GDP is something like 50x that of Afghanistan. UK GDP in 2025 is much higher than in 2003, too. Of course not 5000%

Neil44 1y ago

That seems an extremely cynical take to me, I don't think that's true at all. It divides people into monoliths and makes assumptions then uses those assumptions to restrict and hold back.

pinoy420 1y ago

[dead]

tomaytotomato 1y ago

> in some places they have been replaced by artisan bakeries and pop-up boutiques, while in others they have been replaced by charity shops or nothing at all. Charity shops, vape shops (used for money laundering), Turkish Barbers (used for money laundering), Automated Laundrettes (used for money laundering), Car Washes (used for money laundering), Phone shops (used for money laundering), Kebab shops (used for money laundering)

TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
Banks and privatised utilities (used for money laundering.) Politicians (used for money laundering.) This is the UK's entire economy now - extracting the wealth of the people who work in the UK and moving it to foreign owners. London looks rich because some of the money sticks to the sides while it's passing through, but it's still being siphoned from the provinces through the City and out - to tax havens, foreign mafias, foreign aristocrats, and giant foreign corporations. It's important the population isn't allowed to understand that the UK is a colonised country. So there's a huge media machine making sure the peasants blame "immigrants" for small-scale criminality, and poor people for being feckless and unproductive. It's useful to make sure everyone keeps fighting about racism/immigration and gender issues to keep them from looking at structural economics and the destruction of democracy.
- switch007 1y ago
  Too real for a Saturday morning. Sigh
- throwaway2562 1y ago
  How can invest in money laundering? Serious question. No crypto please, I do have some limits.
switch007 1y ago
We really do excel at money laundering. Go UK !

tarkin2 1y ago

> We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it. This, I believe, is because the problem is psychological more than political: social division and alienation. Of course, an increase in economic prosperity will lessen populism. But if people continue to be alienated then they will be drawn to populists offering collective causes against perceived wrongdoers. The large majority of online activities increase social alienation and social division. Local, apolitical activities that breed cohension rather than division will decrease the psychological benefits that populism offers the alienated. I see no other solution.

h2zizzle 1y ago

Yet another signal of the sad state of affairs is that you probably genuinely think we're "on the brink" and not well over the cliff, Wile E.-style. Buildings burned during leftist protests (whether or not leftists actually set the fires is up for debate), and the Capital was ransacked by a mob looking to overthrow an election. That was half a decade ago. The interim has consisted of a corrupt centrist presidential administration that spent most of its time denying that things are getting worse ("It's not a recession"; "We didn't fumble the Afghanistan draw-down"; "Those weren't significant bank failures"; "That's not a genocide"), followed by a corrupt fascist admin that is openly dedicated to making things worse. All the while, the intellectuals who understand what is happening - not just what will happen, what is happening - have been begging anyone who will listen to take the situation seriously - to understand that their attempted conservation of the previous normal is actually vascillation, while the ground falls out from under us. But my property values! But my American dream! But my rules-based order! They're already dead. And we can't start rebuilding until people with money and influence face it.

frereubu 1y ago
I think you're from the USA and the commenter you're replying to is British, which probably explains the difference. Those shop names are recognisably British.
- h2zizzle 1y ago
  Ah, I'd thought that that Woolworths and Dixons were defunct regional chains (of which America has many, that Americans from other regions would not recognize or would have only heard about in passing). My bad. Still, GP accurately describes much of the American East, Midwest, and South. Likewise, I would have to /s if I were to say that the British upper class were known for their down-to-Earth character. No one who is "posh" has ever been described as out-of-touch or "living in a bubble", particularly on the development of populist issues, after all. (/s)
thelaxiankey2 1y ago
I've not heard a compelling description of what 'facing it' looks like, and I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter

eleveriven 1y ago

If you recognize deep inequality but feel powerless (or complicit), doubling down on seriousness might feel like the only "responsible" move.

rvz 1y ago

But we were promised that "AGI" will save us and humanity and AI will be able to clean up the crap towns and turn them into cool towns.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

amelius 1y ago

> but the majority of towns belonged to the same broad spectrum of bland mediocrity Isn't it to be expected that the majority of X are average (mediocre)? I mean, you could have a statistically skewed distribution, but would that be very desirable?

brickfaced 1y ago

[flagged]