Corby
Corby: Take 40,000 steelworkers from the Glasgow region, deposit them in a huge council estate with no facilities in rural Northamptonshire to man the steelworks there, then close the steelworks. Result: Hieronymous Bosch World.

I once worked with some guys from Corby on a government-funded job creation scheme, and they kindly offered to take me on a night out there to "see the sights". These comprised a wind-tunnel bus-station, the biggest Netto I've ever seen, and a town where even the pigeons were skag-heads. The pub we met up in had chunks missing from the bar because someone had been barred the night before and had come back with an axe. The till was in an armoured cage as the locals had a habit of ripping the whole thing off the bar and walking out with it.

It was until very recently the biggest town in Europe without a railway station, despite being on the east coast mainline, but they've now built a station and a shopping mall and are trying to sell it as a commuter town for London. If anyone is thinking of fleeing the delights of the capital for Corby (houses are about 20p each, six for a pound), a word of advice - don't. You'll be killed and eaten. And they may not even kill you first.
(redexile, Thu 5 Nov 2009, 9:51, Reply)

Tescos and pound shops and chavs, oh my!
Or, the crappest towns in Australia.

There's plenty of places in the Colonies that equal some of the evil places I've heard about in The Old Country (my sister told me stories of Pikey Sundays in Cinehell in Cambridge when she lived there).

However, there's much, much worse than hooded teenagers and methadone and industrial waste. You can find that in plenty of places - from Croydon and Frankston and St. Albans in Melbourne to Mt. Druitt and Camden and Mayfield in Sydney, Elizabeth in South Australia (populated by ex-patriate English who emigrated in the 1950's - sort of proto-chavs) and a fair slab of Perth.

However, there's much, much worse stuff out there.

Lemme tell yez about Ceduna, South Australia.

South Australia's a bit of a shithole anyway - its only claim to fame is it's the only State in Australia not involved in the 18th century's answer to chavs: convicts.

Anyway, Ceduna's about 800 or so km west of Adelaide, and home to a fishing fleet, a big fuck-off export grain silo, a lot of gypsum, a railway, and not much else.

Ceduna's also south of a place called Maralinga. Now, for all of you who may not know, Maralinga's where the British dropped a few atom bombs in the 1950's and 1960's and promptly made that scrub pretty much uninhabitable. No major problem: it's too far away from civilisation - except for the local Aboriginal tribe that lived there and got forcibly relocated.

Anyway, the main street (or the bit of the main highway betwixt Adelaide and Perth) is on a crossroads.

On one corner is a supermarket of sorts. Directly opposite is a park, with a few swings. To the left is a CES (a benefits office) and diagonally opposite is a bottle shop (sells packaged alcohol).

Was there three days (looking at the Gawler Ranges, and someone else we were travelling with found out that their best friend had died in a head-on car accident and was a bit too grief stricken to continue travelling where we wanted to go).

The first two days - the bottle shop was closed until about midday. Fairly normal for alcohol outlets.
The third day - the bottle shop was open. Why?
The benefit office opened up, and the bottle shop opened early purely to prey on the large amounts of Aboriginal families who were alcoholics. As well, the Aboriginals would travel from up to 500km away to get drunk, as there still existed something called the colour bar. That's essentially a rule saying no-one with black skin could be served alcohol. Whatsoever.

The way around this was petrol-sniffing. No-one gave a rats when you'd see kids aged 10 with petrol tins around their necks, with rusted wire cutting in their skin and what looked like burns from all the fumes buying petrol from petrol stations.
(This has changed now - the petrol out in the bush has a large numbers of aromatics removed)

There was no effort to rehabilitate them - just the existence that a bunch of people who depend so much on where they live to define their existence since forever reduced to drunken wrecks or sniffing petrol.

Length: about 6 hours' drive in some cases.
(Ethelbert Q Humpington Ho, ha, guard, turn, parry, dart, spin, ha, thrust, Thu 5 Nov 2009, 9:14, Reply)

Tawa
Let me tell you about Tawa which is located just north of Wellington in New Zealand. It has a small population of about 13 000.
I grew up there and it was a pleasant place. (Isn't everything when you're a kid?)I never really thought too much of it until I became a teenager and started to become aware of my surroundings.

No Booze
You see Tawa was one of the last places in the country to be called a "dry zone". This meant that they couldn't sell alcohol. At all. Anywhere.
Or tobacco.
This proved to be a bit of problem. There were no bars, no liquor shops, nothin. The closest we got to alcohol was aftershave. (Which I didn't drink...just for the record)
Tawa became a "wet area" in 1999 ... thus it was legally able to sell booze n fags.
nise.

Prison
According to Wikipedia "Arohata Prison, located at the southern end of Tawa, was built in 1944 and was originally a women's borstal. It became a youth prison in 1981 and a women's prison in 1987."
As kids we were just told to "stay away from that part of town...there are wrongin's in that there part of the hood"

No traffic lights
Several hundred billion roundabouts but no traffic lights. The closest we got were the railway crossing barrier arms which came down at the wrong time, thus killing a teenager every other year or so.

Lots of Churches.
If you are a Christian you will like Tawa. There are 17 Churches in Tawa, 14 of which are on or just off the main road.

Tattoo Parlours
Last count there were 2 tattoo parlours in Tawa. Must've been full of local priests getting crucifixes tattooed on them.

Now that I'm older I visit my parents in Tawa and I still think it's a nice place ... sort of ... well it suits me ... especially considering I'm a train catching hardcore Christian who's into tattooing and piercing with parents in Prison*






* may not actually be true
(Markygee Surname: "Balls". First name: "Lick-mah", Thu 5 Nov 2009, 0:51, Reply)

LUTON- the diarrhea to your caviar
See all other well written posts.
(CaptainCuntyBollocks the man who can with a frying pan full of lamb, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 23:22, Reply)

Glasgow and Hull
I have been to both of these towns. They are the only two places I have been where I can walk at a normal pace without stepping on the cracks in the pavement. That is the best thing I can say about either of those two places.
( BlueHaze Chutney. All good., Wed 4 Nov 2009, 22:40, Reply)

Northampton
Once famous for making shoes, all that stuff has moved to the Far East and now it's just another boring provincial town. The road network is wonderfully free-flowing if you happen to be going from the south M1 junction up the A45, atrocious in pretty much every other direction. It has industrial estates and business parks galore where you can lose your soul in a selection of pointless jobs. There is a large population of goths who hang out in St Giles churchyard and sometimes fight with the local chavs. I once saw a running battle at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon, outside the main shopping centre, between rival gangs of Kosovans.

The Wellingborough Road is the place to cruise up and down in your modified Saxo of a Friday night, and all the men under 30 wear Ben Sherman shortsleeved shirts regardless of the weather. Some of the estates have incredibly unpleasant names like Bellinge and Lumbertubs just to warn off outsiders. There was a big street racing scene which is why Lumbertubs Way was the first place in Britain to get SPECS average speed cameras.

Northampton's main claim to fame nowadays is the unintentionally funny sign from the general hospital.

farm3.static.flickr.com/2636/4075587092_6941610795.jpg
(rogerzilla, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 21:57, 4 replies)

Anyone mention Hull?
Withernsea, oh Withernsea is the single most miserable town on the East Coast. Withernsea is perpetually in a state of disrepair, because even perfectly reasonable people resort to vandalising property, out of a mixture of desperation and boredom. Due to the poor weather and drained architecture, most people think that Withernsea is filmed in black and white.
(maninahat Too many cocks spoil the brothel., Wed 4 Nov 2009, 21:46, 3 replies)

Sighthill...
... Twinned With Alderaan.
(gordonjcp, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 21:16, Reply)

I live in Nottingham...
...and haven't been shot/stabbed yet! But I have had two attempted muggings in full view of police officers (who did nothing until I'd knocked the pathetic muggers to the floor!), have had a 7 year old child offer me drugs at 2pm in the market square and while at Clarendon college I was pushed down some stairs by a chav for 'wearing black you goth bitch, innit!'... But I love Nottingham and all the grotty little suburbs. Some of the scenery is stunning, and although there are many eyesores, there is some amazing architecture. Nottingham might be a shithole, but look at these pages...there are clearly vast areas of the UK that would benefit from a good bombing...but its better the devil you know.
(Kimberelli is addicted to the shiny little magnets..., Wed 4 Nov 2009, 20:56, 3 replies)

Another
rubbish town: I went to school to a town which, at the time, had the highest percentage of pensioners in all of the Netherlands. It had 1 pub. This pub was located about 10 meters (that is about 3 elbows in imperial) off the sign that says 'Amsterdam'. What's the point? If we have to cycle almost to Amsterdam we might as well cycle all the way to the 'real' city. It was a shit pub anyway.
How lovely trivial my teenage troubles seem now ......
(bovine intervention, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 18:03, 3 replies)

Seconding the motion for Gravesend, Kent.
I'm originally from the Medway towns *cough* Strood *cough*, the home place of babies, rabies, scabies and other infectious diseases, but moved voluntarily via an 8yr stay in Student Land aka Canterbury (for love rather than money) up to Gravesend just under a year ago. Where do I begin explaining the crapness of my newly adopted home?

It's a festering sore of a place, full of the obligatory knuckle dragging chavs and the youth of the area's main aim is to either get sent to prison at a younger age than their brothers or for the girls to have a baybee as young as possible so they can get a flat and a package of benefits. The area is suffused by a god awful smell known as the "Shorne Stink" which often permeates the place either from rotting paper pulp placed on the fields or if the wind is right from the sewage works near the Thames itself. I like to think of it as the town's own brand of brimstone infused flatulence.

The local populace are mostly clothed in Primarni and George at Asda's finest, or stuff purchased from certain outlet type sports shops which have just opened in the area - One charming example of local fashion trends is clad head to toe in a dayglo green and red triple striped adidas track suit which he thinks makes him look the dogs doodahs, proving that chavs will buy anything provided it has a brand name label on it. People are that cheap that the local charity shops have their donations nicked from outside their shops on a daily basis, same with dustbin day, leave anything out that looks interesting or may contain old clothes or metal and you can guarantee it'll be nicked that evening by individuals of an Eastern European slant and the local plod do nothing about it.

Gravesend has its own quasi ghetto environment, and the usual estates where you don't go unless you're related to half the families there or if you do make sure that you don't make eye contact unless its construed as looking at them funny and requiring a beating. Where the boys still stuff tracky bottom legs into the tops of their long socks because David Beckham did it for footie training a decade ago and the girls wear matching cheap and brightly coloured towelling shell suit things purchased from a stall in one of the shopping precincts that are covered with colourful studs with the boutique's name on it and that are always two sizes too small or falling down on them. And where a certain proportion of the local Asian population ("the GravesIndians" would happily join the BNP without any sense of irony as they're some of the most racist bastards around and give the members of that party a run for their money.

There were plans to blow £6 million on the local Prom and park and turn the beach (read muddy hellhole with rusted trolleys and scarcely any pebbles) into a proper shingled tourist trap which seems to have died a quiet death at the moment along with the original plan to spend millions building the Gravesend Tower - a luxury apartment block and rent out flats from it at 2 grand a month per one bed apartment, totally forgetting that half the population are on benefits of some kind or another and would never afford it even with Housing Benefit. People who even dare swim in the river either come out glowing or not at all sucked in by the river mud and poisoned by the chemical detritus of the industrial areas plus I'm assured by a local that plenty of people may have gone swimming in concrete overshoes in the past as well. If they were to dredge the river properly, well, it'd be amazing how many skeletons and cars they'd find. It was no surprise when that whale got lost up the Thames a couple of months back, that it only managed to get halfway between Northfleet and Greenhithe before suffocating. They ought to be concentrating the money on regenerating the ghost town that is the shopping arcades and encouraging people to shop there rather than hop on the bus for a half hour ride up to Bluewater.

The only bonuses of living here are the closeness to London and the entertainment value of the weekend drunken fights in town. When we've got the money we'll be escaping hopefully. Until then, why bother with Jeremy Kyle when I can walk down the high street and see it first hand?

Apologies for length.. My fiance was worth it.
(ameythyst_rune, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 17:49, 1 reply)