1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Why is city centre such a dump?
I actually agree but think it’s very dependent on where you are/what you consider ‘city centre’. I was brought up between East Belfast and Bangor and moved to east Belfast properly 5 years ago (just moved out again) and in that time there’s been so many transitions for different areas of the centre of Belfast. Covid had just happened when I moved so things were fairly sterile for a while, but I found when people started going out again, city centre was always the go to, but specifically pubs that were slightly out of the way like Sunflower or Maddens. Even when I was 19/20 we would never have gone somewhere central like The National cause those bars have always been considered rough or too busy. Areas like botanic or Shaftesbury have always been more appealing and I don’t think that’s changed much.
But city centre was also the only place to go for a night out - now I never go drinking in city centre, because there’s so many good places to drink in East Belfast.
My concern is that even though areas like East are improving from the sterile dormancy of the troubles, it’s discouraged a lot of people from going into city centre. Combined with a decade of austerity and a government who refused to work for nearly half a decade, it’s just escalated a nosedive in city centre prosperity and vibrancy. People don’t want to come in > the government and businesses disinvest > smaller areas thrive instead until they become completely gentrified and impossible to afford to live in. This is what’s happening to East atm.
Comment by Belfastian_1985 at 02/02/2025 at 09:56 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I lived in a student house up the Ormeau Road from 2004- 2015 and when I’m back in the area now it’s completely different. Restaurants, coffee shops and bars all packed. We had a Chinese and an offy if we were lucky back then haha
There’s definitely a bigger shift in people staying closer to home for nights out so I think you’ve made a really good point there. I’m guilty of this too preferring to go to my local rather than bus it into town and struggle to get a taxi home again…