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Sheffield no longer Sheffield.

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It is not just Sheffield who has stopped making things other than burgers – the whole country.

The main problem I find on returning to Sheffield is the ridiculous and unnecessary one way road systems. Like the housing mixed and unplanned.

There is a degree of rose tinted glasses. My father was from Netherthorpe Road area. Look at pictures from before and during the 60s. Not good.

The boutiques were always there in Sheffield. Prior to Meadow Hall the City had more department stores than any other outside London.

When actually was this Golden Age of Sheffield?

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The only thing in life thats constant, is change.

I must confess that sweet little girl i married 53 yrs ago (4th July) b een known to get a little grumpy and on the odd time PHEW

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Hi Bloomdido, "They" are the international financiers who, with the help of traitorous politicians, move industries to cheap labour countries, exploiting the poor there on pea-nut wages and then importing the sweated goods back into Britain for you to buy to keep their profits and their bonuses rolling in. 'Boutiques' being a euphamism for shops which sell un-necessary items, the trendy shops which will be the first to close when things really kick in . With regard to museums, the whole country has become one big one from Beamish to Tonypandy. They help your kids to see what has been lost and hopefully to ask you why !

 

Apologies in advance for the small impending rant but here goes!

 

Things change - that's the nature of things. The movement of heavy industry to cheap labour countries has nothing to do with "traitorous politicians" or "international financiers" but everything to do with the fact that there is a huge global disparity in the cost of living. We aren't exploiting the poor - in many cases they are getting what is in a cheap labour countries a very good wage. Perhaps you should acquaint yourself with the purpose of business - it's to make money not to give people jobs or build a social infrastructure. It's not just big industry my own (now ex) business of bioinformatics and drug discovery informatics has been largely out-sourced to India and China where there are many well trained graduates who can do the grunt work required by the job for a fraction of the cost of even post-grad students in the UK. In fact the job was actually created, automated and outsourced in less time than I took to train for it. I don't see this as a licence to sit on my fat, complacent ass and whine about evil furriners / politicos / whatever stealing our jobs but more realistically as a case of take the transferable skills I have, build some new ones and move on.

 

Sheffield was once a world name and could so easily be again if only people would stop being content to look backwards and sit in a mire of despond blaming globalization and Thatcher for all their ills. We're in a new world - maybe not a fun one or a stable one but one we have to live in. It's a world where things happen quickly. It's not going to cut it wanting to retreat to the 1950s or even simply to chase what everyone else is doing. If we are going to survive (and here Sheffield is I think a precursor of the impending fate of the UK) we have to innovate. Throw out best practice and what worked for someone else and take some risks. We apparently have the largest contingent of arty types outside London as well as the largest theatre complex so why do so many travelling productions go to Doncaster and Nottingham and miss Sheffield? Where are the galleries and venues selling the wares of this creative class? Where is the PR and marketing campaign to sell this side of Sheffield? Why when I go to Sheffield train station are all the leaflets for Leeds or Nottingham? And it's not just the creative side of things. We have a shiny new fibre optic network built with huge amounts of public money and what do we do with it - try and sell it in competition with big established cheaper players. How much more would it have cost to stick a wi-max tower on top of each junction box and invited in Apple, Samsung, Cisco, IBM et al to use it as a development test bed for 4G+ tools? Sheffield, much as I love you sometimes you also make me tear my hair out in frustration. And largely the root of this frustration can be traced back to your parochialism and backward looking attitude of "if it's not steel it's not real". It's the 21st century out there - join it or whither and die.

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Are you actually living in the country that you outsource your work to?

 

Cos my guess is, you are living here, taking some of the additional profits you make from paying cheaper wages, and keeping yourself quite comfortable in an environment you are familiar with?

 

This is not just about individual businesses, it is about economics. And, because companies are outsourcing, the wages that they pay are going to stimulate the economy of the country they are paid in - not to the UK.

 

Yes, there is a lot more to it - but how you've managed to make yourself sound like the world's biggest philanthropist is quite incredible.

 

One problem, of course is the disparity in wages and living standards. Another is that we demand cheaper goods - hence we do drive the outsourcing in a sense.

 

And I would argue that cheap labour is both doing the employees a big favour in the sense of being a good wage in their country. These wages usually, not always, support keeping people down. Happy to have a poor quality of life.

I had a friend who worked in a toy factory in China. She got a good local wage. She also lived in a wooden hut and when she got married her wedding car was a Cortina with Ken and Barbie tied to the front!

 

Gimme a break!

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It is not just Sheffield who has stopped making things other than burgers – the whole country.

The main problem I find on returning to Sheffield is the ridiculous and unnecessary one way road systems. Like the housing mixed and unplanned.

There is a degree of rose tinted glasses. My father was from Netherthorpe Road area. Look at pictures from before and during the 60s. Not good.

The boutiques were always there in Sheffield. Prior to Meadow Hall the City had more department stores than any other outside London.

When actually was this Golden Age of Sheffield?

 

Golden age I reckon was between 1954 to 1970. A wonderful place to live, kind considerate people and you actually felt safe to be in town at night, in fact never occured to you that it could be otherwise, The roads were'nt congested.(I know that not just Sheffield) Nice to look back and remember.

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Golden age I reckon was between 1954 to 1970. A wonderful place to live, kind considerate people and you actually felt safe to be in town at night, in fact never occured to you that it could be otherwise, The roads were'nt congested.(I know that not just Sheffield) Nice to look back and remember.

 

Sheffield has always met change head on , and long may she continue to do so .

Most of that change has been imposed by circumstances far beyond its control .

none the less it has lived up to one of its old motto's , " Sheffield - City on the move ".

The devastation which Sheffield suffered during the second world war was it's learning curve . It necessitated a total rethink of it's major infrastructure and it's housing needs . In doing so it won international acclaim and increased the pride of it's people .

The prosperity of the city saw an increase in private housing demands and an increase in the ownership and use of the motor car . It therefore underwent a rethink to provide for those needs. In doing so the city council had to negotiate with government departments for special powers to in order to make those provisions .It did so to the advantage of the people of Sheffield .

 

Sheffield was one of the fore runners in implementing the " Clean air act ". much to the advantage of it's people .

 

Sheffield as a seat of learning is first rate . It has an education system second to none . Its University placements are much sought after in the academic world .

 

Though I have been left Sheffield for some time now , I have continued to visit in connection with my profession , family and friends . O.K. , because I live in a very rural area the traffic un- nerves me . But so it does in many other city's .

 

What I see when I visit is a vibrant , healthy , lively, clean modern city of which the people of Sheffield can be proud . You have kept up with the demands of to-days climate - as I am sure you will continue so to do . Don't

undermined the determination of it's people .

the people of Sheffield can be proud

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I recall going back to Sheffield on a visit quite a few years ago. Me and my mates were asked by some snotty barmaid in the Yorkshireman pub around fifteen minutes after they had called time 'Don't you lot have a bloody home to go to?' (I can't remember what the closing time was then, 11 O'Clock maybe). Two of us then went to a nearby night club to be told by the bouncer - who was very polite I may add - that it was Gay night, so we declined going in.

We tried to get a beer in the bar at the Grosvener Hotel, which of course only served guests after pub closing times. Luckily, we ran into Mrs Marshall who ran the Wapentake and she got the barman to serve us.

If I had been where I live now - in a Muslim country - I would have been welcomed in any one of the many city pubs long after midnight. I could have gone into numerous night clubs with no bouncers on the door, or I could have gone into any hotel bar and been served a cold beer with a warm smile (from the waitress that is, not the beer) instead of getting a 'Haven't you got a bloody home to go to' from some frigid tart with an attitude problem.

There I feel much better now. :)

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