The city centre

merlante

There seems to be an increasing separation between the group of people who live in the inner city and frequent the city centre and those who live in the suburbs, particularly the Dunmore rd., who are content with local services (e.g. Ardkeen Village) and out of town shopping.

There are a wide variety of groups living in the city centre: older Waterfordians, immigrants, students, those without cars, pensioners, and people who like to frequent the centre and have easy access to shops and services. In suburbs such as the Dunmore rd., you seem to have mainly well to do, middle class, Irish born drivers with white collar jobs, that either work in the hospital or commute across the outer ring road the industrial estate, and shop in the retail parks on the outskirts of the city. These are of course gross generalisations, but I'm sure people would agree that there are a few grains of truth in them.

So what are people's attitudes towards both ways of life? And in particular, since we all share the city centre, what are people's attitudes to it as a place to live, work and shop? To those living on the outskirts, would you ever move to, say, the Ballybricken area, O'Connell st. area, Scotch Quay, Viking triangle, Lower Yellow rd. area, Pollberry, etc.? To those living in the city centre, do you like it there or do you just live there because you don't have a car?

shapez

Are you performing a survey or are just interested to hear how people live their lives?

merlante

shapez wrote: »

Are you performing a survey or are just interested to hear how people live their lives?

Just interested in people's opinions.

mike65

Never go near the centre unless I have to go in. I live in Cherrymount and am a "ring roader/Kingsmeadow-man". I can get all I need locally so why go futher? After all if I lived in Ballybricken I woudn't shop in Lidl or Ardkeen Stores.

durrus

mike65 wrote: »

Never go near the centre unless I have to go in. I live in Cherrymount and am a "ring roader/Kingsmeadow-man". I can get all I need locally so why go futher? After all if I lived in Ballybricken I woudn't shop in Lidl or Ardkeen Stores.

I'm not sure that it necessarily follows. My pal lives in Ferrybank but does his shopping in Ardkeen Stores because a lot of the products they sell can't be gotten anywhere else and - he says, not me - that it is the nicest place to do the shopping.

mike65

Hmmm! Well I guess if you have very particular needs/wants then you will travel to where they can be bought regardless.

Ri na hEireann

merlante wrote: »

There are a wide variety of groups living in the city centre: older Waterfordians, immigrants, students, those without cars, pensioners, and people who like to frequent the centre and have easy access to shops and services. In suburbs such as the Dunmore rd., you seem to have mainly well to do, middle class, Irish born drivers with white collar jobs, that either work in the hospital or commute across the outer ring road the industrial estate, and shop in the retail parks on the outskirts of the city. These are of course gross generalisations, but I'm sure people would agree that there are a few grains of truth in them.QUOTE]

I'll agree with the statement that these are mostly gross generalisations.
I'm originally from the top of the town but moved out to the dunmore road about 5years ago and you'd be surprised how many Waterford accents you'd hear out this way as well as how many ordinary workers who don't have "white collar" jobs there are.

The same can be said about the inner city there are enclave of the well-to-do type who have no accent so to speak and have the fancy jobs.

mayordenis

I aye I'm a middle classer from the Dunmore Road moved into an apartment up by the glen for a year a while back, I have a car so made no odds to me, but quite frankly from ages 10-17/18 people from the suburbs are in town every time the get a chance just gathching.

And like most people I know, would say that there mom probably pops into to town most saturdays for an hour or so to shop around, piss about.
I go in very rarely it has nothing to do with shops bar tesco being outside of town, and it would be some ****ing waste of time if I had to go into town and pay for parking etc to get some food.
If I need clothes like I would probably hit up Pure before anywhere outside of town like tkmaxx
I live in cork now though so waterford city's shopping is even more of a sham to avoid for me.

deisemum

durrus wrote: »

I'm not sure that it necessarily follows. My pal lives in Ferrybank but does his shopping in Ardkeen Stores because a lot of the products they sell can't be gotten anywhere else and - he says, not me - that it is the nicest place to do the shopping.

I have to agree with your friend, Ardkeen Quality Foodstores is a nice place to shop plus they source a lot of local produce and the quality of their produce is generally much better. Tesco does my head in and their prices have gone up a hell of a lot recently, a lot of things are dearer in Tesco than in Ardkeen.

I find the staff in Ardkeen to be very helpful and friendly and most will have a chat with you even if it's only commenting on the weather. The customer care is very good and in the 11+ years I've been shopping there I cannot recall any staff member being rude or unhelpful. Most of the regular staff get to know the regular customers. The queues aren't generally long like in Tesco. They help you pack your shopping, big plus when you've got a child or more in tow.

I'm a blow in, married a Waterford man so didn't know the various areas when we were buying our house. As I was pregnant at the time of house searching we were fairly focused on getting a house asap, in fact we were renting in south Kilkenny or is that north Waterford lol so were under pressure to be out fairly quickly.

We were hoping to buy a house in Ferrybank but the estate agent wasn't up to much. It was just by chance that we went into a different estate agents and looked at the house we bought and from the time we first viewed it we were moved in less than 1 month later.

Trotter

I'm in the Dunmore Road direction and to be honest, I can't stand the city centre anymore. It reminds me a bit of a spot in Bulgaria that I found, and disliked.

It has become grey, unwelcoming, threatening, intimidating, lifeless and a cultural wasteland.

The closed shops, boarded buildings, litter, and the behaviour of a disturbing number of fellow "shoppers" just makes me cringe.

When I think of the days 20 years ago when my memory is of a lively place where people were nice to ya, it just seems like somewhere else.

Being very clear, I do not come from a rich family at all, but I have to say theres a clear social divide in the city now. Theres a negative "inner city" feel to Waterford city centre that wasn't there when I was a child, and I feel sad to see it going the way it has.

Its just, in my opinion, no longer a nice place to be.

Here's a picture of Krakow square in Poland. When I visited, the atmosphere was amazing and my first impressions were that we could have this on our own doorstep with just a bit of clear and decisive (ruthless) planning.



Myself and a friend who no longer lives in Waterford were chatting not long ago and he made a statement that I'd be interested to know if people here agree with.

He said that Waterford centre is now culturally and socially uninteresting, and this has allowed those in society who contribute little, except for poor behaviour and loutish noise to take over the city, and make it unwelcome to anyone who isn't of that "persuasion". I think his opinions were influenced by a night out in Waterford for the first time in 10 years.. and lets just say, it was a negative experience.

One look at the square in town, with its burger wrappers, paper cups and grey seats complete with glum, dismal shops that match many of the faces to be seen would lead me to think that there's many who would agree with him.

If things keep going as they are, and the city continues to spiral away from what it once was, i.e. a home for decent, socially positive people, with shops to be proud of and an atmosphere to match, and I might be forced to think my friend has a point.

I hope things don't go that far because I'd honestly like to enjoy the city centre again.

mike65

Couldn't disagree with a word of that, the whole John Roberts Square area is an aesthetic disaster.

daftdave

just put a few yellow umbrella's up outside the cathedral and bobs ur uncle !!!!

Vadrefjorde

I have to agree with that statement also, the centre is now a carbon copy of Stevenage or many of the "new cities" England made in the 80's, the only difference is we have some old buildings as opposed to the totally heartless concrete look of the english towns. But it is totally dead. I shop in Tesco ardkeen, live in kilcohan, do all the small daily stuff in the centra by johns' park.
I can remember when collin's avenue was being built and the mad rush to "move to the dunmore road" by most people, and the impression i always got was it was a class thing and nothing to do with amenities in the area there etc..
In fact at the time there would have been none of the shopping amenities etc.. there...
For me personally i will move out of waterford completely in the next 12 months, it's dawned on me more and more that seeing as i go into town so rarely i may as well be living on top of a mountain..

echosound

To answer the OP's Q about which area people would choose to live in - I've lived for a few years in the city centre (first house near ballybricken, and 2nd house down in the "viking quarter"), and TBH I couldn't wait to move further out.

There was always some sort of hassle - hassle with my car (which was parked on-street as bith the houses I lived in just opened directly onto the footpath, no off-street parking) being vandalised time after time by drunk assholes on their way home from the pub or nightclub - I had my front and rear windscreens busted in a number of times, stuff robbed out of the car, mirrors kicked off, wipers robbed, paint scratched, dents kicked in the doors, etc etc etc.

Our house was broken into and our belongings robbed, drunks had fistfights outside our door, our bins were often either tipped over or stolen, rubbish constantly left on our windowsill, vomit and piss on our doorstep after a Friday/Saturday night, etc.

I've lived for years in the rough parts of Dublin, both north and south side, and never had the hassle we had down here with the car vandalism or vomit on our doorsteps etc. It's not even as if we were being targeted by someone in particular with a grudge, it was just regular drunken fools acting the gobshyte on the way home, or idiot "hardmen" teens hanging round looking for bins to tip over or car mirrors to kick off.

We now live on the Dunmore road (I'm orginally from south KK, husband is from out this end of town, so both from rural-ish locations originally) and until such time as we can afford to move even further out into the country we will remain living this end of town. Lived in the city centre, been there, done that, not doing it again.

I only ocasionally bother going into the city centre for shopping/socialising, as there's really no point. Most everything I want can be gotten on the outskirts, where parking is free and you can actually find a parking space in the first place. Nor do you have to trudge round the gloomy grey centre, where there is nothing attractive to draw people in in the first place (eg good atmosphere, good cafes, good variety of shops, etc). If I ever fancy a few drinks of a night (although we rarely bother going out anymore TBH), it's much easier to park up at one of the bars on the Dunmore road, where you don't have the massive congregation of people all pouring out of numerous nightclubs at the same time looking for a fight or arguing over taxis, you simply walk a few feet to the car of the designated driver rather than having to walk a few streets away to where you might have parked had you been going out in town.

I'd agree with everything Trotter has said about the anti-social element being allowed to more or less take over the city centre, and it's sad, as I'd love to be able to enjoy going out in the city centre again, day or night, at some stage in the future. It's more of a chore than anything else nowadays, something to get over and done with as quickly as possible, whenever I do find I have to pop in for some reason.

I wouldn't tar all "Dunmore Road" people with the same brush of being "well to do" either.
There are certainly a lot of regular people doing their best to get by, on non-spectacular wages, in non-spectacular jobs, with non-spectacular cars in the drive, just like there is everywhere else. The only difference living out here is that I have never woken up to find puke or piss on my doorstep, nor have I ever had a drunk banging on my door late at night, and my car has never once been touched by a passerby.



TBH I am a private person who prefers to keep myself to myself, and until I can manage to buy/build a house in the country, I guess the 'burbs out the Dunmore road is the closest you can get in Waterford to having a quiet area to live/shop/socialise in.

rroche81

i have to agree with most of posts so far, waterford city centre has fallen a long way over the last ten years. I cant remember the last time I wanted to spend anytime in there, the attitudes, the look of the place, not to mention hardly any shops. i cant believe how run down the centre looks