Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 68 total)
  • Birmingham – only UK city in 'Top 10 cities in the world'
  • mudshark
    Free Member

    So say Rough Guide. Curious list, any supporters of those chosen?

    World’s top 10 cities

    Birmingham, UK
    Wellington, New Zealand
    Malaga, Spain
    New Orleans, USA
    Johannesburg, South Africa
    Hamburg, Germany
    Nizwa, Oman
    Belgrade, Serbia
    Salta, Argentina
    Yangon, Myanmar

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-30458480

    ChrisHeath
    Full Member

    I used to go to Birmingham a lot as a kid, as it was the nearest big city to where I grew up. I remember it being a dirty, concrete, grim sort of place.

    A couple of years ago, I went back for the first time since the 70’s. Couldn’t equate it to the place that I remembered as a kid. I go back at least once a year now. Love the place.

    vinnyeh
    Full Member

    “there’s no pretending that Birmingham is packed with interesting sights – it isn’t – but, along with its first-rate restaurant scene and nightlife, it’s well worth at least a couple of days.”

    easily enough to pop it into the top 10.

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    binners
    Full Member

    You can stick it on as many lists as you like. Its a shit-hole

    scruff9252
    Full Member

    Been to Birmingham once. Got bricks thrown at my head by local scallies on new years day walking along the canal bank. Little desire to go back…

    footflaps
    Full Member

    How can they miss out London, the number of beautiful and interesting buildings (in the posh central bits) is just huge. I love walking rather than using the tube, you come across loads of lovely streets.

    slowoldman
    Full Member

    Well it us a “Rough Guide”.

    Actually I think the centre has scrubbed up fairly well in recent years. The canalside area is pleasant.

    Edukator
    Free Member

    I’ve only ever bought one Rough Guide, the Spanish one, I clearly had nothing in common with those who wrote it. Malaga FFS !

    LHS
    Free Member

    Is it April 1st?

    ransos
    Free Member

    They’ve picked the UK’s worst big city. Genius.

    tthew
    Full Member

    What were the measures that meant a city gets on that list. It’s not the usual sort of places you’d expect.

    hels
    Free Member

    Nice to see Wellington get a shout. It is normally ignored in travel guides as there are no Hobbits and you can’t tie a bit of elastic to your leg and jump off a bridge. But it is easily the best city in New Zealand in terms of night life and culture, some great biking too. See the film What We Do in the Shadows re the night life.

    muppetWrangler
    Free Member

    It wouldn’t make my top ten of British cities.

    Surely theres been some financial incentive behind that list. So Brimingham is somehow better than Rome, Madrid, Barcelona, London, New York, Vancouver, Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Los Angeles, Istanbul…

    wrecker
    Free Member

    With the exception of Hamburg and maybe windy wellington, I have no desire to visit any of the other places at all. Unfortunately work takes me to brum quite a lot. It’s not that bad, but no way at all is it one of the worlds best cities. Not even in the top 50.

    woody2000
    Full Member

    I think they missed a bit…. 🙂

    World’s top 10 cities for getting mugged

    dragon
    Free Member

    New Orleans? Or the Blackpool of the US, as I like to call it.

    timc
    Free Member

    Article designed to grab headlines & exposure more than have meaningful content.

    I dont actually mind Birmingham but it would Probably stuggle into my Top Ten of Cities to Visit in the UK & Ireland

    lemonysam
    Free Member

    Surely theres been some financial incentive behind that list.

    I believe the criteria are that it’s the ten cities which will make forum member splutter indignantly and click links.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    footflaps – Member

    How can they miss out London…

    sometimes it’s nice to look past the obvious every now and then?

    but Birmingham?

    brakes
    Free Member

    aren’t rough guides designed for backpackers?

    Malvern Rider
    Free Member

    Grew up near Birmingham. Have some fond memories of it way back when it was ‘authentic’. We as teenagers used to play gigs there in some proper shabby pubs and venues – but it was a different time- ie interesting with loads of little shabby alleyways and curious old places, tiny record shops, antique clothes, the old row market, etc. I’m not at all a big city person but don’t see Birmingham today as notably good or bad either way in comparison with other similar sized cities – ie it’s sprawling and overpopulated, it has parks, and airports, and train stations, and gyms and kebabs and Starbucks and theme bars and malls, and museums and architecture and multiplexes and pollution and the homeless and pigeons.

    I much prefer to visit London or Dublin, seems having a big river lends a town a certain panache and history. Birmingham has maybe suffered an image crisis for being historically/primarily a centre of industry and I don’t think that’s very interesting to most people as cities connected to Royalty and the Arts tend to fare better in popular city polls.

    Mark me down as ‘surprised’ and slightly misty eyed for old Brum.

    lunge
    Full Member

    Brum is a phenomenal city, really it is. For those that haven’t been for a while I urge you to go again, perhaps with a local as a guide, and go and see what has changed. Compared to the dull, concrete hole it was in the 90’s it really has turned itself round.

    However, saying all that, is it one of the top 10 cites in the world? No.

    LHS
    Free Member

    Brum is a phenomenal city, really it is. For those that haven’t been for a while I urge you to go again, perhaps with a local as a guide, and go and see what has changed. Compared to the dull, concrete hole it was in the 90’s it really has turned itself round.

    Is it April 1st?

    imnotverygood
    Full Member

    Nizwa??!! WTF . In the top ten cities of the world? 😀

    globalti
    Free Member

    Malaga? Johannesburg? Belgrade? Why not Granada, Cape Town and Budapest? All much nicer cities.

    NZCol
    Full Member

    Wellington is great. Lived there for 14 years and loved every windy wobbly second of it. _GREAT_ biking now as well, council have been super supportive on trail building in town.

    somouk
    Free Member

    I live by Birmingham and regularly visit, not sure what they were looking at to put it on that list but apart from maybe a square mile in the very city center the rest is a dive.

    BaronVonP7
    Free Member

    Birmingham: Where Luftwaffe failed, the council succeeded.

    jimoiseau
    Free Member

    I reckon this list is really the “Top Ten world cities you wouldn’t really think are that good but actually are”, so basically discounting the 20 or so cities people know are good (London, Paris, Prague, New York etc).

    I’m from near Birmingham and I’ve lived in a fair few places, three years of uni in Manchester, one in California, London and Lancaster for work, a couple of years in Lyon and now Paris. I’ve always said Brum is up there among the best, the real difference being you need to know where you’re going, i.e. be a local or have a local guide. There’s no “tourist trail” to speak of, and if there was it’d be crap.

    I’d like to hear what those saying it’s not in their top 10 in the UK (or saying it’s a “shithole”) really think set apart the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds etc above Birmingham. For me it’s well ahead in terms of music, nightlife and food.

    lunge
    Full Member

    jimoiseau, you speak the truth there.

    PJM1974
    Free Member

    Johannesburg? Seriously?

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    ransos – Member

    They’ve picked the UK’s worst big city. Genius.
    Did I miss the bit where Portsmouth was picked?

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    Brum puts its weight behind very particular things in terms of culture and tourism. It likes mainstream and it likes big. Thats double edged – if those things are the things you like then Birmingham has everything you want, but its at the expense of the grass roots – or more particularly its at the expense of a bridge between the grass roots and the big league.

    MrSalmon
    Free Member

    Top 10 that aren’t necessarily as bad as you might think, maybe.
    But it’s surely just to generate a bit of controversy. I don’t believe for a second that anyone at Rough Guide really thinks Birmingham and Wellington are in the top 10 cities in the world. And I liked Wellington a lot!

    thekingisdead
    Free Member

    I can’t take that list seriously if its listing Yangon as a top 10 city.

    Its a dive. With very good reason, given the political history, But still a (very interesting) dive.

    TheDoctor
    Free Member

    That has to be a joke right? It wouldn’t make a top ten cities in the West Midlands list !

    chewkw
    Free Member

    Birmingham is shite and I used to live in Coventry.

    squirrelking
    Free Member

    Budapest >> Brum

    Don’t care what Brum has, plenty places have more and better. If the best headline pic they could come up with was the Bullring then that just says it all really.

    Birmingham has been named as one of the top 10 cities in the world by travel handbook company Rough Guide.

    It joins Johannesburg, New Orleans and Wellington on the list, described by the firm as “rundown places to travel in 2015”.

    According to the guide, the conurbation has “grown the squalor and misery of its boom years”…

    FTFY BBC

    Is there any city on that list that isn’t in some state of arcitectural disarray? Wellington’s just about flat and New Orleans probably still isn’t much better. I’m surprised they never included Port Au Prince, they would have enough in common…

    That has to be a joke right? It wouldn’t make a top ten cities in the West Midlands list !

    Wolverhampton FTW!

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    TheDoctor – Member

    That has to be a joke right? It wouldn’t make a top ten cities in the West Midlands list !

    Birmingham would struggle to make the top-ten list of places called Birmingham.

    rOcKeTdOg
    Full Member

    but, along with its first-rate restaurant scene and nightlife, it’s well worth at least a couple of days.”

    Well it’s changed since I was there on Friday night then!

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