Funny you would mention Venice, because it's a city where no one lives there anymore. Every flat, room, or house boat has become an Airbnb. There are no longer any schools since every school age children no longer lives in the city. Italians now bemoan the fact that their beautiful city of gondolas and canals is basically an Italian Disneyland.
yes. I was there 2 years ago when world was still recovering from pandemic and masks were still legally required in some areas. I was talking to local tour guide ( I travel independently and try to support the locals when taking tours vs a company) . He was born in Venice and said that the locals mostly could not afford to live on the islands because of airbnb and the like and lived in Mestre instead .. Venice is so beautiful and it wasnt crowded at the time that I was there but it has made me rethink the way I travel since speaking with this gentleman . I love to travel but rethinking where and when and how
Hi! I'm from Venice and I can confirm, more or less. I mean... It's bad, but not as described. There still are schools and children and people living there 😅 we're having a hard time, yes, but we're 45/50 000 people.
Fellow resident here, who wholeheartedly agrees. Especially about the shops and the Shambles. I feel like it's a huge disservice to the history of the city that most of the building space is empty and of what does exist, so little of it is devoted to the businesses that made the city what it was in the first place.
Yes! And what potential for those traditional crafts who would, no doubt, be interesting to the tourists. Maybe the council could offer discounted leases to local crafts people who could live on the floor above and rent out the top? Spread the tourists out and provide accommodation to the locals? Also needs more ‘park and ride including long term, for those staying a week. Encourage bicycles more… You’re right, its the council 😏
@@CoedtwrchWildit definitely sounds (to me an outsider) like the council are investing in wrong places or things. If it's already a sort of theme park, embraced it more. Like a colonial Williamsburg but with actual running businesses.
@hejnye York should do what I believe they've done in Venice. If people treat it like Dusneyland, you should turn it into Disneyland. There are barriers with turnstiles for tourists. No more tourists admitted when a certain number is reached. Above that it's ten in, after ten have left, etc. I suppose registered residents or locals should have pass cards. In York, being inland, unlike Venice, which sits on a lagoon, there are access roads for deliveries etc. I suppose delivery would need to be within restricted hours. The Venice / York problem exists in many popular old European cities, where old medieval streets etc are narrow.
The number of empty shops and apartments above those shops, just shows the massive disconnect between what shops make, and what landlords charge/sellers want. You'd think the owners of those buildings would charge less, rather than leave them empty for years in such a busy place.
It is much easier to not use any money on the property and wait for it to increase in value. Even more so if the city is old with restrictions of what you can do with your property. Then you just let it fall down over a few decades unless you are lucky enough to have a fire. When the building is beyond repair, it can be torn down and you can build a new building in its place. Or maybe there is a political shift, so your buddies are in charge for a while, and you can do what you want with the place. It's a waiting game.
I think that the owners are able to take out loans against the commercial value, which are then reduced if they charge lower rents to retail tenants. So despite being an empty unit they are perceived as holding their value.
This is what happens when property increases in value so much that the rents you can charge pale in comparison. This is the number one thing rendering downtown areas everywhere unlived and unused, just sitting there until the owner can turn a profit on it by selling it to yet another real estate investor.
In Atlanta I found out that building owners will put a notice for a building to be up for rent and never fill it on purpose so that they can get a discount on their property taxes... I'm not sure what idiotic corrupt official allowed that to pass. Oh my kidding it's Atlanta it's all corrupt. Even south of the city in Clayton county the cops there will relieve passengers of their under $10,000 worth of cash and they will never see it again even if they never get taken to court or jail. And the county just keeps the money...
Around here, the city went after an empty property for not having the proper fire safety. That would cost so much, that they had to sell it to a developer with deep enough pockets to renovate the building and get some activity going there, instead of just owning the building and waiting for profit with the windows boarded up.
Yes let’s be a communist country and dictate what people can do with their own property. The problem is not the rents it’s the operating costs associated with taxes.
I live in New Orleans. Our main historic district, the French Quarter, is a human zoo. The rest of America comes here to just pollute themselves with alcohol till they puke everywhere! At dawn the whole area is power washing out front with bleach. Mardi Gras weekend we get - literally - almost two million visitors to the Greater New Orleans area. (No empty guest rooms in suburbs) The behavior gets worse, natives don’t drink while tourists get alcohol poisoning. These people wander around like zombies out in traffic and behave horribly in general. I worked there in college. I haven’t drunk alcohol in decades, partly cause what I’ve seen downtown. They’ll pee anywhere and poop in the street. It’s just horrifying.
Which is really too bad because New Orleans has *amazing* food and jazz. I'm not a jazz person, but the music people I know just gush and gush about how awesome the music scene is. I can say that the food is outstanding! I don't understand people who travel just to get so wasted that they won't remember where they went. Like, why bother?
I feel a little bad. I got to visit York and it was so beautiful, but I could feel the loneliness of empty shops and the vacant windows brought on by people like me. I was there because I was taking a Medieval English History class. Walking trough the medieval wall to reach the city centre was like magic. The impossible beauty of Yorkminster is burned into my eyelids. It’s been 2 months now but I still see it when I close my eyes. Waking down a street that’s been there for a thousand years made my heart sing. But, the city was so lonely. It felt more like Disney land than a living breathing city. It broke my heart to see that the shambles were reduced to a tourist trap. I know that it was going to be that way but it still made me sad. Knowing now that one of the lovely streets I was so lucky to walk down was once lined with a book making industry that’s been completely erased fills me with this sort of melodramatic sorrow that truly only obnoxious history majors are capable of. Cities are meant to be lived in, not just walked through in a day. And I hope that one day the butchers and the book makers and the fiber crafts and the makers of all the little things in life are able to return
This was the after effect of Covid especially. Before Covid there were plenty of shops and things were much cheaper like the rent and so on but now looking at rents and other stuff is honestly astronomical.
Edinburgh. Same. Has always been expensive, but the arrival of AirBnB forced rents sky high and the Old Town is dying. Historic sites, like Greyfriars Kirkyard, are being destroyed by the huge number of people tramping through them. We also have areas where the absence of litter bins is part of safety policy - around the Parliament and the Palace. I get that people can't plant bombs in non-existent litter bins, but anyone so-minded could just use a pile of rubbish on the street instead.
It's a shame, I spent some great weekends in Edinburgh, but its do expensive I won't take my kids there when even a Travelodge is pushing £200 a night. Can't even stay in places like Falkirk on the cheap and visit by rail.
What’s happening to Greyfriars is absolutely tragic. It’s an incredible piece of history with a frightening ghost story attached to it, so It keeps getting featured in TV shows, books and film, which keeps increasing the amount of people visiting it, which makes it so it gets featured in more of these and visited by more people and the cycle feeds into itself. The amount of people visiting it these days is far beyond what the graveyard can take, not to mention the constant large tour groups that are constantly stamping through it. I remember about 10 years ago the amount of people that would go there was dramatically less than it is now. Now you have people constantly in it in large numbers 24/7, which is really strange for a graveyard. The people that visit treat it like a theme park attraction and are less than respectful to the people that are actually buried there, especially around the “Harry Potter” graves. They’ve damaged graves and Edinburgh Council have had to stick a soft barrier around the Harry Potter graves and a sign telling them to stop walking on them because of the sheer amount of people doing that were making the ground soft and were disturbing those graves.
@@XenophobicAirport Oh wow, that's awful ! I left Edinburgh in 2021, and so what I know of Greyfriars is pre-covid and height of pandemic. Has there been a big change in the past few years ? I remember it being semi-busy, but I've been there plenty of time to pick herbs or rhubarb and I was virtually alone.
I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head here! I currently stay in Stirling and a lot of the issues you mentioned in the video apply here as well. The one thing I hate about living here that I'd on to your list is the mismanagement and what feels like a lack of care for our historic sites, Stirling castle and the Wallace monument are really well taken care of, but there are plenty of other sites here that need some resources as well such as Bannockburn house, The old town Jail, Cambuskenneth abbey and the Smith museum. There's so much potential that isn't being utilised and it's quite upsetting. What doesn't help is that the local council doesn't seem to care about our historical sites by allowing things like a horse racing course to be built right next to the Battle of Bannockburn centre's grounds and demolishing a 117 year old clock tower overnight (they tried and failed to keep quiet about that one).
I live in a historic city, namely Delft. It's still very liveable, despite the tourists. Cars are banned from the inner city, unless you have special dispensation. There is still traffic though, and that brings me to my main pet peeve: tourists who walk in the middle of the streets, getting in the way of the many cyclists. The amount of times I almost got into accidents just getting my kids to school! It seems to me that a lot of problems in York could be easily prevented by better governance and better policies.
Oh yes, the tourists walking everywhere, blocking cyclists... Same for Aachen, but even as a cyclist myself I have to admit we do add another layer of chaos to the traffic in pedestrian areas 😊
Cycling in York so popular but it can be hard since there aren’t too many cycle lines and it’s still cater to cars even in the city centre merely because the train station is practically near the city walls.
New Yorker here: I can explain the empty shopfronts and empty buildings in a bustling, high-rent city. The answer is money, of course: the owner of the building is demanding a rent/lease price that no one can/will pay. Sometimes it's the building owner directly, but often it's because they are contractually obligated (in the terms of their mortgage, etc) to charge some extremely ambitious rents. It's perverse and infuriating. Why don't the owners of these contracts re-negotiate lower minimums so they can have some money rather than none? I don't know.
I think they can use the money they did not earn as a loss in their tax? And as enough landlords in the area are charging the same high prices they can argue that they charge "reasonable" and lowering the rent would be unreasonable.
@@CanadisX I really feel like the "losses" reported wouldn't be equal to the money they could make by charging reasonable amounts. I've seen recently that there are lots and lots of empty storefronts in NYC because... no one can afford to run a successful business while paying $50k/month in rent. I'm really hoping this wild bubble pops soon, and we can return to reality.
Not always the case but I work with someone that has four commercial properties or family does two of which are empty and this is what iv gleaned listening yes the agent is always pushing for the best price but there is a lot of in house squabbling about not allowing different tenants because they want to do structural changes to the property to fit their requirements and want to lock into 10+10+10 contracts but they are reluctant to tie in to something for that long , mind you they were owned outright decades ago so I wish I had drama like that in my life.
Sounds like the banks are colluding to rig the system to keep values and mortgages high. If rents dropped then others would follow are this would cause revaluation of property. Artificially restricting supply to keep overall rents high is not in the public interest, though for people who have bought they also wouldn't want a property crash.
I know exactly where you are coming from. I live down the road in Harrogate. Summer especially is hell with the tourists. Unfortunately try and avoid York in the summer because of the amount of tourists. I'm a wheelchair user and the sheer volume of people is frightening. Especially as most of them will not "SEE" me. I get knocked into and tripped over frequently (and glared at). But that's not just tourists that's people in general. Peeve of mine especially as a wheelchair user. The state of repair of the pathways. The amount of broken slabs, holey tarmac and the amount of cobbles without mortar is shocking. I've actually been thrown out of my wheelchair when my front wheel got caught in an un-mortared cobblestone near the old post office.
Most of these are living in a **badly run** historic town. I'm from an old New English town, and the prime parking in the heart of the downtown shops and attractions is reserved for residents-only. We can all purchase a very cheap pass, one per residence (so we can't resell or rent one out). If you're renter, you get it from your landlord. It has been a long-standing perk of being a homeowner, to encourage people to actually purchase residences and not just be seasonal tourists. Tourists bring in sales tax revenue, but locals make for more reliable property income streams. And it ensures that the local shops can be frequented by the locals, so the downtown still has a regular grocery store. There's another lot on the very edge of town that's free for tourists to park, plus a free shuttle that takes them to the tourist areas. That discourages tourists from driving downtown (why pay there when the lot is free?) and encourages them to frequent the areas (and stores and restaurants) the local want them since they'd have to walk long distances to get elsewhere. Same thing with the trash--the tourists must be bringing in lots of revenue from sales tax. Why isn't your council using that to install more trash cans and porta-potties? If they let the downtown deteriorate, tourists will stop coming. But if they only cater to the tourists, then the locals who actual invest in the area will also stop coming, and they're frankly more important to maintain the kind of clean town people want to visit.
You're in the USA. 1. York city centre dates from 71AD - via the Romans, Vikings, Normans, Middle Ages. Unfortunately they didn't plan for 'prime parking'. 2. York does already have a 'Park & Ride' system (4 locations outside the ring road). 3. We don't have local 'sales tax' in the UK - we have VAT which is a central government tax. 4. Rubbish bins were widely removed in the UK, particularly in busy pedestrian areas, because of the habit the (US-funded) IRA had, of planting nail bombs in them. 5. What is also not mentioned is that the city centre, built around a river, floods regularly.
I lived in Williamsburg, VA, for 4 years. Loved it, and hated it! It makes me sad that York has lost its Crafter Trades. That was one of my favorite things about Colonial Williamsburg. I worked in The Cheese Shop for a year and we made sandwiches with fresh baked bread, fresh sliced meat and cheese, it was wonderful! A town can definitely cater to tourists AND keep true to its citizens at the same time.
Edinburgh has similar issues especially during the Fringe Festival. More and more of the historic High Street is turning into tourist shops to flog tartan covered tat to visitors so you really do feel the city is turning into a theme park. 'Silent' discos are my biggest pet peeve though. They walk outside my house at all hours screaming at the top of their lungs and don't move to let people pass them when they take up the whole pavement. They're a menace.
It's dreadful trying to go to church in a tourist town. Even on Sunday morning, you're trying to pray and listen to a sermon while people are wandering around the place taking pictures.
I live in Chester, I so understand what you’re talking about. Right on the Welsh border. So many attractions we share. From walls you can walk on, Roman ruins, to the old buildings and racecourse. And it’s well known around here that race days can be hell in town so it’s best to avoid the town on those days. We also have students and foreign language students. I’ve also lived in Cambridge, now that can be a bit of a nightmare any day of the week.
Chester is very york-like. Although id say there's more shops in town for locals. Iceland and Tesco in the city centre? People in York would kill for that.
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico: Similar congestion (300k residents, 5+million visitors a year) almost devoid of native islanders residing in the old town having been priced out by colonizers a generation ago. The tourist entitlement and the damage they cause is infuriating.
It does amuse me that, despite the races being a big part of the city's history and culture, I've lived here for close to half a century (one of a great many residents born where the Designer Outlet now stands ^_~) and have never seen a single horse on the racetrack. I've also yet to see a certain famed Welshman about the town, though I do keep an eye out ^_^
I live on Orkney the only good thing is our council have a site where we can check which cruise ships are in. They did have to bow to local demand and limit the number of boats on any particular day. They also had to put a limit on bike trips our roads are fairly narrow and bendy you try passing a giant snake of 20 bikes nose to tail. The worst is the cruise ships that tender people to the pier, the road from the pier to the cathedral is positively dangerous if you are not so steady on your feet twice last year I was knocked over by a tourist tsunami both times I was thankfully saved from injury by more thoughtful tourists who grabbed hold of the back of my coat to haul me upright. More of our shops are given over to tourist gifts or jewelry instead of the small town shops, butchers, bakers, electricians,grocers electricians and clothes shops.
Do you really need to drive on the orkney islands. Many island in Germany don't even allow cars. The large ones do and other mostly do have a few cabs and maybe just city services driving around.
@@paxundpeace9970 The Orkney Islands economy does not rely on tourism. Agriculture, fishing, aquaculture, food and drink production are all important exports - and just try doing any of that without road transport! Your question should perhaps be whether non-residents - especially transients such as cruise-ship passengers - should be clogging up the roads or not ...
While I hesitate to call the town I grew up in a historical town compared to any in Europe (it was founded in the 1840s), it has become a tourist town. After years of fighting with the extreme traffic (because I live in the hellscape of central Texas and what is public transit), rising costs of everything, and the city council prioritizing tourists and big businesses over residents and small businesses, we moved away and now I only have to occasionally visit it. I sympathize so much with you about the struggles!
Or Elgin 😂 I got mad at Fredericksburg, because no one spoke German or a derivative and they had quesadillas on the menu at a German restaurant. New Braunfels definitely has a healthier Texas German culture. Tourists also ruined my Berlin experience. I was looking in a barren area for something to eat that wasn't at the train station, and the first people I saw on that, so far 40 minute, walk were drunk, arrogant Americans, who made zero attempt to understand anything other than English. I gave up and turned around and swore I would always respect the host country including the languages.
Speaking as someone who's been to Dallas and now lives in the UK, it is NOWHERE NEAR comparable how much worse it is in the UK. Traffic takes on a new, ugly face in Europe; it took us two hours once to go down a quarter of a mile down one street that's literally two turns from my house and less than a minute away from my front door. Not even on the highway, it was normal every day street-in-front-of-shops. I could have walked faster than traffic was moving. And it wasn't like a small street either, it was six lanes.
Maybe you're not in Austin, I don't know. I left in 2013, it was bad then, it got worse and worse. Used to be able to drive across town, and the suddenly you couldn't anymore - and I drove for a living so I experienced it happening. My first apartment in 2000 was $630, with 2 roommates. Pound for pound, I made more money then as a barista barely above minimum wage plus pretty fair tips. Over the years, practically all of the businesses I used to frequent are gone, all the friends I grew up with don't live there anymore. SXSW, back then, went from like 100k people to 250k and shut the city down almost completely. It's just not a place worth living or seeing anymore, which is sad, I loved that town and that area. I used to say "there's no more seats left in sellout town." But I don't have anyone to say that to anymore.
My home town had a nice old 1920s shopping area and i knew it was going to die in the early 2000s when a car dealer bought the historic theater. Its all too expensive now and half the shops are empty. My second job in HS was on that street.
To your list I would add: 1) infrastructure complications (ie sewer systems that can’t handle modern plumbing but cannot be updated without damaging historical buildings and landmarks; historic preservation rules and regulations interfering with making spaces accessible to people with disabilities, etc); 2) constantly walking past people spouting historical misinformation
I live in a tiny town that has become a very intense tourist town in southern Appalachia- it’s too small for all the tourists and prices for homes are crazy, even rural places can become over run ! ✌🏼🥰
Empty shops and flats are a real problem accross all of UK. There are so many building that could house people if the rent was affordable. It would solve part of our housing crisis.
I lived in a beach resort town and had many of the feelings you have. In our case the tourists were only there in the summer. I’m sure it would be much worse to deal with that year round. I now live in a city where it’s easier to avoid them
Your "vest"/waiscoat? (Outer knitted green wool garment) ia indeed delightful. I have visited historic cities all over my region, and is much as you describe. Heartbreaking. My most sincere condolences to all who suffer from it, and, to folks filming in public who find themselves a fascination or attraction, and, who are then prohibited from filming further
I live in a small (~5k people) town in the upper midwest of the US that has a big Dutch themed festival every spring (town founders were from the Netherlands, Dutch was most people's first language well into the 20th century, people dress up in the traditional dress of the province their family immigrated from, they take it very seriously). It's not "historic" by any means, but I feel the frustration of so much of the city's resources being dumped into pleasing tourists instead of making life pleasant for the residents (exceptions made for the exceedingly wealthy). The sidewalks that aren't near the city center where the festival is held are either poorly maintained in winter to the point of impassability, cracked and degrading into gravel, or entirely non-existent, which is incredibly galling in a town that could theoretically be entirely walkable. I've witnessed the fire department violate fire safety codes for the benefit of tourists, and some residents literally must choose between parking five blocks away from their homes or being entirely unable to drive because they happen to live on the parade route.
I know where you are!!! And, I can certainly appreciate your views; it would take a tremendous amount of work to make the whole town function at its best given how much time, money, and effort goes into just the parade and festival. (I hope you do get to enjoy the tulips.)
@kathyjohnson2043 you probably have about a 50/50 shot of being right, but I will neither confirm nor deny where I am physically; mentally, I am at the zoo. In terms of finances, though, the town makes way more money from festival than they spend on it, especially since nearly all the work is done by volunteers, all the performers are volunteers, and people provide their own costumes.
@@kathyjohnson2043 I have a rough idea. There are two similarly sized cities in the Midwest state I live in that are famous for their Dutch heritage tulip festivals.
Having lived in an American tourist town, we had all of those issues, except for empty buildings, without any real historical sites. Even worse, if you rent, like most people, rent goes up by 5x at least for the summer, so everyone has to move to shanty places outside town, then back 3 months later, every year.
Economy is funny. The rents are so expensive that the shops can't survive, so the shops are empty and boarded over. So I guess the people owning the buildings should increase the rates to make up for the empty shops. And stop maintaining the buildings to save on expenses. So people can't live there above the shops. So rent for living anywhere gets ridiculously expensive since the buildings are closed... Feel free to interrupt me, little old ladies.
This little old lady agrees. I wrote a reply that turned into a rant. Deleted. Cliques and property/landowners lacking imagination are universal. Sums it up.
Growing up near a famous sports field in Chicago, i can TOTALLY relate to this! Drunk people pissing in the middle of the sidewalk, talking up the parking, blocking driveways, pushing up prices, it's CRAZY! Honestly, it's really sad what happens to the neighborhood.
I can relate so much about drunk people. I'm from Munich and the Oktoberfest times are horrible. Some locals flee the city entirely, others avoid public transport at certain times. My roommate used to live their childhood directly next to Theresienwiese. One night a pumpkin smashed through their window and landed right next to their bed...
This is depressing. And I say this as a frequent tourist myself. I don't know what the answer is, but this over-tourism in historic cities really needs to be cut back. I don't know if that's possible, though.
I just visited Chester for the first time. It was packed with people, mainly crowds of older tourists like myself, with younger locals fighting their way through to get to work.
I live in a once charming place in Florida that was "discovered" by tourists, and taken over by greedy businessmen, the whole town has changed. The charming shops are replaced by bars and restaurants, and the houses with character are bulldozed and replaced with Mc Mansions. The traffic during "season" is crazy, as are the rents. Yet there are many empty storefronts where there was once a thriving business. Basic greed. It's everywhere, and needs to be addressed.
Like other places full of tourists, the problem is the placex, not the tourists. Shut the pubs on race days. Get the police out to stop lewd behaviour. Put rent and rate caps on non - tourist businesses, and give big incentives to local food and craft shops, hike up parking prices and put in out of town park and rides, profits going towards tourist clean up projects, with charge free for anyone living within certain limits etc. Tourists, like rats and cockroaches, come to where they are welcome. As an ex resident near Magaluf, I know wherefore I speak.
So now for the reason I love you're channel, direct and to the point. Sadly, I believe that we have all enabled ourselves into the empty shop street. All craftsmanship and human skills have been replaced by the convenience of ready made, arrive tomorrow delivery service, with exception of the chip shop delivery. The humanness of our daily lives has lapsed, yet setting up a street of shops dedicated to those historical skills... just a thought ❤
I had a chance to visit York for three days in 2023. I love English history (California Anglophile, here). I spin wool using medieval, support spindles. I was looking for medieval whorls to purchase. I found three in York! So, I sat down on a bench and spun yarn on a medieval spindle. I loved it. I wish it wasn’t so touristy, because the history is getting lost under Harry Potter and the like (except for Terry Pratchett and Discworld). I want to come back, as a polite tourist.
You have captured my annoyance at the city centre perfectly. If I need to get something from Boyes or Barnitts I have to FIGHT my way through town. And EVERY new shop is geared towards tourists! The latest new shops have been expensive bakeries or Harry Potter shops. York has NOTHING to do with Harry Potter either!! Don't even get me started on the queue for the ghost shop! As a goth I also get harrassed by out-of-town stag dos. It's terrifying trying to walk home and being followed by groups of drunk men.
Ooh yes the rent and housing costs in a tourist town. We have so many empty shops. People can spend six months trying to find a flat too because we have thousands of empty houses that are just there for air b&b
I had visited York many times in the 1980/90s (drove to the outskirts and used Park and Ride or a cab and walked whilst in the City). A more recent visit highlighted everything which you mentioned. I will not be returning - ever- and I will just treasure happier memories. It is a gigantic tourist trap - not a pleasant experience anymore, sadly and, as you mentioned, so many empty buildings due to greedy owners and councils who are even greedier. Just another historically rich place in our once great Country that has fallen victim to poor management and utter greed.
A possibly cool idea for a video maybe is; "x number of off the tourist track things to do in York" I live in Cambridge and all the points you raised here are basically the same down here. Except the empty building thing as the Universisty owns most of the city so keeps all the buildings full
I like this idea. I like to holiday in historic towns and cities myself, but like to spend a day away from the city centre and enjoy a quiet stroll in a nearby village, countryside or along a river. It takes a lot of research sometimes.
Huh, this really made me appreciate the historic town I live in. We have history reaching the Roman times, but very little tourist traffic compared to English historic sites. (Pécs, Hungary)
This makes me realise living in a tiny village is a small blessing - although we did get a surge of traffic that made it impossible to get to nearby towns to do our shop after a famous musician that lived here passed away and people wanted bto leave stuff for him.
It kind of made me sad to hear that you lost all of those really heart felt family businesses that provided needed items for the residents of the area. I live in one of the biggest tourist cities (Orlando, Florida, USA) and I can vouch for the huge influx of traffic, especially when school is out all over the world. And like yours, some of our streets are "junk streets" full of trinkets and T shirts announcing that you've been to Disney World or Sea World or Universal Studios, etc. Locals completely avoid these streets. The difference in our situations is that we live in suburbs and the areas that have been taken over by our tourists are not priceless historic areas that should be supporting the people who actually live here. Thank you for exposing the other side of living in historic areas! I'm cheering you on, Jimmy! You're getting so close to 100,000 subscribers!!! 🎉🎉
Totally understand your points. I live on a very touristic island. In high season there are at least 5 to 6 times as many tourists as there are inhabitants. Certain places get absolutely swamped in summer but are virtually deserted in winter. Tourists are both a blessing and a curse. They do bring in a lot of money. Our local economy would tank without them.
A former Seattle resident here. I know this pain. Hearing about your once beautiful city, then to see it on the news. Skyrocket rents, empty buildings, trash an pollution every where. My husband and I call these city's "Tourist Sacrifice Zones". Every one knows them. Wish I could say it gets better. Thanks for the channel!
I have lived in several "historic" (for the US) places in my very long life and I must say, that your complaints are universal. I used to live in an old "Plantation" era house in New Orleans, with a courtyard and literally every day there would be busloads of tourists, stopping by the gate, even peering into my windows (which I finally taped black plastic over for privacy) Although, not as bad as NOLA, living in the California gold country, had issues with smokers throwing cigarettes out the windows, in a heavily wooded, fire prone area, causing fires that could literally burn down the entire county I feel this video in my bones!
I love York, but I'm very happy I live in Newcastle which is also historic but has more than enough room for tourists, although fortunately we don't get as many as York or Edinburgh. I was allowed to travel for work during the Covid lockdowns and as one of the people I was supporting lived in York I had the chance to walk through the Shambles completely alone.
Lived in and near Boston, most of my life (61 years) & got "priced out" years ago - now live 30 miles south. Most "locals" only go into Boston when they have friends/family visiting. The City of Boston is now giving a small percentage of building owners a tax break if they turn their buildings into housing ! This only tends to be "cost effective" if they are old buildings as newer ones are cookie cutter & impossible to make 'livable'. I have yet to see what the rents will be. Most condos in the downtown areas are hella' expensive now ! Plus, there are no services. No fire dept/grocery stores, etc., etc. ! I DO like that Boston gets cold as that drives many of the tourists out, lol 😆
I've grown up in York and I completely agree with all of these. I used to work just outside town near the big Morrisons in Layerthorpe, finishing after 9 some nights. I dreaded walking home through town on Friday nights or on race days and still avoid going into town on busy days. To show how used to living in a tourist town I am, I recently visited Redcar and immediately noticed the lack of tourists on the high street. To walk through a town centre and only come across locals was entirely alien to me. But I loved it!
I grew up in an historic small town, it was founded as a fort in the war of 1812 (do they call it something else in other countries? Honestly it was such a small piece of history I doubt that anyone calls it anything outside of the US but I digress)and I always felt that my town didn't do enough to capitalize on it- we have no tourist economy to speak of, no regular events, a group got together once to put on a reenactment but it was a one off that was never repeated. It's interesting to see the perspective from the other side of the coin, though it seems little old ladies who will interrupt and not leave you alone are universal.
Well, in Europe when you say the war of 1812 the only thing that comes to mind is Napoleon in Russia 😄 I have no idea what happened in the US at that time
This summer, my family and I were four of the one million who visited York by train, and it was very interesting to hear your perspective on some of the things I noticed as well as others that my tourist-eyes didn't catch. Thanks for fleshing out life in this historic city more for me! As an historian, I found York fascinating (I got to walk on an actual Roman mosaic in the Yorkshire museum! It was an incredible history-nerd moment for me), but as someone interested in handcrafts (I'm a knitter-- great sweater vest, by the way!), I was surprised there wasn't more evidence of those traditions. I thought maybe I'd just missed it, but it sounds like those have been driven out, which is deeply sad. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
I live in a (US) national historic district, and we share 4 of those problems. I would say the difference is empty spaces. All our downtown shops are full... until October at which most will close up until the end of April.
Reminds me of when I visited Venice. I appreciated what was genuine about it, but it also felt very much like a theme park. It's rather uncanny when an entire city exists as essentially a memento of a previous era. On the one hand, it was incredible to feel like I had stepped back in time to the Renaissance, but I also felt a bit like I was treading on a grave. Venice did still manage to feel 'real' to me, there were enough random churches and unfamous side streets and people who were clearly locals going about their lives that it wasn't super off-putting, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was contributing to the museumification of the place.
I currently live in Toronto in an area of the city called Greektown. They have a big culture and food festival one weekend a year and I get the heck out. You can't move for the overwhelming number of people. And they're all just so rude! The steps of my front porch aren't a rubbish bin, but that's how people treat it. Anytime someone mentions wanting to go to the festival, I remind them that there are 51 other weekends of the year.
I'm a student in York and I absolutely agree with your point about the price. My weekly rent is over £180 a week for a STUDENT HOUSE outside of the city walls. I love in London at home and there is barely any difference in the prices it's metal
Used to live in Scarbs during uni (and want to go back). Lots of empty shops/ tourist shops and boring stuff. Its a shame it has so much history especially around it being a victorian spa retreat and they don't seem to take advantage of that. We lost a curiosity shop because it was never open and where are the ghost tours? Plus right down the coast from Whitby they could be using the goth and steampunk events to there advantage
Comparing York and Venice, it would be interesting to find out what policy has the result that businesses like bookbinders are able to stay continuously in their shops in Venice.
That's a great shame about the empty buildings, especially as there is such a housing crunch in the country. I live in a university town and we have the same problem with empty shops and high rents. I would still love to visit York , but perhaps I'll do it in some off-time like January so I won't be part of the tourist throngs.
University towns are a weird one. It feels like you have a problem from the influx of students who are then gone for chunks of the year. But actually compared to similar towns that aren't University towns you're almost always far better off.
Yep, having lived in touristy areas all my life, the trade-off between living in a beautiful, historic place and sometimes is a tough one sometimes. For me the worst thing is that tourists seem to forget they are not in some sort of Disneyland or museum but at a place, where actual people live and go about their day. My biggest pet peeve are folks just standing in the middle of the road to take pictures or generally being inconsiderate of everyone around them. Rent is also sky high (there are other factors at play here as well, but people having their second or third home and air BnB / holiday apartments where regular ones could be certainly isn't helping)
Duluth, Minnesota has become a tourism nightmare. Behind the scenes there is no affordable housing, tons of homeless people, traffic bottlenecks, inflated prices, the list goes on. Love the area, hate the city.
Having lived most of my life in a tourist town I completely relate to this. Too many tourists at once and tourists behaving badly really takes the fun out of a beautiful place
I lived (while in high school) in a tiny historic town. It wasn’t as busy, or famous, as York, and it had a population of 315 (which number may have included the farmers in the outskirts). So our tourist numbers were nothing like yours. Anyway, we would get bunches of tourists, crowds during the art fair, but mostly in drips and drabs from spring through fall. My two pet peeves were: 1. Being stared at. My friends and I joked that we should get Tshirts that said something like, “Yes, I live here, please stop staring.” That happened for each and every tourist who crossed our path. We’re talking open, blatant staring, sometimes accompanied by finger pointing and whispering. Presumably, “What do you think it’s like to grow up here?” 2. People would walk across our yard (American yard, so not two steps from the street) and lean against the windows to see inside! Seriously! Who does that! If I was sitting in the living room reading (or whatever, but usually reading), I’d get up, walk over to the window, lean against the woodwork and look down on them. They’d jump 🤣, startled at being caught, suddenly realizing that what they did was so wrong. But that would just cure them… in a day or few it might happen again. 🤦♀️ Side note: There was an historic marker at “the old mill site (first lumber mill in the state). Due to erosion from the mill stream and a mill explosion, was at the edge of a sort of teardrop-shaped loop of wooden fencing. We’d get asked for directions (pre Google maps), and we would politely point the way. But my friends and I would talk about whether we should make them pay to get back out. 😉😁 York empty buildings: Ugh - I’m assuming (based purely on conjecture) that the empty buildings are due to investor games. 🙄😭
Oh absolutely! My city got put on the international map a few years ago for "suddenly" sprouting 3 Michelin restaurants and overnight became *THE* destination for foodies - and rent was hell already due to it also being a University city with thousands of students. And now I can't step outside without bumping into tourists. Oh and it is also one of the most historically significant cities in my country so there's tons of things to dig into there + pilgrimage destination but those travellers tend to be very nice actually
I totally hear you on the tourist trash and council priorities (or lack of), we don't have historic buildings but we do have vacant ones, because the tourism pushes up the rents ect, ect.
I grew up in Conwy so this rings so many bells. One of the worst things was the way life was super seasonal there. From Easter to October we had tons of tourists, things to do and jobs and then out of that time it died. Now I live in Edinburgh where we have the issues all year round, but other than the Festivals MADNESS we have a steady stream of tourist insanity. One of the worst things in Edinburgh was trying to get to the council offices in your lunch break to pay something or drop something off in August. That fight to move on the Royal mile was insane. Oh and trying to cross roads when the corners are giant hubs of tourists looking at the buildings and talking meaning you end up having to walk in the roads for a chunk to go round them is not safe or fun.
I left Brussels, Belgium for good after 13 years leaving there (+ 8 years of schooling and studying there). You just put all the reasons I'm happy to leave somewhere else :p I chose another historical city, I just hope it's stay out of the world tourist's radar for as much time as possible ;)
I live in a small midwest US town, that has a wonderful historic district, and a somewhat functioning downtown. I say somewhat, because our downtown has empty storefronts, too. The problem is, that investment groups are buying up the retail buildings and raising the rent to enormous costs, prices that are way too high for a small business to afford.
I live in Wells, Somerset. The smallest city in England, with approximately 13,000 residents. We also have an incredible Gothic cathedral, the Palace of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the oldest continental occupied street in Europe and a 15th century Tithe Barn all within a square mile. We are inundated by tourists in the summer and have similar issues to York but on a much smaller scale.
Your observations and those of your commenters all remind me of that great (albeit fictional) local vs tourist conflict in another historic town: Mapp & Lucia in Rye. The locals' seasonal migration of lodgings -- and the financial maneuvers involved -- was a prominent feature of the story line.
York is still my favourite place I've lived - when I arrived in the UK fresh fron NZ on my OE I went to York from London for a weekend trip and loved it so much I moved to York instead of staying in London. Totally agree about so many of these points - of course I was a tourist too but living there, you'd try and avoid the crowds by going into town first or last thing!
I can commiserate. I live in a county with less than 80,000 in 1,300 sq miles (USA). The problems mainly arise when the bass fishermen show up for the tournaments. Fees/taxes help the government. However, shops open but can't survive after the season is over. Real shame, makes it harder for the locals in the long run.
I was a kid in the 60’s and remember walking through the Shambles on a Saturday afternoon and not being able to get through because of a coach party of elderly American tourists. I always remember a lady turn to her husband and saying “Gee Wilber it’s so old”
Hi!!! I live in Rome, Italy, just to talk about historical cities... 😅 I wholeartedly agree with you, but I have some other pet peeves...one is that tourists know the city way better than residents...we are so used to art and history that it looks as if we don't care...and apart from the vandals, those that come here just to put their names on the stones of the Colosseum, or to take away a souvenir by breaking a fountain or a statue, most of the time tourists are way more well behaved and informed (I would just love if they didn't take up all the space, and I fear for next year...). The second one is about infrastructures. I move around with public transportation, and it would be great if it worked better...but it's difficult to have a good underground metro, because you cannot dig a hole without finding some archeological goodies, and so many things have already been destroyed or buried again...and the bus lines are quite often late and not very efficient because of the traffic, and those going in the center are full with pickpockets...and since it's difficult to mantain in good shape old roads, the government simply does nothing, and so the roads are filled with holes, and quite dangerous both for the cars and for people...sometimes huge holes just open on some streets...
@@Tvianne purtroppo... 😅 Mio padre, lo stereotipo dello "straniero che conosce la città meglio dei locali", tutte le volte commenta la cosa con "Roma è tutta un foro" 😁
As someone who also lives in a tourist town I could relate to most of this. I actively avoid the entire downtown core due to the tourists. Thankfully (?) there's very little reason to go downtown here unless you're a tourist.
I lived for a year in Salem, Massachusetts (colonial port city and site of the Witch Trials of 1692) and I can sympathize with some of your issues with York. Lovely area, very walkable for 11 months of the year. September we would get more traffic from tourists and then the whole month of October the city would be flooded with tourists because of Halloween. The nights leading up to October 31 you could barely walk through the city center it was so crowded. Lots of people getting rowdy. There was a stabbing on my street and a shooting I think on the train at the station. People just take advantage of the party atmosphere and crowds to commit crime. But 11 months of the year, just lovely. Very quiet through the winter.
Good one,Jim,upvote for me : live in Edinburgh,festival finished a few days ago and understand the dilemma of historic city-living ! When I lived in Northants.,and came on a visit to Jorvik Viking Heritage Centre,drove up the M1 and park at one of the city's 6 special car parks,before coming into the city centre by bus{NB this is specially recommended on the JHC's website} P.S. Way to go,sniffed by (feral but friendly) dogs and pestered by old,local ladies ! 😂
I really enjoy your videos so here's a comment so the algorithm will (hopefully) show me more of your stuff as soon as it gets out. Thanks for being you!
Vast house prices in London and the relatively fast rail commute has, I'd say, also been a big factor inflating all York's prices (but especially housing) out of reach for many of us. There's a significant (lesser seen) dormitory population using the city as a picturesque and safer suburb. Like the tourists, their primary need is for the city to have a low-wage, servant economy rather than self-sustaining technology or manufacturing jobs.
I live in Cambridge and much of this rings true - the centre is small and not designed for the traffic and people it sees, and fighting through coach-loads of tourists to get to a GP appointment or do my shopping is not fun
As a student, I lived in the oldest university city in my country, which is very medieval. Tourists descended on us students and wanted us to pose for them. Genuine students in the oldest university city. I really hated that. Also, in Summer, all the little cafés where we students usually met were full of tourists. So we had nowhere to go.
I live in Oxford ... sigh ... yeah ... all of that. Plus the dominance of the university which suppresses any attempt for the city itself to thrive both as an economy and as a cultural place. Wadham College which owns the historic Holywell Music Room, long used by locals to put on music concerts in a charming period room just tripled the fee to hire it for a day overnight (for non university bookings), but reduced the fees for university bookings ... so now none of us can use it.
It's not just historic places, it's anywhere with an excess of tourism. Most of the problems you name can be experienced in towns and villages all across Cornwall and Devon.
I know how you feel I'm from Edinburgh it's exhausting for anyone that lives here trying to navigate the city while the Fringe is on, it's not designed for lots of cars and tourists because of how ancient it is
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You really drive to buy by bread and to go to the dentist? Forget about driving for those things.
Funny you would mention Venice, because it's a city where no one lives there anymore. Every flat, room, or house boat has become an Airbnb. There are no longer any schools since every school age children no longer lives in the city. Italians now bemoan the fact that their beautiful city of gondolas and canals is basically an Italian Disneyland.
yes. I was there 2 years ago when world was still recovering from pandemic and masks were still legally required in some areas. I was talking to local tour guide ( I travel independently and try to support the locals when taking tours vs a company) . He was born in Venice and said that the locals mostly could not afford to live on the islands because of airbnb and the like and lived in Mestre instead .. Venice is so beautiful and it wasnt crowded at the time that I was there but it has made me rethink the way I travel since speaking with this gentleman . I love to travel but rethinking where and when and how
also it's so expensive. I went there 15 years ago and I remember the internet cafe charged like 3 times as much as an internet cafe in Rome.
Hasn't Venice now limited one day tourism or put in a few? Hopefully that helps!
Hi! I'm from Venice and I can confirm, more or less. I mean... It's bad, but not as described. There still are schools and children and people living there 😅 we're having a hard time, yes, but we're 45/50 000 people.
There are schools, and a hospital and things, but it is super over-visited for a town of 50k people (a third the size of York)
Fellow resident here, who wholeheartedly agrees. Especially about the shops and the Shambles. I feel like it's a huge disservice to the history of the city that most of the building space is empty and of what does exist, so little of it is devoted to the businesses that made the city what it was in the first place.
Yes!
And what potential for those traditional crafts who would, no doubt, be interesting to the tourists.
Maybe the council could offer discounted leases to local crafts people who could live on the floor above and rent out the top?
Spread the tourists out and provide accommodation to the locals?
Also needs more ‘park and ride including long term, for those staying a week.
Encourage bicycles more…
You’re right, its the council 😏
Why don't they (the town) limit the number of tourists? Someone should build a theme park with the popular streets and send the tourists there.
@@hejnye ITS NOT A TOWN................ YORK IS A CITY
@@CoedtwrchWildit definitely sounds (to me an outsider) like the council are investing in wrong places or things.
If it's already a sort of theme park, embraced it more. Like a colonial Williamsburg but with actual running businesses.
@hejnye
York should do what I believe they've done in Venice. If people treat it like Dusneyland, you should turn it into Disneyland. There are barriers with turnstiles for tourists. No more tourists admitted when a certain number is reached. Above that it's ten in, after ten have left, etc. I suppose registered residents or locals should have pass cards. In York, being inland, unlike Venice, which sits on a lagoon, there are access roads for deliveries etc. I suppose delivery would need to be within restricted hours. The Venice / York problem exists in many popular old European cities, where old medieval streets etc are narrow.
The number of empty shops and apartments above those shops, just shows the massive disconnect between what shops make, and what landlords charge/sellers want. You'd think the owners of those buildings would charge less, rather than leave them empty for years in such a busy place.
Yeah, I don't get the economics of that either
It is much easier to not use any money on the property and wait for it to increase in value. Even more so if the city is old with restrictions of what you can do with your property. Then you just let it fall down over a few decades unless you are lucky enough to have a fire. When the building is beyond repair, it can be torn down and you can build a new building in its place. Or maybe there is a political shift, so your buddies are in charge for a while, and you can do what you want with the place. It's a waiting game.
Right?
I think that the owners are able to take out loans against the commercial value, which are then reduced if they charge lower rents to retail tenants. So despite being an empty unit they are perceived as holding their value.
This is what happens when property increases in value so much that the rents you can charge pale in comparison. This is the number one thing rendering downtown areas everywhere unlived and unused, just sitting there until the owner can turn a profit on it by selling it to yet another real estate investor.
Sounds like the city needs a vacancy tax for empty shop fronts, to get the rent lower.
In Atlanta I found out that building owners will put a notice for a building to be up for rent and never fill it on purpose so that they can get a discount on their property taxes... I'm not sure what idiotic corrupt official allowed that to pass. Oh my kidding it's Atlanta it's all corrupt. Even south of the city in Clayton county the cops there will relieve passengers of their under $10,000 worth of cash and they will never see it again even if they never get taken to court or jail. And the county just keeps the money...
Around here, the city went after an empty property for not having the proper fire safety. That would cost so much, that they had to sell it to a developer with deep enough pockets to renovate the building and get some activity going there, instead of just owning the building and waiting for profit with the windows boarded up.
Yes, owners should be taxed for empty property. Air BnB's should be taxed at an incredibly high rate.
Yes the country needs a property tax like every other country on the planet (notice the high street is mostly only dying in the UK).
Yes let’s be a communist country and dictate what people can do with their own property.
The problem is not the rents it’s the operating costs associated with taxes.
I live in New Orleans. Our main historic district, the French Quarter, is a human zoo. The rest of America comes here to just pollute themselves with alcohol till they puke everywhere! At dawn the whole area is power washing out front with bleach. Mardi Gras weekend we get - literally - almost two million visitors to the Greater New Orleans area. (No empty guest rooms in suburbs) The behavior gets worse, natives don’t drink while tourists get alcohol poisoning. These people wander around like zombies out in traffic and behave horribly in general. I worked there in college. I haven’t drunk alcohol in decades, partly cause what I’ve seen downtown.
They’ll pee anywhere and poop in the street. It’s just horrifying.
Which is really too bad because New Orleans has *amazing* food and jazz. I'm not a jazz person, but the music people I know just gush and gush about how awesome the music scene is. I can say that the food is outstanding! I don't understand people who travel just to get so wasted that they won't remember where they went. Like, why bother?
I feel a little bad. I got to visit York and it was so beautiful, but I could feel the loneliness of empty shops and the vacant windows brought on by people like me. I was there because I was taking a Medieval English History class.
Walking trough the medieval wall to reach the city centre was like magic. The impossible beauty of Yorkminster is burned into my eyelids. It’s been 2 months now but I still see it when I close my eyes. Waking down a street that’s been there for a thousand years made my heart sing.
But, the city was so lonely. It felt more like Disney land than a living breathing city. It broke my heart to see that the shambles were reduced to a tourist trap. I know that it was going to be that way but it still made me sad. Knowing now that one of the lovely streets I was so lucky to walk down was once lined with a book making industry that’s been completely erased fills me with this sort of melodramatic sorrow that truly only obnoxious history majors are capable of.
Cities are meant to be lived in, not just walked through in a day. And I hope that one day the butchers and the book makers and the fiber crafts and the makers of all the little things in life are able to return
One hundred million upvotes.
This was the after effect of Covid especially. Before Covid there were plenty of shops and things were much cheaper like the rent and so on but now looking at rents and other stuff is honestly astronomical.
Edinburgh. Same. Has always been expensive, but the arrival of AirBnB forced rents sky high and the Old Town is dying. Historic sites, like Greyfriars Kirkyard, are being destroyed by the huge number of people tramping through them. We also have areas where the absence of litter bins is part of safety policy - around the Parliament and the Palace. I get that people can't plant bombs in non-existent litter bins, but anyone so-minded could just use a pile of rubbish on the street instead.
It's a shame, I spent some great weekends in Edinburgh, but its do expensive I won't take my kids there when even a Travelodge is pushing £200 a night. Can't even stay in places like Falkirk on the cheap and visit by rail.
What’s happening to Greyfriars is absolutely tragic. It’s an incredible piece of history with a frightening ghost story attached to it, so It keeps getting featured in TV shows, books and film, which keeps increasing the amount of people visiting it, which makes it so it gets featured in more of these and visited by more people and the cycle feeds into itself. The amount of people visiting it these days is far beyond what the graveyard can take, not to mention the constant large tour groups that are constantly stamping through it. I remember about 10 years ago the amount of people that would go there was dramatically less than it is now. Now you have people constantly in it in large numbers 24/7, which is really strange for a graveyard. The people that visit treat it like a theme park attraction and are less than respectful to the people that are actually buried there, especially around the “Harry Potter” graves. They’ve damaged graves and Edinburgh Council have had to stick a soft barrier around the Harry Potter graves and a sign telling them to stop walking on them because of the sheer amount of people doing that were making the ground soft and were disturbing those graves.
@@XenophobicAirport Oh wow, that's awful ! I left Edinburgh in 2021, and so what I know of Greyfriars is pre-covid and height of pandemic. Has there been a big change in the past few years ? I remember it being semi-busy, but I've been there plenty of time to pick herbs or rhubarb and I was virtually alone.
@@Loweene_Ancalimon There's been a big increase in tourism since Covid.
@@XenophobicAirport oh shit. I already found it borderline too much before, at times, can't imagine what it's like now in Old Town.
I think you've kind of hit the nail on the head here! I currently stay in Stirling and a lot of the issues you mentioned in the video apply here as well.
The one thing I hate about living here that I'd on to your list is the mismanagement and what feels like a lack of care for our historic sites, Stirling castle and the Wallace monument are really well taken care of, but there are plenty of other sites here that need some resources as well such as Bannockburn house, The old town Jail, Cambuskenneth abbey and the Smith museum. There's so much potential that isn't being utilised and it's quite upsetting.
What doesn't help is that the local council doesn't seem to care about our historical sites by allowing things like a horse racing course to be built right next to the Battle of Bannockburn centre's grounds and demolishing a 117 year old clock tower overnight (they tried and failed to keep quiet about that one).
I live in a historic city, namely Delft. It's still very liveable, despite the tourists. Cars are banned from the inner city, unless you have special dispensation. There is still traffic though, and that brings me to my main pet peeve: tourists who walk in the middle of the streets, getting in the way of the many cyclists. The amount of times I almost got into accidents just getting my kids to school!
It seems to me that a lot of problems in York could be easily prevented by better governance and better policies.
Oh yes, the tourists walking everywhere, blocking cyclists... Same for Aachen, but even as a cyclist myself I have to admit we do add another layer of chaos to the traffic in pedestrian areas 😊
Cycling in York so popular but it can be hard since there aren’t too many cycle lines and it’s still cater to cars even in the city centre merely because the train station is practically near the city walls.
Better governance? In Britain?! Madness!
New Yorker here: I can explain the empty shopfronts and empty buildings in a bustling, high-rent city. The answer is money, of course: the owner of the building is demanding a rent/lease price that no one can/will pay. Sometimes it's the building owner directly, but often it's because they are contractually obligated (in the terms of their mortgage, etc) to charge some extremely ambitious rents. It's perverse and infuriating. Why don't the owners of these contracts re-negotiate lower minimums so they can have some money rather than none? I don't know.
I think they can use the money they did not earn as a loss in their tax?
And as enough landlords in the area are charging the same high prices they can argue that they charge "reasonable" and lowering the rent would be unreasonable.
@@CanadisX I really feel like the "losses" reported wouldn't be equal to the money they could make by charging reasonable amounts. I've seen recently that there are lots and lots of empty storefronts in NYC because... no one can afford to run a successful business while paying $50k/month in rent. I'm really hoping this wild bubble pops soon, and we can return to reality.
Not always the case but I work with someone that has four commercial properties or family does two of which are empty and this is what iv gleaned listening yes the agent is always pushing for the best price but there is a lot of in house squabbling about not allowing different tenants because they want to do structural changes to the property to fit their requirements and want to lock into 10+10+10 contracts but they are reluctant to tie in to something for that long , mind you they were owned outright decades ago so I wish I had drama like that in my life.
Everyone hyper focuses on rent. What are the business rates/taxes? That's what kills the economy in the UK, not rent
Sounds like the banks are colluding to rig the system to keep values and mortgages high. If rents dropped then others would follow are this would cause revaluation of property.
Artificially restricting supply to keep overall rents high is not in the public interest, though for people who have bought they also wouldn't want a property crash.
I know exactly where you are coming from. I live down the road in Harrogate. Summer especially is hell with the tourists. Unfortunately try and avoid York in the summer because of the amount of tourists.
I'm a wheelchair user and the sheer volume of people is frightening. Especially as most of them will not "SEE" me. I get knocked into and tripped over frequently (and glared at). But that's not just tourists that's people in general.
Peeve of mine especially as a wheelchair user. The state of repair of the pathways. The amount of broken slabs, holey tarmac and the amount of cobbles without mortar is shocking. I've actually been thrown out of my wheelchair when my front wheel got caught in an un-mortared cobblestone near the old post office.
Most of these are living in a **badly run** historic town. I'm from an old New English town, and the prime parking in the heart of the downtown shops and attractions is reserved for residents-only. We can all purchase a very cheap pass, one per residence (so we can't resell or rent one out). If you're renter, you get it from your landlord. It has been a long-standing perk of being a homeowner, to encourage people to actually purchase residences and not just be seasonal tourists. Tourists bring in sales tax revenue, but locals make for more reliable property income streams. And it ensures that the local shops can be frequented by the locals, so the downtown still has a regular grocery store. There's another lot on the very edge of town that's free for tourists to park, plus a free shuttle that takes them to the tourist areas. That discourages tourists from driving downtown (why pay there when the lot is free?) and encourages them to frequent the areas (and stores and restaurants) the local want them since they'd have to walk long distances to get elsewhere.
Same thing with the trash--the tourists must be bringing in lots of revenue from sales tax. Why isn't your council using that to install more trash cans and porta-potties? If they let the downtown deteriorate, tourists will stop coming. But if they only cater to the tourists, then the locals who actual invest in the area will also stop coming, and they're frankly more important to maintain the kind of clean town people want to visit.
You're in the USA.
1. York city centre dates from 71AD - via the Romans, Vikings, Normans, Middle Ages. Unfortunately they didn't plan for 'prime parking'.
2. York does already have a 'Park & Ride' system (4 locations outside the ring road).
3. We don't have local 'sales tax' in the UK - we have VAT which is a central government tax.
4. Rubbish bins were widely removed in the UK, particularly in busy pedestrian areas, because of the habit the (US-funded) IRA had, of planting nail bombs in them.
5. What is also not mentioned is that the city centre, built around a river, floods regularly.
I lived in Williamsburg, VA, for 4 years. Loved it, and hated it!
It makes me sad that York has lost its Crafter Trades. That was one of my favorite things about Colonial Williamsburg.
I worked in The Cheese Shop for a year and we made sandwiches with fresh baked bread, fresh sliced meat and cheese, it was wonderful!
A town can definitely cater to tourists AND keep true to its citizens at the same time.
I lived there for a long time and brought up my children there. You are correct.
Edinburgh has similar issues especially during the Fringe Festival. More and more of the historic High Street is turning into tourist shops to flog tartan covered tat to visitors so you really do feel the city is turning into a theme park.
'Silent' discos are my biggest pet peeve though. They walk outside my house at all hours screaming at the top of their lungs and don't move to let people pass them when they take up the whole pavement. They're a menace.
It's dreadful trying to go to church in a tourist town. Even on Sunday morning, you're trying to pray and listen to a sermon while people are wandering around the place taking pictures.
My wife and I were thrilled to be passing you doing a history tour over Easter this year.
I live in Chester, I so understand what you’re talking about. Right on the Welsh border. So many attractions we share. From walls you can walk on, Roman ruins, to the old buildings and racecourse. And it’s well known around here that race days can be hell in town so it’s best to avoid the town on those days. We also have students and foreign language students. I’ve also lived in Cambridge, now that can be a bit of a nightmare any day of the week.
Chester is very york-like. Although id say there's more shops in town for locals. Iceland and Tesco in the city centre? People in York would kill for that.
Old San Juan, Puerto Rico: Similar congestion (300k residents, 5+million visitors a year) almost devoid of native islanders residing in the old town having been priced out by colonizers a generation ago. The tourist entitlement and the damage they cause is infuriating.
It does amuse me that, despite the races being a big part of the city's history and culture, I've lived here for close to half a century (one of a great many residents born where the Designer Outlet now stands ^_~) and have never seen a single horse on the racetrack.
I've also yet to see a certain famed Welshman about the town, though I do keep an eye out ^_^
Bizarre, isn’t it? I’ve never, ever seen a horse moving there.
Oh, you must keep your eye out, I’m often trundling around!
I live on Orkney the only good thing is our council have a site where we can check which cruise ships are in. They did have to bow to local demand and limit the number of boats on any particular day. They also had to put a limit on bike trips our roads are fairly narrow and bendy you try passing a giant snake of 20 bikes nose to tail.
The worst is the cruise ships that tender people to the pier, the road from the pier to the cathedral is positively dangerous if you are not so steady on your feet twice last year I was knocked over by a tourist tsunami both times I was thankfully saved from injury by more thoughtful tourists who grabbed hold of the back of my coat to haul me upright. More of our shops are given over to tourist gifts or jewelry instead of the small town shops, butchers, bakers, electricians,grocers electricians and clothes shops.
Do you really need to drive on the orkney islands.
Many island in Germany don't even allow cars. The large ones do and other mostly do have a few cabs and maybe just city services driving around.
@@paxundpeace9970
The Orkney Islands economy does not rely on tourism. Agriculture, fishing, aquaculture, food and drink production are all important exports - and just try doing any of that without road transport!
Your question should perhaps be whether non-residents - especially transients such as cruise-ship passengers - should be clogging up the roads or not ...
While I hesitate to call the town I grew up in a historical town compared to any in Europe (it was founded in the 1840s), it has become a tourist town. After years of fighting with the extreme traffic (because I live in the hellscape of central Texas and what is public transit), rising costs of everything, and the city council prioritizing tourists and big businesses over residents and small businesses, we moved away and now I only have to occasionally visit it. I sympathize so much with you about the struggles!
Oh, Fredericksburg!
Or Elgin 😂 I got mad at Fredericksburg, because no one spoke German or a derivative and they had quesadillas on the menu at a German restaurant. New Braunfels definitely has a healthier Texas German culture. Tourists also ruined my Berlin experience. I was looking in a barren area for something to eat that wasn't at the train station, and the first people I saw on that, so far 40 minute, walk were drunk, arrogant Americans, who made zero attempt to understand anything other than English. I gave up and turned around and swore I would always respect the host country including the languages.
Speaking as someone who's been to Dallas and now lives in the UK, it is NOWHERE NEAR comparable how much worse it is in the UK. Traffic takes on a new, ugly face in Europe; it took us two hours once to go down a quarter of a mile down one street that's literally two turns from my house and less than a minute away from my front door. Not even on the highway, it was normal every day street-in-front-of-shops. I could have walked faster than traffic was moving. And it wasn't like a small street either, it was six lanes.
Maybe you're not in Austin, I don't know. I left in 2013, it was bad then, it got worse and worse. Used to be able to drive across town, and the suddenly you couldn't anymore - and I drove for a living so I experienced it happening. My first apartment in 2000 was $630, with 2 roommates. Pound for pound, I made more money then as a barista barely above minimum wage plus pretty fair tips. Over the years, practically all of the businesses I used to frequent are gone, all the friends I grew up with don't live there anymore. SXSW, back then, went from like 100k people to 250k and shut the city down almost completely. It's just not a place worth living or seeing anymore, which is sad, I loved that town and that area. I used to say "there's no more seats left in sellout town." But I don't have anyone to say that to anymore.
My home town had a nice old 1920s shopping area and i knew it was going to die in the early 2000s when a car dealer bought the historic theater. Its all too expensive now and half the shops are empty. My second job in HS was on that street.
To your list I would add: 1) infrastructure complications (ie sewer systems that can’t handle modern plumbing but cannot be updated without damaging historical buildings and landmarks; historic preservation rules and regulations interfering with making spaces accessible to people with disabilities, etc); 2) constantly walking past people spouting historical misinformation
I live in a tiny town that has become a very intense tourist town in southern Appalachia- it’s too small for all the tourists and prices for homes are crazy,
even rural places can become over run ! ✌🏼🥰
Empty shops and flats are a real problem accross all of UK. There are so many building that could house people if the rent was affordable. It would solve part of our housing crisis.
I lived in a beach resort town and had many of the feelings you have. In our case the tourists were only there in the summer. I’m sure it would be much worse to deal with that year round. I now live in a city where it’s easier to avoid them
Oh, we have 'em year round down here. At least the Seagulls stadium is a good few miles out on t'other side of the city!
"If they had opposable thumbs ..." 😂😂😂
Love it - I say that to my dog regularly “opposable thumbs mate” 🤣🤣🤣
Your "vest"/waiscoat? (Outer knitted green wool garment) ia indeed delightful.
I have visited historic cities all over my region, and is much as you describe. Heartbreaking.
My most sincere condolences to all who suffer from it, and, to folks filming in public who find themselves a fascination or attraction, and, who are then prohibited from filming further
I hope you spotted the call FDSignifier put out for Viking historians on YT. Now to watch this video.
I did, and am flattered by your response :)
Loving your hand knitted wooly pully. Gwenllian
Diolch!
I live in a small (~5k people) town in the upper midwest of the US that has a big Dutch themed festival every spring (town founders were from the Netherlands, Dutch was most people's first language well into the 20th century, people dress up in the traditional dress of the province their family immigrated from, they take it very seriously). It's not "historic" by any means, but I feel the frustration of so much of the city's resources being dumped into pleasing tourists instead of making life pleasant for the residents (exceptions made for the exceedingly wealthy). The sidewalks that aren't near the city center where the festival is held are either poorly maintained in winter to the point of impassability, cracked and degrading into gravel, or entirely non-existent, which is incredibly galling in a town that could theoretically be entirely walkable. I've witnessed the fire department violate fire safety codes for the benefit of tourists, and some residents literally must choose between parking five blocks away from their homes or being entirely unable to drive because they happen to live on the parade route.
I know where you are!!! And, I can certainly appreciate your views; it would take a tremendous amount of work to make the whole town function at its best given how much time, money, and effort goes into just the parade and festival. (I hope you do get to enjoy the tulips.)
@kathyjohnson2043 you probably have about a 50/50 shot of being right, but I will neither confirm nor deny where I am physically; mentally, I am at the zoo. In terms of finances, though, the town makes way more money from festival than they spend on it, especially since nearly all the work is done by volunteers, all the performers are volunteers, and people provide their own costumes.
@@kathyjohnson2043 I have a rough idea. There are two similarly sized cities in the Midwest state I live in that are famous for their Dutch heritage tulip festivals.
Having lived in an American tourist town, we had all of those issues, except for empty buildings, without any real historical sites.
Even worse, if you rent, like most people, rent goes up by 5x at least for the summer, so everyone has to move to shanty places outside town, then back 3 months later, every year.
Economy is funny. The rents are so expensive that the shops can't survive, so the shops are empty and boarded over. So I guess the people owning the buildings should increase the rates to make up for the empty shops. And stop maintaining the buildings to save on expenses. So people can't live there above the shops. So rent for living anywhere gets ridiculously expensive since the buildings are closed... Feel free to interrupt me, little old ladies.
This little old lady agrees. I wrote a reply that turned into a rant. Deleted. Cliques and property/landowners lacking imagination are universal. Sums it up.
Growing up near a famous sports field in Chicago, i can TOTALLY relate to this! Drunk people pissing in the middle of the sidewalk, talking up the parking, blocking driveways, pushing up prices, it's CRAZY! Honestly, it's really sad what happens to the neighborhood.
You mean wrigleyville? Yea can't stand that neighborhood at night esp after games lol
I immediately thought of that area of Chicago when the topic of drunk people came up. Can’t imagine the chaos of living near there during the summer.
Same re: the party university district in my city. Game days are gross.
I can relate so much about drunk people. I'm from Munich and the Oktoberfest times are horrible. Some locals flee the city entirely, others avoid public transport at certain times.
My roommate used to live their childhood directly next to Theresienwiese. One night a pumpkin smashed through their window and landed right next to their bed...
This is depressing. And I say this as a frequent tourist myself. I don't know what the answer is, but this over-tourism in historic cities really needs to be cut back. I don't know if that's possible, though.
I just visited Chester for the first time. It was packed with people, mainly crowds of older tourists like myself, with younger locals fighting their way through to get to work.
I live in a once charming place in Florida that was "discovered" by tourists, and taken over by greedy businessmen, the whole town has changed. The charming shops are replaced by bars and restaurants, and the houses with character are bulldozed and replaced with Mc Mansions. The traffic during "season" is crazy, as are the rents. Yet there are many empty storefronts where there was once a thriving business. Basic greed. It's everywhere, and needs to be addressed.
Like other places full of tourists, the problem is the placex, not the tourists. Shut the pubs on race days. Get the police out to stop lewd behaviour. Put rent and rate caps on non - tourist businesses, and give big incentives to local food and craft shops, hike up parking prices and put in out of town park and rides, profits going towards tourist clean up projects, with charge free for anyone living within certain limits etc. Tourists, like rats and cockroaches, come to where they are welcome. As an ex resident near Magaluf, I know wherefore I speak.
Cuty of York Council, listen up!
So now for the reason I love you're channel, direct and to the point. Sadly, I believe that we have all enabled ourselves into the empty shop street. All craftsmanship and human skills have been replaced by the convenience of ready made, arrive tomorrow delivery service, with exception of the chip shop delivery. The humanness of our daily lives has lapsed, yet setting up a street of shops dedicated to those historical skills... just a thought ❤
I had a chance to visit York for three days in 2023. I love English history (California Anglophile, here). I spin wool using medieval, support spindles. I was looking for medieval whorls to purchase. I found three in York! So, I sat down on a bench and spun yarn on a medieval spindle. I loved it. I wish it wasn’t so touristy, because the history is getting lost under Harry Potter and the like (except for Terry Pratchett and Discworld). I want to come back, as a polite tourist.
You have captured my annoyance at the city centre perfectly. If I need to get something from Boyes or Barnitts I have to FIGHT my way through town. And EVERY new shop is geared towards tourists! The latest new shops have been expensive bakeries or Harry Potter shops. York has NOTHING to do with Harry Potter either!! Don't even get me started on the queue for the ghost shop! As a goth I also get harrassed by out-of-town stag dos. It's terrifying trying to walk home and being followed by groups of drunk men.
Ooh yes the rent and housing costs in a tourist town. We have so many empty shops. People can spend six months trying to find a flat too because we have thousands of empty houses that are just there for air b&b
I had visited York many times in the 1980/90s (drove to the outskirts and used Park and Ride or a cab and walked whilst in the City). A more recent visit highlighted everything which you mentioned. I will not be returning - ever- and I will just treasure happier memories. It is a gigantic tourist trap - not a pleasant experience anymore, sadly and, as you mentioned, so many empty buildings due to greedy owners and councils who are even greedier. Just another historically rich place in our once great Country that has fallen victim to poor management and utter greed.
Omg, imagine if dogs and cats had opposable thumbs!!!! The chaos, nothing would be safe❤️❤️❤️😂😂
A possibly cool idea for a video maybe is; "x number of off the tourist track things to do in York"
I live in Cambridge and all the points you raised here are basically the same down here. Except the empty building thing as the Universisty owns most of the city so keeps all the buildings full
I like this idea. I like to holiday in historic towns and cities myself, but like to spend a day away from the city centre and enjoy a quiet stroll in a nearby village, countryside or along a river. It takes a lot of research sometimes.
Cambridge is stunning 😍
5:37 Drunk tourist to local man: “Oi! I hate sweaters!” Swings at him.
Huh, this really made me appreciate the historic town I live in. We have history reaching the Roman times, but very little tourist traffic compared to English historic sites. (Pécs, Hungary)
This makes me realise living in a tiny village is a small blessing - although we did get a surge of traffic that made it impossible to get to nearby towns to do our shop after a famous musician that lived here passed away and people wanted bto leave stuff for him.
It kind of made me sad to hear that you lost all of those really heart felt family businesses that provided needed items for the residents of the area. I live in one of the biggest tourist cities (Orlando, Florida, USA) and I can vouch for the huge influx of traffic, especially when school is out all over the world. And like yours, some of our streets are "junk streets" full of trinkets and T shirts announcing that you've been to Disney World or Sea World or Universal Studios, etc. Locals completely avoid these streets. The difference in our situations is that we live in suburbs and the areas that have been taken over by our tourists are not priceless historic areas that should be supporting the people who actually live here.
Thank you for exposing the other side of living in historic areas! I'm cheering you on, Jimmy! You're getting so close to 100,000 subscribers!!! 🎉🎉
Totally understand your points.
I live on a very touristic island. In high season there are at least 5 to 6 times as many tourists as there are inhabitants. Certain places get absolutely swamped in summer but are virtually deserted in winter.
Tourists are both a blessing and a curse. They do bring in a lot of money. Our local economy would tank without them.
A former Seattle resident here. I know this pain. Hearing about your once beautiful city, then to see it on the news. Skyrocket rents, empty buildings, trash an pollution every where. My husband and I call these city's "Tourist Sacrifice Zones". Every one knows them. Wish I could say it gets better.
Thanks for the channel!
I have lived in several "historic" (for the US) places in my very long life and I must say, that your complaints are universal. I used to live in an old "Plantation" era house in New Orleans, with a courtyard and literally every day there would be busloads of tourists, stopping by the gate, even peering into my windows (which I finally taped black plastic over for privacy)
Although, not as bad as NOLA, living in the California gold country, had issues with smokers throwing cigarettes out the windows, in a heavily wooded, fire prone area, causing fires that could literally burn down the entire county
I feel this video in my bones!
I love York, but I'm very happy I live in Newcastle which is also historic but has more than enough room for tourists, although fortunately we don't get as many as York or Edinburgh. I was allowed to travel for work during the Covid lockdowns and as one of the people I was supporting lived in York I had the chance to walk through the Shambles completely alone.
Lived in and near Boston, most of my life (61 years) & got "priced out" years ago - now live 30 miles south.
Most "locals" only go into Boston when they have friends/family visiting.
The City of Boston is now giving a small percentage of building owners a tax break if they turn their buildings into housing ! This only tends to be "cost effective" if they are old buildings as newer ones are cookie cutter & impossible to make 'livable'. I have yet to see what the rents will be. Most condos in the downtown areas are hella' expensive now ! Plus, there are no services. No fire dept/grocery stores, etc., etc. !
I DO like that Boston gets cold as that drives many of the tourists out, lol 😆
I've grown up in York and I completely agree with all of these. I used to work just outside town near the big Morrisons in Layerthorpe, finishing after 9 some nights. I dreaded walking home through town on Friday nights or on race days and still avoid going into town on busy days.
To show how used to living in a tourist town I am, I recently visited Redcar and immediately noticed the lack of tourists on the high street. To walk through a town centre and only come across locals was entirely alien to me. But I loved it!
I grew up in an historic small town, it was founded as a fort in the war of 1812 (do they call it something else in other countries? Honestly it was such a small piece of history I doubt that anyone calls it anything outside of the US but I digress)and I always felt that my town didn't do enough to capitalize on it- we have no tourist economy to speak of, no regular events, a group got together once to put on a reenactment but it was a one off that was never repeated. It's interesting to see the perspective from the other side of the coin, though it seems little old ladies who will interrupt and not leave you alone are universal.
What city?
Well, in Europe when you say the war of 1812 the only thing that comes to mind is Napoleon in Russia 😄 I have no idea what happened in the US at that time
This summer, my family and I were four of the one million who visited York by train, and it was very interesting to hear your perspective on some of the things I noticed as well as others that my tourist-eyes didn't catch. Thanks for fleshing out life in this historic city more for me! As an historian, I found York fascinating (I got to walk on an actual Roman mosaic in the Yorkshire museum! It was an incredible history-nerd moment for me), but as someone interested in handcrafts (I'm a knitter-- great sweater vest, by the way!), I was surprised there wasn't more evidence of those traditions. I thought maybe I'd just missed it, but it sounds like those have been driven out, which is deeply sad. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
I live in a (US) national historic district, and we share 4 of those problems. I would say the difference is empty spaces. All our downtown shops are full... until October at which most will close up until the end of April.
Reminds me of when I visited Venice. I appreciated what was genuine about it, but it also felt very much like a theme park. It's rather uncanny when an entire city exists as essentially a memento of a previous era. On the one hand, it was incredible to feel like I had stepped back in time to the Renaissance, but I also felt a bit like I was treading on a grave. Venice did still manage to feel 'real' to me, there were enough random churches and unfamous side streets and people who were clearly locals going about their lives that it wasn't super off-putting, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was contributing to the museumification of the place.
I currently live in Toronto in an area of the city called Greektown. They have a big culture and food festival one weekend a year and I get the heck out. You can't move for the overwhelming number of people. And they're all just so rude! The steps of my front porch aren't a rubbish bin, but that's how people treat it. Anytime someone mentions wanting to go to the festival, I remind them that there are 51 other weekends of the year.
I'm a student in York and I absolutely agree with your point about the price. My weekly rent is over £180 a week for a STUDENT HOUSE outside of the city walls. I love in London at home and there is barely any difference in the prices it's metal
Used to live in Scarbs during uni (and want to go back). Lots of empty shops/ tourist shops and boring stuff. Its a shame it has so much history especially around it being a victorian spa retreat and they don't seem to take advantage of that. We lost a curiosity shop because it was never open and where are the ghost tours? Plus right down the coast from Whitby they could be using the goth and steampunk events to there advantage
Comparing York and Venice, it would be interesting to find out what policy has the result that businesses like bookbinders are able to stay continuously in their shops in Venice.
As a Los Angeles resident, I can totally relate. Why, my neighborhood is over 60 years old!
That's a great shame about the empty buildings, especially as there is such a housing crunch in the country. I live in a university town and we have the same problem with empty shops and high rents. I would still love to visit York , but perhaps I'll do it in some off-time like January so I won't be part of the tourist throngs.
University towns are a weird one. It feels like you have a problem from the influx of students who are then gone for chunks of the year. But actually compared to similar towns that aren't University towns you're almost always far better off.
Yep, having lived in touristy areas all my life, the trade-off between living in a beautiful, historic place and sometimes is a tough one sometimes. For me the worst thing is that tourists seem to forget they are not in some sort of Disneyland or museum but at a place, where actual people live and go about their day. My biggest pet peeve are folks just standing in the middle of the road to take pictures or generally being inconsiderate of everyone around them. Rent is also sky high (there are other factors at play here as well, but people having their second or third home and air BnB / holiday apartments where regular ones could be certainly isn't helping)
I'm almost certain dogs would get into a whole lot more trouble with fingers/hands/thumbs before they got round to a vpn, but I love the ad lib :D
Jimmy: he attracts friendly dogs and curious old ladies.
Tinder profile updated
@@TheWelshViking 😆😆😆
@@TheWelshViking xd
Duluth, Minnesota has become a tourism nightmare. Behind the scenes there is no affordable housing, tons of homeless people, traffic bottlenecks, inflated prices, the list goes on. Love the area, hate the city.
Having lived most of my life in a tourist town I completely relate to this. Too many tourists at once and tourists behaving badly really takes the fun out of a beautiful place
I lived (while in high school) in a tiny historic town. It wasn’t as busy, or famous, as York, and it had a population of 315 (which number may have included the farmers in the outskirts). So our tourist numbers were nothing like yours. Anyway, we would get bunches of tourists, crowds during the art fair, but mostly in drips and drabs from spring through fall.
My two pet peeves were: 1. Being stared at. My friends and I joked that we should get Tshirts that said something like, “Yes, I live here, please stop staring.” That happened for each and every tourist who crossed our path. We’re talking open, blatant staring, sometimes accompanied by finger pointing and whispering. Presumably, “What do you think it’s like to grow up here?” 2. People would walk across our yard (American yard, so not two steps from the street) and lean against the windows to see inside! Seriously! Who does that! If I was sitting in the living room reading (or whatever, but usually reading), I’d get up, walk over to the window, lean against the woodwork and look down on them. They’d jump 🤣, startled at being caught, suddenly realizing that what they did was so wrong. But that would just cure them… in a day or few it might happen again. 🤦♀️
Side note: There was an historic marker at “the old mill site (first lumber mill in the state). Due to erosion from the mill stream and a mill explosion, was at the edge of a sort of teardrop-shaped loop of wooden fencing. We’d get asked for directions (pre Google maps), and we would politely point the way. But my friends and I would talk about whether we should make them pay to get back out. 😉😁
York empty buildings: Ugh - I’m assuming (based purely on conjecture) that the empty buildings are due to investor games. 🙄😭
Oh absolutely! My city got put on the international map a few years ago for "suddenly" sprouting 3 Michelin restaurants and overnight became *THE* destination for foodies - and rent was hell already due to it also being a University city with thousands of students. And now I can't step outside without bumping into tourists. Oh and it is also one of the most historically significant cities in my country so there's tons of things to dig into there + pilgrimage destination but those travellers tend to be very nice actually
I totally hear you on the tourist trash and council priorities (or lack of), we don't have historic buildings but we do have vacant ones, because the tourism pushes up the rents ect, ect.
I grew up in Conwy so this rings so many bells. One of the worst things was the way life was super seasonal there. From Easter to October we had tons of tourists, things to do and jobs and then out of that time it died. Now I live in Edinburgh where we have the issues all year round, but other than the Festivals MADNESS we have a steady stream of tourist insanity. One of the worst things in Edinburgh was trying to get to the council offices in your lunch break to pay something or drop something off in August. That fight to move on the Royal mile was insane. Oh and trying to cross roads when the corners are giant hubs of tourists looking at the buildings and talking meaning you end up having to walk in the roads for a chunk to go round them is not safe or fun.
Can't wait for Christmas time, it's always so easy to get to venues with music gear...
I left Brussels, Belgium for good after 13 years leaving there (+ 8 years of schooling and studying there). You just put all the reasons I'm happy to leave somewhere else :p I chose another historical city, I just hope it's stay out of the world tourist's radar for as much time as possible ;)
Your town there is very difficult, much more than the old mission town I live in here in Northern California. Prayers go out to you and town of York!
I live in a small midwest US town, that has a wonderful historic district, and a somewhat functioning downtown. I say somewhat, because our downtown has empty storefronts, too. The problem is, that investment groups are buying up the retail buildings and raising the rent to enormous costs, prices that are way too high for a small business to afford.
I live in Wells, Somerset. The smallest city in England, with approximately 13,000 residents. We also have an incredible Gothic cathedral, the Palace of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, the oldest continental occupied street in Europe and a 15th century Tithe Barn all within a square mile.
We are inundated by tourists in the summer and have similar issues to York but on a much smaller scale.
Your observations and those of your commenters all remind me of that great (albeit fictional) local vs tourist conflict in another historic town: Mapp & Lucia in Rye. The locals' seasonal migration of lodgings -- and the financial maneuvers involved -- was a prominent feature of the story line.
People in my town would love to see the shopping centre so busy! Shops boarded up, pubs closed, the High Street is a desert
That’s the tourist shops.
York is still my favourite place I've lived - when I arrived in the UK fresh fron NZ on my OE I went to York from London for a weekend trip and loved it so much I moved to York instead of staying in London. Totally agree about so many of these points - of course I was a tourist too but living there, you'd try and avoid the crowds by going into town first or last thing!
I can commiserate. I live in a county with less than 80,000 in 1,300 sq miles (USA). The problems mainly arise when the bass fishermen show up for the tournaments. Fees/taxes help the government. However, shops open but can't survive after the season is over. Real shame, makes it harder for the locals in the long run.
Good food for thought. Every city has unique urban planning and policy challenges, but the historic nature of York would add layers of complexity.
I was a kid in the 60’s and remember walking through the Shambles on a Saturday afternoon and not being able to get through because of a coach party of elderly American tourists. I always remember a lady turn to her husband and saying “Gee Wilber it’s so old”
Sounds like litter cleanup would be a perfect tourist activity! Modern midden archaeology lol
Partner grew up in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. The amount of tourists is incredible. And that was well over 40 years ago.
Hi!!! I live in Rome, Italy, just to talk about historical cities... 😅 I wholeartedly agree with you, but I have some other pet peeves...one is that tourists know the city way better than residents...we are so used to art and history that it looks as if we don't care...and apart from the vandals, those that come here just to put their names on the stones of the Colosseum, or to take away a souvenir by breaking a fountain or a statue, most of the time tourists are way more well behaved and informed (I would just love if they didn't take up all the space, and I fear for next year...). The second one is about infrastructures. I move around with public transportation, and it would be great if it worked better...but it's difficult to have a good underground metro, because you cannot dig a hole without finding some archeological goodies, and so many things have already been destroyed or buried again...and the bus lines are quite often late and not very efficient because of the traffic, and those going in the center are full with pickpockets...and since it's difficult to mantain in good shape old roads, the government simply does nothing, and so the roads are filled with holes, and quite dangerous both for the cars and for people...sometimes huge holes just open on some streets...
a huuuuge hole opened in a street in Milan a few years ago, you're not that special! 🤣 scherzo, siam messi maluccio un po' ovunque, eh?
@@Tvianne purtroppo... 😅 Mio padre, lo stereotipo dello "straniero che conosce la città meglio dei locali", tutte le volte commenta la cosa con "Roma è tutta un foro" 😁
@@annalisalundberg4561 🤣🤣🤣 oddio, questa è splendida! fagli i complimenti da parte mia!
@@Tvianne sarà fatto 😁 grazie mille!
As someone who also lives in a tourist town I could relate to most of this. I actively avoid the entire downtown core due to the tourists. Thankfully (?) there's very little reason to go downtown here unless you're a tourist.
I lived for a year in Salem, Massachusetts (colonial port city and site of the Witch Trials of 1692) and I can sympathize with some of your issues with York. Lovely area, very walkable for 11 months of the year. September we would get more traffic from tourists and then the whole month of October the city would be flooded with tourists because of Halloween. The nights leading up to October 31 you could barely walk through the city center it was so crowded. Lots of people getting rowdy. There was a stabbing on my street and a shooting I think on the train at the station. People just take advantage of the party atmosphere and crowds to commit crime. But 11 months of the year, just lovely. Very quiet through the winter.
Good one,Jim,upvote for me : live in Edinburgh,festival finished a few days ago and understand the dilemma of historic city-living !
When I lived in Northants.,and came on a visit to Jorvik Viking Heritage Centre,drove up the M1 and park at one of the city's 6 special car parks,before coming into the city centre by bus{NB this is specially recommended on the JHC's website}
P.S. Way to go,sniffed by (feral but friendly) dogs and pestered by old,local ladies ! 😂
I really enjoy your videos so here's a comment so the algorithm will (hopefully) show me more of your stuff as soon as it gets out. Thanks for being you!
Vast house prices in London and the relatively fast rail commute has, I'd say, also been a big factor inflating all York's prices (but especially housing) out of reach for many of us.
There's a significant (lesser seen) dormitory population using the city as a picturesque and safer suburb. Like the tourists, their primary need is for the city to have a low-wage, servant economy rather than self-sustaining technology or manufacturing jobs.
I live in Cambridge and much of this rings true - the centre is small and not designed for the traffic and people it sees, and fighting through coach-loads of tourists to get to a GP appointment or do my shopping is not fun
As a student, I lived in the oldest university city in my country, which is very medieval. Tourists descended on us students and wanted us to pose for them. Genuine students in the oldest university city. I really hated that. Also, in Summer, all the little cafés where we students usually met were full of tourists. So we had nowhere to go.
I live in Oxford ... sigh ... yeah ... all of that. Plus the dominance of the university which suppresses any attempt for the city itself to thrive both as an economy and as a cultural place. Wadham College which owns the historic Holywell Music Room, long used by locals to put on music concerts in a charming period room just tripled the fee to hire it for a day overnight (for non university bookings), but reduced the fees for university bookings ... so now none of us can use it.
It's not just historic places, it's anywhere with an excess of tourism. Most of the problems you name can be experienced in towns and villages all across Cornwall and Devon.
I know how you feel I'm from Edinburgh it's exhausting for anyone that lives here trying to navigate the city while the Fringe is on, it's not designed for lots of cars and tourists because of how ancient it is
Oh, the Fringe is a nightmare. The iverflowing bins always made me so cross when I lived there