so i think i'm actually spoiled by being brought up in a town that's over 1000 years old. There's a nature to the whole shape of it. All started on the river bend, the Abbey and bingo a town starts, build a bridge and voila, we're rocking. I can't actually even imagine living in a place that didn't grow naturally. It must feel so horrible.
The best feature of MK is the Grand Union Canal - You can navigate a narrowboat from one side of the city to the other and be surrounded by greenery the whole way !!
Holy heck.. I live in Milton Keynes, this is wild seeing you react to this.. Very much misunderstood as a place.. we may not have historical buildings, but Middleton and Milton Keynes Village go far back as the Doomsday Book. We’ve also got places like Bletchley Park where Alan Turing ans others work on the enigma machine reduced WW2 by as much as 2 years and saved potentially millions of lives, as well as put in the heavy work in progressing the modern day computer. The grid system with roundabouts around each estate is easy to navigate, for a city of 260,000 we don’t have traffic anything like other towns and cities. There’s so much green areas, lakes and wildlife, massive shopping centre and everything else ever need all close by and accessible.
24:15 But to your observations I would add, why can’t every suburb in America look like that and feel like that? I’ve heard about these places called “lifestyle centers”, Las Vegas has one near Harry Reid Airport, and everything about it screams “we’re going to tease you with something we could build right where you live to create a productive, bustling and thriving sense of place and community, but instead we’ll build it like a mall and make you drive to it” It comes off as a big corporate tease.
I used to live in MK when it was a giant building site. I worked in an art shop in the huge shopping centre after I left school. Happy memories of my friends. My parents lived in Woolstone until they passed away last year 😢
I lived in MK for a year. I loved it. Even if you were new to the city, if you knew the grid reference for the housing estate where your friend lived, you could find it. Every estate had a parade of shops and a public space (pub, place of worship, community centre etc). Buses stopped when you flagged them down, rather than having to walk to a bus stop. And if you were driving, all the roads with no hosing on had high speed limits to speed your journey.
Just so you're aware, MK Dons, the football team from Milton Keynes, is the most hated football club in the UK, lol. Partially from it's connection to that town, but the reasons for hating them go deeper than that.
A certain generation of football fans hate the club due to the way it took another town's club , Wimbledon, as MK didn't have their own league club. It is the most soulless club going playing in a near empty state of the art 30000 stadium in the bottom tier of the football league. Very Milton Keynes.
That "Wimbledon" team were my nearest football team when I was growing up. Due to them not being given planning permission for their bigger stadium as two local authorities had to approve it but only one did, they decamped to MK. As they really wanted a bigger stadium. (The new stadium at the border of Wimbledon was finally built when I was an adult about 20 years later. ) They had a womble as their mascot as every sporting team from Wimbledon is allowed to use them without paying or even asking rights permission. (I played for a sports club in Wimbledon who did ask the family's permission which is why I know that.) When they decamped to MK they still used the womble. The author's family who hold the rights had to tell them to cease and desist then eventually threatened them with legal action to stop using the Wombles. The reason was simply they were no longer a Wimbledon sporting team.
Hi JJ, I've just subscribed to your other channel, I'll check it out later. I live in the North East of England and we're having a power cut due to 120 mile an hour winds of Storm Eowyn. Hopefully the power will be back on later.
MK Dons used to be Wimbledon FC (nicknamed The Dons), who had played in the Premier League and won the FA Cup. It is the only example of an English football club being franchised in the American style, so everyone hates them. When it happened, an entirely new football club- AFC Wimbledon, was created in protest
@@binkbonusgbr me too 30yrs ago. On a clear night I could see it lit up from my bedroom window 🔺️ 16 miles away on the beds/bucks border. Where they now have a big sign saying "Welcome to Milton Keynes" 🤬 locals are really not happy about that 😅
16:57 It looking a nice shade of blue doesn’t change the fact these buildings have all the aesthetic appeal of a prison. Which might as well be what they are, prisons, modern workhouses for slaves to the pittance wage in the gig economy hellscape.
There's a big private corporate office estate on the South bank of the Thames in London. The outside areas are not unpleasant (not brutalist or modernist) and they're open to the public. There are some heavy duty durable modern sculptures dotted around which are just screaming for kids to climb on BUT if kids dare to do so, some officious private security guard will pop out from apparently nowhere and tell them off. It's like they're saying, "Come here to this relatively attractive area and have fun spending your money in the restaurants and shops (all chains) who we rent our space to but only have fun in the ways we approve of and we will control your fun."
Hi, I think a basic difference between a US shopping mall and a UK shopping centre, is that they close in UK. Having your 'city centre' close at 6:30pm is a problem.
Having modern buildings is great for 10 years, then that modern building becomes an obsolete box. Buildings that are hundreds of years old still look great. As you say, the Poundbury style is great and more new build areas should follow its lead.
I have a lot of family that live or lived in Milton Keynes. It's where I had my first McDonald's in the late 1980's. The free gift was a bucket and spade with sand molds in the bucket. I had to wait till I got home to play with it on the beach 😂
I once got lost in Milton Keynes. I was travelling the city on foot and this was before I had a smartphone. It took me nearly 25 minutes of walking, probably in circles because everything looks the same, to find a person who wasn't a dangerous-looking group of teenagers in hoodies hanging around in an underpass to ask for directions. An old woman with a walker pointed me in the direction I wanted. Was damn near a dead straight line and a single left turn. Hate it there lmao.
I live in one of those new towns. Thamesmead in SE London. It had a very brutalist design when they started it, which is why it was used for shooting A Clockwork Orange. But now they are tearing down all the original flats and replacing them with new ones.
his concept was brilliant, it was instantly dumbed down and stripped to the bare bones and by god we all suffered from the horrid buildings that came from his idea.
I live in London. I use public transport because it’s easier and cheaper. I see people. We talk to each other. Twelve years ago I gif off the bus after work, randomly bumped into a friend, went for a drink. After a few more friends joined us, and a few more pubs were visited, I met the person with whom I’ve now been married to for a decade. That wouldn’t happen if I was living in Milton Keynes (or most US suburbs).
My 10yr old son made me laugh today, he asked me would I be happy if I was friends with this man? (JJLA) I asked why? And he said because you watch him every day 😂😂😂 so of course I said “hell yeah”😂😂
It did kind of work. I grew up in mk l, lived there since 1981. It's alot bigger than it used to be, houses are being built none stop even today. Them houses are brought up the second they go on the market. People are moving here in massive numbers, 40 years later. How is that a failure? The places Jimmy went in the city centre are always dead mid day. They are night life areas and only come alive at night. If Jimmy went to Newport, Bletchley, Stony Stratford or wolverton (all areas within Milton keynes) he would get the old town experience. A person from mk will say I'm going up city if they were going to the shopping centre, they would say in going into town if they was going bletchley. Very different experiences. Both Milton keynes.
To be topical, on Sky News this morning they announced that this exact area is what they want to see develop into a UK Silicon Valley. 25 years ago they had the same plans for the Farnborough area, just before the 9/11 attacks in New York saw USA firms withdraw their investments over the pond. Many of the new offices built at that time have turned into apartment blocks of flats.
I live 4 miles outside a city called Doncaster, if you draw a box around Britain and at the center of the lines draw a line across and one down, you'll see Conisborough, it has a castle, Doncaster is 10 minutes away by slow train. When I walk my dog each day on the spoil heap from the coal mine that was there (we actually call it a slag heap, it's in Yorkshire), I am 2 miles from the motorway passing the village where I live, it was all fields and trees "you get the idea", but now it's all giant wearhouses with 10 people working there, Doncaster used to be a coal, steel and manufacturing town employing many thousands, now Amazon and the like use it's location because it's so central to the motorways around the country, even the ex military airbase is opening up "again" for the same reason, those wearhouses are at least a mile long each, they are a blight on the landscape and only the few make anything out of them being there. The once Roman City is now dying from being so well placed. By the way, take a look for The Style Council - Come To Milton Keynes
I remember going there as a kid, probably in the early '90s, to visit some work colleagues of my Father's, and we arrived in the evening when everything was lit up, and to someone who lived in a semi-rural area, it felt like the future - so glamorous and exciting, particularly the pyramid shaped entertainment centre! This style of architecture combined with slight novelty elements seemed to seep into business parks around that time, complete with glass pyramids, and colourful features on the buildings, usually complete with water/lakes, and outdoor spaces. Actually, I have occasionally worked as a temp in some of these business parks over the years, and they are quite pleasant places to work - particularly if you are working at one with nice outdoor areas. As you quite correctly said, if that style of architecture is well-maintained, then it can have an ok shelf-life, but the minute it starts to become neglected, you might as well bring in the wrecking balls.
Ahh I live down the M1 and as a kid it was so cool to go there. The point (triangle building) was the first multi-plex cinema. I went to see Encino man there. It’s was so cool. But now it’s horrible. I went recently as not been there for years. And I just wanted to get out as quick as I could.
I’m glad to have lived for over 40 years in Milton Keynes. It’s a grate place to live and bring up kids. The atmosphere is one of the cleanest in the country. Plenty of places to walk and cycle safely. Plenty of natural wild life. It grate if you’re disabled. It’s actually difficult to find any contrary indicators.
I don't think Le Corbusier (a pseudonym) was the problem, though I preferred the work of Mies van der Rohe. In fact I think as an architect, he created some interesting buildings, but I think they work best as individual structures, rather than a whole town/city.
Great video JJLA 🤗 (I live in the UK and I've been to Milton Keynes in the 1980's but I've not gone back recently) In my opinion .....The best thing about Milton Keynes got taken away!......THE CONCRETE COW'S! Yep they had concrete cows🤣🤣🤣 Milton Keynes was a great idea but sadly it was badly executed, It's a brilliant location and with a bit of thought it could be a really great place to live.... so sad.
I live on the island of Guernsey. We have no malls, Starbucks or McDonalds but the town shopping area is still dying. Very high rents, no parking and online shopping. There is no central market for local produce. it's all out-of-town. Many British towns are like this now.
I grew up in a New Town in Scotland and as a kid I loved it, mainly because it was still under construction and was like a massive playground, but because it costs too much to maintain poor quality housing and shops factorys etc it becomes run down.
haha, the tangent at the end: not many people are fond of mk dons because it's one of the few clubs to move towns (from wimbledon in london), further adding to the "amerivcan" label
oh the Irony of looking up Milton Keynes Dons - a club that was formerly called Wimbledon FC ("The Dons") in north west London, new owners moved the club to MK, changed the name, and lost the entire fanbase :'D the fans made a new club AFC Wilmbedon and they're now out performing MK Dons in the same league and could be promoted to the league above - one of their biggest sponsors and advocates is John Green (yes, that John Green)
Wimbledon is in SOUTH WEST London. The old Wimbledon FC's stadium was on the border of Merton and Wandsworth. One or the other kept refusing planning permission to build a stadium as their designs ignored the fact they were in a built up area. Other London football clubs learnt after a couple of planning rejections not to do that.
Shout out to cumbernauld town center added in there, multiple times voted Britain's ugliest/worst building, cumbernauld voted 3 times the most depressing town in Scotland and in a video of the top 10 worst towns in Scotland it was number 1. I no longer live there.
6:386:386:386:386:386:386:386:386:386:386:386:386:38 Apart from our island, London, Portsmouth and Plymouth were bombed off the map for a long time after WWii Check out ‘The Blitz’ America didn’t get plane over their land; we had 1 Spitfire to 6 Nazi planes Watch Battle for Britain 6:386:386:386:386:386:38
Just up the road from me! I have always said it reminds me of America. It’s not that bad. My son lived and worked there for a while and he liked it, said it didn’t deserve the bad press. The roads are easy to drive on - something that distinguishes it from an American city is the amount of roundabouts! Loads of them. BTW It was awarded city status recently (I think).
When I have had to visit Milton Keynes for work, I have always had a real sense of uneasiness that I could not put my finger on why. This video has helped explain that.
i literally watched first 13 secs of this and new str8 away its milton keynes i lived there for 22 yrs and a fun fact for you , you have a vid to do with rave culture well there was a music venue in milton keynes that became icon in the 90,s n early 2000,s called the sanctuary
Hi, you referred to the "local" football team MK Dons at the end of the video, as I recall that there was quite a bit of controversy when the team was started up in 2004. There had been a team in Wimbledon, NW London (a.k.a. the Dons) for about a hundred years who had done well for themselves in the 80's and 90's but still had a small old ground and ended up having to share a bigger ground with another team. The team owners decided to move the whole club/team up to Milton Keynes, the fans were not happy, not at all....The local fans started up their own team AFC Wimbledon and currently both MK Dons and AFC Wimbledon play in the same league.
Slight correction, Wimbledon is in southwest London. I grew up not far from Wimbledon, and I remember my dad often used to take me to watch the Dons play under the lights in the 70s. I think it was his attempt to get me interested in football, but sadly for him, it didn't work! 😆
@@andybaker2456Hello I grew up nearby in the 80s and 90s. The old Wimbledon FC was so desperate for a new larger stadium so they spent about 10 years trying to get planning permission agreed to by Wandsworth and Merton Councils. In reality it was the local people in the area saying "no" and they should have got their architects to work with people to say "yes" like all the developers do around where I now live in South West London. In the end Wimbledon FC gave up and moved. They eventually changed their name saying they weren't moving back. The new Wimbledon football stadium has now been built. It has loads of flats around it.
Coming from a QS who deals with the construction money… first draft of design amazing 2nd thought to 20th; it is a box, they can’t afford curves and the dead space they create in buildings to let; Squares are cheaper and you can use ever part of it. No one wants to listen when you have to burst their bubble at Revision 3to7; but at 20 when they just need a building they can afford and only what is needed inside it; then they listen. After they paid their engineers & architects £1m to get from Rev 2 to 20 18:01
There is absolutely nothing in Milton Keynes for the 'College Kids' to travel all that way for. Both Oxford and Cambridge have vibrant (traditional) city centres themselves. Students in both places would be much more likely to travel to London if they wanted something different. The 'Garden City' movement from earlier in the 20th century was much more successful in building new towns that were, and still are, pleasant places to live. Look up Letchworth Garden City, or Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire.
i lived in a Garden City in Scotland in my teens, these were properly planned and shaped towns that actually worked! :D loved it, but then i did look on to a beautiful park full of massive trees.
My wife is a historian on Letchworth GC and the Garden City movement. Don't get her started on the subject. 😂 She hates MK but loves IKEA sowe spend way too much time in. MK for my liking, ie any.
I like in another new town, Bracknell, which is Milton Keynes-ish, but not quite so bad. As a kid, it was great. Loads of green spaces and places to play without having to worry about traffic. It had dedicated cycle lanes from the outset, allowing you to cycle or walk through the town without having to cross any major roads. There were local shopping centres so you didn't have to go into the town for everything, and the offices and factories were all away from where people lived. In many ways, the design worked. Where these plans really fail though is splitting people needs into housing/working/shopping, and thinking these three are all people do, and these three all need to be separated. There's no organic growth. These roads through the town are lifeless because they are designed to be lifeless. Normally major routes would be lined with shops, pubs, houses, but instead there's just nothing but grass embankments. They had to demolish and rebuild the town centre that they built in the 60s after demolishing the original town centre, but there's nothing in it other than big chain shops.
I moved to mk for a couple of years in the mid 90’s my son was born there. Where we lived first if you lost your keys you could get indoors using a can opener. It was awful and I couldn’t wait to move back home to Dorset ( I need the sea ) the hospital (well the drs and nurses) cared for my son brilliantly and I met some great people but Milton Keynes is a horrible place to live. There’s ( or was ) concrete cows there and I’m pretty sure one was stolen at one point.
@@brigidsingleton1596 and the advert on its anniversary that had red balloons 🎈 that might have been on telly before I even moved there. My memory of it isn’t the best 🙃
I live in the 51 year old ish New Town of Telford. It’s not bad but there’s an equally amusing video promoting the town. As it keeps expanding it’s less favourable. All new building is still car dependent. Thankfully it’s not built with a grid system
Like Los Angeles, the original blueprint for Milton Keynes involved “spokes” of public transport - in MK’s case monorails and LA’s electric trains - radiating out from the centre to serve the neighbourhoods/suburbs. In both cases, dropped in favour of autos.
@@computerbob06 The US architect whose ideas MK's plans were based on had the surname Poole and his idea of neighbourhoods linked to the city centre by radiating spokes of public transit was labelled "Pooleville."
The m40 goes straight past Milton Keynes and I have past prob 50 times in both directions, never been, and I work with a guy fro,m there, but after this have no appetite to ever bother stopping ! nope !
16:22 he is being a bit too harsh here. Xscape is primarily an indoor ski-slope so it kinda has to be that shape. The shape has also made it iconic. It does feel a little bit like he’s implying everything in MK is objectively awful which isn’t true.
I’ve just watched more of the video and felt I had to add that my son didn’t use his car when he lived in MK, he cycled everywhere. I don’t know what time that guy was there but I see lots of people when I’ve been there. That’s just not true.
There are cycle paths which you can walk on under the town centre and around the outskirts of the town. I ran a half marathon using some of them. It was very weird as sometimes you were on a road at ground level then other times you went down a "hill" and were on a cycle path underneath.
6:386:386:386:38 Yes the natural reason was we bombed to peices as unlike US we were the English Channel away from Nazi Ovcupied France, who gave up the last piece of Europe apart from our island, London, Portsmouth and Plymouth were bombed off the map for a long time after WWii Check out ‘The Blitz’ America didn’t get plane over their land; we had 1 Spitfire to 6 Nazi planes Watch Battle for Britain 6:386:386:386:386:386:38
Even the football team in Milton Keynes has no soul. They moved the team from Wimbledon (in West London, nowhere near MK) and changed the name and whole identity, so an actual community lost their football club and instead it was placed in the middle of this soulless dystopia, in a massive stadium that's almost always empty. They're seen as one of the most hated clubs in the UK for this reason.
The grid system isn’t/wasn’t alien to the whole of the UK and to be fair Jimmy the Giant only referred to it being unusual in England. Much of Glasgow city centre is based on a grid like system (my Dad used to claim that it’s what inspired New York, but I doubt that) but it’s still very walkable and architecturally beautiful…though due to when the infrastructure was essentially created, it’s not car unfriendly but the car isn’t in its inner circle of friends either so to speak. But there are lots of train stations, an underground system (that at least used to be known as The Clockwork Orange) and great bus services both local services, national services and UK wide services. There are very different mindsets and expectations of what should be within walking distance and services that should be available in the UK and other than the most rural and remote areas, it’s expected that you should be able to live there without a motorised vehicle being a necessity, along with parks and what’s generally known as a corner shop (but it doesn’t have to be on the corner) where you can walk to normally in under fifteen minutes and get the basics that are likely to run out of quickly and/or easily like bread, milk, butter, biscuits and probably pick up a newspaper, magazine and snacks…some will even Cary some basic vegetables. These aren’t really expected by most in the US outside of people living quite centrally in the largest cities. Hence why Milton Keynes isn’t a desired place to live for probably the majority of the UK population. The property values are down to its proximity of other places and there is a decent chance that many of the residents there are there due to the compromise of it being close to but not in the city in which they work and not because they have deemed it a desirable or aspirational place to live.
I didn't notice. MK outside the centre is made up of old villages and housing estates. You only really find them, so see them, if you get lost on one of the numerous roundabouts. (They add an extra turning due to building a new housing estate but your sat nav hasn't been updated.) The most rundown ones were clearly built in the 60s and 70s. The older villages and newer housing estates look fine. They all seemed to have a local shop but I didn't check for pubs.
What a disgusting video. This is my HOME, I am SO SICK of people ragging on this place, usually people who don't bother to even investigate past the shopping centre, to see our canals, churches, high streets, and hilariously, they say there's no greenery, again, coming from people who BARELY go anyhwhere past the shopping centre.
Milton Keynes is the McDonalds of cities, it's the most ghastly, soulless hole, that can only be fixed by levelling it. Moving sidewalks? I've got mobility issues, they might actually help me out and I'd much rather live without that kind of architectural atrocity - plus UK weather, they'd be broken more than they were working. JJ - read the poem "Slough" by John Betjeman, it won't take long. Slough's a very simiiar town to MK and you might be able to find a video of Ricky Gervais reading it.
Slough and MK are completely different in their soullessness. Slough is just warehouses and industrial estates. It feels unsafe. MK is just roundabouts linking villages, some old, and housing estates, of different ages, together with a ghastly city centre. There are cycle paths under road level. I ran races in both. I felt safer in MK.
i honestly dont think its that bad, the video makes it out like its way worse with silly music and editing. sure some places look odd, but thats only really because there flat bang in the middle of nothing. if the area was built up more they wouldn't look so out of place.
Please bear with me as this is the very first time in more than 15 years or so of watching UA-cam videos that I have felt compelled to make some sort of comment. As a 77 year old man who has lived in Milton Keynes for over 50 years I can't believe all the rubbish and lies portrayed in this tainted video and also that have been written in some of the comments. Before I moved to MK I had lived in Hammersmith (London), Hemel Hempstead (another New Town) and the ancient city of St. Albans and believe me Milton Keynes is by far the best. Firstly the need for reasonably cost housing after the massive destruction done in WW2 was urgent and Milton Keynes was the culmination and the largest of all the other New Towns that had already been constructed around the UK. If all these new towns were completed in the Poundbury manner the cost would have been phenomenal and the build time would have been massively slower. Milton Keynes was developed where it is because it is positioned half way between the UK's two biggest cities of London and Birmingham, as well as nearly equal distance between Oxford and Cambridge. MK incorporates several older towns and villages including the historic and picturesque Stony Stratford. It also has several Roman and Medieval remains, the Bletchley Park Code Breaking Centre from WW2, The Open University, and a myriad of other notable features that include the many vast parks and recreation facilities. The central shopping centre attracts people from miles around and is the longest in the UK and also it has been a blueprint for other shopping malls around the world. Both my sons were born in Milton Keynes and they would never want to live anywhere else as there is an abundance of things to do. The city centre frequently gets packed with all the nightlife that it has available. I hope all these people who disparage Milton Keynes so vehemently never have to misfortune to become homeless and therefore would give their high teeth to get somewhere clean and affordable to live. There are now over 300,000 people living in the Borough of Milton Keynes and it is still growing. Are all of these citizens idiots for liking where they live? Of course not. Like every new city, as time has gone by there are a few parts that are now due for refurbishment but these buildings seem to be disproportionality shown in the final edit of this one sided video and none of the many types of the City's stunning architecture is incorporated. Also the whole thing seems to have been recorded early on a cold overcast Sunday morning just to manipulate the viewer's misconception even further. To help put this into some kind of perspective, since its inception over 2 million trees have been planted right across the new city and in the spring it becomes a city of green. Quite a few of the derogatory posts on your site are further influenced by the fact that the football team of Wimbledon FC, which because of the lack of planning permission to develop its ground to current standards as well as not having a big enough fan base (less than 2,550 attending) nearly caused the club into bankruptcy, therefore it had no other choice than to move to Milton Keynes in 2002 to save the club. This sparked an uproar from not only the local loyal fans of Wimbledon FC (which I can understand) but from anybody who likes to jump on the latest bandwagon. Anything to do with Milton Keynes as a whole since then has been subject to tons of unjust and unfair criticism so I would take most of the disparaging remarks on your site with a pitch of salt because they contain little or no value in fact, and most are sent by bigoted ignorant people who have no idea what a pleasant place Milton Keynes is to live and work in. I have viewed several of Jimmy the Giants entertaining videos and even though I have voted Labour (to the left) all my life and have lived through most of the recent history he portrays in his rants he sometimes completely misses the point, presumably so he can act like some sort of swearing 'shock jock' to get higher viewing figures. So, I hope this puts the fine, super successful City of Milton Keynes into some sort of fairer perspective and you won't judge it too harshly in the future without some balanced proof. NB - In Superman IV the 'United Nations Building, Metropolis' is in fact Milton Keynes Central Railway Station.
Kep in mind hes being very negative and roasting the uk for comedy. Milton keynes is pretty nice lol, theres nothing wrong with the place, the videos here are also during winter so it looks more drab, if the city was in the usa people would think its nice and quite walkable. Although I definitely prefer actual old historical walkable cities and city centres. I would also say his comment around 31:30 of places looking worse definitly doesnt apply to northern ireland and scotland imo, but does apply to small former holiday or resort towns in england, thats where all the youtubers like like to exploit poverty go to film and pretend the entire uk is falling apart when it just isnt.
The grid system isn't American or weird. Maybe to English people it is weird but l don't know why it would be? Glasgow in Scotland for example was built on a grid, as are many other old European cities.
Milton Keynes is basically a huge industrial and commercial estate. It works really well in those terms because it has really good road and rail connectivity. In terms of a place to live, personally I find it oppressive and depressing. None of the buildings feel "human". Much of the housing looks like storage for robots, not homes for people. I'm sure they are nice inside, but kerb appeal and the normal community is absent. It's a carbuncle. P.S. I like modern architecture done well, but this just feels cheap and nasty and because it's ALL brutalist concrete, there's none of the interest and charm you get with the juxtaposition of different periods and styles of architecture.
so i think i'm actually spoiled by being brought up in a town that's over 1000 years old. There's a nature to the whole shape of it. All started on the river bend, the Abbey and bingo a town starts, build a bridge and voila, we're rocking. I can't actually even imagine living in a place that didn't grow naturally. It must feel so horrible.
14:08 Le Corbusier 🥸
Swiss-French architect and designer.
He came from the land of banks and the land of beauty so he decided to build concrete bricks. Outstanding.
@@togerboy5396 The man designed great chairs but heartbreakingly grim buildings.
Chandigarh, innit.
The best feature of MK is the Grand Union Canal - You can navigate a narrowboat from one side of the city to the other and be surrounded by greenery the whole way !!
Holy heck.. I live in Milton Keynes, this is wild seeing you react to this..
Very much misunderstood as a place.. we may not have historical buildings, but Middleton and Milton Keynes Village go far back as the Doomsday Book. We’ve also got places like Bletchley Park where Alan Turing ans others work on the enigma machine reduced WW2 by as much as 2 years and saved potentially millions of lives, as well as put in the heavy work in progressing the modern day computer.
The grid system with roundabouts around each estate is easy to navigate, for a city of 260,000 we don’t have traffic anything like other towns and cities.
There’s so much green areas, lakes and wildlife, massive shopping centre and everything else ever need all close by and accessible.
Exactly! THIS THIS THIS.
Whenever i go to MK the stop and start grid system makes me wish i had an automatic gearbox
24:15
But to your observations I would add, why can’t every suburb in America look like that and feel like that?
I’ve heard about these places called “lifestyle centers”, Las Vegas has one near Harry Reid Airport, and everything about it screams “we’re going to tease you with something we could build right where you live to create a productive, bustling and thriving sense of place and community, but instead we’ll build it like a mall and make you drive to it”
It comes off as a big corporate tease.
Milton Keynes has a grid type road system .. similar to US cities.
The town I grew up in was also originally built using the American grid system. I don't think there are many of them about.
That gets mentioned in the video
I used to live in MK when it was a giant building site. I worked in an art shop in the huge shopping centre after I left school. Happy memories of my friends. My parents lived in Woolstone until they passed away last year 😢
Le Coubesier specified and produced a huge range of coloured paints for interiors
Still made under license in Switzerland they are beautiful
the X-scape actually has an indoor ski slope that's why its so big
I lived in MK for a year. I loved it. Even if you were new to the city, if you knew the grid reference for the housing estate where your friend lived, you could find it. Every estate had a parade of shops and a public space (pub, place of worship, community centre etc). Buses stopped when you flagged them down, rather than having to walk to a bus stop. And if you were driving, all the roads with no hosing on had high speed limits to speed your journey.
So you loved the roundabouts?
Just so you're aware, MK Dons, the football team from Milton Keynes, is the most hated football club in the UK, lol. Partially from it's connection to that town, but the reasons for hating them go deeper than that.
Hated, maybe, but more than Chelsea? Not sure about that 😂
@@John-Dennehy Nah...It's my club Man City.
To be the most hated football team in the UK, I think everyone must at least have heard of them
A certain generation of football fans hate the club due to the way it took another town's club , Wimbledon, as MK didn't have their own league club.
It is the most soulless club going playing in a near empty state of the art 30000 stadium in the bottom tier of the football league. Very Milton Keynes.
That "Wimbledon" team were my nearest football team when I was growing up.
Due to them not being given planning permission for their bigger stadium as two local authorities had to approve it but only one did, they decamped to MK. As they really wanted a bigger stadium. (The new stadium at the border of Wimbledon was finally built when I was an adult about 20 years later. )
They had a womble as their mascot as every sporting team from Wimbledon is allowed to use them without paying or even asking rights permission. (I played for a sports club in Wimbledon who did ask the family's permission which is why I know that.) When they decamped to MK they still used the womble. The author's family who hold the rights had to tell them to cease and desist then eventually threatened them with legal action to stop using the Wombles. The reason was simply they were no longer a Wimbledon sporting team.
Hi JJ, I've just subscribed to your other channel, I'll check it out later. I live in the North East of England and we're having a power cut due to 120 mile an hour winds of Storm Eowyn. Hopefully the power will be back on later.
That's 120mph in Ireland!
@@computerbob06 where i am ne england was over 100mph winds too. the house felt like it was pulsating.
To be fair to the xscape building there aren't many shapes you can build an indoor ski slope that don't look a bit weird.
MK Dons used to be Wimbledon FC (nicknamed The Dons), who had played in the Premier League and won the FA Cup. It is the only example of an English football club being franchised in the American style, so everyone hates them. When it happened, an entirely new football club- AFC Wimbledon, was created in protest
Such nostalgia going to the Point cinema 30yrs ago. A sad sight now which, to be fair, looked better at night as a red neon pyramid.
I remember going there when it was an odean before it closed (I'm 21) it was great
@@binkbonusgbr me too 30yrs ago. On a clear night I could see it lit up from my bedroom window 🔺️ 16 miles away on the beds/bucks border. Where they now have a big sign saying "Welcome to Milton Keynes" 🤬 locals are really not happy about that 😅
@ You could easily see the red pyramid while driving past MK on the M1, but seeing it from 16 miles away is amazeballs. Those were the days...
@@alexanderwiles2003 In a place as busy as MK, it's amazing they couldn't keep the doors open. A real shame
16:57
It looking a nice shade of blue doesn’t change the fact these buildings have all the aesthetic appeal of a prison.
Which might as well be what they are, prisons, modern workhouses for slaves to the pittance wage in the gig economy hellscape.
+ they might look colourful for the first decade or so, but after that they just start to look really dirty and significantly worse.
There's a big private corporate office estate on the South bank of the Thames in London. The outside areas are not unpleasant (not brutalist or modernist) and they're open to the public. There are some heavy duty durable modern sculptures dotted around which are just screaming for kids to climb on BUT if kids dare to do so, some officious private security guard will pop out from apparently nowhere and tell them off. It's like they're saying, "Come here to this relatively attractive area and have fun spending your money in the restaurants and shops (all chains) who we rent our space to but only have fun in the ways we approve of and we will control your fun."
Hi,
I think a basic difference between a US shopping mall and a UK shopping centre, is that they close in UK.
Having your 'city centre' close at 6:30pm is a problem.
Having modern buildings is great for 10 years, then that modern building becomes an obsolete box. Buildings that are hundreds of years old still look great. As you say, the Poundbury style is great and more new build areas should follow its lead.
I have a lot of family that live or lived in Milton Keynes. It's where I had my first McDonald's in the late 1980's. The free gift was a bucket and spade with sand molds in the bucket. I had to wait till I got home to play with it on the beach 😂
I once got lost in Milton Keynes. I was travelling the city on foot and this was before I had a smartphone. It took me nearly 25 minutes of walking, probably in circles because everything looks the same, to find a person who wasn't a dangerous-looking group of teenagers in hoodies hanging around in an underpass to ask for directions. An old woman with a walker pointed me in the direction I wanted. Was damn near a dead straight line and a single left turn. Hate it there lmao.
You hate it there because you couldn't find your way out of a paper bag yes?
@@computerbob06 lol!
Loved 'the sanctuary' there....mad times 🫠
I live in one of those new towns. Thamesmead in SE London. It had a very brutalist design when they started it, which is why it was used for shooting A Clockwork Orange. But now they are tearing down all the original flats and replacing them with new ones.
Le Corbusier. He was brilliant.
his concept was brilliant, it was instantly dumbed down and stripped to the bare bones and by god we all suffered from the horrid buildings that came from his idea.
I live in London. I use public transport because it’s easier and cheaper. I see people. We talk to each other.
Twelve years ago I gif off the bus after work, randomly bumped into a friend, went for a drink.
After a few more friends joined us, and a few more pubs were visited, I met the person with whom I’ve now been married to for a decade.
That wouldn’t happen if I was living in Milton Keynes (or most US suburbs).
Oh yeah! Turd Towns! I watched one yesterday... how dare he diss Cornwall ! 😅 He actually hated St Mawes! My flabber was gasted😮
35:22 JJLA: "If you live there, let me know"
Also JJLA: *doesn't read comments* 🙄
Superman 4: A quest for peace was filmed in Milton Keynes.
And it shows.
Enjoyed listening to this analogy of Milton Keynes . It could be great and when a building goes built it better .
My 10yr old son made me laugh today, he asked me would I be happy if I was friends with this man? (JJLA) I asked why? And he said because you watch him every day 😂😂😂 so of course I said “hell yeah”😂😂
You didn't say "hell yeah, I'd like to party with this dude"?😅
@@ThornyLittleFlower 😂😂 I wasn’t quick enough!! But I should of 😂😂
It did kind of work. I grew up in mk l, lived there since 1981. It's alot bigger than it used to be, houses are being built none stop even today.
Them houses are brought up the second they go on the market.
People are moving here in massive numbers, 40 years later.
How is that a failure?
The places Jimmy went in the city centre are always dead mid day. They are night life areas and only come alive at night.
If Jimmy went to Newport, Bletchley, Stony Stratford or wolverton (all areas within Milton keynes) he would get the old town experience.
A person from mk will say I'm going up city if they were going to the shopping centre, they would say in going into town if they was going bletchley.
Very different experiences. Both Milton keynes.
The only thing i remember about MK is plastic cows and all night raves😂
The cows were concrete.
@@MissSJ4429 Honestly i was too off my face coming back from the raves it could have been real for all know🤣
@ 😂😂😂
To be topical, on Sky News this morning they announced that this exact area is what they want to see develop into a UK Silicon Valley. 25 years ago they had the same plans for the Farnborough area, just before the 9/11 attacks in New York saw USA firms withdraw their investments over the pond. Many of the new offices built at that time have turned into apartment blocks of flats.
I thought it was Le Corbusier who coined the term 'form follows function'
I live 4 miles outside a city called Doncaster, if you draw a box around Britain and at the center of the lines draw a line across and one down, you'll see Conisborough, it has a castle, Doncaster is 10 minutes away by slow train. When I walk my dog each day on the spoil heap from the coal mine that was there (we actually call it a slag heap, it's in Yorkshire), I am 2 miles from the motorway passing the village where I live, it was all fields and trees "you get the idea", but now it's all giant wearhouses with 10 people working there, Doncaster used to be a coal, steel and manufacturing town employing many thousands, now Amazon and the like use it's location because it's so central to the motorways around the country, even the ex military airbase is opening up "again" for the same reason, those wearhouses are at least a mile long each, they are a blight on the landscape and only the few make anything out of them being there. The once Roman City is now dying from being so well placed.
By the way, take a look for
The Style Council - Come To Milton Keynes
Hey JJ you didn't clock the Grid System road layout (not typically British)
I remember going there as a kid, probably in the early '90s, to visit some work colleagues of my Father's, and we arrived in the evening when everything was lit up, and to someone who lived in a semi-rural area, it felt like the future - so glamorous and exciting, particularly the pyramid shaped entertainment centre! This style of architecture combined with slight novelty elements seemed to seep into business parks around that time, complete with glass pyramids, and colourful features on the buildings, usually complete with water/lakes, and outdoor spaces. Actually, I have occasionally worked as a temp in some of these business parks over the years, and they are quite pleasant places to work - particularly if you are working at one with nice outdoor areas. As you quite correctly said, if that style of architecture is well-maintained, then it can have an ok shelf-life, but the minute it starts to become neglected, you might as well bring in the wrecking balls.
Ahh I live down the M1 and as a kid it was so cool to go there. The point (triangle building) was the first multi-plex cinema. I went to see Encino man there. It’s was so cool. But now it’s horrible. I went recently as not been there for years. And I just wanted to get out as quick as I could.
His name is Le Corbusier lol
French is difficile!
@gwaptiva his real name is even harder to say 😂
@@gwaptiva
Something like that... C'est la vie.
Or “Lego Busier” to his friends (and Google) 😂
I’m glad to have lived for over 40 years in Milton Keynes. It’s a grate place to live and bring up kids. The atmosphere is one of the cleanest in the country. Plenty of places to walk and cycle safely. Plenty of natural wild life. It grate if you’re disabled. It’s actually difficult to find any contrary indicators.
I don't think Le Corbusier (a pseudonym) was the problem, though I preferred the work of Mies van der Rohe. In fact I think as an architect, he created some interesting buildings, but I think they work best as individual structures, rather than a whole town/city.
Great video JJLA 🤗 (I live in the UK and I've been to Milton Keynes in the 1980's but I've not gone back recently) In my opinion .....The best thing about Milton Keynes got taken away!......THE CONCRETE COW'S! Yep they had concrete cows🤣🤣🤣 Milton Keynes was a great idea but sadly it was badly executed, It's a brilliant location and with a bit of thought it could be a really great place to live.... so sad.
The cows are still there.
I live on the island of Guernsey. We have no malls, Starbucks or McDonalds but the town shopping area is still dying. Very high rents, no parking and online shopping. There is no central market for local produce. it's all out-of-town. Many British towns are like this now.
I imagine malls there, not shopping centres like the US calls malls but paved streets shut off to traffic for shopping and eating?
I grew up in a New Town in Scotland and as a kid I loved it, mainly because it was still under construction and was like a massive playground, but because it costs too much to maintain poor quality housing and shops factorys etc it becomes run down.
haha, the tangent at the end: not many people are fond of mk dons because it's one of the few clubs to move towns (from wimbledon in london), further adding to the "amerivcan" label
It's Le Corbusier, btw. 🙂 And the church most likely "Lady Lourdes", after the French pilgrimage destination.
oh the Irony of looking up Milton Keynes Dons - a club that was formerly called Wimbledon FC ("The Dons") in north west London, new owners moved the club to MK, changed the name, and lost the entire fanbase :'D the fans made a new club AFC Wilmbedon and they're now out performing MK Dons in the same league and could be promoted to the league above - one of their biggest sponsors and advocates is John Green (yes, that John Green)
...and MK Dons have a game against Wimbledon tomorrow as well....odd coincidence.
Wimbledon is in SOUTH WEST London.
The old Wimbledon FC's stadium was on the border of Merton and Wandsworth. One or the other kept refusing planning permission to build a stadium as their designs ignored the fact they were in a built up area. Other London football clubs learnt after a couple of planning rejections not to do that.
@@MsPeabody1231 my bad, i had Wembley in my head, used to live there haha
Shout out to cumbernauld town center added in there, multiple times voted Britain's ugliest/worst building, cumbernauld voted 3 times the most depressing town in Scotland and in a video of the top 10 worst towns in Scotland it was number 1. I no longer live there.
6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 Apart from our island, London, Portsmouth and Plymouth were bombed off the map for a long time after WWii
Check out ‘The Blitz’ America didn’t get plane over their land; we had 1 Spitfire to 6 Nazi planes
Watch Battle for Britain
6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38
Just up the road from me! I have always said it reminds me of America. It’s not that bad. My son lived and worked there for a while and he liked it, said it didn’t deserve the bad press. The roads are easy to drive on - something that distinguishes it from an American city is the amount of roundabouts! Loads of them. BTW It was awarded city status recently (I think).
Yep became a city in 2022, one of the last chosen by Elizabeth II.
I find it funny he talks about driving in MK and doesn't mention the numerous roundabouts.
😂
When I have had to visit Milton Keynes for work, I have always had a real sense of uneasiness that I could not put my finger on why. This video has helped explain that.
thats call peer pressure, making you believe its bad. Nothing wrong with the place especially these days.
@ You’re wrong. I had never heard of Milton Keynes when I first went there, so had no preconceived opinions about the place. I just found it odd.
@@ozzyprogdomino8815 I have a colleague who was born and raised there, and they hate it. We both work in London
@@WookieWarriorzI saw the adverts for MK as a kid like it was "the place" to move to. I was so disappointed when I first went there as an adult.
i literally watched first 13 secs of this and new str8 away its milton keynes i lived there for 22 yrs and a fun fact for you , you have a vid to do with rave culture well there was a music venue in milton keynes that became icon in the 90,s n early 2000,s called the sanctuary
my home town
Hi, you referred to the "local" football team MK Dons at the end of the video, as I recall that there was quite a bit of controversy when the team was started up in 2004. There had been a team in Wimbledon, NW London (a.k.a. the Dons) for about a hundred years who had done well for themselves in the 80's and 90's but still had a small old ground and ended up having to share a bigger ground with another team. The team owners decided to move the whole club/team up to Milton Keynes, the fans were not happy, not at all....The local fans started up their own team AFC Wimbledon and currently both MK Dons and AFC Wimbledon play in the same league.
Slight correction, Wimbledon is in southwest London. I grew up not far from Wimbledon, and I remember my dad often used to take me to watch the Dons play under the lights in the 70s. I think it was his attempt to get me interested in football, but sadly for him, it didn't work! 😆
@@andybaker2456Hello I grew up nearby in the 80s and 90s.
The old Wimbledon FC was so desperate for a new larger stadium so they spent about 10 years trying to get planning permission agreed to by Wandsworth and Merton Councils.
In reality it was the local people in the area saying "no" and they should have got their architects to work with people to say "yes" like all the developers do around where I now live in South West London.
In the end Wimbledon FC gave up and moved. They eventually changed their name saying they weren't moving back.
The new Wimbledon football stadium has now been built. It has loads of flats around it.
They filmed Supermans flight scenes above a green screen that was Milton Keynes.
Coming from a QS who deals with the construction money… first draft of design amazing 2nd thought to 20th; it is a box, they can’t afford curves and the dead space they create in buildings to let; Squares are cheaper and you can use ever part of it. No one wants to listen when you have to burst their bubble at Revision 3to7; but at 20 when they just need a building they can afford and only what is needed inside it; then they listen. After they paid their engineers & architects £1m to get from Rev 2 to 20 18:01
How did I know this was about Milton Keynes just from the title? 🤣
There is absolutely nothing in Milton Keynes for the 'College Kids' to travel all that way for. Both Oxford and Cambridge have vibrant (traditional) city centres themselves. Students in both places would be much more likely to travel to London if they wanted something different.
The 'Garden City' movement from earlier in the 20th century was much more successful in building new towns that were, and still are, pleasant places to live. Look up Letchworth Garden City, or Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire.
i lived in a Garden City in Scotland in my teens, these were properly planned and shaped towns that actually worked! :D loved it, but then i did look on to a beautiful park full of massive trees.
My wife is a historian on Letchworth GC and the Garden City movement. Don't get her started on the subject. 😂
She hates MK but loves IKEA sowe spend way too much time in. MK for my liking, ie any.
He meant it was built on a grid pattern when he said it was like an American city.
Look on google maps and add the cycle paths filter.
It’s all cycling
I like in another new town, Bracknell, which is Milton Keynes-ish, but not quite so bad. As a kid, it was great. Loads of green spaces and places to play without having to worry about traffic. It had dedicated cycle lanes from the outset, allowing you to cycle or walk through the town without having to cross any major roads. There were local shopping centres so you didn't have to go into the town for everything, and the offices and factories were all away from where people lived. In many ways, the design worked. Where these plans really fail though is splitting people needs into housing/working/shopping, and thinking these three are all people do, and these three all need to be separated. There's no organic growth. These roads through the town are lifeless because they are designed to be lifeless. Normally major routes would be lined with shops, pubs, houses, but instead there's just nothing but grass embankments. They had to demolish and rebuild the town centre that they built in the 60s after demolishing the original town centre, but there's nothing in it other than big chain shops.
Boo-hoo
Speaking of, you should react to the story of MK dons...
OMG I grew up in MK! Lived there until I bought my own house at 24 and moved away.
"At least they have tents." I feel like this phrase speaks volumes about capitalism
What does he think a warehouse should look like? A giant thatched cottage?
I moved to mk for a couple of years in the mid 90’s my son was born there.
Where we lived first if you lost your keys you could get indoors using a can opener.
It was awful and I couldn’t wait to move back home to Dorset ( I need the sea ) the hospital (well the drs and nurses) cared for my son brilliantly and I met some great people but Milton Keynes is a horrible place to live.
There’s ( or was ) concrete cows there and I’m pretty sure one was stolen at one point.
I lived in netherfield 😂tinkers bridge and eaglestone? There and grandbury estate? 95-97/98
I was about to ask about the concrete cows.
It's how I think of Milton Keynes - it's _always_ been to me: 'The Land of the Concrete Cows'. :-/
@@brigidsingleton1596 and the advert on its anniversary that had red balloons 🎈 that might have been on telly before I even moved there.
My memory of it isn’t the best 🙃
I live in the 51 year old ish New Town of Telford.
It’s not bad but there’s an equally amusing video promoting the town.
As it keeps expanding it’s less favourable. All new building is still car dependent.
Thankfully it’s not built with a grid system
Have you heard of Jane Jacobs and her books, especially The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Have a look
he didnt even mention the wormholes
Like Los Angeles, the original blueprint for Milton Keynes involved “spokes” of public transport - in MK’s case monorails and LA’s electric trains - radiating out from the centre to serve the neighbourhoods/suburbs. In both cases, dropped in favour of autos.
Monorail in MK? Never heard of that!?
MK has lots of buses
@@computerbob06 The US architect whose ideas MK's plans were based on had the surname Poole and his idea of neighbourhoods linked to the city centre by radiating spokes of public transit was labelled "Pooleville."
That building being demolished used to be the tax office and the DSS.
No one seems to have mentioned the concrete cows....
It’s Le Corbusier but his birth name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret.
lol neitherfield thats where i lived when i moved to MK from london i thought id pitched up to a 1970,s butlins or pontins holiday site ffs
The m40 goes straight past Milton Keynes and I have past prob 50 times in both directions, never been, and I work with a guy fro,m there, but after this have no appetite to ever bother stopping ! nope !
Bletchley is part of MK.
Why does everyone think Wimbledon is in North London? Its very famous postcode is SW19 - South West!
The concrete cows always warned me to keep on driving. Planning dept corruption at it's best. Dreadful place.
4:57 I never new; care about house prices 5:19
16:22 he is being a bit too harsh here. Xscape is primarily an indoor ski-slope so it kinda has to be that shape. The shape has also made it iconic. It does feel a little bit like he’s implying everything in MK is objectively awful which isn’t true.
I’ve just watched more of the video and felt I had to add that my son didn’t use his car when he lived in MK, he cycled everywhere. I don’t know what time that guy was there but I see lots of people when I’ve been there. That’s just not true.
Problem is the cycle paths are hidden away.
They don't feel unsafe though. Probably because they are lit up very well.
He was mates with Stafford Cripps rich are taxed poor were rewarded
You can't be not be not abused by doctrination.
It's a subtle art.
Milton Keynes is what happened when the British gave up on walking and fully embraced the automobile🤣
There are cycle paths which you can walk on under the town centre and around the outskirts of the town.
I ran a half marathon using some of them.
It was very weird as sometimes you were on a road at ground level then other times you went down a "hill" and were on a cycle path underneath.
Scarfolk
"Le Corbusier"
6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38
Yes the natural reason was we bombed to peices as unlike US we were the English Channel away from Nazi Ovcupied France, who gave up the last piece of Europe apart from our island, London, Portsmouth and Plymouth were bombed off the map for a long time after WWii
Check out ‘The Blitz’ America didn’t get plane over their land; we had 1 Spitfire to 6 Nazi planes
Watch Battle for Britain
6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38
Even the football team in Milton Keynes has no soul. They moved the team from Wimbledon (in West London, nowhere near MK) and changed the name and whole identity, so an actual community lost their football club and instead it was placed in the middle of this soulless dystopia, in a massive stadium that's almost always empty. They're seen as one of the most hated clubs in the UK for this reason.
Wimbledon would have moved anyway. In fact if it hadn't become the MK Dons it would have gone to Dublin.
@@vladd6787Wish they had gone to Ireland.
Least they would have gained a soul.
The grid system isn’t/wasn’t alien to the whole of the UK and to be fair Jimmy the Giant only referred to it being unusual in England.
Much of Glasgow city centre is based on a grid like system (my Dad used to claim that it’s what inspired New York, but I doubt that) but it’s still very walkable and architecturally beautiful…though due to when the infrastructure was essentially created, it’s not car unfriendly but the car isn’t in its inner circle of friends either so to speak. But there are lots of train stations, an underground system (that at least used to be known as The Clockwork Orange) and great bus services both local services, national services and UK wide services.
There are very different mindsets and expectations of what should be within walking distance and services that should be available in the UK and other than the most rural and remote areas, it’s expected that you should be able to live there without a motorised vehicle being a necessity, along with parks and what’s generally known as a corner shop (but it doesn’t have to be on the corner) where you can walk to normally in under fifteen minutes and get the basics that are likely to run out of quickly and/or easily like bread, milk, butter, biscuits and probably pick up a newspaper, magazine and snacks…some will even Cary some basic vegetables. These aren’t really expected by most in the US outside of people living quite centrally in the largest cities. Hence why Milton Keynes isn’t a desired place to live for probably the majority of the UK population. The property values are down to its proximity of other places and there is a decent chance that many of the residents there are there due to the compromise of it being close to but not in the city in which they work and not because they have deemed it a desirable or aspirational place to live.
Milton Keynes may be soulless, but it has concrete cows. Not many places can say that.
London commuter town.
It's now a city.
But like Reading, which is still a town, it is mostly full of commuters.
Meanwhile, nearly all US cities are even more dystopian than Milton Keynes
Any pubs there?
I didn't notice.
MK outside the centre is made up of old villages and housing estates.
You only really find them, so see them, if you get lost on one of the numerous roundabouts. (They add an extra turning due to building a new housing estate but your sat nav hasn't been updated.)
The most rundown ones were clearly built in the 60s and 70s. The older villages and newer housing estates look fine. They all seemed to have a local shop but I didn't check for pubs.
It seems to be missing somewhere for people to meet up which is a shame. I know about all the roundabouts and the fake cows !!
What a disgusting video. This is my HOME, I am SO SICK of people ragging on this place, usually people who don't bother to even investigate past the shopping centre, to see our canals, churches, high streets, and hilariously, they say there's no greenery, again, coming from people who BARELY go anyhwhere past the shopping centre.
Milton Keynes is the McDonalds of cities, it's the most ghastly, soulless hole, that can only be fixed by levelling it.
Moving sidewalks? I've got mobility issues, they might actually help me out and I'd much rather live without that kind of architectural atrocity - plus UK weather, they'd be broken more than they were working.
JJ - read the poem "Slough" by John Betjeman, it won't take long. Slough's a very simiiar town to MK and you might be able to find a video of Ricky Gervais reading it.
Slough and MK are completely different in their soullessness.
Slough is just warehouses and industrial estates. It feels unsafe.
MK is just roundabouts linking villages, some old, and housing estates, of different ages, together with a ghastly city centre. There are cycle paths under road level.
I ran races in both. I felt safer in MK.
i honestly dont think its that bad, the video makes it out like its way worse with silly music and editing. sure some places look odd, but thats only really because there flat bang in the middle of nothing. if the area was built up more they wouldn't look so out of place.
Please bear with me as this is the very first time in more than 15 years or so of watching UA-cam videos that I have felt compelled to make some sort of comment. As a 77 year old man who has lived in Milton Keynes for over 50 years I can't believe all the rubbish and lies portrayed in this tainted video and also that have been written in some of the comments. Before I moved to MK I had lived in Hammersmith (London), Hemel Hempstead (another New Town) and the ancient city of St. Albans and believe me Milton Keynes is by far the best. Firstly the need for reasonably cost housing after the massive destruction done in WW2 was urgent and Milton Keynes was the culmination and the largest of all the other New Towns that had already been constructed around the UK. If all these new towns were completed in the Poundbury manner the cost would have been phenomenal and the build time would have been massively slower. Milton Keynes was developed where it is because it is positioned half way between the UK's two biggest cities of London and Birmingham, as well as nearly equal distance between Oxford and Cambridge. MK incorporates several older towns and villages including the historic and picturesque Stony Stratford. It also has several Roman and Medieval remains, the Bletchley Park Code Breaking Centre from WW2, The Open University, and a myriad of other notable features that include the many vast parks and recreation facilities. The central shopping centre attracts people from miles around and is the longest in the UK and also it has been a blueprint for other shopping malls around the world. Both my sons were born in Milton Keynes and they would never want to live anywhere else as there is an abundance of things to do. The city centre frequently gets packed with all the nightlife that it has available. I hope all these people who disparage Milton Keynes so vehemently never have to misfortune to become homeless and therefore would give their high teeth to get somewhere clean and affordable to live. There are now over 300,000 people living in the Borough of Milton Keynes and it is still growing. Are all of these citizens idiots for liking where they live? Of course not. Like every new city, as time has gone by there are a few parts that are now due for refurbishment but these buildings seem to be disproportionality shown in the final edit of this one sided video and none of the many types of the City's stunning architecture is incorporated. Also the whole thing seems to have been recorded early on a cold overcast Sunday morning just to manipulate the viewer's misconception even further. To help put this into some kind of perspective, since its inception over 2 million trees have been planted right across the new city and in the spring it becomes a city of green. Quite a few of the derogatory posts on your site are further influenced by the fact that the football team of Wimbledon FC, which because of the lack of planning permission to develop its ground to current standards as well as not having a big enough fan base (less than 2,550 attending) nearly caused the club into bankruptcy, therefore it had no other choice than to move to Milton Keynes in 2002 to save the club. This sparked an uproar from not only the local loyal fans of Wimbledon FC (which I can understand) but from anybody who likes to jump on the latest bandwagon. Anything to do with Milton Keynes as a whole since then has been subject to tons of unjust and unfair criticism so I would take most of the disparaging remarks on your site with a pitch of salt because they contain little or no value in fact, and most are sent by bigoted ignorant people who have no idea what a pleasant place Milton Keynes is to live and work in. I have viewed several of Jimmy the Giants entertaining videos and even though I have voted Labour (to the left) all my life and have lived through most of the recent history he portrays in his rants he sometimes completely misses the point, presumably so he can act like some sort of swearing 'shock jock' to get higher viewing figures. So, I hope this puts the fine, super successful City of Milton Keynes into some sort of fairer perspective and you won't judge it too harshly in the future without some balanced proof.
NB - In Superman IV the 'United Nations Building, Metropolis' is in fact Milton Keynes Central Railway Station.
Only been 3 times, that was 3 times too many.
Kep in mind hes being very negative and roasting the uk for comedy. Milton keynes is pretty nice lol, theres nothing wrong with the place, the videos here are also during winter so it looks more drab, if the city was in the usa people would think its nice and quite walkable. Although I definitely prefer actual old historical walkable cities and city centres. I would also say his comment around 31:30 of places looking worse definitly doesnt apply to northern ireland and scotland imo, but does apply to small former holiday or resort towns in england, thats where all the youtubers like like to exploit poverty go to film and pretend the entire uk is falling apart when it just isnt.
You mean Torquay?
Or Paignton?
The grid system isn't American or weird. Maybe to English people it is weird but l don't know why it would be? Glasgow in Scotland for example was built on a grid, as are many other old European cities.
Milton Keynes is basically a huge industrial and commercial estate. It works really well in those terms because it has really good road and rail connectivity. In terms of a place to live, personally I find it oppressive and depressing. None of the buildings feel "human". Much of the housing looks like storage for robots, not homes for people. I'm sure they are nice inside, but kerb appeal and the normal community is absent. It's a carbuncle.
P.S. I like modern architecture done well, but this just feels cheap and nasty and because it's ALL brutalist concrete, there's none of the interest and charm you get with the juxtaposition of different periods and styles of architecture.