Quote Originally Posted by life on mars View Post
For a City of only 400k its remarkable for its amenities.

Arcades are lovely.

The new shopping centres are manufacture type nice I guess ?

The two main streets have suffered, as most have from the decline of high street retail ,(that's all if our fault)

Met an Aussue at the Ashes , he just couldn't get the number of stadiums and arenas we have .

We got a castle and gargoyles.

We got wonderful parks that stretch for miles .


We have a bay .

Tram system would nail it (I'd congestion charge cars to pay for it.)

Pubs have lost thier identify, though .

Music venues not great

Think we have sold out to the corporate chains (pity we hadn't copied the Bristol independence model )

However , I would struggle to live anywhere else.

I love my City.
Totally agree. Cardiff is very lucky with its general amenities as you mention, but the Council and to a degree the Assembly are doing their best to ruin the City.

You mentioned Bristol and we are really bad in comparison.

We just have to look at the proposals for the old Gaiety cinema on City Road. A stunning building that is going to be bulldozed, only to be replaced by a soulless, homogenized block of student flats.

In comparison, I went to the Everyman cinema on Whiteladies Road in Bristol and it's one of the best I've visited. It was converted from the old run down Whiteladies cinema.

It's such a stark contrast and Cardiff's lack of foresight means that so much of our past will be lost forever, instead of sensitive and appropriate conversions to create a nicer future.

Cardiff is full of corporates and global companies, like Starbucks and Costa.

I refuse to use them, as wherever possible I use independents.

I would rather help keep them in business and get the personal service from them, than some faceless company that doesn't pay a fair amount of taxes.

It's not a level playing field and Government need to address the tax side of things and Councils need to take responsibility to return to the previous levels of independents, as opposed to having the likes of Tesco extras and starbucks everywhere.