Crap town? Hull is a City by Burt Svinansplann

The snobbish criticisms levelled against the city of Hull in its status as the UK's number one "Crap Town" focus on the effects of its poverty. This poverty, and its social and cultural signifiers, is the result of years of political mismanagement at both a local and national level. The men who have been chosen to represent the city's interests over the years have represented only their own.

This has led to the erosion of the social, cultural and economic fabric of the place. Ask the fishermen who lost their livelihoods as a result of Ted Heath's policies on fishing rights. Ask the Audit Commission who found that the Hull Council's performance is among the very worst in the UK.

Hull doesn't find itself in this condition by accident, we've got the well-paid men in the chambers and the Commons to thank.

So why stay here? Personal reasons: I am proud to call Hull home because the low buildings and wide streets mean Hull has some of the best sky views of any city in the country. We've got two rivers, and one of them is wider than the Damascus, the Ganges, the Euphrates, or the Nile.

Finally, I've lived in the London suburbs - where most Londoners exist - and I'd take the all-too-human community of HU5 over the lonely desolation of suburban commuter ennui any day of the week. I've left the city before, and I may leave again, but until then I'm happy to stay here and relish the disappointed beauty that inspired Larkin to write the finest poetry of the 20th century.

Photographs copyright  ©2003, and courtesy of Mo.

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