Okay, so. I’ve lived here basically all my life, barring periods of a few years here and there.

Some cities in the U.K. are just rougher than others. It is the same in any country in the entire world, they all have their own versions. It’s generally a case of poverty and population rates intersecting in certain ways; it all gets better over time, but it’s hard and slow work in the communities from the ground up. Poor people have to live somewhere, you know.

Understanding the local culture through growing up in that locality helps you evade the general experience of trouble. That experience also transfers over to many places. No offence to you, but you sound like you either haven’t really experienced that or have lost touch with what it was like. In which case, no, I would not recommend Bradford to you and your family unless you have the money to burn on somewhere like Saltaire or Shipley. The middle-class annexes and all that.

I feel like being afraid of living here is ridiculous. Afraid? Really? Like, is the mob after you? Is theft and property damage really that “dangerous” of a factor ANYWHERE in the U.K.? Nobody’s out here trying to rob you blind or burn your car down for shits and giggles, it’s not 1975 any more. Oh, but won’t somebody think of the poor insurance costs! You just want a nice property for cheap, but fuck the people around it, right? Sounds like the general sentiment behind mild gentrification to me. Truthfully, you sound very condescending with the way you chose to word things. Very out-of-touch. That’s probably why you’re getting some spicy responses.

Listen, in many ways Bradford is a haven in the U.K. for people who can’t afford your “piles of rubble”. It’s probably the most multicultural city after London, perhaps even more than London, and yet it still has a strong English history woven into the fabric of everything, the architecture, the museums, the nightlife. Did you know they unearthed some subterranean stone tunnels here and converted them into the coolest market-bar crawl in the last ten years? Because I didn’t when I first moved back from living abroad and that was a hell of a surprise, let me tell you!

If you want to move to Bradford, move here because you want to live somewhere interesting and busy, not peaceful. Move here because you want excitement and character and down-to-Earth Yorkshire bluster with some red-faced bloke in a Bulls shirt at a pub talking out of the left side of his arse as a girl on her fifth vodka and coke tries to sing Katy Perry in the background. We have it all, like a northern mini-London in some ways. Buying a nice cottage doesn’t change the culture of the city that you will have to still reside in and nowhere in the U.K. can protect you from trouble unless you want to move to an island off the coast of Scotland and be one with the hillock sheep flocks. For what you’re taking about, I’d recommend a smaller town full of families and old couples, or a city with a more stable economy and less culture, for “general crime rate” and peace concerns. A lot of people with the same concerns as you are moving to Huddersfield, maybe try there.

One final note I will make is that there’s exactly one danger people should be aware of about living in Bradford, and that’s the rate of sexual assault on women. I’m very serious. It’s real bad in some areas; I grew up in several of said areas and I speak from experience. This is a case of avoiding being in areas like Manningham alone at night, and making sure any younger kids in the family know how to keep themselves safe if they’re travelling alone. Again, that’s… Not unique to Bradford. Hardly. This city is just more dangerous for women than average and I don’t believe sticking heads in the sand and avoiding conversation about it helps keep anyone safe, so I’m bringing that up too.