What’s the best thing about living in Birmingham? - Brummies give their verdict

In recent years, Birmingham’s pride as a city has soared due to numerous cultural events and icons gaining global recognition.

BirminghamWorld reporter Richard Gullick went into the city centre to speak to Brummies to gather their perspectives on Birmingham, and exploring their opinions on potential improvements for the city.

Chris said: “The best thing about living in Birmingham is the fact that there’s so much youth here. It’s the youngest city in all of Europe. So the demographic - there’s a lot of creativity, there’s a lot of new investment. And since last year - the 2022 games - it’s under a magnifying glass for tourism and people investing in creative stuff, studios opening up around Digbeth, so it’s very promising.

“But in terms of change, I wish there was a better allocation of resources and maybe making it a bit better in the city because there seems to be a lot of investment but often very dirty.”

Esher said: “I really like the variety of places to eat here. I mean, my family often come from Leicester to Birmingham for the restaurants because there’s so many good places here. So I think that I like the cultural diversity. I like that you can pretty much find anything you want here. I think it’s really nice.”

Jay said: “I like the hustle and bustle about it. How easy it is to get around with transport. And the shops are really good as well. It’s good. Change? I’d to have more bins and stuff, and like the litter and everything. That’s the main problem. But other than that, I think it’s quite good.”

Vlad told us: “The thing I like most is that it’s such a great place for diversity. So I’ve met people from all around the world and you wouldn’t expect that in normal places. And I like that I can mix around and I can learn from every single culture at my university. There are so many different students there and we can see where everyone is from and then just see within ourselves the differences between the places we’re from. So yeah, that’s really good. And the thing that could be improved I think would be some more infrastructure for people to just get around and have some meeting areas. I noticed that the city centre has been under construction for quite a few years now so I hope that will be towards the greater good”