I went into Cambridge city centre the other day, and was saddened by how much like every other run-down city centre it now looks, how dirty and smelly much of it was, how unremarkable in almost every way. Apart from some nice architecture around the old buildings, the city centre has very little to recommend it these days. We also seem to have more and more seasonal visits from tourists, language school kids and so on, just to make things a bit less pleasant for everyone else.

Part of the reason I hardly ever go into the city centre any more is that the transport system is so awful and expensive. At one point it was literally cheaper to park illegally and pay the fine promptly than to park in a major city centre car park! The new railway station and "new" trains into London have come in for plenty of criticism even in just a few weeks that they've been in use so far and, ironically, we're actually predicted to lose out from HS2 here as it pulls some of the attention over to the west.

There's still a scholarly feel around the university areas, of course, and a feeling of industry around the out-of-town science and business areas, but I'm not sure how much of that has anything to do with outside investment rather than the business and academic communities themselves.

If Cambridge is what "commitment" by the government to areas outside London looks like, they really need to up their game.

A run down city centre that's wall to wall with people and full of busy shops and cafes.

'...I hardly go into the city centre any more...'

Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.

Except that when I went in the other day, the shops and cafes weren't particularly busy, and the car parks and bike racks weren't full.

When it is crowded these days, it seems to be more temporary visitors like tourists and summer school kids than locals. Even the students aren't around as much as they used to be, as some of the university departments that used to be based in the centre have moved a lot of their work to sites further out now.

Fair enough. I've only been a few times in the last few years and it's always been heaving. You had to wait in queues to get a seat in a coffee shop an that was during the holidays.

The city centre has changed noticeably over the past few years, if my visits are at all representative. There's less of interest generally and in particular a lot of the old independent shops and food/drink places seem to have gone, so I tend to go elsewhere or online for most things now. Apparently I'm not the only one -- it's hard to imagine I'd have done what I did the other day without queueing even once if I'd tried the same thing even a year or two ago.

I find it striking that I have met friends who live nearby down in London more often than I've met them in Cambridge lately. I've also done more of my bricks-and-mortar shopping in the big shopping centres down London way than in my local city centre. There's so much more to do and it's just generally so much more interesting and alive (and, frankly, clean) that contrary to krona, I find it very different to the feeling in central Cambridge these days.