I had to walk through streets and houses that look like they have seen better days on the way to get a new cog for the regulator on my car. The weather probably didn't help either as it was quite misty today. Seen a few people on drugs or drunk in the streets around, places boarded up that had been there for years, shops have been closing down, some of which had also been there for years. I remember even looking at some photos in a book about how my area looked 50, 60, or 100 years ago and shows how much has changed in all that time.
Chatham near where I live in Kent seems different now than maybe it did when I was a kid. I even remember as a kid going to bed looking forward to going to town the next day as there seemed to be more interesting places to visit now there doesn't seem much anymore. We do lots of things online now but I still like to go out and visit shops and see clothes and books with my own eyes and feel the material and the pages rather than others seeing pictures on eBay or Amazon.
I seem to think the area where I live has an interesting history. It has a dockyard where Nelson's ship The Victory was built, there were medieval sieges at Rochester castle, a Dutch naval raid which came up the River Medway (like UK's version of pearl harbour), Charles Dickens lived here for a time and even wanted to be buried here until he was buried at Westminster abbey. There is even Will Adams born in Gillingham who was the first Englishman to reach Japan. The film the last samurai starring Tom cruise was based on him.