Do you think France is run down?

[nukenorman]

This is not a post to bash France but some thoughtful discussion.

 

I have been to a few countries in EU, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Spain, Poland, Belgium and France, Italy

I know France is considered one of the richer EU countries but to me everything seems run down there. Not just one particular city but everywhere. Buildings you can see not maintained, roads bad, weeds growing everywhere and lack of trees in suburbs of France and also cities. Everything just seems blaw  and depressing. Roads in towns, cities and suburbs also seem not so good.  Houses not maintained well. Everywhere you look you seem paint and stone chipping off buildings. You go over to Netherlands Germany and things are sooo much greener there. Roads are in excellent shape and TREES everywhere even in its major cities things are pleasant with tons of green and sidewalks made out of nice stone and buildings despite even old ones are kept up totch notch. Hop over to poorer countries such as Poland and Hungary and even they seem decently kept up. Italy and Spain was decent as well and older buildings not in bad shape.

What do you other travelers and better yet Europeans think? I have been to a decent amount of places in France and this was my over all impression. Other countries not as rich such as Spain, Italy, Poland etc seemed much more pleasant and kept up. 

This is not a Post on bashing  France but just was wondering if this was just my feeling and if other people got this feeling then why is France visited so much then. Been outside Paris in France  of coarse but I found Amsterdam being clean, green and with its canalas much more romantic then Paris .

.Took a screen shot in google earth of typical street  you see everywhere in cities and towns suburbs and this is what I am talking about being blaw and depressing and NO trees. This isn't even a typical one I found with run down buildings.

 

Edited March 18, 2017 by nukenorman

[Max Veteran]

I don't think it looks run down. There are no windows boarded up and it looks relatively tidy. There are similar streets in the UK - usually they were built in cities in Victorian times to house workers. Some of ours do look untidy and completely run down. You normally see these houses for sale for >£10,000 each in complete disrepair.

[nukenorman]

Here is another example of some buildings not so run down but still  run down but in a city center. In Denmark, even Spain, Netherlands hard to find buildings in city center run down like this. This example even isn't that bad. I guess with the picture above you see so many streets with on trees and in these other countries tons of trees everywhere as they planned out the cities nice to have the trees. I guess in my opionion these buildings look depressing and these are typicall all over the country. Hungary and Poland being much less wealthy seemed nice actually. Notice how many of the shutters are broken and messed up 

 

[nukenorman]

This is your typical dutch street just looks so much cheerful and tidy to me. Everything over there is maintained and it is very HARD to find a run down building there. Roads are impeccable there as well. Here is a photo of working class dutch living place just looks so much more uplifting . Notice they have trees  in about every working class row houses. France hard to find trees in these areas.  I couldnt upload more photos due to size limits so I posted a generic photo of houses you see everywhere there.

[Son_Of_Dad]

1 hour ago, nukenorman said:

I know France is considered one of the richer EU countries but to me everything seems run down there.

It's how you allocate funds not how much you have to play with. Look at the recent dam drama in California as an example.