I,m sitting here watching this from Milton Keynes, I can honestly say that this video does not show the city as it is. I,m sure the video was filmed during the Covid lockdown explaining the dystopian look of the place .

After graduating, I lived in Milton Keynes for 35 years. It has been a fabulous place to live with great work opportunities and fabulous access to transport hubs. It is great for kids. Our local pub was built 300 years before the reign of Henry VIII. The city is very green with fabulous open spaces. It has over 4000 miles of cycle paths allowing access all over the city without going on roads. It has been a really nice place to live. His attitude is incredibly negative and doesn’t reflect what it is like to actually live there.

America is one big "new town"

I live here and love it. It is not empty of people. Milton Keynes was built around 13 villages & towns so has modern and old

Most towns in UK took 1000 years to build, it can't be done in 10 years, societies grow they are not made overnight

MK is just up the road from me. I’ve often been shopping there and my son lived and worked there for a year. Funnily enough I always think it reminds me of the US! Also this video is hugely exaggerated, there are people everywhere. I’ve never been there and seen an absence of people. It’s really not as bad as he’s making out.

Went to the Milton Keynes bowl twice in the 90's for a concert. All I can remember about the drive were the endless roundabouts.

We live in MK (in a 250 year old farmhouse!) There is the old in amongst the modern city. He didnt venture off the grid into the housing areas which have lots of green spaces and are often built with curved roads and lovely landscaping. He should visit here now, in Spring. Even along the grid system daffoldils and tulips abound in their thousands. Yes, no people on the roads because there is an entirely separate system of "redways" for pedestrians that go over and under the grid and link the "boxes" of the grid (each sq mile is a housing estate, the grid road intersections are all roundabouts). MK has all the dining, shopping theatre and cinemas you need plus activity sports (skiing and skydiving come to mind) and is located just 40 mins from the edge of the Cotswolds. London is just 30 mins away. No, im not a fan of modernist architecture either but at least here it is in its place. It is meant to be modernist. It was all the rage when it was designed. Oh, and the point was a famous landmark of MK. They want to pull it down but there is an attempt to preserve it as it was an important landmark in the past. Hence it is sitting empty right now. When I moved here it was the mutliscreen cinema, nightclub and restaurants and the place to go. We all think this is our US style city!

I was born in the area and have lived in various parts of Milton Keynes for 69 years, and I love living here- as do at least 80% of the near 300000 people who live here. The video is about 5 % accurate in its representation of Milton Keynes, and in no way reflects what it is like or what is like living here. Recently a major survey by Compare the Market ranked Milton Keynes as number one for the best city in the UK to live in. The grid roads system with all intersections as roundabouts keeps the traffic moving fast at all times. This is why when people drive through they don’t see any people - it’s deliberate - everything is hidden from the grid roads by trees and bushes. This dramatically cuts down traffic noise and pollution from all the locations where people live and walk. There is a network of cycle and walking routes that completely avoid the grid roads - around 400 miles of them . Huge areas of parkland , river valley parks , large lakes, 3 historic woodlands, and fields of sheep - all within the defined 30 square miles boundary of the city. Two rivers and the Grand Union canal wind there way through the city. One of the highest amounts of parkland of any city in the UK, and 22 million trees planted. A wide range of sports are available, two large multiplex cinemas, one major theatre, plenty of pubs - some hundreds of years old - usually one in each of the dozen or so historic villages that still exist within the city. Many restaurants and pub restaurants. Also three old towns in the city. All of the above is within the 30 square miles of the city boundary. Central Milton Keynes is our ‘square mile’ - not just the shopping centre- at one end a large park, then the large shopping centre, bars, restaurants, cinema , theatre, indoor ski slope, various other sports and entertainment area, commercial area, then more restaurants and bars and finally MK station where you can travel to many destinations on fast intercity trains ( eg London 30 minutes- 50 miles away). Milton Keynes was not built in ten years , it took 40 years to complete all the original plan, and it’s still being developed. One thing Milton Keynes is NOT - a dystopian city .

The Reason the Xscape is so tall is because its an Indoor Ski Slope! He forgot to mention that part!

I lived in Milton Keynes and it was one of the nicest places to live. It regularly polls as the population with the highest happiness in the country. It’s got more trees per person than any city in Europe. Lots of wide open green spaces and parks. All well maintained by a trust that earns it income from renting out shops in the city. You can drive around the city without traffic jams and park up outside the main city centre for relatively low cost.its got the highest GDP per person outside the city of London. There are some older estates in the city that are a bit grim - all concrete and plastic, but the planners soon learnt their lessons and gave people what they wanted.

I live about 25 miles from Milton Keynes and regularly go there to shop. Its car friendliness is the main reason, particularly compared to the closer to me car hating Oxford. I can park all day in MK within easy walking distance of the shops for not much more than it would cost me to park for an hour in Oxford, that's if I could actually find somewhere convenient in Oxford to park at all.

Milton Keynes, like any attempt at a New Town, has always had a bad press, and never more prejudiced than this crazy video. Showing film footage from years ago bears no resemblance to the Milton Keynes of today. You've been 'had' to large extent here, Joel. Now established it's a pretty nice place to live! But sadly its reputation as a disaster lives on. I'm not from Milton Keynes and have no emotional skin in the game to make me want to defend it. But I do know.a very prejudiced piece of fool reporting when I see it. Take a trip there on your next visit. And then get back to us!

It is the place where I was born, and I completely agree with this video. It's also the reason why my family and I moved out of Milton Keynes. When I was younger, everything appeared different to my eyes. However, when I revisited the place, I could notice the changes, or maybe I was not ready to see it earlier.

I’ve lived in Mk all my life and I grew up with a great sense of community. The city centre is very different to the individual neighbourhoods. I also think the videos shown didn’t do the city centre justice. The city centre is quite lively on a weekend or a summers day. Also the grid system and the under paths are great for the youth. Most teenagers walk from place to place. There’s also lots to do in terms of leisure. Most people that seem to be unhappy with MK don’t even live here.

I lived in MK for five years. Loved the place! Would move back tomorrow if I could. Easy to get around. Convenient etc..

I skipped through this as I know Milton Keynes is a delightful place, all areas have off road cycle lanes, often cycling through parks, its clean, spacious and famous for its concrete cows and roundabouts. It has nice house and an area in the centre that often has wonderful shows and acts. I think the man in the video should get out of his car.

Like you, I watch a fair bit of British TV. For years, I've been hearing Brits make jokes about Milton Keynes, but somehow never got around to even looking at some pics of it. This video was a real eye-opener. On another note, I've been watching your reactions for 2 or 3 years now. It's been really interesting watching as you have transformed from someone who seemed rather uninformed (NOT the same as stupid) about the world in which you live, to someone who has strong and well-founded opinions. Well done Joel. Keep it up.

Lived in posher South Bucks then work took us to MK. Had a fab house with boat and mooring then another huge eco home. Lived very well, did not experience much negative, very clean place, lots of green places. Left in 2002 but had nothing but positive experience. Much misaligned

Milton Keynes in my head will always be a rave venue called The Sanctuary which was legendary within jungle/hardcore circles. Funny enough they knocked it down and now its an Ikea so ive still never ventured further than this spot. It is very easy to get to but weird as its a grid Square with letters and numbers for roads. I'm sure the housing areas have some community, sure the city centre is dry but he only covered the shops really

Some of the scenes that were supposed to be set in America in the movie Superman IV a Quest for Peace were filmed in Milton Keynes.

I was brought up in Milton Keynes in the 80's 90's. Lived there as an adult until the early 10's. Moved away to Bexhill-on-Sea and Hastings where I am today. Growing up there all this was just the norm. Going to other towns with their more standard layouts with their high streets seemed odd to me until I realised that actually they do work better as a community focused place to live. You would seldom bump into anyone you knew in the city and you would just go to places you needed and go home again. Now Hastings I know gets a bad rap which in some areas of the town I can see why, but it is actually a great place to live. Nower days I love ambling through town just seeing what takes our fancy and bumping into people and seeing the bustle of people meandering through the high street. Gives it a more connected feel, a sense of community, which Milton Keynes really lacks. I return to MK to see family and I can see living from the outside of the place how quickly it is becoming more dated and dilapidated on each visit. I'm pleased to have moved away and pleased to have been brought up in MK because it did always feel safe and there was a lot of green space to be a child. But it certainly lacks that "soul" that you get from older more conventional towns and cities. Swings and roundabouts with this place. (pun intended)

There used to be more roundabouts in MK than people at one point😆 The joke is apparently the road designer left his coffee cup over the plans and left cup rings all over it, so they built them as roundabouts 🙌😂 This video is fascinating, slightly exaggerated but still fascinating. Great content ✌️

My daughter and son in law lived in MK. As they were both disabled it was very easy to get around and well thought out. You can walk everywhere without crossing a road and there are lots of green areas and trees. It may not have the history, but for some people it is ideal.

Strange that Jps frowns at Milton Keynes, when the whole of America is based on the theory of putting vehicles first. There's some amazing aspects to Milton Keynes, it's very green and lots of open spaces.

Milton Keynes has everything a person wants. Places to entertain, outdoor spaces to exercise, great cycling network. It also has a great artificial real snow ski slope.

Milton Keynes reminds me alot of Basildon, another new town, very rough town in parts but unlike Milton Keynes hardly any businesses survived there. Surprising for a town near London not sure if it's changed in the last 10 years but i was dyer

Skelmersdale, in Lancashire, was built on the same principles to house the overspill from Liverpool, and turned out much the same as Milton Keynes. A lot smaller and less well known, obviously, but a lot of this would be very recognisable to Skem residents.

I remember visiting Milton Keynes as a child in (probably) the early '90s, and as someone from a semi-rural area it felt so glamorous and modern - particularly 'The Point' entertainment complex! You should have a look at Poundbury, the town built by King Charles - there are plenty of KZfaq videos about it.

Didnt Milton Keynes have concrete cows in the fields around the city? 😆

The expression on your face trying to make sense of it all.. hilarious! 😂

I've seen alternative documentaries where it showed people moving out of their destitute slums in london wuth no toilets or separate kitchen and going into (at the time) nice new housing with toilets, kitchens, plenty of bedrooms and a garden. It's fine looking at these houses now from a position of relative affluence

I used to be a Commissioning Engineer and was based at home near Portsmouth, however my office was in Bletchley, part of MK. When I went to the office I would stay in Stony Stratford which is a lovely old town, but now part of MK. I would avoid the centre, no need to go as Stony was great for shops , pubs and restaurants.

If you just look at the centre: sure. But where the people really are, the villages around the centre, are very nice and liveable. The whole city is way more than the centre.

Milton Keynes used to have concrete cows in a field as you passed the outskirts on the M1 motorway. When the centre was finally built in the 1970s, it was futuristic and supposedly the new modern thing. It looks like it barely made it 40-50 years before replacement in the centre. Weird place. Le Corbusier was the mind behind the projects in Haarlem New York, I believe the architects were influenced by him. Like the town near me Crawley, another new town, but in the case of Crawley, they did not use the grid system so it is more organic. Crawley was one of a number of villages in an area. They just filled the gaps and built a town centre. Now has only a third of the population of MK around 110000. My town borders Crawley to the North, and it has grown expedentially too.

Made a video about MK for a uni project last year and definitely felt very eerie just walking about it as I literally saw no one walking about the city apart from in the shopping centre

I worked in Milton Keynes for 10 years though I lived out in the countryside. The city is like a series of interconnected villages with the centre as a central hub. I thoroughly enjoyed working there, driving around was easy and then you had a shopping area, entertainments area, area with restaurants and bars, and easy to walk and cycle around in safety. Yes it is new and it is modern and its is green and full of parks. Just because this guy doesn't like it does not mean it is all bad, it is just his opinion.

I visited MK in 2012 and it seemed good to me. Lots if wide open spaces, green areas, cycle tracks and footpaths. It also seemed to have very well developed leisure services, full of people and busy life. Is it a conventional British town - no. But no-one would expect that would they? If you put that out of your mind and see it for what it is and what’s there for the people who live there, it seems pretty good. That’s the impression I got anyway.

MK is great mate, you are welcome to come visit, followed you for years and will show you round the city any time. My family have lived in north Bucks since before MK was founded and its immeasurably improved, there are facilities, services, jobs, transport and it was all well designed and planned so it actually works unlike many other UK cities. We have parks maintained by the Parks Trust and organisation set up and funded by the development corporation, we have lots of public art paid for by the developers of the city, we have 20+ million trees, water management designed in to prevent flooding, community partnership that owns plots across the city to enable community uses like community centres, we have preserved the original towns and villages that were here and enhanced them by sympathetically providing barrier parks to allow them to retain a rural feeling while at the same time allowing services which wouldnt other wise be possible like pubs and schools (had the city not arrived). Obviously everything isnt perfect but its a wonderful place that works and Im quite frankly enraged by this disgraceful video, sorry you had to react to something so misleading. Love your content, really quite sad this video exists at all.

Two issues here : Hemel Water Gardens is still there. He went from the Water Gardens to what is now the pedestrianised Marlowes ( 2 different areas ). Second? Look at Willen Lake & MK Redways rather than the big 1960s brutalist blocks in the .. er .. less salubrious areas/ great honking shopping centre in MK. Appreciate he’s doing it for the video, but MK really isn’t that bad… Also the New Towns ( Have a look a Stevenage 👀 ) were partly overspill and partly because so many people had had their areas destroyed in the previous years.

It was very much a purpose built town and i remember it being built although i lived a fair distance away in Birmingham i couldn't wait to go down to see it. It's not as bad as this video is making out. A lot of town's and cities have ugly buildings if you search enough. The planners also put some concrete cows in a field which ended up being a tourist attraction lollll.

In the late 80s and early 90s I drove a Truck for a company delivering bricks and blocks all over the UK and Milton Keynes was a regular place to deliver to sometimes two or three times a week. As it was in the days before satnavs, if I didn't have town map of somewhere I wold ask directions at a fuel station, post office, postman or local shop or even the locals walking down the the street. I soon realised i needed to buy a map as I only ever found one fuel station and never any shops or people except when you got to the local shops in each small area. The only problem was the map soon got out of date as there was so much building going on I then learnt that the roads as well as names had a V or H with a number on them. V standing for vertical and H for horizontal, V-roads are named as "Streets", and H-roads as "Ways" so I found it fairly easy from then on and as the map covered the hole area and had most of the main roads in with lots of areas in the middle empty so as I delved to a new area I just drew the roads on and road names. I always fancied living there as it seemed a nice open green area but didn't like the centre much but as Id grown up near Stevenage and later on Basildon these new towns were all fairly much the same in the centre.

You can get to London Euston by train from Milton Keynes in 30 to 40 minutes.

I grew up in Bletchley a small town which is now part of MK. MK was made by joining the small towns Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony Stratford and all the surrounding villages to create the New City òf Milton Keynes

I live in MK and have done for over 20 years. Everything he said in this video, I believe every long term resident has thought at some point, however, it is very different to everywhere else in the country. If you only film the empty abandoned buildings, and every city has them, then it will look crap. Whilst I agree the shopping centre lacks individual shops, it is one of the largest in the country and quite pleasant and impressive as a structure inside. What is amazing about MK is the 300 miles of dedicated foot and cycle ways away from the roads and the amount of park land. Do I like it? Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. It can feel like living in a Motorway Service Centre and you find yourself noticing things like wonky street lights you would never notice anywhere else. But, like most things, it looks better when there are people about, the sun in the sky and there are leaves on the trees. MK is not pretentious, it can be quite calming, and maybe even a little 'Zen' to walk around. If I had a magic wand, then yeah, there's stuff I'd change about MK, but you can say that about anywhere. X

I live near live in a town called Irchester which is a 25-20 minutes drive, lots of people go to the MK shopping centre and its full but I definitely agree, it looks dystopian

Hello Joel. I went there for the southern qualifiers for the wargames world championships, as I helped out a university pal by playing for his team, despite being a northerner. It was very different to my home city. The event was at The Open University. I reckon that would be something for another video.

I've been to Milton Keynes once or twice and just find it feels very odd, like how many roundabouts does one tow need?. But the two or three people I know who grew up their said it was a great place to grow up. They could be lying but they seemed to genuinely be proud to be from there.

When the town was newly built it was a little grim. Certainly lacks the quaint charm of the rest of England. However now bedded in and greened it's a very relatively new but nice place to live and work.

I went to MK in the early 80s and it was one of the first big malls in the UK at the time and was very impressive. But you're right they're everywhere now and the internet is just easier. Another place you might want to look up is Thamesmead in London which was built on marshland at around the same time as MK. There are historic videos on YT about it. It was used as a dystopian setting even when it was first built, in the movie Clockwork Orange.

Basically, the main part of Milton Keanes , outside the old vilage, is just like most of the USA.

Lived in Milton Keynes years ago, the best word to describe it is efficient, and it has some nice ideas. And there are people; I used to cycle to work every day, and the pedestrian paths (which are under and at the side of the roads) were packed. It was so easy and quick to cycle or walk anywhere, and there is no worry about cars. I used to walk back from the City Centre (there are lots of pubs there too), to my house on the outskirts, and it was a nice walk. Incidentally, the original village is still there. I took a wrong turn walking home (drunk) one night, and ended up right in the middle of the village - that was pretty surreal, jarring and trippy, as it is literally just a small old village in the middle of the city (albeit surrounded by fields).

I lived near to Milton Keynes and what this person is not tell you is this!! Once you drive in to it all the walkways are covered over and you then see loads of folk walking around! Yes it looks baron but once you are in the main shopping centre! there are a heck of a load of people and it is almost over powering! I agree you can get mixed feelings! what it does not tell you is this! London was bombed to bits a the government had to recreate new housing for lots of folk that were in London and it did that for all those folk! I don't doubt it could have been differently but it sort of served a necessarity be it, bad or good! Of course we can see it needs changing but we are looking back it at and that is the mistake that we should realise when they designed it!!

I was unfortunate enough to work in Milton Keynes in the late 90’s for 3 months. My first impression pulling up to CMK (Central Milton Keynes) shopping centre was that I’d arrived in a really bad sci-fi movie. Soulless is the kindest thing to say about it. Thankfully, I never had to return.

I went through Milton Keynes once on my way from Darlington to Hastings, it was via a coach so I never had any say in the matter. This was back in 2014 I was going down south for my mother's funeral, anyway when we went through the town my first were... " Where the fork am I now" I was expecting to hear Ghost Town by The Specials to start blaring out of somewhere. It wasn't until we were leaving the town that I found out where we were as a sign said something like 'thank-you for visiting Milton Keynes', I'm glad on the journey back a few days later it was dark, though saying it did look better in the dark due to the lights. I think all the new towns that were built under that have become shite buckets, near where I live in Darlington you have Newton Aycliffe about 6 miles up the road and round the corner. Over the years it's more or less become a ghost town, when I first moved to the North East and stayed at Newton Aycliffe for a couple of weeks, as far as I could work it out Tesco's was the highlight of the town.

It was built post war, while the economy had not really recovered. The housing in London was terriblle -outside loos, no bathrooms etc. For those people this was amazing. Initally people from 50miles around went there just to shop, or go to the IMAX cinema. Trouble is, it was built with less durable materials. Also the industries it attracted lacked the long term foundations you get in big cities. Without that foundation it is hard to attract the high income people who want to invest in the city. It has an excelent theatre and Bletchly Park nearby.

I’d like to inform that most people go to Mk center and it is probably the biggest amount of people you can see in Milton Keynes (there are some places in the center that aren’t chains but you have to look for them)

In Scotland we have Cumbernauld and Livingston. Both built around smaller villages. I guess they are ok in the summer, but in Scotland that lasts for two days in August, so there's that. In normal Scottish weather they are just clumps of damp grey brutalist buildings, many empty, surrounded by roads. The outlying residential areas seem nicer with more space, but amenities and common community areas are a problem - unless you like getting mugged. I think Amazon sell stab vests, which is handy.

This seems at times a very old film, but I notice the delivery robots. But Milton Keynes has been my home for the past 40 years, it’s beautiful in its own idiosyncratic way, not a tourist town, but a town to grow up in safety and near to nature, there is greenery everywhere, you can’t tell we’re the city begins and the country side ends. I thank God for Milton Keynes having grown up in Birmingham and lived in London for several years. Not so car centred but village centred. This is the fastest grown towns in the UK, it has always had the lowest unemployment rate in the UK never getting much than 2.5 to 3 percent

Milton Keynes looks so American 😢 I enjoy your videos and proud to see a young person interested in other people and very aware of our differences and similarities. One last thing… it’s couldn’t care less. When you say could care less, means you do care as you are able to care less. Again thank you for your reaction videos.

Used to use MK as a bus transport hub,before visiting it properly,a few times,as a Univ. friend lived there for a while with his family;and admittedly MK is a weird (revamped) urban set-up. 🙄 As noted,from the vid,the original town and nearby villages are now immersed in an continuous 'concrete jungle' ,where travel is done by car or bus,although it does have some excellent cycle-lanes. 😐

I am somewhat Shocked to see Tents INSIDE Milton Keynes! ...I have passed through there MANY times with all of my camping gear, - I always pitched up on some Grass around the edges of the area....

My dad lives in Milton Keynes, it has great fishing lakes and you can drive fast on nearly all the roads

There's a very good reason why the king, many years ago, was such a critic of modern architecture. Modernist architecture is soulless and completely devoid of imagination. Places like the Royal Crescent in Bath prove that you can have uniformity and beauty at the same time.

At 25:48 the building he is pointing at contains an indoor realsnow ski slope multi screen cinema ten pin bowling arcade high ropes climbing walls restaurants bars and shops .

I lived in LA for a year when I was 16 & when I walked to shops ppl in there cars kept stopping asking if I was ok ....because no one else was walking! ...I had some amazing times in M.K in snow dome & shopping centre , got robbed in Argos though !

It is pretty soulless. I lived there for a while. Nothing much outside the centre. Each residential area has it's own local shop and that's about it. Everything else is in the centre. For pubs you have to look elsewhere, just some bars, not pubs, in the centre. It's built on a grid system, with the roads named either 'h' or 'v' (for horizontal- E-W or vertical - N-S) followed by a number. Very American, in fact! Having said all that, it's nowhere near as bad as the video makes out. It's a pleasant enough place to live. Low crime levels, lots of green spaces and you're always close to beautiful countryside. The shopping a leisure facilities in the centre are first rate and none of it looks nearly as bad as these shots make out. It's like they've deliberately chosen the greyest day they could and then gone for the worst shots possible, in certain sites that are in need of maintenance etc. It's a very misleading video.

I still don't understand the modern "building standard" in the UK, where buildings just deteriorate so quickly. I grew up in a little Cornish miner cottage that was over 600 years old. The ceilings were low and you had to duck your head through the doorways, but the structure was rock solid and not going anywhere!

I went to some pretty cool raves in Milton Keynes in the early 2000's! 😊 Good times!

I think the point he didn't make was there was nothing there to start. It was just fields and in the 60's and 70's when Milton Keynes was a thought and under construction it was very modern and clean. These families were moving out of inner London slums and they were mostly council houses being built.

This video you are watching, is hideously misleading. I have spent a lot of time in Milton Keynes and find it a very pleasant place. One big advantage is, unlike most U.K. cities, it doesn’t hate the motor car. But it’s absolutely fine. This guy is well off the rails.

The biggest expression of Milton Keynes is the University. It houses the Open University which is the largest online and distance learning university in the world. Lits of students but you dont need to go to the campus lol

When I was very young, I used to visit my uncle who lived in the original Milton Keynes - the village - it was very small with one pub in the middle of the countryside. Little did I know at the time that it would turn into one of the largest new towns in the UK. I understand that people do like living there, even though the (privatised) city centre is a mess, ruined by head-in-the-clouds town planners, architects, and politicians. It also houses the Open University which is was a very successful project opening up remote degree level studies to a wider population than was usual at the time. I do think the presenter has an unjustified negative attitude to the town, although he does make some valid points about the brutalist architecture in the city centre

i live in enfield but ive spent some time in milton keynes, an the video is somewhat misleading, all the areas the video shows are NOT residential areas they are the business areas, the building with exposed metal frame is a concert venue where i went to see MMA some years ago. the huge semi circle building is an massive indoor ski slope, alot of the areas shown are trading estates and look exactly the same as trading estates where i live enfield and everywhere around the UK. every time ive been to milton keynes its been for leisure and ive had a great time, i went to the sanctury in the1990s raving, went to watch MMAevents in the 2000s, been snowboarding there and went to willen lakes wakeboarding many times, its a great place for leisure, but theres one thing that really does ruin it, if you cant drive its totally a waste of time.

My driving instructor used to take me to MK, to practise roundabouts.

Soulless is the word that springs to my mind.

I occasionally worked in MK and liked it.

I've lived in MK for about 10 years now. I'm not it's biggest fan, but it does have its plus points. I'm two minutes walk from fields, lakes, the canal. This was great during lockdown, I could pop there during my lunch breaks and sit by the canal and look at herons fishing. Or go out and pick wild garlic. When my kids were younger, I could let them go out to play without worrying about them mixing it up with traffic, they could just go out and explore and be kids without any supervision. Our local pub is about 10 minutes walk away and dates back about 200 years. I can walk to the nearest train station and be in London in 40 minutes. Or finish work on a Friday afternoon, jump in the car and be in France, drinking a bottle of red a few hours later. I can jump on my bike and cycle the Red way (all 13 miles of it), passing through a mixture of old villages, lakes, estates, canal paths, parks and fields. The MK International Festival has some great things going on. But yeah, other than that, it is a bit soulless. Most things are a chain pub/restaurant/shop. I have to drive to most places. My kids have grown up, this place has served its purpose. Time to move on I think.

Went to MK a few years back to film people buy wallpaper (not joking). The moment i left the train station, I was immediately struck by how grey it looked - and I live near Croydon. It was like I had stepped into a Soviet town of the 70s, or as an extra in the film Dredd - dated and brutal, or futuristic and... brutal. People were friendly, though.

Next time you're over Joel, you might like a look for yourself. Walk from the station through the shopping centre to the tube as he calls it. In there you will find a ski slope, bowling alley, cinema, shops and restaurants. MK is nor as grim as he makes out.

There's a song of the 1960s by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - "I'm The Urban Spaceman" which came about when one of the band members was staying in a hotel in Milton Keynes. Legend has it that when they opened the curtains in their hotel room in the morning, in a field opposite was a wooden sign on a wooden stake which said "urban space". Literally a space for urban use - a park or something like that. It's s worth a listen to the song as most think the song is about the space race and going to the moon. Not so.

23:55 EXACTLY! This is the point I was trying to make.

I love living in an old country . My county was one of the first ancient kingdoms ..Kent. 😊

In the 1980s me and my fiancée went to Milton Keynes. Long before the age of sat-nav we drove backwards and forwards trying to find the city centre only to discover there wasn't one - or at least the 'city centre' was just a shopping mall. We never went back!

personally I like modernism... indoors. Outside should look fancy and flourished with intricate carvings, statues, trees etc. But sensible and efficient roads with easy access to buildings and lots of parking spaces. I like modernism in the home because it yes it's a little boring but it is easy to keep clean, serves it's purpose and can be made fancy with RGB lighting allowing décor to be decided based on mood at the time. Lots of tech inside and a pretty view outside.

My ex partner's father lived there. I thought it was a strange and somewhat dull place. It was flat, very quiet no variety in the style of houses. Just fields, and sprawling housing estates and endless straight roads. I didn't think it was horrible. It was just cold and characterless. It makes Bracknell look like Oxford.

MK isn't a patch on Cumbernauld, now that's a real dystopian UK new town! 😱😱

Basically they used the format which all American cities are built to, horizontal and vertical only, "blocks" like in the states

I have visited MK once, in the early 1980s. To me, at the time, it seemed exciting - a trip into the science fiction future. I normally love old, traditional architecture, and I hate modernism, but I found it inspiring. This video made me sad

I’m from a tiny little island called Guernsey, my only experience of Milton Keynes was driving down Midsummer Boulevard, and the inside of the shopping centre, my only reason for visiting was it was near Silverstone and Santa Pod which I was visiting for a car show. I wouldn’t say from what I saw it was a bad place, but very different from the quaint little town with cobbled streets we have on our little island built into a hillside. I do agree that as you drive past you don’t really see any people just cars. Saying that I do feel that a lot of places in the UK I have passed through feel a bit dystopian tired and run down in comparison to Guernsey (but not all places, some places I have visited are very beautiful), but I guess I’m just used to living on a tiny island that has a bigger sense of community due to so many people being squeezed in to urban, suburban and countryside spaces in such close proximity to one another and we seem to have cleaner buildings I guess due to less pollution, and a lot less red brick buildings (that seem to stain and look tatty) than the UK thankfully!

Iv been to Milton Keynes a few times and iv stayed in hotels and went round the city and me and my husband had a fantastic time and we live near Stratford upon avon which is a very tourist town which is very much to do with Shakespeare so it gets very busy and annoying but we never thought Milton Keynes was any thing like that clip showed.

I went there once - never been to such a soulless place - Telford was the same

The OP has such a personal negative viewpoint of the city centre which dominated the video, and he has reported a really limited view /history of the city. It was not mentioned that Midsummer Boulevard was named as such because it was built on the path of the sun on a midsummer's day. Campbell Park which is at the opposite end of the train station, has a large open green space that many multicultural events are held and has a herd of sheep living there in what is the main city centre, which is pretty unique city wise. Or that after covid when this video was mainly recorded most the of the office spaces which surround the city centre giving the area a community feel is no more due to many businesses now working from home, which is one of the reasons many of those buildings are either being demolished or re developed. There is a full network of redways and all roads on the grid system is shielded with trees. Within the grid system many individual estates exist granted those from the 70's & 80's are offering a similar repetitive style however the newer estates offer a different feel. You are less than 5 min walk away from a park, woods, lake or fields. Smaller convinces are within each estate to help understand why the city centre is full of brand names there is also many other retail parks dotted throughout the city also venues for sports and events as well as the smaller towns to offer different architectural feel. I do feel however that as a new city Milton Keynes has some way to go before, we fully complete our identity as a city to think that the original Architects set out that there would never be a building taller than the tallest tree within the city, that today is no longer being adhered to. Where I live within Milton Keynes there is a sense of community one which has developed over time being that I live in a fairly new built estate. To interesting to see what further changes Milton Keynes faces in the next 40 yrs.

You can't create utopia a new prison is still hell, and the most modern building is just a building. Eutopia comes from the people, and a hell hole can be socially utopian because of the people in it. Believing we can create utopia is sheer hubris and typical of the egotism in some people and agencies. I personally don't think humanity is capable of utopia until we ourselves advance beyond certain restrictions. It doesn't matter where you are, what you build, it will never be Eutopia so long as we occupy those spaces.

There are a few newtowns in England over the years

Art Deco was the pinnacle form, function plus beauty and elegance. theres tonnes of green spaces in london by the way we have 100's of parks and commons.

Great choice of video, Joel. Architecture is a favourite topic, and my favourite style is Gothic. Yet, some of the brutalist designs of the 1960's were eye catching. Milton Keynes (MK) is fascinating, in that it's a bit like “bronzing a gold medal” for Old World architecture. Living in America and Canada, you and I see MK New World type architecture regularly, although MK seems more like a cross between Western modernism and Eastern Bloc Orwellian architectural styles and layout. Personally, I much prefer walking down a tradition UK High Street. For historical context, it’s worthwhile looking back at 1967 and examining the architecture at the International World’s Fair in Montreal, “Expo 67.” Expo 67 was absolutely magic, showcasing the future by 60+ countries. Its architecture was bold and fun for its time. Looking back at Expo 67 and comparing it to the design of MK is useful - especially since they were contemporaneous with each other. Here are two Expo 67 videos: “Expo '67 Doc: World's Fair in Montreal, Canada (1967) | British Pathé” kzfaq.info/get/bejne/equcrJCT0pvJhWQ.html and “Montreal's Expo 67 was a Landmark Moment in Canadian History” kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hppggZeZ067Uo3k.html . Enjoy, John in Canada

One of the superman movies was filmed in MK. Escape is not that bad once inside. The park and Willen Lake is lovely.

I spent time in MK in 1990 and one thing that was noticeable [ except we had to drive everywhere ] is that without a defined center you struggled to see any kind of large gathering. It always lead to a ghosttown feeling.

I lived in Milton Keynes. It was soulless, no centre where people could gather. Very unfriendly. Literally hundreds of roundabouts!! I moved out really quick to one of the more cultural towns nearby, Stony Stratford. Much happier place to live. Great video though x