Croydon's name - good or bad

Spent some time today going through results on search engines for Croydon. Apart from the usual one's, there where a couple that took a bit of interest. Chavs have there own web site and Croydon seems to get noticed here quite allot.

Then there is youTube and some video's on Croydon, some are ok, some are really bad and others should really be destroyed. One think that stood out was how much Croydon got slated by partially younger adults.

As for me, I somehow found myself agreeing with some of their comments. Croydon has changed over the years and the way it has been commercialised may not of helped. In my younger days, I really enjoyed the Saturday's visit into the centre (after Tiswas and Swapshop) where we used to visit the real Swap shop, beano's and if needed a haircut at Tony and Peters.

Beano's is still here but only just. Swap shop used to stand behind Drummond centre, before there was a Drummond centre and well at least you can still get your hair cut at Tony and Peters. It is sad that if you do look around in our town centre today there are a very few "independent" shops that used to make up the old "Croydon".

Moving on into the future, do we really need yet another shopping centre? Is the council paying to much attention of getting money in and not enough on time and resources in providing services or areas where communities can benefit?

Personally, Croydon is a great place to live. Your 10-15 minutes from the City, we have great transport links and it's a short journey to the countryside. We make Croydon what it is but we do need to put the "Community" part back into it.

Your views would be appreciated