I lived in Barnsley South Yorkshire England was much smaller than it is today. The houses were small and in rows and back to 50 years ago my home town of Barnsley back. Today there are blocks of flats and many housing estates built on the outskirts of town. People shopped in small shops and there were shops on corners of streetscalled "corner shops", where people could buy most things. Today people shop in big supermarkets and there are only a few corner shops left.

Because housing was built close to work and shops people walked most of the time. Very fewpeople had cars. There were trams running from one side of town to the other, which many people used.

Now nearly everyboady has cars to get to work an just to get around.

Men and women uset to go dancing and go to the cinema.
It was a tradition once a year for working class families to go to the seaside for their holidays, sometimes this was only a bus trip for the day. Today families go much further away from home to go on holidays.

I think in some ways its better now, because there are more places for people to work and because there is better transport but there ar lotsof changes. For one children can't play outside safely anymore because there is too much crime in the streets, because there is so much pollution now because people don't walk so often, most people now need cars and other transports just get to work.
So in my opinion life has changed a lot in Barnsley, but in good and bad ways.