Stafford on the whole is a nice place to live. I never understand the whinging about shops, we have retail parks coming our of our earholes with more shops on the way. Personally I've no desire to see any more retail expansion. Anything you can't buy in Stafford, Birmingham is little over 30 mins on the train (or dare I say it 40 mins in the motor on a good day), or there's the interweb. Transport-wise, we are on the West Coast Main Line and the M6 which provides far better transport links than most other towns of Stafford's size. Despite what people might think, Stafford doesn't have congestion on the scale that other places do either, and a lot of the busy traffic is caused by, erm, shops that we apparently don't have enough of....
Restaurants wise, I'd agree, Stafford isn't fantastic but there are some good places. I think those who just wish for more identikit chain restaurants perhaps ought to exercise a bit more imagination!!
As regards attitudes, obviously it is a generalisation to which there will be exceptions, but I do think there is an element of small/narrow mindedness about. It probably comes from having an agricultural hinterland..... It seems to me that a lot of Stafford lacks a sense of community too, but that is increasingly true of many other places as well.
