There are up-and-coming streets with nice cafes and grocery shops but also places where units are shuttered. Relative child poverty here is twice the national UK average.
Political scientist Rob Ford describes the seat as “a tale of two Manchesters on opposite edges of Labour’s unravelling electoral coalition”.
One side of this oddly-shaped constituency is home to lots of university students and graduates and the population is 40% Muslim.
The other part of the constituency is 83% white, with many in low-paying jobs.
Lots of people I speak to complain about littering and fly-tipping. Some seem pretty vulnerable.
One man I met at a cafe said he didn’t want to be interviewed, but explained he was in his twenties, unemployed and living with his grandparents. He said his dad was in prison and mum was a drug user. He asked for reassurance that things would work out for him.
Gaza’s future remains an important issue for the Green Party and Palestinian flags are emblazoned on a lot of their leaflets.
The Greens are optimistic about their chances of taking the seat.
Their candidate, Hannah Spencer, was more than an hour late to meet us after getting stuck in traffic on the way back from a plastering course. She is already a qualified plumber.
I asked her about comments she made online a few years ago that she was “glad” to move out of the area and that it was full of “money laundering takeaways”.
Spencer responds matter-of-factly: “Like a lot of people, it’s taken me a while to become proud of the places I’ve lived. I’ve struggled a lot in the years that I was here… I think that’s the feeling that a lot of people share.”