Do you prefer Birmingham or Manchester

Probably the only way to find out would be to do a weekend visit to each city, while still living in London. Walk round, eat, make a list of ‘things to see now’ and ‘things to do next time’. Compare lists.

Both have good music venues - both house world class orchestras as well as having conservatoires. Both have museums. Neither are London, which have multiples of each of these.

On the other hand, the towns you are suggesting outside Birmingham have their own, often vibrant, cultural lives (don’t know so much about the Cheshire ones) so you might find yourself local x1; alternative local x1 or 2; city x1 over the course of a month rather than the suburban model of London where I can understand that you find yourself pulled into the centre.

Do you drive?

Symphony Hall would be the place for classical music in Birmingham. Its the home of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

By Brindley Place. Again, nice to visit and places to eat but not a place where you discover something different each time.

Ikon art gallery also there. Again small but does have changing exhibitions.

Central Library is a good visit and gives a good view across the city from the top floor

It sounds like I'm down on my city and I am because it used be constantly changing and evolving and multicultural and now the Council is bankrupt and it's just miserable!

NEC also has different exhibitions on.

You might feel the same way about central London but when we lived in Birmingham, we spent days on central London as there's always something new to do or explore

How old is your DS?
Are you really planning your life around your child's current hobbies?

Birmingham has the fabulous Symphony Hall and associated venues for classical music, checkout their website.

Altrincham is in itself a lovely place with its own very vibrant food and entertainment scene. 20 minute tram to the City Centre for museums, culture (Home & The Factory), varied food offers in an ever expanding city sub-areas (Ancoats, NQ, King St, Spinningfields, Oxford Rd).

With that budget I'd buy in Altrincham. You can travel by tram in MCR when you want something in the city but Alti is a nice bubble for town centre, shops, restaurants.

I'm from West Mids and it's grim. Soulless, Manchester has so much more about it and generally feels wealthier/more grads/professionals in the wider area.

Having lived and worked in both, I much prefer Manchester for shopping, eating out etc over Birmingham. However, neither will ever compare to what's available in London.
If staying in London is not an option, then out of the areas you have listed I would choose Warwick or Leamington Spa whereby you can be in London in an hour and 2Omins, Birmingham in 35 mins and Manchester in just over 2hours by direct train.
Leamington and Warwick are both gorgeous towns and I would move to either like a shot if our circumstances allowed.

DH and I are moving out of London.

We are considering both cities. Which city itself do you prefer?

We have decided we would live in Stratford/Warwick/Leamington Spa if we moved to Birmingham

And Knutsford, Altrincham, Wilmslow, Aderley Edge if we moved to Manchester

These replies sort of suggested you wanted to live in Birmingham or Manchester? (Despite your chosen towns not being in either of the cities)

Hence everyone replying about what it's like to live there.

It wasn't exactly clear that you only want to know what days out on either city are like.

This thread is like pulling teeth 😂

OP no one can possibly know what you and your family like to spend your weekends in a big city centre doing, so how would we know what you prefer.

If the two things we know about you are that your son likes eating at places he has seen on Tiktok and going to museums then either city I guess?

who knows.

Manchester. I hate Birmingham.

So you want London and the life you have now but not in London?

Erm, does DH have a New York office?

My family are from Manchester so I'm biased.

Choose Birmingham.

I lived in Birmingham for a few years and I wouldn't go back if you paid me.

I think we need to know why you are moving. Why do you want a London-lifestyle in somewhere-not-London?

If your after a central London experience outside of central London, you're going to be disappointed.

Birmingham hadn't got that much stuff to keep you occupied for that long. You definitely couldn't spend endless weekends in the city centre. It's tired, run down and nowhere near the city it used to be. The whole centre used to be full of shops and independents and markets and now it's just grim. Endless pound shops, phone shops, a big hotel in the centre houses immigrants waiting to be processed, streets stink of piss, homeless and beggars everywhere.

Bullring takes about an hour to walk round and nothing exceptional in there

Custard Factory worth a look at, maybe takes half a day? Museum and Art Gallery is currently closed down. HS2 works are currently dominating and making it look even worse

There are a few little Museums but the problem is they never change inside.

When the bmag closed down, the displays in there had been the same since the 90s and were broken and tired.

You would be hard pushed to find something every weekend for longer than 3 months and that's being generous.

Manchester by a mile.

Manchester is great but its not London and you are pretty likely to exhaust the possibilities after a few months, plus it rains a lot.
If you want the London lifestyle you describe I suggest you stay there

YABVU to leave London with that budget 😂

Threads like this would be a lot easier if you just posted everything in the first one rather than being cryptic.

It's gone from where's best to live with people replying to you then you giving your short list of areas which aren't actually in either of the two cities you initially asked about and therefore make the replies irrelevant

Turns out you actually want to know which city is best for a day out, so why not just ask that?!

Though if I lived in Leamington, Stratford or Warwick I wouldn't bother with Birmingham every weekend. Maybe twice a year at most and I say that as someone who was born and bred and lived there for 40 years. Moved 3 years ago and not been back since.

I used to live in Kenilworth and went to Uni in Birmingham - Warwickshire is beautiful and I miss it often! Solihull is also nice south of Birmingham.

I personally don't like Manchester, never have. Find it depressing and bleak! Warwickshire towns are much nicer than the likes of knutsford and Alderly Edge IMO - there's a pretentiousness there that you don't get in Warwickshire!