To think London is in a major decline?

It's the same everywhere. I hate going into Leicester city centre - have to as signing on and attended a few job fairs.

Leicester city centre is a dump! The cyclist food couriers that almost run over, homeless begging for change, shops etc boarded up, the smell of cannabis, shed loads of takeaway places

The same goes with many suburbs - fly tipping (even though residents in Leicester get free collections of bulky stuff every 2 months), run down properties, loads of money laundering 'businesses', every other retail unit is an eating establishment - usually with a takeaway element.

I was in a coffee shop near Victoria station in the middle of the day recently when a young woman ran in, very distressed. It turned out she'd been followed and harrassed by a young man who was behaving really strangely and wouldn't leave her alone. She didn't know him.

The young man came up to the shop doorway and staff stopped him from entering. He walked off then kept coming back, pressing his face against the window looking for her. He seemed very disturbed, either manic/psychotic or under the effect of drugs. Twitchy and agitated. He eventually wandered off and some people in the shop accompanied the girl to the station so she could get home safely.

It's great that you personally were not frightened of the strange and intimidating people you've encountered, but it's clearly not the same for everyone. And these people do occasionally flip and commit horrific acts of violence on people around them, simply because they are very unwell. But that's no consolation to the people they attack.

Exactly this. I have seen a couple of people on night buses who were clearly psychotic - talking to themselves and acting a bit twitchy. I wouldnt sit next to them but I wasn't scared of them either. Just didn't want to get myself into a weird situation.
No crime or aggression though

Foreign money laundering fronts and charity shops are the only retail outlets that can afford to stay on the high street.

I go there reasonably often as I have family who live there. Never feel scared as they are live in reasonable areas. As many have already pointed out London is massive and different areas are exactly that. The Mail and its ilk is keen to promote the idea that London is a no go hell hole ruled over by Kahn whose sole mission is to destroy it. I have been going there for decades, for work, for gigs, to shop and to stay with my family. Apart from the time I was threated on the Tube by a member of the National Front, (I had been to a huge Anti-Nazi League demo and was wearing a badge) I have never had an problems. Meanwhile in the medium sized city that I live in I have been burgled three times and been seriously sexually assaulted by a stranger on my way home from work. I could use these horrible experiences as "proof" that I live in a city that is heading towards anarchy. I went to town today and the city centre looks dreadful, the most distressing thing I saw was about 10 homeless people in a tent city pitched in the doorway of what used to be a large department store. We have lost Debenhams, it stands there semi-derelict now, Currys is gone and boarded up and House of Fraser is closing down, All there seem to be is chicken shop, nail bar, another chicken shop, a chain coffee shop, another nail bar, a charity shop, then a vape shop, then yet another chicken shop.

What? that you don't look at people on public transport!

I think the same decline is happening everywhere, except outside London you also have to deal with crap public transport.

I’ve lived in London (zone 2) for 10+ years. It’s always been pretty ‘real’ here but since the end of covid really everywhere just seems so, so awful.
Dog shit everywhere, spit everywhere, council owned parks closed and locked, people littering more than ever before. Get on a bus and it’s just people screaming in to a FaceTime on top volume, people blasting TikTok. Kids being stabbed in broad daylight, people shooting up heroin near the nearby primary school. The area has a lot going for it but it really seems wherever I go there is an awful decline.
Has anybody feeling the same actually moved out? Do you regret it?

I’ve lived in London (zone 2) for 10+ years. It’s always been pretty ‘real’ here but since the end of covid really everywhere just seems so, so awful.
Dog shit everywhere, spit everywhere, council owned parks closed and locked, people littering more than ever before. Get on a bus and it’s just people screaming in to a FaceTime on top volume, people blasting TikTok. Kids being stabbed in broad daylight, people shooting up heroin near the nearby primary school. The area has a lot going for it but it really seems wherever I go there is an awful decline.
Has anybody feeling the same actually moved out? Do you regret it?

These threads always talk about London in decline but I went for a couple of days to Stoke on Trent and I was absolutely shocked. A bit like how some people described London. Maybe it was because I have never been before but honestly it made me realise why people outside of the major cities voted Brexit. I am sure there are nice bits I don't know about. The University looked very modern and seemed to be thriving but I am unsure its success spread to the local area.

Point of view shared by many I know.

There has never been one London, it has always been separate villages/parts and some gentrify rapidly and go up when they are trendy with young creatives, then the professional families move in etc. Some are full of rich old people and overseas rich who are barely there. Goes up and down. Like everywhere, how nice a place is depends on whether there is a sense of community and people supporting each other and local initiatives.
I live fairly central and have always had friends who move out to different parts and we stay in touch etc and loads of places in Greater London are still gentrifying. Well off people who care about their community and less well off people who support their community with time and effort always make a place a nice place to live. It is when you are surrounded by people who do not contribute usefully in any shape or form and who are rude and entitled and on the take, that places become horrible and toxic. As London still attracts a steady stream of young enthusiastic people from all over the world, it will probably be immune to a major decline. Yes, some people do not like Khan but there were too many cars and too much pollution directly harming young kids and the elderly so he had to try and do something. Public transport and cycling tends to work quite well. There are plenty of people who cycle in to work all the way from the suburbs, not just to save money on public transport, but to get some exercise too.

The anecdotal evidence of one young man is not the full picture, just his pov

I have two young adult children who live in zone 2. One has lived there about 4 years and the other moved fairly recently after having lived in a very pleasant and safe (or at least relatively safe, but not as safe as it used to be) small, leafy and friendly city elsewehere in the UK, where they went to uni. They also grew up in a similarly safe and pleasant environment.

Discussion ensued about commuting to work on public transport (buses and tubes) in central London and just being out and about in the streets.

Eldest said to youngest 'It's fine so long as you don't look at anyone. You will see and hear things kicking off all around you all the time. It doesn't even have to be night-time. It's constant and round the clock. Just try to look away. Don't look anyone mad or bad or shouty in the eye and certainly don't ever try to intervene in anything. It's just not worth it. Keep your head down and mind your own business, keep your wits about you, learn to sense when you need to get out of an area or situation very quickly and you'll be fine.'

That's probably very sound and pragmatic advice, but fucking depressing all the same. When I lived in and worked in central London as a young 20-something in the late 80s I commuted to work and went out a lot at night. There were certain notorious areas we all knew to avoid, especially at night, and muggings, drug dealing and gang violence were rife in those areas, but very much confined to those areas, as I recall. I rarely encountered anything scary or intimidating in my day to day travels around the city.

Now, it feels like the sheer levels of aggression and chaos and that general feeling of heightened tension are pretty much omnipresent across the city a whole. The population of greater London back then was also pretty much half what it is now, the ethnic mix much less diverse (lots of Indians and Caribbean people but very few Africans, Arabs and people from the poorer European countries for example) so we now have lots of new sectarian gang warfare issues dragged onto our streets from other places in the world.

The housing crisis was nowhere near as acute in the 80s and 90s either. There were FAR FAR fewer homeless people on the street and far fewer evidently mentally ill and psychotic people wandering around. We also have lots of beggars now, either individuals or aggressive begging and pickpocketing gangs, which pretty much disappeared post Victorian era. That was sadly reintroduced to our streets when the UK was opened up to freedom of movement from the EU in the 90s. Now it's in virtually every large town and city.

Lots of previously rough places have become gentrified it's true, Herne Hill being a great example, but the urban decay, general lack of civility and dog-eat-dog mentality seems to be more widespread in general.

I have two young adult children who live in zone 2. One has lived there about 4 years and the other moved fairly recently after having lived in a very pleasant and safe (or at least relatively safe, but not as safe as it used to be) small, leafy and friendly city elsewehere in the UK, where they went to uni. They also grew up in a similarly safe and pleasant environment.

Discussion ensued about commuting to work on public transport (buses and tubes) in central London and just being out and about in the streets.

Eldest said to youngest 'It's fine so long as you don't look at anyone. You will see and hear things kicking off all around you all the time. It doesn't even have to be night-time. It's constant and round the clock. Just try to look away. Don't look anyone mad or bad or shouty in the eye and certainly don't ever try to intervene in anything. It's just not worth it. Keep your head down and mind your own business, keep your wits about you, learn to sense when you need to get out of an area or situation very quickly and you'll be fine.'

That's probably very sound and pragmatic advice, but fucking depressing all the same. When I lived in and worked in central London as a young 20-something in the late 80s I commuted to work and went out a lot at night. There were certain notorious areas we all knew to avoid, especially at night, and muggings, drug dealing and gang violence were rife in those areas, but very much confined to those areas, as I recall. I rarely encountered anything scary or intimidating in my day to day travels around the city.

Now, it feels like the sheer levels of aggression and chaos and that general feeling of heightened tension are pretty much omnipresent across the city a whole. The population of greater London back then was also pretty much half what it is now, the ethnic mix much less diverse (lots of Indians and Caribbean people but very few Africans, Arabs and people from the poorer European countries for example) so we now have lots of new sectarian gang warfare issues dragged onto our streets from other places in the world.

The housing crisis was nowhere near as acute in the 80s and 90s either. There were FAR FAR fewer homeless people on the street and far fewer evidently mentally ill and psychotic people wandering around. We also have lots of beggars now, either individuals or aggressive begging and pickpocketing gangs, which pretty much disappeared post Victorian era. That was sadly reintroduced to our streets when the UK was opened up to freedom of movement from the EU in the 90s. Now it's in virtually every large town and city.

Lots of previously rough places have become gentrified it's true, Herne Hill being a great example, but the urban decay, general lack of civility and dog-eat-dog mentality seems to be more widespread in general.