To think London is in a major decline?

I don't see what you're seeing OP. DH and I went to Bethnal Green a few weeks ago to see a show in the crypt of a church. The dodgy flats opposite where I used to live had been demolished and there was a pretty park there instead. The boarded up railway arches that I used to hurry past are now a row of thriving wine bars and restaurants.

DS has recently moved into an area of South London that used to be so sketchy twenty years ago - I've visited a few times and it is all clean and quiet and very domesticated - at night the housing estates are peaceful, with just the smells of cooking or occasional people walking their dogs - no rubbish, no sign of gangs.

We went to Woolich too recently and were amazed that the area all around the docks is so smart now, with cafes and parkland walks and sculptures.

Maybe different areas rise and fall. Camden seems rough right now and I didn't feel totally safe in Shepherd's Bush recently. But I've never liked either area much anyway. Camden was always full of spaced out druggies begging.

But I have always loved East London, so am sorry to hear you say it's in decline.

I left with my DDs in 2016. They were 8 & 6 at the time, I wanted them to grow up in a safe place. I lived in what would be considered a nice neighbourhood - we were burgled. I was the victim of a bomb hoax in Trafalgar Square. I managed to thwart a mugging for my handbag. I’d just had enough … there were Met Police posters on bus stops showing someone wearing a gold chain/fancy watch/carrying a phone that said ‘He seen money, so he took it’. The message being if you’re robbed, it’s on you. I have to return to London pretty regularly…I’m just so glad I don’t live there anymore!

Does it? Cities absorb newcomers pretty well

The op was talking about london being in decline, not poplar

I know it's such bollocks isn't it....

Ah the friendly northerner cliche

I think some posters are quite new to London. Kings Cross used to be wild. I would not have hung around there. Up until very recently it was full of prostitution and pimps. You had to be quite careful if you were a woman on your own.

Likewise Soho. That used to be very seedy with a lot of prostitution. Now it's mostly nice restaurants and clubs for cokeheads. A function of money.

I remember when Kings Cross was really grim. St Pancrass was in semi derelict state and boarded up. It wasn’t somewhere where you wanted to hang out unless buying drugs or finding prostitutes.

I do fondly remember going to the Church (club not the Christian kind) on Sunday afternoon, where you got five ciders and couple of water bottles for £25. It was a short walk from the Kings Cross station. I think it was in 2000.

I don't recognise the London the OP describes - my area has constantly improving parks, playgrounds and public spaces. Lots of building and home improvements happening (who can afford to move now?). Overall, schools are better, with strong results. But London is a constellation of very different universes, so I'm not saying the OP's view is wrong. My area has improved in many ways, but plenty have not.

Lots of the signs of decline are inevitable, though: the population is ever rising, both in London and on earth, and the pressure on space and services increases. Councils have less money and more to do.

Empty storefronts or businesses that provide services (nail bars, dry cleaners, etc) rather than goods - that's largely about internet shopping. I make well over 50% of my purchases online, and that's easily the norm now. It's little wonder that neighbourhood shops have disappeared. I am very impressed that our high street has 2 functioning book shops - and I'm sure it's because so many of us view them as charities rather than businesses - we shop there even though it's more expensive, to keep them open, like some sort of cultural relic.

Dog mess - more people own dogs, more dogs are on the streets pooing, and possibly the same % of arseholes don't clean up.

The UK is in economic decline post-Covid and post-Brexit, things are tight. There is a rise in poverty and the signs of that are evident in many many places the UK, including London.

I'm not a north Londoner but is it true that Camden is where a lot of the street drinkers and drug users have been swept into from the King's Cross development (another amazing change for the better! - it's the equivalent of the central business district of Sydney being built in one corner).

I'm near Reading and it's not especially lovely here either tbh. The vomit comet home from Paddington or Waterloo is probably the worst part of any evening out in London in my experience and the people on those trains are not likely to be Londoners.

I had to get the tube to Camden one evening recently to walk up to another area and it was pretty gruesome. But I think Camden was probably always horrible on a Saturday but I was just younger and didn’t notice 😂. Again though, that's less to do with londoners I think and more to do with visitors to London

Having said this. I most most of zone 1. I really like the big buildings and the scenery

I’m a northerner who goes to london for work and quite frankly I hate it. It’s a scruffy miserable hole full of antisocial rude people who would walk past you if you were on fire

@Gogogo12345 Very true, but still... Hackney, Hoxton, Shoreditch, Brixton are much nicer and livelier now than they were in 1993. The Square Mile has for sure changed for the better -but my experience is as someone working there 5 days per week till Covid hit. I find that Covent Garden has improved greatly too.

I agree with the poster who said that we tend to view the past with rose tinted glasses.

The question was though if London is in decline and my answer is that no, I don't think it is. Has it changed? Of course. But in decline? No.

I live in a relatively small ex-mining town in Yorkshire.

It’s fire up here too. We’ve had murders, stabbings, shootings and gang violence (all drug related) over the past few years.

Most high-street shops are boarded up with charity shops, kebab shops, Vietnamese nail bars and Turkish barbers left. Nowhere for the elderly or disabled who can’t drive to do their food shopping. We used to have a supermarket, independent butchers, greengrocers, clothing shops, cobblers etc. all closed now.

The high-street is full of teenagers causing a nuisance on electric scooters and bikes, vandalising properties and shouting abuse at passers by.

The streets are constantly littered with dog shit and junk, takeaway boxes strewn away, sofas left in front gardens, scrap metal, fly tipping in country lanes.

A lot of kids round here are dragged up and not brought up. Small children roam the streets and their parents don’t give a fuck with havoc they cause.

There’s a lot of political division and racism. About 10 minutes away there’s a Holiday Inn that got smashed up and set on fire that was holding asylum seekers due to the “protests” and riots stemming from the awful Southport murders.

It’s fucking dire. Obviously I don’t speak for the majority or whole of Yorkshire. Just my hometown. A lot of Yorkshire is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful and the people are great. It’s just the awful ones that ruin it for the rest of us.

@alseb blimey
is that a regular day at Charing Cross or had something happened?

I left London two years ago and ranted a lot on here about my specific part of it. But I didn't imagine Charing Cross had gone that way so fast.

Agreed. It's concerning re the numbers. Also super sewer will get a super fatburg soon 😂

I agree. I lived in the heart of Brixton when I moved back to London after university in the late 90s and still live very close. Definitely more going on and not less safe than it is now.

@flutterby1 yep supermarkets are putting the numbers way higher than what is being reported by ONS....it is very, very worrying.

No wonder London needed a new super sewer🤔

Interestingly supermarkets are actually the business's with the real population data... there the ones that can work out how many people are being catered for food wise in any area. ONS data are official figures and conservative.

I live in a northern city in UK but have visited London numerous times over the last 50 years. The north/south differences were always apparent. Lovely clean streets, parks, museums, galleries, interesting shops in London all evidence in my opinion of investment which clearly wasn’t heading up north. I’ve always enjoyed visiting friends, sightseeing, shopping and generally having a great time. However the city felt so different when I visited the weekend before Christmas. I couldn’t believe how dirty the city was, full of rubbish. For the first time I felt really on guard of my own personal safety and possessions. I have never seen coffee shops with doormen for security and at restaurants to at 6pm! At Jigsaw by Charing Cross the poor staff were unlocking the front door to let customers in and locking it behind them. Very different feel in my opinion. I seriously worry about the future of my beloved country.

The number of people is the crux of it millions more living in London in the last 2 decades....I think 3 million is an understatement.

The facts are there the latest ONS report show that we had over a million in net migration in the UK in just 1 year that is totally staggering...

It's the pattern of wealth that has changed. A lot of the centre has changed. Hackney's murder mile no longer exists. The crack houses of Brixton are now multi millions. Bethnal Green isn't full of gangs fighting each other over skin colour, and the street drinkers in Hammersmith have been mopped up and moved on. Elephant is now private towers, not public ones. Even the Walworth Road is starting to gentrify.

Whereas the suburbs are static or declining; they look really really scruffy to me. Look at Croydon 30 years ago compared to now. Horrible.

The other change is numbers. Another 3 million people. This does make much tougher to live in.

Lol I don't even live in London and know Hampstead is a very posh bit. You may feel differently if you lived in Poplar

Back in the early 2000s I lived in Stratford and Leyton, spent a lot of my free time in and around Brixton and Peckham. These days those places are paradise relative to the way they were then!

Brixton was absolutely fine in the 00s, much more vibrant but yes less white mc people. Some of these comments make me uncomfortable…