To think London is in a major decline?

People increasingly can’t afford to raise families in London, if they don’t have access to social housing.

£1m+ for a house.

£2-2.5k a month nursery fees.

London has always been a city of rich and poor - but it’s going to get a lot more extreme.

Londoners voted for that vile man khan who had to ask for definition of child grooming. He doesn't give a toss about crime rate as long as DEI target is met. What do you expect?

To live in London, you have to have a high tolerance for people and crowds, the dog shit got worse everywhere, because many acquired a dog during Covid.
I agree SE London Peckham etc got very banker central which was East Dulwich before that. There are chichi enclaves everywhere. If there is an artisan butcher/now increasingly veg shop as everyone goes vegan etc you know you are going to luck out on your house price.

If you have lost your tolerance for people, move to the coast. Some of the Kent and Sussex coast line has gone chichi too.

and think of Gaza too!

by that logic no one should be complaining about anything so MNs shouldn’t even exist 🙄

They're all in tents round the back of the Adelphi

because nobody can afford to have kids, or more accurately afford a house big enough to put them in london.

Was pressing and sexualised leering ever acceptable?

I’ll say it’s the explosion of sexual harassment on public transport that has brought the need to address it.

i meant to add these links to my post

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly559jnd2zo.amp

www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2024/10/04/parents-teachers-furious-council-primary-school-closures/

It started 2 or 3 decades ago, firstly in the regions such as the run down ex-mill towns, ex-mining towns, ex-industrial and ex-seaside towns. Of course the London centric politicians and Londoners didn't care as it didn't affect London (same with other big cities). Now that it's starting to expand into the big cities, people are suddenly waking up and seeing the impact and finally complaining about it. Only about 20 years too late!

My friends largely live in SE London, which was a comparative dump when we lived there 20 years ago, and now seems all very chi-chi when we visit (don't only go to tourist parts!). Also my office areas are more upmarket than they were when I worked there.

We moved to Bristol (ish)

I don't think its that bad!

Council services in the more residential areas are becoming more threadbare (countrywide) , people' behaviour is less considerate in all sorts of ways (countrywide), high street shops are being replaced by all sorts of 'services' (nail bars, mini-golf, charity shops etc) (countrywide)..But actually I think the visitor ££ is keeping LOndon going pretty well.

Restaurants are booming and you have to book, (though many are also struggling), theatre tickets hard to get, people still help anyone with a pushchair or heavy luggage on steps in tube stations .

The return to the office will presumably keep life in the sandwich bars and pubs from closing further.

Newly developed areas seem to be attracting shoppers, visitors etc (Kings Cross, Battersea Power Station)

In my residential area schools continue to improve, housing is being bought and sold...

HMO are the new licensed slum houses. They should be banned.

I'm not an UK citizen or ever lived in the UK.

I went to London in 92 for the first time and fell in love. It was a vibrant, incredible full on city, with people from all over the world with a fab vibe. It was clean and gorgeous and for me, the best city in Europe by miles.

I travelled another 3 times in the late 90s and a couple of times in the early 2000s and loved it even more. I have a nephew and niece (South African but with a Spanish passport) living in London, 20 minutes in the tube from the CBD) and their suburb was clean and full of life.

I didn't go back to London until 2019, just before COVID hit, and I was shocked at the decline. The vibe was different. It was not as clean or vibrant. Train stations looked old and in need of renovations. Road streets had holes and needed serious maintenance work and buildings needed painting. Even shopping for something that in Australia/Spain is easy - buying green fresh prawns, took me half a day because fishmongers and supermarkets didn't have them. Fresh vegetables in the supermarket looked awful ........ honestly, I didn't expect the decline in a city I'd love so much.

I'm going to Spain this year and will see my nephew and niece families there. I won't go back to London.

Thanks for mentioning the City of London. That is what I initially thought this thread was about when I read the title.

It is not only the rubbish in the streets but where is the UK generally headed if the taxes generated by the City are no longer there for the milking.

And huge numbers of empty flats bought by foreign investors to launder money aren't helping contribute to the community feel either.

I think London has become more gentrified over the years. It’s always been edgy but some of the edges have been gently shaven over the years to a point where it almost had a Disney vibe or movie version it was so manicured in some parts of West London.

I am however horrified by the decline of Paris and Rome. We won’t be travelling back to Paris with the kids.

I think many other areas have similar issues OP, councils with far less money to spend on peripherals , lots of people with bugger all standards too-a lot of this is on the general public- not just local authorities or government -

London I think is very specific, some areas look way better, others look awful and have a bad vibe - This is what happens when only those with social housing or are wealthy live there with a lot of house sharing in the mix too -families and couples at that middle level move away and it creates an unbalanced demographic- the areas that have still retained lots of families and have good facilities on the whole to me are still good ( and hence expensive) - other city's that are expensive have similar issues, Bristol being one , but because of London's size it's way more noticeable

Are the posters a response to increased harassment or because society no longer accepts these behaviours?

I've lived in London all my life, 76 years. It's changed beyond all recognition. In many ways for the better, in others not so much.

IMO cities need creative people, artists, musicians, students etc to have energy and thrive (or at least - in the way we imagine).
All of this is being driven out of London by the high cost of living.

Thats true, it’s losing youth. I think the falling school rolls that we are now seeing will have a pretty big impact. Schools without pupils don’t get the funding they need (funding model is based on headcount), schools decline & then what happens to those areas? Particularly when VAT will price some out of PE when you factor in high house prices.

Think unfortunately it’s a reflection of the state of the entire country. But I think London in particular is ever evolving, the parts that used to be shite are now cool and the cycle just goes round. My FIL grew up in Brixton in the 70s and it wasn’t the sort of place where you went out at night. He’s lived in zone 6 for nearly 40 years now which is very much the burbs and what was once quite a middle class area has gone downhill whereas Brixton has become fairly gentrified.

I live in east Anglia and we have a lot of families moving here from London because of the cost of housing there. I think this exodus probably isn’t helping, equally it’s not helping us either because it’s driving up house prices!

The whole country is doing to the dogs. It started long before covid.

Have you seen the tents by the river?

There are tents all over London but now they are on the river banks.

Where I live it's kind of both. Lots of built-up attractions and shiny flats to appeal to commuters and tourists, but at the same time it's feral in the actual community. Screaming arguments and broken glass outside our window many nights, used needles in front of the playground, a friend was glassed in the face by strangers recently walking home. Shoplifters shamelessly running out of shops dropping items. Any ride on the bus or trip to the shop or post office you'll hear strangers kicking off at each other. But I'm not sure if it's any worse than before, there's just more of a contrast.

@Coldanddamp I am certainly aware that gentrification isnt all positive. What I mean is that Brixton/East Dulwich/Peckham to me feel less happy places that even five years ago. Also whilst crime doesnt disappear, in this part of London the expansion of Lime bikes and post-Covid masks have meant that criminality is now a lot more mobile than before whist further increases that sense of insecurity across and between these different spaces. And I think a lot more people are seeking to move out almost post this form of gentrification to areas that do feel safer. Are we seeing a form of degeneration in parts of SE London, perhaps, at the same time as yes, other parts like Elephant and Castle not only now have a Foxtons but are feeling almost sleepy.