Why is everyone hating on London

Them from “that there London”, eh?
You’re basing your view on the unfriendliness on Londoners on one couple? Brilliant!

Moved to London from the North 25 years ago and while I'm getting to the age where I can see the appeal of a smaller town, I genuinely think I'd struggle with the lack of amenities, culture and stonkingly good public transport (I visit friends / family out of London and cant believe people moan about tfl) anywhere else. I've lived all over London in the last quarter of a century and the only things that really wind me up are the litter, bo on public transport and, more recently, the sheer fkn cost of everything, especially housing. I mean 16 quid for 2 pints and my morals of avoiding Spoons are long forgotten!

This makes me so sad to read about Manchester, I am a proud mancunian but I do have to concede there has been a significant shift especially in the city centre and it does not feel safe at times. The most shocking thing for me recently was seeing very open, public intravenous drug use in piccadilly gardens.

Reading this thread, I am wondering if this is actually a country wide change in terms of what city centres are generally like now.

I do love London very much though; I wish I could visit more. Living there is out of the question, well outside my budget, but every time I have visited, I have loved it.

@YelloDaisy They wouldn’t swap 🙂

@suburburbanI used to think that but Google Maps is so helpful and when I see who is reposting the same videos, I do think it is being amplified disproportionately.

Yes I’ve never experienced it fortunately in London

i didn’t get my phone out though in Piccadilly last week as I’ve seen the news reports of phone theft

Most Londoners I know would identify as such rather than "English" in the same way as Liverpudlians consider themselve Scouse.
I guess if I was abroad I might say "Britain" or "UK" absolutely wouldn't identify as "English" though. Ever.

I think if you start a thread about any place, you will get strong and opposing opinions. Scotland, ‘the North’, Cornwall, Belfast etc. There will be fans and detractors.

My friend’s daughter has just dropped out of Manchester uni due to hating the city. To hear them all talk about it, you would think it was hell on earth. Rain, depressing atmosphere, ugly buildings, boring people. Ofc they are stereotyping and exaggerating. And probably projecting a lot of their own stuff about a year wasted at university. I have not been for ages but I know many who love Manchester and have lots of loyalty towards it. So I am taking their intense criticism with a pinch of salt.

Nobody can love everywhere and nobody should have to!

😆

@Piccolomaforte

"Gangs of men from very different cultures loitering around"

Do you mean ‘groups of men’? Like the groups of white men you get now hanging around outside migrant hostels, shouting abuse at asylum seekers? Those people - the protestors - are from a very different culture from me and everyone I know - and I’m white, British and my grandparents were born here.

Those people make me extremely anxious.

I also live right near a football stadium. During football season the streets outside my house are sometimes literally packed, shoulder to shoulder, with drunk men, shouting slogans, shirts off. Why is this ok and tolerable, where a gathering of brown men isn’t? I live near 2 asylum hostels. You do see groups of migrants standing together outside talking - they literally have nowhere else to go to meet up. Why is this a ‘red flag’ and intimidating but groups of drunk young men shouting outside pubs after a football match is ok? Particularly given the long history of football fan violence and domestic violence linked to football that’s part of British culture?

It may be, but, as evidenced in this thread, it is absolutely not somewhere that resonates with a large amount of the population. It may be part of their country, but it's not what they identify with. London to me is a separate entity. It feels entirely separate.

Liverpool is another city with very much it's own feel. At least many of the residents there are open enough to say they feel Scouse, not English.

Not being racist but......you are...
You have a very narrow view of the world, 9 million people live and work in london - you've been reading too much daily mail

1066 when the Normans came.

Well, what a strange approach to take, where your perfectly reasonable perspective on a small part of the whole becomes your perspective on the whole.

Quite obviously, the UK is not "fields and small communities."

Even the UK countryside isn't just fields. It's moors. And forests. And mountains.

But the UK is also cities and towns and suburbs and villages. And beaches and industrial parks and motorways and heath. And all the parks and buildings and roads and homes and noise and tranquility and innovation and tradition of London.

It's fine that you don't like it, but London is quintessentially part of the UK.

I think this is fair enough. I absolutely don't see the UK as small villages and fields and can't imagine anything I'd hate more than living somewhere like that. The countryside smells of manure, you have to get in your car and drive anywhere you want to go and everyone knows your business. But each to their own.

This is absolute bollocks btw. I live in South East London - Lewisham - so not a swanky area - and I work in Westminster so go into the centre every day. I have never seen a mugging or indeed any crime, except drunk morons fighting and I haven't seen that in about 25 years! I don't see groups of men hanging around, although there are a lot of homeless in the West End but they're just either doing their own thing or sat with their hand out begging. I don't see shops getting locked between customers (except beauty salons when there is nobody on reception)
We do get annoying beggers on the train to be fair but they're not actually scary. You can either give them some money or not. Nothing happens either way.
Stop spreading lies!

I think people have a "grass is greener" view of things. Eg thinking australia is paradise by comparison.... meanwhile friends there have the exact same issues as here with affordability of housing and childcare.

It is more unfriendly though.

We have had a couple from London who WFH move up to our little Northern town. They live across the road from me, they are really unfriendly and avoid contact with everyone, total stereotype. But I live in an area where people say good morning to anyone.

Yeah, ok doll. I don't fit into any of those groups and I still think it's a dive 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I love going to London a couple of days a month for work, but there’s not enough money in the world to make me live there. I prefer fresh air, wildlife and countryside.

I don’t think people are wrong by saying that it’s changed though, I can massively see the difference in the place in the last 20 years - some good and some bad. I’m very wary of petty crime and the news around muggings isn’t great. It does feel like the Police have lost control.

My Mother was from London and I did live there for a while in my twenties. It was very much the era of no worries about over consumption and no guilt about your footprint in the mid 1990’s.

It has always been good for museums and galleries and unrivalled nationally for that but overall I think it has always been a bit of a shithole. It’s a place to go for culture but unless you are a museum curator and there every day then you are just jostling with too many elbows buying milk in the same stores that everyone else is up and down the country, unpacking the dishwasher and doing all that mundane stuff but paying £££ more for square footage you are doing your mundane stuff in.

I am mixed race and have always found it amusing how some white liberals bang on about multi culturalism being amazing. I do not care if a place is multicultural or a homogenous mass of the same sort of face.

@Itsnottheheatitsthehumidity Masters Superfish in Waterloo. Thank me later.

*pickpocket me

Born in London and lived in London suburbs, worked in Central London.

The only time someone tried to was in Florence, Italy.

I grew up in a village in Hampshire. The largest place I grew up with was Southampton.

The UK to me is fields, small communities. It's not about ethnicity, I now work in teaching and love working with students of many backgrounds.... But The chaos of somewhere like London just strikes me as hell. It very much has it's own vibe, I didn't get the same feeling from Birmingham or Manchester. London is very much it's own thing and I don't like it

But, this is just me. I am just one person and my own perspective is just that. Earlier in my professional life I was offered the chance to work in London.... No way, it's not for me. I couldn't imagine anything worse.