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Original poster

Why is everyone hating on London

391 replies

greenwichvillage · 15/08/2025 15:04

Recently a lot posts I read on social media is about how much people hate London. Its has been called all sorts of names - cesspit, dirty, crime ridden and the foreigners have taken over. They don't recognise London anymore and they are glad they have moved to whiter areas with cheaper housing.

For context, I have lived here all my life, lived in North West London and now live in Southwest London. I admit there are parts of London that have deteriorated, equally there part parts of London that are really nice. Yes it is expensive to live in and properties are expensive but that does not make it a cesspit.

I love living where I am and I love all that London has to offer. I'm not English but I am British and I'm not white and I feel really safe here in London. Yes there are problems with crime, but there is crime everywhere.

I have been to other areas in the UK and really none of it appeals to me, I have been to beautiful country side and small towns and cities and tbh I would get bored after two days there. But I would never go as far as insulting it which people seem to do quite a lot with London.

I think Farage/ Reform and Tommy have a lot to answer for.

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Itsnottheheatitsthehumidity · 16/08/2025 07:56

I’ve lived here for decades. Married & divorced a Londoner, and am a mum to one too. I work for TfL, so I’m quite embedded. It is a great city, but it’s also dirty, it can be impolite, it’s fucking expensive and I can’t get decent fish and chips here for love nor money. I grew up semi rurally in the East Midlands. It’s also very lonely to live here. People think that’s surprising but if you are shy and single like me, it’s very hard to make friends and meet up socially.

I’m moving back home asap, after DD leaves home, but still commuting for work. I need a smaller, more friendly community. I’m never short of things to do here, but I need someone to do it with.

The crime, and the graffiti and the lack of courtesy gets on my nerves, but it’s not wholly the Mayor’s fault. It’s society post Brexit and post-pandemic, I think. Everyone out for themselves. I think the Mayor could do better on phone snatchers, knife crime and shoplifting but we need stronger laws to help the police too. I can’t say the police in my birth county are any great shakes either.

Ginmonkeyagain · 16/08/2025 07:34

@Jamesblonde2 True. Every day I go in to central London for work I am devasated by the noticably low levels of cheery cockney chimney sweeps. It's a travesty.

YelloDaisy · 16/08/2025 07:21

Timeforabitofpeace · 16/08/2025 06:51

Farage doesn’t like London because on average Londoners don’t like him. Good for Londoners!

They love Sadiq Khan -fair swap

Original poster
greenwichvillage · 16/08/2025 07:20

Devonshiregal · 15/08/2025 18:03

It should be an Olympic sport, finding ways to accuse the brits of racism to avoid allowing them an opinion.

I’m from London and south, love the place, but if you go up the country it is so much cleaner and better looked after generally. London is so filthy and not looked after - I’ve not been south of the river properly for a while so I won’t comment there but north of the river it is just so filthy. There’s graffiti all over the tubes, inside and out, which there didn’t used to be. There’s rubbish strewn everywhere and houses are just not looked after. There are rats everywhere in the open in the day in a way they never were. Bins not collected everywhere. If you’ve lived there and not had space away from it you will not notice but if you leave for a while and come back you will be shocked. Boiling frog syndrome. And I’m talking about nice and affluent areas. People living in 2 million pound houses stepping out to discarded mattresses, drug wrappers, graffiti, dealers, overflowing bins bags, rats etc isn’t really ok…is it? Have we become so accustomed to putting up with bad behaviour and people not looking after things that we are really sitting here calling people islamophobic rather than acknowledge that the state London, and much of the country, is in isn’t cool?

If you continue to blinker yourself and say oh yeah well all cities have their issues. you’re actively contributing to running the place into the ground, no matter how nicely you prune your own window boxes nor how many artisan cafes you train your eye on to avoid the crap around it.

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I dont know which part of London you've been to but I certainly have not seen that in any part of London I have visited. I haven't seen rats in every street corner, maybe overflowing bins in some places not all. What places are you talking about then, can you give me some areas or are you just pulling these quotes off the Dailt Mail.
London may not be like Devon where I presume you are from, but Devon has its own set of problems too. There are not so nice places in Devon too, run down places, expensive houses, I can go on and on.

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Nearandfaraway · 16/08/2025 07:18

Are you talking about cockney rhyming slang? Because my great grandma was born in the east end at the end of the 1800s and she didn't speak like that.

If you mean a strong east or sarf lahdan accent, plenty of that around.

IndyNial · 16/08/2025 07:05

I was thinking of this thread as I was out last night. Got the tube to meet friends in central London for dinner. The atmosphere was buzzing. Didn’t see a mugging. Saw groups of friends having fun. Of all ages. A Muslim woman with a hijab giggling with her black friend. A gay couple dressed up for some big night. People clutching programmes from various west end shows. People finishing their shifts at work. Some v glam and fashionable-looking young people wearing quite ‘racy’ outfits! A typical London on a Friday night.

I luckily saw no rats or stabbings. Sadly there was one man on the Tube who ‘looked’ homeless; I don’t know his situation of course. London like most places is not perfect. Far from it. But I see the diversity as a strength as it feels more welcoming of those who are ‘different’ than some places. And the bad stuff isn’t happening on a daily basis, so perhaps some perspective is needed.

Original poster
greenwichvillage · 16/08/2025 07:02

When you say the cockney language, yes you're right they have pretty much all left and moved to Hornchurch and Canvey Island as part of white flight and good for them. London is a hot pot of different cultures, nationalities and religion along with with a majority of white english people and we all rub along nicely and we dont need people around us who dont value that, they can stick to Canvey Island with their own kind, much like yourself.
Where I am in London, 85% of my neighbours are white, some English, some French, Italian, south African etc and we all speak English maybe surprising to some in this thread. We are all just living our lives, working, bringing up our families. We have no Romanian beggars around us, yes there is homeless every where. Our streets are clean and nothing like the cesspit that it has been called

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Original poster
greenwichvillage · 16/08/2025 07:02

Jamesblonde2 · 15/08/2025 23:02

It doesn’t feel like it did 30 years ago.
The buildings and landmarks do, but the lack of cockney local accent is really disappointing and astounding.
I imagine tourists think the same. Perhaps not what they were expecting.
Immigrants sleeping in tents in parks?
Romanian looking beggars on every corner.
Those horrible American sweet shops which are a front for money laundering.
I don’t recognise the place so won’t be going back. I imagine the people who live there abd like it don’t want me back. Fair enough.
I’ll stay rural up North where things haven’t changed as much.

When you say the cockney language, yes you're right they have pretty much all left and moved to Hornchurch and Canvey Island as part of white flight and good for them. London is a hot pot of different cultures, nationalities and religion along with with a majority of white english people and we all rub along nicely and we dont need people around us who dont value that, they can stick to Canvey Island with their own kind, much like yourself.
Where I am in London, 85% of my neighbours are white, some English, some French, Italian, south African etc and we all speak English maybe surprising to some in this thread. We are all just living our lives, working, bringing up our families. We have no Romanian beggars around us, yes there is homeless every where. Our streets are clean and nothing like the cesspit that it has been called

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RampantIvy · 16/08/2025 06:57

HeyThereDelila · 16/08/2025 06:53

”Hating on”?

When did we stop using English properly?

I have also never come across this expression.

I wondered if it was something teenagers say.

HeyThereDelila · 16/08/2025 06:53

”Hating on”?

When did we stop using English properly?

Timeforabitofpeace · 16/08/2025 06:51

Farage doesn’t like London because on average Londoners don’t like him. Good for Londoners!

Original poster
greenwichvillage · 16/08/2025 06:47

GypsyQueeen · 15/08/2025 22:49

I was commenting on the fact that she kept trying to argue with people when they gave their reasons for not liking London. Like they were going to decide to change their minds based off what she had said 🤔😅

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Well that's where you're wrong, Im not here to change anyone's mind. All Im saying is London is getting a bad rap from those who have never visited it, or those that have only been in the touristy areas and those who left London as part of white flight 20 years ago and have never been back. Those people haven't seen proper London and are in no place to judge.

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noblegiraffe · 16/08/2025 01:11

Another classic of its type just dropped.

Doesn't mention a bottle of water which was honestly more useful when I visited London a couple of weeks ago.

Why is everyone hating on London
VaseofViolets · 16/08/2025 00:37

Because it’s filthy, dangerous and depressing.

Noodledog · 16/08/2025 00:35

My feeling is that it's just too expensive. Average people can't afford to live there. People are either wealthy or in subsidised housing.

When I visited last month, central London just felt dull, which isn't how London should feel. Things didn't stay open late- London needs to sort that out. One of the world's major cities and things start closing early...

Piccolomaforte · 16/08/2025 00:18

I presume when you say ‘hating on’, you mean ‘have a different opinion to me and I don’t tolerate other people’s opinions’?

I spent some of my happiest times living in various parts of London and it has always had an ‘edge’. I still go there regularly. But now that edge is a lot sharper. So yes, it has a lot of amazing culture and creativity, but there has been a massive change. There are a lot of muggings and drugs culture….the little road men strutting about. It’s gone beyond ‘diverse’ and is just a massive collection of people from everywhere who are wary of each other. Too much visible religion in what is apparently a secular country. It’s not racist to say that it doesn’t feel like the UK, because it’s not about the colour of skin, it’s about the actual culture of the place changing so quickly and London not feeling as it once did. Gangs of men from very different cultures loitering around. I was always safety conscious in London, but now I feel more like prey walking through some areas.
Even ‘nice’ areas like Chiswick are locking shop doors between customers. It is more lawless.

Wonderwendy · 16/08/2025 00:06

Jamesblonde2 · 15/08/2025 23:33

Pleased to say we’re the same as we always were and welcome tourists who know what they’re going to get. Traditional. It’s great.

No Roma beggars.

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Uh huh. Well "rural up north" is the only place I've ever personally experienced racism. But then your "Roma looking beggars" comment sort of proves the point there.

echt · 15/08/2025 23:57

Ilovemyshed · 15/08/2025 15:10

What is this “hating on” phrase all about?

This.

noblegiraffe · 15/08/2025 23:55

Yes, but are they currently waging an anti-London campaign on social media?

Mariana95 · 15/08/2025 23:53

Lmnop22 · 15/08/2025 15:09

Honestly I think London is over rated and I don’t really understand why anyone would spend so much more money just to live there. But I haven’t noticed a social media trend against London and my reluctance to live there isn’t due to racial or crime factors - just expense, huge travel times between places, not being close to more rural areas etc which are just personal preference.

If you like London, crack on!

I agree. Not everyone who dislikes London does so for racist reasons.

Mariana95 · 15/08/2025 23:50

noblegiraffe · 15/08/2025 15:06

It’s because the mayor is a Muslim and they hate Muslims.

They refer to it as ‘Sadiq Khan’s London’ when they want to be particularly scathing.

Those are just the racists.

There are some people who just don't like London because it's busy, impersonal, polluted and there are a lot of rundown areas once you're outside of the EC and W postcodes.

I don't live in London, but happily live in a really diverse area.

Rainydayinlondon · 15/08/2025 23:49

DaffodilValley · 15/08/2025 15:24

You can’t hate “on” something, you just hate it.

😂
Or hatred of...

TimeFlysWhenYoureHavingRum · 15/08/2025 23:45

I've lived and worked in London for 22 years after moving here for uni from the small south coast town I grew up in. I've been physically assaulted in the street several times in one of those places over the years. It wasn't London.

Chompingatthebeat · 15/08/2025 23:38

Jamesblonde2 · 15/08/2025 23:33

Pleased to say we’re the same as we always were and welcome tourists who know what they’re going to get. Traditional. It’s great.

No Roma beggars.

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But beggars in general are ok? And roma tourists?

VivienneDelacroix · 15/08/2025 23:35

Right-wing American press are really laying it on that London is some horrific, unsafe, dystopia. It feeds the concept that American is the land of the free and that America is the greatest nation. It's getting a bit North Korea - pushing the idea that anywhere outside the fatherland is inferior.