Do people say this about other places?

Pah, try living in Dudley 🤣🤣🤣

I don’t know why you would even be bothered by someone else not liking London . I’m not from the uk I’m in Ireland but I’d imagine it just doesn’t suit some peoples lifestyle because of how large and busy it is. Plus unaffordable for a lot of people . In Ireland everywhere outside Dublin is “the country “ even if you live in a large town or a different city . A lot of people say they hate Dublin and wouldn’t live there. Some people genuinely hate big capital cities . Realistically you need privilege to be able to buy property in Dublin unless you have social housing. I think this results in open bashing of Dublin being acceptable .

A lot of southerners say this all the time about anywhere up north even if they have never been there.

Really annoys me, I’m from the South but visit the North alot.

It's rude, but it's not uncommon. If I tell people from the south where I'm from (and have to explain it) I tend to get pitying comments about being 'so far from everything', ie from London
If I tell anyone localish they just grimace about the traffic from the one time they had to drive here!

The museums there are amazing, I always recommend them to people. It doesn’t seem like a bad city at all to me but then when I lived in Oxford whilst doing my post doc I loved Cowley and thought the rest was overhyped so… Maybe it’s just what you’re used to and feel most comfortable with.

I know of many places in Scotland that are routinely absolutely dismissed and pilloried and looked down on by people who have never ever visited.

Wales too. Everyone seems to think it’s one big shithole.

I think its a rude thing to say if you know someone is from there

There are plenty of places I find depressing and would probably think that about. I would never say it to someone from there though! And I don't find London depressing anyway 😁

I'm from North Essex and live in a really nice place. People all my life have been making stupid Essex girl comments to me and presuming I live in a flat in Ilford or something

Places are shitholes for different reasons, my Mother was from London and I lived there briefly in my twenties and really didn’t like it. DH went to school in London as commuted in from Surrey, Too many people, air felt bad, expensive, too many people on holiday bunging up places as they attempt to find where they are, people not as friendly

I am sure some may find my little Northern town a shithole, it’s quite poor and bits very run down. We have Reform councillors and there is nowt fancy round here but I really like it. I’m sure some would be offended by for instance a man on the tow path calling me lass a couple of weeks ago.

Nope but as a Northerner who has lived in London for a decade I can tell you southerners mock our accents frequently, tell me I say words stupidly and often say ‘God I couldn’t live so far away from anywhere of any consequence, there’s nothing to do up there.’ Etc etc.

You just don’t hear it because you’re not northern. And that’s forgetting the generations of being treated as lower class and having less investment in northern areas leaving northerners feeling abandoned by the government and ignored by the capital.

This is really not about places and whether they are "shit holes". It's about rude or forthright people and their very important opinions. 🥱

No place is all good or all bad, just as all the inhabitants are, or not.
I'm a northerner, and have many times been subject to similar inane comments. So predictable and lazy, imo.

My mum lives in one of two villages close to each other and met a woman who lives in the other i think, this woman said "oh how tacky" when my mum said where she lived.

It’s rude, regardless of whether it’s only said about London or not. You don’t just slag off where somebody lives! Not how I’d behave anyway.
I know what you mean though, OP. It does seem like London is fair game (fab city, by the way!).
I sometimes get it in the neck from Glaswegians - I’m in Edinburgh. The only logical explanation can be jealousy, which is probably true in your case too 😜

Yes people do do that. I went to uni near Preston and everyone said it was a shithole frequently. London gets most of it because people dislike large cities.

People aren’t talking about your neighbourhood but about the capital as a whole. So it’s not personal to where you live which is why they feel it isn’t rude.

I love London and if I was a squillianaire I’d have a lovely house with a walled garden in Marylebone, Highgate or Hampstead Village. Perhaps a Mews house, I’m not greedy.

I had to put up with this when I worked in the North. People would openly talk negatively about anywhere in the South and then say ‘oh sorry forgot you were there’. I had no idea the North loathed Southerners until I moved there. And can honestly say Southerners do not talk about Northerners in the same degree and breadth of dislike. It was quite odd.

Some of it was banter. Fine. No problem. I can tell the difference.
But clearly a lot of it really really wasn’t.
And it wasn’t about being blunt either.

My friend told a couple from the Midlands that he lived in central London and their faces dropped. They thought it was incredibly dangerous and asked why he lived there?!

He said by choice and it's not remotely dangerous.

He was obviously thinking how much he'd hate to live in some isolated rural Midlands village but he wouldn't have been so rude as to say so.

You see it on here all the time- people feel licensed to slag off London in a way they wouldn't dream of with anywhere else.

I think it's because it's perceived as punching up, even by people who genuinely don't like London. It's a bit like how people who wouldn't dream of criticising a celebrity for being too fat will happily call someone too thin, despite that being just as personal and unpleasant. Because London is expensive and (for some) desirable, some people take that as permission to be a dick, as if being very rude about a place that other people spend £££ to live in makes them special and interesting, rather than just very rude.

This post nails it 👏

People definitely say it about Hull although sometimes someone who went to university there or has visited will rave about it.

Yes, I think this is true. You're 'allowed' to bash London vocally to a far greater extent than elsewhere because it's not (generally) poor/deprived.

For what it's worth, I adored living in London and when I got that kind of guff from people, I would look pitying and say 'Well, out of towners often find it difficult to adjust to the energy, of course' and move on.

Capital cities are generally considered quite different from the counties in which they are located. There is often resentment about the disproportionate attention they get. Ie 2 inches of snow in London oh no the sky has fallen - 2 feet of snow in Snorterdale, Yorkshire - nowt.

Eeeh it's grim up north London

People say it about loads of different places. Try coming from Birmingham, every one slags Birmingham off.

She is jealous that you are lucky enough to live in London!

People think where I live is a bit of a shit hole, it’s not - it’s really lovely!
The town centre itself is run down and is now a collection of fast food shops, some independent restaurants, charity shops, second hand furniture shops and some pubs - most of the big chain shops have long gone.
However we have access to lovely parks and some amazing facilities if you step outside the vicinity of the immediate town centre. We have loads of green spaces and nature reserves, an arts centre and a theatre, fantastic transport links and good health centre options.
I don’t take any notice of people saying where I live is crap, I just presume they don’t live here themselves and for the most part have never visited.