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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To hate what's happening to London?

310 replies

AWholeLottaNosy · 30/01/2015 19:19

I moved to London in 1989, it was a great place, full of interesting, arty people, lots of cheap things to do, festivals, clubs, shops, museums. I loved the quirky nature of so many different areas, Camden market, Soho, Notting Hill market at the weekend, the urban grittiness of places like Brixton, Hackney etc. however I can't afford to live in London anymore and feel so sad that all these great places are slowly and surely just becoming one homogenised mass of chain stores, 'luxury flats', unaffordable to most Londoners and the things that made London a great place to live in, shops, markets, clubs, music venues, diversity etc are just vanishing. Boris Johnson obviously not only doesn't give a shit but is actively encouraging this, especially the building of flats just to be bought ( and not even lived in) by foreign investors.

I guess this can't be stopped but I do feel sad about it and wondered how other Londoners felt about it..?

OP posts:

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 22:55

I expect they will move to where ever their work is, Tinks, as everyone does.

Ivegotthree · 30/01/2015 22:59

We live in pretty central ish (zone 2) London, children at state school, mortgage, and despite not being born here (moved here 20 yrs ago from the sticks), I now consider myself a Londoner (sorry Tinks42).

All the above talk about 'no real people' makes no sense to me. All our friends - who come from a huge spectrum of backgrounds and incomes - seem pretty 'real' to me. Not an oligarch among them. Some are childminders, some are teachers, some are in retail, the odd lawyer, translator, journalist, architect, charity worker, stay at home mum (and dad).

We all work bloody hard and love living in London. Our local community is the backbone of my life - we all muck in and help each other, look out for each other, go to the pub together, both in our area and in our street.

Show me a capital city that doesn't change - it has ever been thus in London, and any other city you can think of. But for me, London's a wonderful, thrilling, happy place to live and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom · 30/01/2015 22:59

I adored London. But we couldn't afford a family home there. A friend who grew up in our bit of SE London had parents in 'normal' jobs who had a three bed terrace. She and her husband had a tiny, tiny two bed flat. Only her family were keeping her there. We had no family so....

I feel so sad that a period of living in London will likely be out of the reach of my own kids. It'll be like living in Manhattan.

What I have noticed since leaving London is that so man people in London travel in. The teachers, the police, the fire service. My bit of London they all lived in Essex. I miss London like crazy, but at least al those people can live in the city they serve.

Tinks42 · 30/01/2015 23:01

As everyone does? Blimey theres a community spirit right there. Have you never known the want to be able to have your relations near you if they wish? Caronaim? Do you not think that as people get older their relations should be near them?

Oh yes, I forgot there for a minute that big bucks just crash all that down and its the way it is or should be.

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 23:03

you have to move to where the work is Tinks, fact of life.

Tinks42 · 30/01/2015 23:08

what sort of "fact of life" are you talking about Caroniam? Are you saying that it doesnt matter where you were brought up you need to migrate? Im not a friggin bird nor am I an otter....

Tinks42 · 30/01/2015 23:09

Are you working class Caron?

keepitsimple0 · 30/01/2015 23:09

indeed! I am real! and so are the people i know. I don't know a single oligarch.

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 23:10

I'm not any class Tinks,

Tinks42 · 30/01/2015 23:20

Oh of course you arent Caron. Of course London is a fabulous diverse place to live if you are upwardly mobile. If not, you get forced out of your housing and your family have to move to different corners of England to be able to have sustainable standard of living.

We live it and know whats going on.

You however, dismiss it and KNOW what is going on.

Im actually quite glad i will never do this.

mouses · 30/01/2015 23:23

I grew up in east London, what I liked about it is there so something always within walking distance. as a child we, me and my siblings knew where everything was because we walked and knew the roads...
used to go to hackney market/boot sale on the sunday which slowly turned into Romford style market and less of a boot sale before it closed.
Victoria park was heaven to a child, feeding squirrels, long sunny walks...
but going back there when im summoned to the mothers its not the same, just seems?? packed maybe, the roads I used to walk are now flats, the parks are flats and everything has a price on it. even the roads now with congestion!

living in Essex now I like the fact theres more green areas but the walks are longer to get to any amenities, the post office is a 30min power walk! and theres not much to see when ya strolling...
been here 14yrs and couldn't tell you the name of the road a few streets down! but when I do go back into London I know where I am so theres just something about It

MuddhaOfSuburbia · 30/01/2015 23:23

agree with OP

on bus today through town thinking exactly that- it really is a rich man's town

bin here 30 years and everything is changing/has changed already

even grotty old Lewisham is starting to look all Blade Runner

we need rent caps/regulation- or to make btl mortgages harder to come by

otherwise there'll be noone left to clean your big old offices or sweep your streets or lifeguard your swimming baths or staff your stations or pour your craft beers. Or teach your kids or staff your hospitals

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 23:26

No idea what you are on about Tinks. We live in London and love it. I'm just a normal person, no idea what you mean by "upwardly mobile" just a single working mum on a council estate. I know exactly what London is like. I can't make any sense of your post, or the chip on your shoulder at all. Maybe you haven't travelled much! There really is nowhere quite as good as London, in my opinion! Not that I have seen everywhere in the world, obviously, but I have lived and worked in a fair few places.

SirVixofVixHall · 30/01/2015 23:29

The changes at King's cross make me want to weep. I've left my heart there and moved back to the Land of my Fathers. The first gated development in King's Cross was the beginning of the end, made me so angry. Even my old postcode no longer exists. .

Mamiof3 · 30/01/2015 23:30

Say a nurse on £22000 a year and a teacher on £26000 a year both worked in school or hospital in Central London. How on earth would they ever be able to buy a house or flat and have maybe one or two children??? They would have to move right out into commuting ville. Why is this fair

Tinks42 · 30/01/2015 23:30

I personally have a great idea why you arent getting what Im on about Caronaim. I personally know why you are denying class. But hey, new money smacks of everything you say. Enjoy

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 23:33

Tinks, you are making some sort of wild assumption I can't even make out what, but there is no point in wasting any more time trying to understand what you are saying. You are not saying anything at all.

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 23:34

You are being a complete pratt, why would I "deny class" - I don't have a class, plain and simple! Sorry if that concept is too complicated for you - a person not allocated to a class!

Tinks42 · 30/01/2015 23:34

Of course I am.

QuintlessShadows · 30/01/2015 23:35

Is it really London changing or is it you growing older and not seeing these young hip arty places?

BertieBrabinger · 30/01/2015 23:38

I love how people who no longer live in London resent areas that were horrible improving for those of us who actually still live in the city. Kings X is AMAZING now; finally, after being a hideous, crime ridden filthy wasteland it can actually be used by residents to do things and quite cheaply too, I might add.

Why oh why oh why must people keep peddling this Dickensian picturesque squalor as if it's something charming and cute? It's not if you have to live in it.

Caronaim · 30/01/2015 23:42

I agree, Kingscross was awful, dirty and dangerous, I worked there once. It is tons better now.

MuddhaOfSuburbia · 30/01/2015 23:46

it used to have smashing clubs though

and cheap flats where my friends used to live

thing is once places go all SHINY normal peeps can't live there any more

Katy1368 · 30/01/2015 23:47

Yep kings cross was an absolute dump, I went back there the other day for the first time in years and was stunned by how much nicer it was and how much safer it felt than in the 1990's.

Anyone who is "mourning" the passing of kings cross of yesteryear is nuts IMO. I also remember cardboard city in Waterloo, I had to regularly go home past that and was always terrified, the hassle you got walking near it was awful.

seaoflove · 30/01/2015 23:50

I agree: King's Cross was a dump.

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