To wonder how ordinary people can afford to live in London?

[Rhine]

By ordinary people I mean those of us who aren't millionaires, oligarchs and trustafarians. Obviously there must be ordinary people living there, but how on earth do they afford it? To buy there is eye watteringly expensive, so I suppose they must all be in rentals but then the rental prices are bad enough.

To get things in perspective you could probably get a five bed detached with land attached for the price of a small one bed flat in central London.

Pardon my igorance on this matter but it's always baffled me. Where do all the taxi drivers, shop workers, hotel staff, police, fire personnel, doctors, nurses etc live? Do they live in social housing, or are they miles out and commute in every morning?

It's a bit hard for a small town girl like me to get my head around.

Oh and Beafuort...

Just off the end of a road where a whole house will be in the millions and flats are hundreds of thousands, a poor girl in her 20s was an innocent by stander gunned down by a drive by shooting, just two years ago.

A man was killed with one punch, outside Budgens on Upper Street islington just a year ago and that Wetherspoons at Angel is a den of inequity, I even know people who've been asked by very very young girls if they would like a nice time while having a fag on the street there.

In every area of London, apart from maybe Belgravia and Mayfair, it only takes a scratch of the surface to find the seedy underbelly.

Back to the original point. It takes about an hour to get anywhere, get used to a commute, this city wouldn't be what it is if people didn't move about for work. Half of it is only really here because of the tube and train lines, even zones 2-3.

Whenever I watch "Outnumbered" I always wonder how they do it, on a teacher's salary. It appears to be set in somewhere like Chiswick where a house like that would be over a minion quid.

Chiswick still has some "affordable" houses if you go on the "wrong" side of the A3.

And the "wrong" side of the A3 is lovely.

What's "affordable" if you're on about £45k?

bit baffled by some of these posts

the postcode makes a big difference to the price

if you don't consider London to be beyond Zone 3, then how is it that I've lived in Zone 5 and had a London postcode?!

it does make me wonder though - I get very irritated when I see meeja reports with people saying "I can't afford to live in Zone 2 therefore London is not for me" as I thought it was a media view. I had no idea that people really see living in SE20 as not living in London.

I am fussy about the definition too - Surrey is not London - but thinking of postcodes covers the definition doesn't it?

the thing that seems a huge factor for those of us who bought, is when we bought. Many people who bought 10-15 years ago would not be able to buy the same property now.

Also in terms of roughness, my friends thought this area was quite nice till I moved here and told them about the 20 person gang fight that happened soon after I moved in. Nice and nasty live cheek by jowl in London. Maybe not in Belgravia or Chelsea, but in an average part of town, they do.

I do think some areas look rougher than they are, purely because density of population seems to make an area look worse.

Well, not Chiswick. Hence "affordable" in quotes.

Outnumbered is set in The Tonsleys in Wandsworth Town. I don't know why anyone would think Chiswick - the style of architecture is completely different.

The Tonsleys is a perfect example of an area that might have made sense for the Brockmans in late 2006/early 2007 when the first series was conceived and filmed but is not realistic eight years later in 2015. Given the children's ages, it would not have been urealistic to assume that the Brockmans could have bought their house in 2002 or 2003, which would be after their third child was born.

The Tonsleys weren't that popular until the mid-2000s. Wandsworth Town doesn't have the tube and The Tonsleys is basically a giant traffic island in the middle of the Wandsworth gyratory one-way system. Improvements in local state primary schools have impacted on pricing here, as elsewhere in London zones 2 and 3 over the past decade.

We live in flats in Zone 3

South of the river, obviously!

Totally agree with the poster who said that much of central has become a tourist trap. Think of all the creativity and exciting stuff that used to happen in the West End, Camden etc etc. There are few places left, the recent move of the 12 bar club to Holloway was a sign. Camden is a pastiche of what is once was, you still have a few places like the Dublin Castle that have gigs, Proud Gallery etc but mostly its aimed at tourists.

I love this city, I really do, but I sometimes feel its being hollowed out.

None of my friends (all of us born and bred Londoners) would go into z1 to go out, unless it was for a specific 'event' (a gig, show, something like that). We all always socialised much more locally - New Cross and Peckham, primarily (particularly now Peckham is on the up). It was only ever out of towners who would go that far in for drinks.

Depends en.. The Roxy was in Covent Garden and the 100 club on Oxford st, they were great.

Chiswick still has some "affordable" houses if you go on the "wrong" side of the A3

The A3 does not go through Chiswick.

if you don't consider London to be beyond Zone 3, then how is it that I've lived in Zone 5 and had a London postcode?!

Where is this? I can't think of anywhere in Zone 5 that has a London postcode. Would be genuinely interested to know.

Am I thinking of the A4?

At the side of a mainish road there were discarded mattresses, a group of youths who kicked off, a feeling of a tinderbox, extreme poverty and dirtiness.

Nothing caused you harm and yet you write off an area based on the above. You have no concept of extreme poverty or dirtiness if the you think SS is a representation of it.

LBOCS Chingford is E18 (so a London postcode), but I think is still called Chingford, Essex NOT Chingford, London. Likewise, Woodford Green and Woodford. Also Essex but with London postcodes. I don't consider them London.

I have recently moved to Essex (still on the tube though) and I tell you, it's not London. A white van gave way to me today, and he really didn't have to. In fact, really it was his right of way. WOW!!!!

(Actually Woodford may be an IG postcode). But Chingford is definitely E18

I think South Woodford is a London postcode and Woodford Green isn't.

Apologies for being so London-centric!!!

No. Chingford has an E4 postcode and has been part of London since 1965.

Woodford is either E18, or Essex, depending on where you are.

ThatWasMyFavouriteDressNow - I thought Whetstone, N20 but it turns out that's Zone 4. I'm surprised because I used to live in Woodside Park and thought the next station out was Zone 5.

In fact, is it possible it used to be? We used to have A B C on top of Z1-6 I think? (shows age).

Oh yes, confusion!! Is it really Chingford, London not Chingford, Essex (and why it is E4 when Walthamstow is E17 and Stratford is E15, I have no idea).

I am pretty sure it is zone 5 or even 6, for those asking the question on London postcodes that far out.

I just had a quick look at the map, and actually there are areas which won't have London postcodes in zone 4 down here in the south east!

Enfield is N22 so a London postcode, and 40 mins from on over ground, Its in Zone 6.

Anything in the Greater London boundary is London, officially designated, not what some wolly on the net "regards" as London.

If that is the case I don't regard Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham London. Half the blocks of flats are empty these days, communities are dying off. Usually its homogeneously white middle class twin set and pearls types living there. Really just posh suburbs that are lucky to have London post codes.

Gah " From Aldgate" on overground. Need an edit function.