To wonder why people struggle to live in London.

[m1nniedriver]

Just honestly wondering what it is about London that makes people on, as I see it, huge salaries want to live in tiny flats just because it's london? The cost of living there seems riduculous. Some of the posts on here about the cost of housing just beggars belief! A tiny 1 bedroom flat for 300k?? If that's what you want then power to you but I do see posts with people say they are struggling and stressing every day to get by. Why would you not move to another part of the country that would enable a much better quality of life?

I'm not great at putting things across on posts so I hope this doesn't offend anyone its is meant as a genuine question, not having a go.

Its because its London, Eternal that people cling to it

But that's exactly my point!

It's a place. Bricks and mortar and people and jobs and schools and places. Nice museums, lots of everything, yes. But it's not magical FFS. Why the desperation for some to stay there even when they struggle constantly?

Tools, I was just going to mention the Horniman. Love love love it.

Well, you're asking... and people are telling you why they stay.

Whats not to understand?

'Because it's London' isn't really an answer.

Longtimelurker- so you're not even a Londoner? Having been born and brought up in Greenwich, I'm well aware of what 'London' is like. The problem I have, is that I know what it 'used' to be like and on visiting my brother in North London in the present day, 'know' what it is 'now' like. I much prefer the interesting, far more vibrant and diverse London I grew up in. If my brother and his family are anything to go by and their friends that we come across on our visit to the parks, most of them are very local at the weekend, visiting the North London 'village' high street, restaurants and parks, kicking a football around, going to various sport clubs. It's no different to what we do with our dc in Brighton. They infrequently go to museums, galleries etc. in fact, I think we've visited these places more than them in recent months.

People seem happy to feed off the scraps the rich are throwing them, when really a little bit of scrutiny over the situation would highlight the fact that renting a room in a shared house as couple, when you have a combined income of £70,000 is ludicrous. My DH knows a couple of Architects that share with another couple and they both have DC- these are professional Architects, it takes six years hard training to achieve this professional status and you end up living in a house share with your baby!?

My brother's street has two empty edwardian houses as they're are 'investments' not homes. Why is this ok? Empty homes don't make a community- It's 'dull'!

Yes but eternal if you love London that is a perfectly good answer, it doesn't matter if you don't understand, this thread is 11pages long, if people are still confused as to why others love London so much, then that won't change no matter how many more answers you get.

It is, because you just can't replicate some of it in any other city in the UK, its harsh to say but its true. The 24 corner shops in normal residential areas, brilliant for parties, and for when you have small kids. The vibe, the fact that you can do all sorts of stuff as its on your door step, but can choose not to, the fact that Londoners are more liberal and open minded in general than in other places. Jumping a night bus home from central that (although it can take a while) takes you near home, free newspapers monring and night, food of all cultures (near me Afghan, Brazilian, Caribbean, Chinese, Ethiopian, Thai, Phillipino, Indian to name but a few). Just standing outside Hyde Park while a big gig plays that you don't have tickets for and partying with all the others.

World class hospitals, choice of childcare activities, being closer to airports for holiday choices, Eurostar, overground, underground wombiling free......

It just doesn't happen in suburbun Hartlepool/Cheshire/Dorset/Kent does it?

Golden, I know what you mean about some bits of north London, and the zone 2 bits in particular. I was surprised how much I preferred south London when we first ventured south of the river - I'd been prepared to hate it a bit but actually was surprised to find how much more of a community feel I found here.

Now I've managed to piss off half the Londoners as well as apparently alienating everyone else by suggesting that some things might be nice or good here.

How many people live in greater London now - 10 million? I think it's great that people living in other cities are apparently prepared to give up their comfortable jobs and homes for the sake of all those poor Londoners who are accidentally living somewhere expensive when they could easily be living elsewhere.

Well, ignoring the very good reasons I gave about having to live in London for my work and DH's business, and not wanting to leave my family who live here...

I love living in a big city. Birmingham is probably the only city in the UK that also feels big (ish) to me, and even that feels a bit claustrophobic. I love Manchester, cracking place, but its tiny. Its not a big, cosmopolitan city. London is on a par with New York, for me. And if you're a city person, thats important. You get used to that feeling of opportunity and possibility, and as wanky as that may sound, it would be VERY hard to imagine living in a little market town with one high street after that.

I love all the culture, art, history, opportunities to see/do/explore (mentioned above) that London has to offer. I love the parks. I love the markets. I love the shopping areas. I love all the choice. Its never boring.

I love that it is very multicultural. That things stay open late. That transport is fantastic. That if something is happening, something is on, something new is afoot, it happens in or comes to London first.

I'm not going to give all that up for a bigger house or a cheaper lifestyle. It wouldn't be a better lifestyle for me. We could be 'mill-yon-aaaiiiires' (Del Boy voice) if we moved up north, but for what? An easy life? I dont want one!

Is that good enough?

You know... The Horniman is just like many other regional museums. Most major cities will have comparable - and better.

I find centrAl London museums just too overcrowded to be a good day out. We couldn't get near the Natural History Museum the last time we visited. The British museum was so overcrowded we couldn't see the exhibits.

Goldennbear... I've been here longer than I've been anywhere else, I can call my self a Londoner, just cause your born here doesn't make you one in my book. You should know yourself if you are from London, that the beauty is that anyone can call it home, if they choose to.

Also I know plenty of people who are on lowish incomes who can live here, back to the point, it depends where you CHOOSE to live. Shared housing like that is probably zone 1-2? I live here yes, but I've been here eons, I know dozens of young couples who are now happily ensconsed in Wembley, Harlesden.

My area is still quite vibrant btw, plenty going on, plenty of young couples, plenty of gigs of all kinds, events etc. You might have different experiences, I'm pretty happy.

I'll tell you now that 'liberal' and 'openminded' were not words I associate with the London estate and area where I grew up

I've always found London to be more liberal, sorry.

Londoners are more liberal and open minded- oh perleeeease

I have no view on that hypothesis in general really (have met lovely people all over the country, and closed-minded ones, and I've been posted to some quite interesting places)!- but your posts do make you sound rather closed minded on the subject of London.

Do you happen to confine your visits to only the most major tourist attractions in the country (and in Europe!), and only visit them during school holidays or half term, and then think they're representative of everything to do in London? That's what it sounds like (or you've been extremely unlucky with your timings).

In which case, I'll stand by the idea that you're doing London wrong . But that's the difference between touristing here and living here.

London has a worryingly rise in anti gay hate crime.

If you lived in Hartlepool you could afford to holiday in Indonesia and experience the real thing.

If you had a job.

"We've done all the London museums over and again"

Really? All 200+ of them.

oh wash what bollocks

And sorry to be petty but...the British Museum wasn't all that packed today, and a major exhibition had just started. My 70 yr old Mum used her freedom pass to get the tube down there and see it .

My dad lives in a house in rural Ireland, my mum in a flat London. I know which one is having a happier old age...

You know... The Horniman is just like many other regional museums. Most major cities will have comparable - and better.

Not disputing that, if we're just talking major cities. I do love it, but it's just one of the options available here - and I think it's fair to posit that there's slightly more choice when it comes to those sorts of museums in London than in most places . Even without getting into the mega central ones that have so disappointed Washed. Other places, you don't have quite the diversity of choice. And that's fine.

I've been to lots of museums and galleries in many other parts of the UK. People on this thread seem really keen to believe that people in London have never experienced any of the UK outside of London. Bit odd.