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.

the commuter belt is growing larger and larger because it is so expensive to live in Greater London.

Now I've caught up with the thread, can I join in the competition about what makes a real Londoner?

I was born in a London hospital but taken straight home to Essex. My mother was registered at that hospital and had all her babies there despite moving away. You could do that then.

I grew up in Essex but I wouldn't claim to know the whole county even then because it's a big place with quite a few distinctions to do with income, lifestyles and surroundings - a bit like London or any other part of the country, I suppose.

I've lived in London for 23 years. If people ask me where I'm from I say Essex and specify the bit if they're interested. If people ask where I live, I tell them where I live now.

I don't know or care whether that makes me a Londoner. It's a big place and I know my bit. I have no idea what it's like in Peckham or Kentish Town.

I know where the London Borough of Greenwich is and have been there sometimes. I don't know it terribly well, but I know that living in Blackheath is not the same as living in Eltham.

Living in the bit of the borough actually called Greenwich in the 70s or 80s is not the same as living there now and it's a bit silly to say so.

I think of myself a Londoner too. Despite my accent it feels a bit weird to continue to think of myself of a northerner when I've never lived there as an adult.

I'll fess up, I didn't like it at first. It was too noisy, dirty, slow to get anywhere. Trekking across London to visit friends made me feel they might as well live in Manchester. And the evening standard made me live in constant fear I was going to be gassed on the tube or knifed by a gang member. But then I left for 6 months and changed jobs on my return and I haven't looked back. My new job had a better work life balance and I could actually make the most of London, even on a lower salary - gigs, exhibitions, festivals, restaurants, just walking through new districts I hadn't visited before. It feels like a place where there's always something new to discover, and is constantly changing ( I actually like that, while laughing at the irish pub I used to work in becoming a twattish bar with overpriced cocktails and a silly name).

Now I have dcs I don't do quite the same things, though I do have a good network of mutual babysitting favours so can still do restaurants and gigs and general wandering now and again, and I pop to galleries and museums in my lunchbreak fairly regularly. But with dcs the same feeling of possibility exists and we're still discovering new places and making the most of all the activities that happen in a place where there are so many people. In addition we now have local friends too and are grounded to a particular area as well as London in general.

What gets my heckles up is the sort of shudder that people give when the idea of bringing dcs up in London is raised. As if living in a flat, or taking a baby on the tube, is akin to neglect and sending children to state secondary in London is a recipe for turning them into knife wielding criminals. Actually I have a house with a small garden but I'm not sure why this makes me immune from the approbation. it's only somewhere to live. Plenty of dd's friends live in flats or share bedrooms but are hardly deprived. What is this quality of life that having a 3 bedroomed house automatically conveys? I can't help but thinking the Stewart Lee sketch...

Sure, there are places where dd could have a lovely, but very different, childhood. Beaches and moors are lovely, but not everyone's idea of the only way to have a good time, particularly in winter when it's dark after school. Dd is a social butterfly and is a bit lost in a field without loads of other children.

There are places where she could have a similar childhood and a bigger house and garden, and dh and I could walk to work. I can imagine that life being perfectly workable but I can't immediately see that it would be better than what we have now. Coming home 20 mins earlier from a less exciting version of the job I have now to a house with a huge kitchen with an aga - it doesn't excite me the way I'm excited by London, and certainly I can't see the attraction of upping sticks and starting over just to achieve it.

This isn't a dig at those who enjoy living elsewhere. I probably wouldn't want to give up my life in eg leeds to achieve a bigger selection of art galleries either. But less of the "I couldn't possibly bring up dcs in London" please (aimed at the world in general not particularly on this thread). our dcs are doing just fine.

I love London. I'm a city person, I hate being stuck out in the sticks. I hate curtain twitching. I'm lucky to live in a big house albeit a slightly decrepit one. My DC are total urbanites too and have proper London accents.

Because it's awesome.

My life in London is pretty quiet – I live in a nice residential bit where I'm a regular in cafes etc and everyone is friendly. I don't go to glitzy parties or out drinking every night.

But I'm with Woody Allen, when he explained why he can only function in Manhattan: 'I never NEED to get Chinese food at 3am, but I like to know that I COULD.'

I can go to see world-class art for free. I can see world-class actors on stage for £10–£15.

And every time I walk across the bridge from Embankment to the South Bank my heart soars and I can't help smiling and crying a bit at the same time. I mean EVERY time. And I do it quite a lot. And I've lived here for over a decade.

every time I walk across the bridge from Embankment to the South Bank my heart soars and I can't help smiling and crying a bit at the same time.

Snap

Limitedperiodonly, if you're referring to my experience of growing up in Greenwich, I was born in the late 70's and left my job in Whitehall for maternity leave in 2008. My brother lives in a North London 'village' and I see him and my niece/nephews regularly and my Dad in Peckham. My DH is from an upper middle class Jewish family, he was born in Camden, raised in Crouch End, his grandparents had a home in Hampstead Heath but never referred to themselves as Londoners as they arrived in the East end when they were 19. All that side of the family are very high up in the arts - directors of London galleries etc. so you could say we know a bit about London between us!!

Posters are defending 'the struggle' to live in London as worthwhile because the rest of us are seemingly ignorant to its splendours as we don't live there 'this year'. My opinion was dismissed because of this and yet having been born there, grown up there for 24 years of my life, worked there for 8, surely I'm in a position to compare and contrast. In doing that I can tell you that what is see now is a Dickensian level of inequality. This appears to be defended on this thread and a perfectly acceptable state of affairs because 'hey, anything is fine as long as we preserve our living museum!'

In 1980 65% of London households fell into the middle income bracket that figure is now around 37%. 'This' is a problem, not something to be defended with the Global city (tax haven) title that allows its problems to remain unscrutinised.

Of course there are not enough school places, there is an ever increasing population with no plan to resolve the issues that accompany that. Let's face it there is a vested interest in house price inflation and high rents but people aren't challenging the ridiculous rates of return, in fact on here they're helping this richest 1% justify these housing costs with chocolate box London sentimentality.

Another line of defence is the 'potential' people have in jobs in London. My DH is an Architect and works in both their London and Brighton office, in his profession we're acutely aware of the necessity to be not too far from London. We therefore have to pay the price for that, we own it but equally live in a 2 bedroom flat with two children. We're tied to London because of its dominance compared to the rest of the UK. Why do people think this is is a good thing- job creation in London only, it is worrying more than anything. If we have another financial crisis do we think this London dominance is going to be a 'good' thing??

Posters are defending 'the struggle' to live in London as worthwhile because the rest of us are seemingly ignorant to its splendours

Are they, though? I really haven't seen much of that - more people pointing out that they value different things, and some of those different things are London things. No one's saying you're a bad person or somehow lacking for valuing different things more, it's just that we're all different, and for some people big house + big garden does not necessarily add up to better quality of life.

However, one thing that comes across in your posts is that while you really dislike it if you feel anyone is denying your experience of London and your knowledge and understanding of London - and fair enough - you are really quick to deny other people's experiences and perspectives if they don't match yours, even if that person has lived in a very different part of London or experienced it in a way you haven't (such as living in London as a parent, or living in London more recently).

Which I find quite odd, to be honest - why wouldn't my experience or perspective be vastly different from yours, or someone in Newham, or someone in Walthamstow, or someone who stayed in my old stomping grounds of West Hampstead, who values different things and has a different sort of life to mine? And why would the difference bother me?

Goldenbear - I agree. I grew up in the borough of Greenwich too and the pace of gentrification in that part of London is astonishing.

In lll

jassy you make some good general points but I think you're projecting a bit. No one on this thread has defended the London centric economy as a good thing but we are not individually in a position to change it, only explain our choices given the backdrop of where we find ourselves.

In one sense I have benefited from the rise in house prices as I could sell up, move north and be mortgage free. But the fact I haven't done that suggests that I am invested in the city more than just financially. I don't want my friends to move away because of the schools crisis, or for there to be a key worker shortage because people can't afford to live here on normal wages. I like that London is transient but it won't be if people can't afford to move in and out and the only people who can buy are people who inherit London property. We're not at that stage yet, people are just moving to new areas

As they always have done, but it does feel like that day might come if nothing is done. Subsidised trains would be a start. Some commutes could be very quick but are extortionate .

Going back to the OP, I don't think people on large salaries are struggling to get by in London - any more than a well off person living in the countryside struggles because of lack of public transport. There might be downsides to either option, but really you are just paying your money and taking your choice.

The people who 'struggle' to live in London are those who don't have choices because they are on low incomes and/or their job doesn't exist elsewhere.

Most people living in London live in greater London, not the centre, and would have less chance of finding a Chinese takeaway at 3am than somebody living in the centre of Manchester.

limited I don't think that article is a good example of a normal down to earth London family...

Longest, have you got me confused with Goldenbear?

They're monsters, aren't they?

Sorry, sleep deprivation!

It's strange when I moved to London it seemed socially acceptable for many living in my home town to sneer to my face about the horrors of the tube/crowds/other negatives about the place I was moving to but somehow would have been utterly unacceptable for me to criticise the town we were living in to them.

Same theory that it's ok to comment that someone is thin but to call some fat would be unacceptably rude.

It's because London is obviously and in so many ways far superior to everywhere else in the uk. It's incredible. It's a world city. Nowhere else compares. And I speak as a country mouse who lived there for 8 incredible years before scuttling back westwards. If you haven't lived there you have missed out. Will be advising my dds to spend their twenties there.

I went from sitting in all bar one in bristol with the old all english parochial crowd to an amazing bar in soho with new friends from India, Canada, Nigeria and Australia. Met my gorgeous interesting dh there wouldn't have found him in the provinces.

when I moved to London it seemed socially acceptable for many living in my home town to sneer to my face about the horrors of the tube/crowds/other negatives about the place I was moving to but somehow would have been utterly unacceptable for me to criticise the town we were living in to them.

I find this too. It's a really weird double standard.

Its certainly true on here as well.

wouldn't have found him in the provinces.

The provinces?

You don't work fur the government do you?

I wish! I speak tongue in cheek - I am from and now live firmly in the provinces.... But wouldn't have missed my London years for anything. And yes ime the calibre of men I met in London compared to my home town was very very different

I think I reached my London nadir when I tried to go to Brighton fur the day and sat in traffic through streatham etc for so long that I gave up and went home. It was hours and they all seemed to be queuing for Croydon IKEA.

In Glasgow you can be in the most stunning countryside in 20 minutes yet have access to great shops, restaurants, museums, art galleries etc

Its much better than Edinburgh and even that London (fans the flames)

There is stunning countryside around most cities. However whether or not you will have to drive through Streatham or Croydon to reach countryside from London depends on where you live in London.

Obviously there are also trains.

Or you could just spend hours walking around lovely accessible green space in London.

Also Brighton is a city with a beach surrounded by countryside, not actual countryside.

All you lucky lucky Londoners, whether born there or not, should read Cyclogeography by Jon Day. It's about all the interesting nooks and crannies in London that most people don't know about.