To wonder why people live in London

[AtSea1979]

On the news just now, discussing the North/south divide. I live in the north. London seems a big scarey place where bad things happen often and I wonder why people want to live there.
But do people down south wonder why we live up north too with our poor health and education?

I lived in London for 25+ years before moving to Au. I loved it there, so didn't move out of discontent. It's a great place, or was more than ten years ago.

Not getting involved in any underlying sniping about North/South.....but I wish I could find it in myself to love London

OH is originally a London boy and we visited for a few days a couple of years ago....he's fascinated by the pace of life, the bright lights and the business of it all. I had fun, and I really tried....but it just didn't grab me. I'm a country bumpkin and the bustle made me uncomfortable.

All credit to folks who enjoy the city life!

Officegirl,
Tourists London and locals London are very different places.
The Wesr End and Oxford Street and Parliament sq stress me out, and I've lived here for decades.
Equally, if you came and stayed with me, and I took you to my local hangouts, you'd go away feeling shortchanged from a visit to London, other than seeing a few black cabs and red buses drive past

The only thing you geneuinely don't get to see in London are grazing farm animals, but we have far more open space and commons and woods and fields to walk through than any rural market town, which is surrounded by farmland which is off limits.
Look at Clapham or Wimbledon on Google Earth and see how much greenery surrounds them...
You can walk through it whenever you want AND have decent pubs to go to for Sunday roast!

I'm not a fan of big cities tbh - northern or southern. When people go on about wanting to visit New York I just think, why? London does have a lot to offer and I've had some good times there and visited some interesting places. But I'm always very happy to get home again and not have to struggle for space to breathe. I wouldn't live there.

Oh and I don't feel particularly unsafe there and don't think it's 'scary' - just too busy for me.

Tourists London and locals London are very different places.
The Wesr End and Oxford Street and Parliament sq stress me out, and I've lived here for decades.

Yes. This. I have lived here my whole life and I fucking hate most tourist parts to be honest...there is literally nothing worse than walking down oxford street any time in December. Locals London is really, really different.

I also don't get people who bemoan the lack of green. There is loads of green.

There are also lots of quiet spots if you can be bothered to look for them.

I love how the only places in the UK are 'London' and 'The North' according to mn. I understand that the North means the North of England.

The rest of the UK is obviously a massive black hole that no one could consider moving to

we have far more open space and commons and woods and fields to walk through than any rural market town, which is surrounded by farmland which is off limits. Look at Clapham or Wimbledon on Google Earth and see how much greenery surrounds them

Oh come on now. London may be fantastic for what it is (a City) but in reality it is mainly a massive concreted over space with strategically placed green bits left. Hardly in the same category as a rural market town for outside space! I just had a look at Clapham on Google Earth and i'm completely struggling to see what you mean.

Summer
My parents live in a big village/small town in rural Dorset, and other than a local NT place, a footpath that goes alongside a stream and the local rugby club, there are no open fields to walk in, no where to take the dog for a run. It was very similar in the village where I grew up.
Lots of fields, yes, but all of them off limits.

if you live in Clapham, you can walk 10 mins any any direction and get to either Clapham Common (220 acres), Tooting Common (220 acres) or Battersea Park (200 acres)
That is buckets more open space and dog walking area than I ever had growing up in the middle of nowhere. Unless you live on a farm or the edge of a national park, you aren't going to have 600 acres to just wander around at will...

I can understand you, because the thought of living anywhere other than London is very scary for me.

Everywhere I go there is a bus or a train to transport me. Every where I go there is History and Beauty. Magnificent historical building and vibrancy of the newer ones.

Parks, open spaces, rivers, restaurants, pubs, museums, libraries, street markets all within an hours reach. Little side streets where you can imagine Dickens or Connan Doyle walking beside you. Back alleys with gardens bursting with flowers and quirky sculptures.

Most of all the wonderful people who live, work and visit this great city. On any bus you can hear so many different languages, get a glimps of so many different cultures and speak to people you probably never would in any other City.

I am of the older generation and have never felt afraid travelling day or night in and around London. I have never witnessed violence, despite travelling
almost daily. People help me with my case, or my shopping trolley, workers and children offer me their seat.

This is a City that pulses with Community spirit, hope for the future and defiance for those who think their threat of bombs and guns will demoralise us.

Epping forest is around 6000 acres, stretches from Wanstead in East London to Epping (technically Essex but still on the tube).

The only people who think London is mainly a massive concreted over space with strategically placed green bits left don't know the city.

I love London to visit, but would never live there again. Whilst I enjoyed our 8 years or so of SW living, every time I go back I can't wait to get home. Too busy, claustrophobic.

My first serious bf for about 5 years was from Liverpool (does that count as North?) and I loved our time up there visiting his friends and family, which we did a lot. If we had stayed together I could definitely have seen myself moving up there somewhere.

As it was my Dh is unfortunately another southerner like me, so we have settled in the south East in a village. It does suit us, but I do sometimes think we should have been more adventurous and moved elsewhere in the UK (or aus, always feel we should have tried that)

Ds1 is currently in a Northern uni and I am encouraging him to stay up there when he finishes rather than moving back home to the super expensive and crowded South East.

Its where my job, which I'm bloody good at, is. Its where I can go to classes, cultural events, museums and live a truly multicultural life in a multicultural environment and teach my children that the world is full of many experiences. It is expensive, it is dirty, it is lots of bad things - but it is also lots of wonderful things too.

London is a glorious tapestry of everything life has to offer, the beauty of each element made more intense by the contrast with each other piece.

I doubt I could be happy living anywhere else.

London certainly does have green outside space, even in the very centre you can walk from pretty much Buckingham Palace to Notting Hill going via beautiful green parks.

I live ( part of the week) in London because my DH works there.

The school I want my DC to attend is there.

The opportunities I want my DC to have are there.

The culture I want is there.

I don't feel remotely unsafe or stressed.

But I do like that we have another place that is the opposite of London( quiet village with lots of space).

Also London dies have green space.

But that's very different to open farmland/countryside.

I love London - came here to study from Johannesburg (talk about scary places where bad things happen) and stuck around.

As much as OP's views seem naive, I think Londoners can also sometimes suffer a failure of imagination regarding parts of the city they don't know. I think London is brilliant but if I was asked about, say, Clapham or Shepherds Bush, my views would be pretty negative - not much experience but just plenty of stereotype about braying yaahs, Aussies, high crime, whatever. On the other hand I'll sing the praises of New Cross, which no doubt others think is a crime-ridden hole. I don't think I'm the only one who stereotypes in this way.

Basically, the lack of imagination about big bad London can extend to us Londoners, too.

The favourite thing I ever saw was past an alleyway there was this tiny street that remains untouched visually from the outside since the days of gaslights- gaslights were still intact.
Betty, may I ask where that was? One of the things I enjoy doing in London is poking around some of the less well known bits.

Agree with everyone else about London being amazing and wonderful. Trafalgar Square on a warm summer evening is beautiful. The public transport is terrific, and most of it is great for walking, for anyone who is moderately fit and mobile. One could live there all one's life and never see and do all there is to see and do. I've never lived in London, but I have worked there, and wouldn't live anywhere more than 45 minutes or so from London by train.

sparechange don't forget Wandsworth common and streatham common! Which when I lived there had a little cafe and a secret garden which DS loved running around.

There are loads of green spaces in sw London, I used to live walking along the river in Richmond and walking along Wimbledon common or nipping down to Kew.

*love, not live

Elinor
Have you been to Inner Temple?
It is the legal land that is tucked between Fleet Street and the river, and is a proper step back in time to Dickensian London. Lots of TV programmes and Films are shot there
There is also a street near Waterloo called Roupell street,which is virtually untouched in 100 years
Lots of Call the Midwife is filmed there

London seems a big scarey place where bad things happen often and I wonder why people want to live there.

Is this you?

Jibber
And the secret garden in Peckham Rye, and the dinosaurs at the Horniman!
And the towpath that goes from Wansdworth to Richmond

all the people banging on about the "bustle" and "crowds" etc are baffling.

I am Midlands born and bred but moved to London for work. I have never felt that the crowds or "bustle" here are any worse than in Birmingham, or Manchester city centres. I think people come to London with a pre-determined ideal and they stick to it through loyalty to where they live.

My best friend is like this. She is from the North - a financially-struggling and fairly worn-looking small town everyone has heard of (famous for fishing) which seems to churn out an unprecedented level of what I can only think to describe as "jingoism" about that town. She is forever going on about how she could never live in London because its unfriendly and too busy and chaotic and yet she's just moved to one of America's largest cities to work and absolutely loves it, despite the fact that it is pretty much the same in those respects as London!

I also have to admit I am sick to death of SILs and BILs asking constantly when we will be moving back to the Midlands. We wont. It's boring there. Their idea of a fun Saturday is a trip to the Bullring (during which not one of them will actually purchase anything other than nandos or Wagamamas) and then a night in watching Strictly. I assume that this is because they've exhausted all other activities or perhaps they don't get paid enough to do go anywhere more interesting. London has an inexhaustible supply of activities and I get paid double what I could get in the Midlands.