to regret leaving London?

[madhurjazz]

Its beautiful where I live, but quite deprived. Everything is a car ride away and often in winter I CBA if its dark wet and windy outside.

Ive made a few friends here (south west) but I do get the feeling thank most consider me an outsider as many have never moved more than a couple of miles in their life.

Its now near impossible for me to get back into London, my ex house is now an absolute fortune and my house has pretty much just gone up in inflation.

[MiddleClassProblem]

This is not the point of this thread but there are different levels of racism. The racism I suffer living in a non cosmopolitan area is not aggressive but it excludes you, it's looks, it's not friendly chit chat in shops even if you attempt to do so, it's muted responses to you holding a door open, it's assumptions on how you live your life and what you believe just from the colour of your skin. That is something that I didn't experienced in city life and if I had it would have been just one person in one moment. Here it is the majority of people on a daily basis.

[MiddleClassProblem]

All I'm saying is that it is uncomfortable and lonely. And not every town or village is like this but where I live is.

[almondpudding]

Yes, I can appreciate that MCP, and there are definitely some places where we all feel we fit better than others.

[lamii]

@madhurjazz where do you live now?
Oh dear oh dear, I left London 1.5 yr ago for Stockholm. It's def beautiful here! But how boring...I miss open minded, chatty people. I left because of the overcrowd, the grey sky and the nasty greedy landlords.
Now I want to come back! I will deal with the grey sky for sure. In Sweden I feel like an expat, in London I have never felt this way.

[lamii]

BabooshkaKate had a good idea!

[mrsvilliers]

Have not RTFT but left London at Christmas after 14 years there for a town in Midlands and I have to say for me personally it is a massive regret. I perversely found London more community minded than where we are now. Here I have to drive everywhere, people don't seem to want to socialise (there is nowhere to socialise if I'm honest so my assumption is they don't want to) and there are next to no decent groups for my toddler. To pp who mentioned the lack of delis, I hear you!!! And it is almost impossible to get a decent cup of coffee.

We moved because we lost out in the London school allocation. Pluses are that the school is nice with small class sizes and we obviously have a much bigger house with a garden that the kids love. I just miss my pokey house with no garden and all my sociable friends and activities. Trying to find somewhere a bit more to my liking in the area.

I think you either love London or you hate it, and if you love it, you LOVE it. And it's hard to get used to somewhere without that buzz and 24/7 choice of things to do/go/eat/drink.

[LurkingHusband]

To turn things on their head, why is London as it is, while other cities aren't ?

Having lived out of London, I would suggest one possible reason is the ludicrous level of pathetic rivalry you get between towns that - to an outside (i.e. Londoners eye) is meaningless.

It's when you hear stories where Birmingham is preparing a rival bid to Solihull for a sporting event that you realise why most things go to London. Because to a non-Midlander (that'll be 15,000,000 from the SE) Solihull is Birmingham.

Now we know that isn't the case. But it's how people think.

When the olympics were being bid for, it was only a London bid. Not a Harrow one against a Hillingdon one against a Fulham one against a Westminster one....

Life can be very tribal outside London.

[mrsvilliers]

Is Solihull bidding for an event against Birmingham lurking? It's true, before I moved here I would have said part of Birmingham but now I know they are very different places...

I think everywhere in London is closer together and better connected plus a high level of immigration (and by that I mean everyone who wasn't born in London) means that people have less family support and more reliant on friends who most likely live in different areas.

Let's not forget there is massive rivalry amongst London football clubs and their supporters so presumably years ago that sort of area rivalry was there.

[LurkingHusband]

Is Solihull bidding for an event against Birmingham lurking?

One of the "games" (commonwealth ?). Rather than joining forces, they decided to put in separate bids so managed to split any vote. It was talking to Brummie colleagues that made me realise it will always be this way, and Birmingham will always be shat on by London as long it tries to insist it's somehow "different" to Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Solihull, Walsall, or (even) Coventry.

Now I know - and you know it is. But as I said the 15,000,000 people you need behind you don't. And all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and laughing at their ignorance isn't going to change that.

So deal the hand you've got - regions outside London need to put aside their faux rivalry, and become true cultural regions. Or forever put up with London managing to sneak most things of importance.

It's interesting to note that in most countries, the Capital city is rarely the largest.

[shovetheholly]

I used to live in London and I do miss it sometimes. I understand what you mean and where you are coming from.

However, I do think there's something of rose-tinted spectacles about my attitude at times. I moved out in 2004, and the city has changed dramatically and (in my view) not for the better in that time. I have realised recently that what I miss is the time that I was in the city, not the city itself IYSWIM. My best friend lives there now, in a lovely area, so I spent extended time there (we are close) and I just don't like it as much as I once did. I feel like it's very sanitised in the centre now, and that a lot of the grittier, more exotic elements have gone, along with class diversity. Don't get me wrong, it's still a wonderful city, but I think there are other places that are 'more like' the London I remember than London itself (Berlin might be one).

You can say that I'm just rationalising the choices, but I don't think I am, because I am now in a position where I could move back should I wish to in the relatively near future. But I don't think I'm going to. It would mean sacrificing a lot of things in my life that I love, including my writing.

I have to work a lot harder where I am to find people who are similarly minded to me, but they are out there, and I'm hoping that I am on the way to building a bit more of a community of those like-minded people around me.

[shovetheholly]

(Just to clarify, I'm not remotely saying Berlin is like London, just that as a city it feels more alive and arty than London does these days).

[GoldFishFingerz]

Maybe you chose the wrong place to move to? Why did you choose Easton?

[shovetheholly]

Are you actually in Bristol, OP? I assumed you were somewhere deep in Cornwall or something from your post.

How on EARTH are you not finding cosmopolitan, bright, arty types there?! I know loads of people who live there who have PhDs, are incredibly bright and cultured, and very left-leaning?!

[shovetheholly]

(Not, I hasten to add, that there is anything wrong with Cornwall. Lots of very arty places there. It was just the first place associated with the south-west where I could imagine a really remote village in the middle of nowhere).

[Millionprammiles]

I've no desire to rehash Brexit but never has a referendum shone such a stark light on areas of the country we might previously have thought of as 'liberal minded'. There were parts of England we thought we might move to from London...but no more.

Whilst I'd like to to believe the majority of Brexit voters did so on the basis of an in depth knowledge of the workings of the EU governing bodies, the reality is it was (at best) a peevish, knee jerk reaction to elitism and (at worse) xenophobia. Either way - based on ignorance for the majority.

Affluence doesn't adequately explain it, wealthy parts of Surrey voted Brexit whilst areas of London with higher than average unemployment, didn't.
I agree with an earlier poster that its a city/provinces divide. It would hugely bother me if my neighbours thought a vote for Farage or Boris was a good thing.

[Headofthehive55]

Totally agree almond to want diversity and then complain because you live amongst people of a different political leaning?

[Mjingaxx]

Op is not in Easton or even Bristol

[almondpudding]

There is a whole section of MN for you to debate Brexit on.

[Trills]

It seems as if a lot of people here are taking a statement of

the place I live now is X

to be

all places that are not London are X

I can understand why you might get to a place where you feel that your area is under attack and automatically jump to its defence, but we can have a much more interesting conversation if we try not to react emotionally and misinterpret.

[GoldFishFingerz]

I live in the sticks surrounded by lefties and people from a mixture of cultures. Leaving London was positive for me, I felt suffocated in such a grey built up space. It took about two years to be completely settled

[GoldFishFingerz]

Yes I agree Trills. Moving to Totness is utterly different to moving to Milton Keynes

[mrsvilliers]

Lurking do you think that's because Birmingham used to be regarded (and I mean no offence here) as a bit of a dump and so no other area particularly wanted to be a part of it? I have friends who live in a Birmingham suburb (not Solihull) and would in no way even contemplate going there for a shopping or meal out. To me this seems very closed minded as Birmingham has undergone a massive and very positive regeneration but that attitude is still there. Also to me it feels geographically more spread out than say Manchester/Greater Manchester where I've also lived and of course London. I'm not sure if that's true or not but it's how it feels to me.

[ForalltheSaints]

I'd feel the same as you if I left London. I remember living in a small town in the south-west, and could not go back there.

[hettie]

Could you move to Bristol op?

[TheNaze73]

I missed London a lot, when I moved out to Essex. I get where you're coming from OP, there's nowhere like it however, it does take time to adjust to fresh air & slightly less congested roads