Please tell me why anyone would want to live in London

[Lloyd46]

I love London to visit, but I am glad to leave. Please tell me why anyone would pay extashionate prices to live in an over crowded, expensive place, why not live on the out skirts and pop in and out when you feel like it?

The day ends in 'y', time for a London bashing thread. How original

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwn.

Sigh.

You are kidding right?

London is one of the most wonderful cities in the whole wide world! They didn't need to name it twice, because once says it all. It. Is. Magnificent.

Because it has a vibrancy that you feel when you belong. Some people don't feel it so ...

?

Because i was fucking born here

This. As were my parents. And DH, and his parents. And now our children.

This is home. It has some advantages which draw people from other parts of the country (so many, so extensively described by other, more articulate posters before me) but for me and for my friends, and my family, this is our home.

One thing people do say a lot is "I couldn't bring up children in London" or "I had to move out of London because of the schools." But London has good schools, so what do they actually mean?

I think a kind interpretation would be - "London has a lot of EAL and FSM pupils and this will affect the quality of education my DCs will get."
(It does true but mostly positively.)

There is a less kind interpretation.

because it's home?

Why the need for all this London bashing?? I'm not from London originally but have lived here 20 years now, I hate the expensive house prices but love everything else. The diversity, you can be who/what you want without people batting an eyelid, you don't have to drive to get anywhere, 24 hour transport, gigs, theatre, history, so much fabulous stuff to do/see for free, there's always a corner shop within 5 mins walk for emergency beers pint of milk etc.
I find a lot of the towns on the outskirts of London are dreary (not all).
I like visiting my home town and surrounding area but could I move back, no.

If you are visiting London do you ever take a few steps off the main streets and just explore?

Wander off Baker Street into Marylebone and off to chiltern street and enjoy the lovely shops and bars and restaurants. Start to walk down the back streets towards John Lewis on Oxford street. As you take this route you'll pass via Welbeck street and the other similar streets. There'll be some shops which have been there forever, some sandwich shops run by a long established Italian family, a Greek taverna which has been there for 50 years. You can peer into people's lovely flats and you won't get caught up in any crowds.

When you're in Camden wander up to Chalk Farm and keep going. Take the little bridge until you're in primrose hill, where incidentally there's no parking restrictions at the weekend. Eat in great sandwich shops, enjoy marvellous sushi, grab a coffee and wander along the canal. After that take a trip to the park and get yourself to the top of the hill. People are strolling, walking dogs, collecting dry cleaning. Kids are scooting, people on laptops are working, it's just ever day life.

When you're at Euston station don't stick to the Euston road, take a stroll behind and find out where people live their day to day life. When you come out of kings cross station make your way to the regenerated area, the granary square and the surrounds.

If you're working your way towards green park or even Mayfair, get off the main roads and Enjoy the beautiful stucco houses and elegant avenues or do the same in Holland Park:

Take a trip to Liverpool Street station, fight your way through the crowds to spitalfields and the surrounding area where there's a glimpse into the old East End and where new and hip mixes effortlessly with the old. Where barely a tourist appears during the week where school children mingle with city workers and market traders. Where the fruit man in the station has been there far longer than any Starbucks has ever been.

London isn't Oxford Street and Hyde park and Piccadilly Circus, it's busy and crazy, it's quite and calm, its quiet and it's busy. It's not for everyone but for some of us, quite simply, it's home.

I think a more interesting question is how do people live in London? When we look at places to move to next, we consistently rule out London because the cost of living (mainly housing) is so high that our quality of life would be massively affected. We've looked at other capital cities and the cost differential isn't nearly so big (e.g. we live in the Netherlands and if we wanted to moving to Amsterdam wouldn't be a problem.) If you don't grow up in London or move there very young, it's not a great option despite it being a wonderful city. I think that is going to have quite a negative effect on the country as careers that need some time in London become out of reach to people from the north (where I'm from).

I grew up in London. I moved up North basically because of house prices and the cost of living. London is a very hard place to live if you don't have much money. We couldn't afford to do most of the things people on here have suggested, even if we just went to the park we couldn't afford an ice cream! And we weren't the poorest on the bones of our arse, just a bit below average. Plus after doing horrendous commutes the last thing we fancied doing was spending the weekend getting on the tube again.

Plus from my own experience it is not a great place to bring up children. They grow up faster in London and are a lot harder. Plus there's the money thing there too, there is a lot of pressure for children to have material goods and keep up and a lot of judgement on that. I really think that for London to be a good place to live you need a pretty fat salary. I see friends who work in the city and earn a lot and their lifestyles are good, it must be great for them.

Having said that my parents still live there and we go back to visit and I have fallen back in love with London again. We go down and visit and do the museums and visit the galleries, shops, restaurants and parks and go to the theatre. And we can afford to do it because we're not paying London housing costs or for a season ticket! And because we are just paying those prices for a few days rather than permanently it is doable. I get to see all the positives of London now and I love being there. But living there? No not for me.

trister That was a lovely post. I've been here for nearly 25 years and there are huge parts of London that I barely know.

I have a flat in London and a house in the country but love going home to my horses and lots of space around me. London is great but give me space and fresh air any day

Hahahaha. Yeah, why doesn't everyone just do this?

One thing people do say a lot is "I couldn't bring up children in London" or "I had to move out of London because of the schools." But London has good schools, so what do they actually mean?

I think a kind interpretation would be - "London has a lot of EAL and FSM pupils and this will affect the quality of education my DCs will get."

Yep. People show their true colours when they have kids it seems. "I wouldn't want Petunia to be the only white girl in her class"

Because our families live here. Because we work here. Because our children go to school here and have friends here. Ffs it's not rocket science. Oh, and it's actually a great place to live.

That's kind of what I thought they meant, Idaho . Offensive. As is the general assertion that kids are harder and more materialistic in London. Why on earth should that be? When my dd was pre school age i saw small boys running into the park on a school trip yelling "Daffodils, yeah!!!" And I remember thinking he wouldn't have got away with that at my (non London) school and how happy I was that the world was moving to a more tolerant and accepting state. Ha. That'll learn me.

The museums. The art galleries. The concerts (especially the Proms). The theatres. The diversity. The architecture. The feeling of stuff happening. The transport links to everywhere else in the country, in fact, in the world. (Eyes up Londoners jealously from my place in the sticks... Which I live in because of - guess what - my job.)

Like many Londoners, I wasn't born here or even raised here, yet it's home. Why? London is so accepting. Your background doesn't matter as long as you genuinely want to be here. As a mixed race person, London is the only place where I've never felt like a foreigner. This is home. I love it.

Oh, and the obvious. Jobs, culture, green spaces, food, transport links, etc... Who wouldn't fall in love with this city?

What is it with goady to fuckers and london recently.

Because it is home. I was born here as was dh and both our families for generations before us. We live in a great area, outstanding schools on our doorstep (both primary and secondary), opposite a huge green park and 10mins by train away from central. The community is great and yes we know and chat with our neighbours. There are many great things to living in London that when I have even left I miss terribly (like not sticking out like a sore thumb and getting strange looks and people randomly touching my kids hair because I and my family are not white).

Oh, yawn, not another London bashing thread.

Why not live on the out skirts and pop in and out when you feel like it?

Because I've visited most commuter towns and I've hated all of them. The ones I'd actually like to live in (eg Cambridge) are almost as expensive as London and more so once you add on train fares.

I am a London girl born and bred. All my family and friends are here. Why is that so hard for people to understand?

We will at some point outgrow our gardenless 2 bed flat, and have to move out. It makes me very sad. But we'll probably go somewhere completely new like Bristol or Newcastle rather than live on the "outskirts" of London.

Plus from my own experience it is not a great place to bring up children. They grow up faster in London and are a lot harder.

What a load of total bollocks.

Anecdotally, I didn't even drink alcohol til I was 18 and I grew up in a v deprived part of East London. Never touched drugs either. Nor did any of my friends at school.

My uni friends on the other hand? Who all grew up in naice suburbs? Drinking and drugs from the age of 15.

Y'know, as we're wildly stereotyping and all that

I don't live in London nor do I want to.

But I can see the attraction. You can get ever such a lot to do in London-often for free. We live close enough that we can do it for a day trip and so go 3-4 times a year and are nowhere near running short of places to go and, other than theatre, I don't think we've paid for any yet.
My dc have had performing opportunities they wouldn't get if they were further out and other opportunities because they can get there easily.

I think my dc would have more freedom in London. They would have free bus fares-here they pay 2/3 of an adult fare, which are more than unusually expensive. In fact their bus fare from her to town (3 miles away) is more than I pay (on a family railcard) for them to get to London. And there's only 2 buses an hour compared to 4 trains per hour from the nearest station.
But with the tube system they could get to places on their own that currently I have to take them to.
You've also got a good number of top of the world medical specialists if you need them.

I think people who think it hasn't got anything to offer haven't spent enough time there really. The more you find, the more you realise is there waiting.