To wonder how anyone can live in London?

[Sausagefingers9]

I hadn’t been to London in years so had forgotten just how extremely busy it is. I’ve just got back from a trip there and feel like I need a lay down in a dark room!

How does anyone ever turn off when there is so much stuff, and noise and people everywhere? Everyone looked so grumpy and depressed.

For you friendly Londoners - I could t resist a North/South thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3442989-North-Vs-South

Horses n courses.
I live in London and couldn’t live anywhere else.
The list of reasons why I love it is far too long to post!

Lifelong born and bred Londoners are a bit different, I think. It's not a playground for a particular phase of life. It's home, it's family, it's permanent.
Totally agree with this.
(North or West all the way)

Sarf till I die, mum cried when sibling moved to north london because it was so far away 🤣

Oh maybe yes - I was born here in London - so it’s where my family is etc

I love it. But i am a grumpy fucker.
Being somewhere really quiet and green actually scares me.

I live in London in a riverside apartment. It's less than 20 minutes to Waterloo, in zone 2, it's quiet and calm with beautiful green spaces. It has everything.

I love London. Wouldn’t live anywhere else in the UK. Occasionally I see what I could buy outside of London for the price of my own home here and sometimes think how wonderful all that lateral space would be. But then I think of all the Brexiteers...

I don’t think Londoners are grumpy or depressed. I think that commuters look that way (braving rush hour northern/central line is not for the faint hearted) but go into any nice restaurant or bar and most are having a good time. You might even see a few smiling faces.

All of the above said, I do think there is a very tangible gap between rich and poor in London - predominantly down to housing costs - and I can imagine that London is a very tough place to be poor.

London born and bred here. Came back after going away to university. I moved out of London in my 40s because of a job offer. Family members are still there.

Where I live now has a lot going for it but I do miss the particular anonymous buzz of London, and its big parks, and the Thames.

I am sorry to say that since moving out of London I have met people who think that because they have got off the intercity train at Kings Cross, and then got the tube to Oxford Street or Leicester Square, they think they know what it is like to live in London and assume I must be rich (if I was, I would own a house there as well!) or that I could have only lived there for a few years as a young adult doing the 'London thing'. Er, no, that's my hometown.

had countless people tell
me they’ve never meant a real
Londoner before, I’m pretty sure i’m the same as them. Also I met quite a few people through work in my 20s who would say they were from London, conversation would then turn to what schools they went too & where they went out clubbing, etc. It would then transpire that they only moved here 2 years ago which I always found odd.

I have tried not living in London, I hated it. I missed the convenience more than anything. I grew up about 30 miles south of London, most people I was at school with still live in the same area we gre up in whereas I couldn't leave quick enough and will never return! I live in zone 4 and work in zone 6. There is so much to do, to see and a ridiculous amount of green open space. That being said I still would never voluntarily go into the centre/west end at the weekend!

Some people like busy cities, some don’t. Just because you do or don’t like somewhere doesn’t mean you are right or wrong.

Nah OP, London’s great . The diversity and acceptance are what I like the most.

It is crowded and polluted in places etc.., but if you live here you have your own community and workplace, and choose which other bits you want to see.

Like anywhere I suppose.

One thing I don’t like is the glaring inequality - the people with nothing next to the people with money to ostentatiously throw around.

And re power and privilege - okay in general but a meaningless concept for the many people who are poor and living in deprived areas.

The worst thing about London is the pollution and the traffic. You can't walk anywhere because nobody will give way to pedestrians and there is so much building work you find roads/pavements are continually blocked and there are too many tourists walking very very slowly.

But it has its moments - there are some lovely buildings and parks, and you sometimes get a great view. I suppose if I could afford to live in a riverside flat a few minutes from Waterloo I'd like it though. Anywhere is great if you have money.

I agree that the gulf between rich and poor is particularly stark in London. But there are lots of homeless people in Edinburgh and Dublin, too.

But then I think of all the Brexiteers...

Hmm. I live in fairly rural NW England. I don't know a single Brexiteer locally.

I won't join in with slagging off London, because I loved it when I lived there. I wouldn't say it was convenient though, because I couldn't afford to live anywhere central. Getting anywhere took a while, on packed tubes. Supermarket shopping was a pain unless you had a car (which was a nightmare because of the traffic). Ended up shopping in smaller, more expensive shops. Ended up moving away due to the expense and the fact that living on the outskirts you might as well be living in a village elsewhere and commuting into a town.

Anywhere is great if you have money

I think that sums up this whole thread. People who don't know anyone who flatshare, who live in riverside apartments - thanks for your perspective, but you are privileged. You aren't a cleaner working split shifts who has to take 4 very long bus rides every day because they can't afford the tube [hence the move to transferable bus fares to help these people]. You aren't being moved from pillar to post every year because your landlord can kick you out to make more money due to the insatiable demand for housing. You have choices.

I've lived in the London area all my life and worked in central London for many years. Loved it. When you live on the outskirts (unless you can afford to live somewhere like Hampstead), it's quieter, lots of green spaces and villagey.

I don't live IN London but close enough to travel in whenever I like. Been in 3 times in the last week and yes of course it's busy because Christmas is round the corner. I was really happy to see so many foreign tourists and love all the Christmas atmosphere.
Apart from that the rest of the year it is great to live so close and to take advantage of eventing this fab city has to offer.
If i could persuade DH we would be living closer in...i am working on it

I love London! Have lived here now for 25 yrs. Very fortunate to live in a lovely area with a lot of green space, and good links into the city. So we get the best of both worlds. I still get excited going on the escalators on the tubes and walking over the bridges at night....love it!

This bit of London's more like Watford. Not really very busy at all.

Up until two years ago, I lived on North Peckham estate for three years. Prior to this I lived in Woolwich, Stratford and Ealing. I was born and raised in Bethnal Green. My opinion of London, unless youre well off its a total slum! If you live on one of the inner London estates forget it, youre in as close to hell as you can get. I have seen in last 5 years alone, multiple stabbings, three shootings, fights, beatings, police officers get attacked, paramedics get attacked, hit and runs and more. The community spirit of London is long dead, its either people who have no interest in community or passes through. Some of the schools are the worst you can imagine, there is zero authority! I can see the positives of London, employment and the nightlife in the non-slums i guess, but honestly, its no place to live and certainly no place to bring up children, again, unless youre wealthy and/or live in one of the better areas. The only boroughs I think are ok to live still outside of the rich enclaves are probably Bexley and Bromley.

I visited London on Saturday just gone. I live in the depths of the countryside. I reckon there were more people on the tube platform than live in my whole village!

I enjoyed the buzz of the streets, but hated the tube. Where I live you get into an "after you, no after you" stalemate when going through doors or onto the train. I couldn't cope with people shoving past me and the DC to get on the tube.

I also spent a good few minutes looking in an estate agents window near Harrods and having palpitations. There was a rental advert for a two bedroom flat for £10k a week! I couldn't get my head around that.

I can quite see the attraction of London Life, but it's not for me.

C0ll4p53 That's very interesting because I live in your recent neck of the woods, and it is packed full of middle class families (and I would say it's a very good place for kids, bar the pollution) - but whilst being less than half a mile from that estate it's a completely different world - and even that is a dump in comparison to Wimbledon village or Crouch End.

I get the feeling that a lot of people on this thread live in the naice villagey bits. I'd be chuffed if I didn't live somewhere where seeing teenagers in the park with a machete at 8.30am, like DH did the other week, wasn't a reality.

One thing I have noticed in recent years is that young people in my industry (London-centric but not very well paid and wages have really stagnated) are no longer living in London. When I started working in this job, nearly 20 years ago, all the young things lived in zone 2 (occasionally zone 1) - Clapham, Battersea, Hackney etc - now hardly any live in London at all. The Londoners are like me, in their 40s and 50s, having bought a while back.