To think people will leave big cities?

[GoldfishParade]

Do you think in the post Covid future people will be "fleeing" major cities? Don't get me wrong, London and Manchester etc will always attract people and lots of people will always live there. But AIBU to think that maybe a lot more people will now be leaving? Reasons:

1. You can now work from home. I have a friend who has been in London for years who is now moving to Scotland with her boyfriend because they can WFH now.
2. A new way of socialising:

Sorry mesntvto add under point 2 - conferences and stuff moving online etc

*meant to

No. Cities are so much more than workplaces. And not all jobs can be done from home, or would all people want to do them from home.
And it would be awful for new recruits - my job was my life when I started out. I knew no one, I knew nothing, and my job taught me how to not only do the job with the help from the other more experienced people in the office (I was qualified but had no work experience in the field) but also how to function as an adult in an adult environment. This cannot be done remotely.
Cities are also cultural hubs.
Plus small towns or rural environments might work if you are already partnered up and have or are starting a family, but harder if single.
And many people just like being with people, I love the buzz of a city, people watching etc. The noise, the bustle etc - I find it stimulating.

It’s not really an opinion question. Are they leaving? Some indicators say yes. According to this (which just came out this week), three- and four-bedroom homes are at a record high price as people seek places with gardens and WFH office space, and completed sales for them are up 106% from August a year ago. On the page, you can see that the annual house price index has increased everywhere more than London, the Southwest, the Southeast, and East. Prices in Scotland are up 8.8 percent! So yes, I think people are definitely leaving the cities, whether they’re fleeing or not, and the housing demand shows it.
www.theweek.co.uk/property/108139/three-and-four-bedroom-houses-selling-at-record-prices

I don’t think London or the larger cities in the U.K. are going to die out by any means, but I think they may have to rethink how they do business. I don’t think a lot of non-wealthy people are willing to sacrifice all the other facets of their lives just because they “simply MUST be there for the culture,” if they can work anywhere else. Especially since with a possible housing and cost-of-living savings of thousands of pounds a month plus possible extra bedrooms and garden space, I suspect a lot of very good but also non-wealthy artists and actors and chefs and are going to find a way to make art in collaborations and co-ops in smaller cities, anyway.

Not to the people who actually grew up in these cities and therefore have family members and abundance of friends there. It’s home for them, and always will be. Whereas I can see the people who moved there later in life not being as anchored

I think in the short term people won't be looking to move to big cities. So as the existing population dies off it won't be replaced so easily. But I don't expect a mass migration to the countryside. Sure it's nicer, but Covid won't be around for ever - at least the restrictions won't be, people will gradually get used to living with it.

No, cities like London formed at a time where they only grew because more people moved to them than died of the plagues there.

Few years this will all be forgotten

I think people have always ebbed and floed from cities. We moved from London when our dc were small, as were many many families in our road or at their schools also doing.

We would definitely consider moving back to a city in our retirement - not London, definitely not London - maybe Bristol, York, Manchester, depending where our dc end up. I think people do those kind of life event moves regardless of a pandemic.

Cities will always be a big draw for a large number.

Some people prefer cities to towns or villages.

The ones making the move are probably those who didn’t want to be in the city and Covid just help them get going.

I think they have ajeraxy. You can buy 1 and 2 bedroom city centre flats for less than 50k in the city nearest me, and a plot has been on the market for a year or more. Mainly due to councils granting pp for massive new build housing estates. So as people move out, the city centre has become a bit grim and I don't blame people for not wanting to live there.

I own a student rental flat in another, bigger, city, and its been empty since April since the students went home after the university closed. I tried advertising individual rooms but no one was interested. Once you take away the students and the tourists, there's not a lot of people who want to live in city centres at all, other than in a few select streets. Visiting the flat even now is a bit of a depressing experience because the city is so quiet and a lot of businesses are still closed.

Not helped by the idiotic communist style council expensively licensing every single thing you try to do with a property, and just before lockdown, announcing that they were going to "crack down on high tourist numbers".

It's not long since parts of this city were quite derelict and run down in places and alot of good architecture was demolished as a result. I think we will soon see some parts of city centres becoming really run down quite soon.

Scotland

I think its very different for BAME people as compared to white people. There are always threads on mumsnet asking for suggestions for diverse picturesque towns within commuting distance of london with good schools. The advice is usually- move to the outer suburbs of london or to another big city like Manchester/birmingham/Bristol.

London is only 44.9% White British for this reason. It seems that white people move outside London for more space, better air etc and this was already the case pre covid but BAME individuals are somewhat more limited.

I think they will. Not just because of covid but also because of all the protests etc and the general overcrowding and decline of cities. This exact thing is happening to places like LA and NY so no reason it couldn't happen in London. If people cannot afford to live in London and don't need to live there for work, why wouldn't they leave for a better quality of life, especially when so many of the things that make living in London worthwhile are now shut/limited indefinitely.

Cities are - literally - the bedrock of civilisation. I'm with the Romans on that one. They're not going anywhere anytime soon.

However - as ever - the nature and layout and demographics of what makes a city are in flux. Again, as they've always been.

What I suspect is done for is the eye-watering "city living" type condo that was centred around work and leisure being concentrated in city centres. Who knows ? We might end up with central parks surrounded by a ring of housing ?

I'm imagining an increase in satellite towns and ideally more funding for transport, so people could live in the very near countryside but get fast trains into the city for when they fancy it

@hoping4onlychild
Why would BAME people not be able to do this?

@GoldfishParade

I'm imagining an increase in satellite towns and ideally more funding for transport, so people could live in the very near countryside but get fast trains into the city for when they fancy it

This is Britain. Scale it down.

There might be a bus once a week.

@cosmicdoughnut London is huge and zone 3-6 is very suburban. Unlike in america where you have to get out of the city for suburban living, its not the case here at all. In fact, towns like beaconsfield, St Albans, Brighton often have higher house prices than many suburbs in London. I suspect most jobs wouldn't be completely wfh but would involve 2-3 days in the office, which may mean that you can increase your commute but a 2 hour door to door commute may get old after a while even when done a few times a week.

@GoldfishParade

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/4024215-Mixed-race-family-want-to-leave-London?pg=4

Anecdotally, my MIL has worked from home for the past 30 years and has never earned more than £18k. She has never felt tempted to leave london despite owning a house worth £800k and not having a pension . This is due to the fact that she is Jewish and she needs access to synagogues and kosher supermarkets and to live within the eruv. She also wants to live in a community with the 'right level of religiosity'. Therefore she is unable to sell up and live on the proceeds. I am sure other groups also have close knit communities they don't want to leave. There is also the fear of racism in smaller towns. Manchester or Birmingham might be suitable but its not everyone's cup of tea either, I prefer London.

DGRosetti I think you're a bit more optimistic about planning than I am. What I see around me is not proper, modern planking at all, but extension of the zoning system based on giving into developers who have sat on pre purchased swathes of land for decades and now want profit.

There is no proper infrastructure out in place first, just massive new build housing estates stuck on the edge of existing commu utues. Sometimes there aren't even footpaths linking them with other parts of the community. I am comparing this to other countries such as The Netherlands, where the infrastructure is excellent and old fashioned, out of town retail parks were never encouraged because its proven to be better on all sorts of scales to have small local supermarkets and individual shops within residential areas.

We have! Moving next week back to my hometown. Currently rent an old two bedroom house in London with a horrendously large and time consuming garden and no parking (£1800) to a beautiful newly converted apartment with gym, brand new appliances, brand new kitchen and bathroom and floors, allocated parking spaces, balcony looking out over the water (£550).

Obviously this works for us specifically as I like my town; my family are there and there’s lots of nice shops and restaurants (maybe not a priority with COVID but they are there...) We just don’t use London in the same way we did 5/6 years ago so really no point paying London rent when we will be quite happy in a large town.

This is Britain. Scale it down.

There might be a bus once a week.

Very fair point. Same as our single communal ambulance for the U.K., which is the reason why you must never call it unless you’re at least 54% dead.

Yes, I know a few of people trying to sell in London and move out for a house & garden.

The reality of life in a small city flat is hitting home for many. People want space, a garden, country walks, peace & quiet.

If you build hundreds of satellite towns there won’t be much countryside left

We live in the middle of a city (not massive like London), and are fortunate to have a garden. But what we also have is the ability to walk to school, a great butchers, fishmongers, the main high street with shops like John Lewis, lovely parks, the dentist, doctors, my sports club where I train with friends every week, museums, libraries, pubs, restaurants....

I think if people have compromised hugely on the standard of living they will want to move out, but it can be very enriching living in a city, or a place with a decent level of amenities, and I think that will always be much more attractive than living in a suburb where you have to get in your car for everything. I think that can be very isolating.

I think lots of people will and are leaving big cities, but for many it'll be temporary.

I think a lot of people will sell up and move out, and then a fair proportion will move back, once the more immediate threat of covid is passed and they realise they miss 24-hour hot and cold running Pret.

I also think the jobs market will drive it. Office workers' workplaces might be largely OK with home working now. But if a person is in such a job, and wants to move on in (say) three years, the work landscape might have reverted back to most people being in the office. Which will make finding a new job from hundreds of miles away much harder.

I also think you'll always have a throughput of young people graduates and so on who will want to be in cities for the lights and the greasepaint. Which will come back, because they always do.