To think if you live in a London Borough you live in London

[MariahLynn]

Saw this on twitter and thought about it twitter.com/yougov/status/1319226163278057472?s=21

Why does this create such controversy?

Surely If you live in a London Borough you are part of London.

I can’t see how anyone can live somewhere which has red buses, can vote for London mayor, pays council tax to a London Borough and maintain they live in Essex or Kent or Surrey.

Is it about pretending to be posher?

My parents live in the 'Liverpool City region' but they don't live in Liverpool. It's not about snobbery- they live in St Helens which is nothing to brag about, but everyone there is pretty clear that St Helens is a separate town and not Liverpool, its just part of the same administrative region. I imagine people in Wigan and Bolton are pretty clear that they are not in Manchester even if they are within the Greater Manchester region.
I assume the situation is similar if you live somewhere like Croydon.

I live in a London borough but have an Essex postal code, it causes no end of arguments on the local Facebook page about wether we are London or Essex

Middlesex officially became part of London in 1965.

Inside zone 4 - London

Outside zone 4 - zombie apocalypse

Not sure as I grew up in Essex but now it's London.

The far South of Bromley is about 5 miles outside the suburbs. I wouldn't describe somewhere surrounded by fields and woods as being 'in London', even though it is part of 'Greater London'

Why can't London have fields and woods?

Similar to other PP I live in London Borough of Havering and have an Essex address/postcode. I usually say Essex/London borders but I feel like I’m from Essex as I grew up much further into Essex.
To be honest, I’ve always felt anyone saying London when they live in my area is trying to cling onto Londonness!

@Chanjer

Woldingham- inside the M25 and really not in London

Not a London borough though

I'm zone 4, London borough of Bromley. Definitely not 'London'. Those that live in London would laugh if I said I live in London

I'm in Surrey but up against the London borders. We have highter rates in a couple of boroughs than some of the locked down London boroughs!

Having grown up just the road from Sutton it's also amusing to see Sutton do the hokey cokey as to whether they're London or Surrey depending on what they want to be seen as/screw out of something. This time round I suspect they're really wishing they weren't lumped in with London.

It's the same wherever..I grew up Zone 3 and everywhere else is still paid as The Fringe for teacher salaries. Now live elsewhere and the edge of the city is now described as "South XXX ". Nearby market town 🤣. I personally think postcode is the most accurate way to determine now.

I grew up in a non-Londony bit of London, about half a mile from the border of Herfordshire. There’s a tube station, it’s in a London Borough, but it also has a Harrow post code, a Watford telephone number, and a Middlesex postal address. So I can see why people find it confusing.

More importantly though, who are the 7% of Londoners who think Reading is London? That’s the real mystery.

I’l also live in Havering and grew up in Dagenham. Both were considered Essex when I was a child even though they are ‘London Borough of’.

Now they seem to be interchangeably Essex or London depending on whether the person would prefer to live in London or Essex. Interestingly though I always find that someone from ‘proper London’ will be adamant that they are Essex, and someone from ‘proper Essex’ will be adamant that they are London.

I couldn’t give a shite TBH.

Cities expand

Yes, but parts of what is now Greater London are still semi-rural and not city-like by any definition. It isn't all one vast urban sprawl.

@Gemma2019

Some London boroughs are really far from London. I don't see how Barking qualifies as London. Ilford used to be Essex when I was growing up, Croydon used to be Surrey. Someone said on the TV yesterday that they lived in Hornchurch in "North East London" FFS!

It is quicker to get in to Central London from Croydon some parts of inner London.

Yep London Borough is London. But probs do think of most of inside m25 as London in my head.

As a Londoner I wouldn’t really class saying Croydon etc isn’t London to seem posher than say someone who loves in south west London 🤣
I don’t think people would think you were kosher for living in Croydon / ilford etc than if you lived in Chelsea 🤷‍♀️

• posher

I live in a London borough with a Surrey address. Simples.

I definitely identify as a Londoner.

**Pops in to remind everyone that counties do not appear in correct postal addresses.

Hopes to provide amusement to @StanfordPines by doing this

**Withdraws

We live just outside the M25. My partner grew up in the London Borough of Havering and he classes himself as from Essex, however my son was born in our closest hospital which is in Havering and his birth certificate specifies London.

If you live in a London borough then you can vote for a London mayor and the London assembly. You get a say in the running of London. Despite having a Surrey postcode, you don’t get any say in what happens in Surrey. You can feel what ever you want. There’s no single London anyway. It’s a series of separate areas, all slightly different but all great. That’s what makes London so special.

some people have strong feelings for and feel a strong link with the historic shires. esp if they were born there.
so for historic and cultural reasons they identify more with those than any imposed administrative lines on a map, which are often quite arbitrary. and dopey namings, such as newham.

I get irritated by drop down menus that insist upon a county (Surrey) and won't let you leave it blank. And London isn't an option for a county. I live in London, not bloody Surrey!