Fed up with everyone leaving London

[Arlington45]

My partner and I are both from London, both sets of parents are in fairly near areas to us. We have no intention of leaving London.

But so many people are. My son (6) keeps having to say goodbye to school friends. Is this going to mess him up, having no sense of security with friends sticking around? I hope at some point it will settle down but at the moment it feels like a mass exodus.

I don't feel pissed off with the people leaving, I get it. But I do feel fed up. AIBU?

BeagleEagle I'm not on the attack. I'll admit I do find it intensely irritating when people jump on a London thread just to slag it off based on visiting a few friends who were trying to impress you I expect. London has bigger problems than queuing for restaurants but you jumped on the one problem it doesn't really have!

I don't think most Londoners would disagree about the funding drain. Most Londoners are not born here so have lived elsewhere and witnessed it for themselves. But we've also experienced the great acceptance and inclusion that comes from everyone being from all over the place.

And to be honest saying that 'people' talk about critical race theory all the time and that race is sorted out in Brum sounds a bit... Racist. Either 'people' are white by default it you're complaining about people of colour talking about what oppresses them.

If you felt I was being nasty I apologise. But you attacked first tbh.

YANBU. I am rural-ish, Up North, and am totally priced out of buying anything nice as in the last year prices have shot up, probably by London people moving up here.
I suppose on the flip-side, I would love to live in London, so maybe in a few years when DC all grown up I will be able to afford a flat near a nice London Park!

Was about to say look at Manhattan! Much as I loved visiting pre-Covid I would have preferred to visit 100 years ago when all the different neighbourhoods were vital and thriving.

I think Manchester's the next one to watch out for. All the previously abandoned districts being snapped up, not for accessible living but for luxury apartments etc.

But in 5 years time your child will be changing schools and a lot of his friends will be in different schools. In 10 years time, he'll be going to parties where there is a wide network of friendships across different schools, and friendships that started in kindergarten get rekindled. Then those same people will start leaving for university in different towns and cities. But you may be surprised at how persistent those friendships are across all the changes - children now are plugged into friendship groups via social media/online gaming/having their own phones for texting/snapchat etc and this helps friendships stay alive through changes in school/locale - even country. That's been my son's experience in London anyway, and we've been one of those families that have moved away for a couple of years, then moved back.

@ThePlantsitter

BeagleEagle I'm not on the attack. I'll admit I do find it intensely irritating when people jump on a London thread just to slag it off based on visiting a few friends who were trying to impress you I expect. London has bigger problems than queuing for restaurants but you jumped on the one problem it doesn't really have!

I don't think most Londoners would disagree about the funding drain. Most Londoners are not born here so have lived elsewhere and witnessed it for themselves. But we've also experienced the great acceptance and inclusion that comes from everyone being from all over the place.

And to be honest saying that 'people' talk about critical race theory all the time and that race is sorted out in Brum sounds a bit... Racist. Either 'people' are white by default it you're complaining about people of colour talking about what oppresses them.

If you felt I was being nasty I apologise. But you attacked first tbh.

"And to beonest saying that 'people' talk about critical race theory all the time and that race is sorted out in Brum sounds a bit... Racist. Either 'people' are white by default it you're complaining about people of colour talking about what oppresses them."

If you misrepresent what someone's saying and respond to what you were hoping they were saying then it can sound as bad as you want it to. That sort of attitude is exactly what I'm talking about. I never said race is 'sorted out' in Brum but at the same time people can muck together with knowledge, sensitivity and ability to talk about race and racism, but without the level of intensity that you see elsewhere, including in london. (yes people of all backgrounds - white is not default and I don't know where you got that I'm 'complaining' about people of colour, but that incredible reach is exactly the sort of social environment we've got ourselves into. Assume then allege. Rather than clarifying you just jumped to "that's racist". Sheesh.)

We’ve definitely seen a bit of an exodus in my part of london. I think it’s partly Covid but also as kids are heading into year 5 people wanting to move before secondary. The houses where I live are selling immediately but mostly to people with younger kids. I think it’s just what happens, people leave when kids get to a certain age. We want to stay in London. We love where we live (zone 2/3 borders) and love being close to everything In central London when it’s open. We have a great sense of community here and whilst we’d get a much bigger house outside London I think the benefits of being here outweigh that. But it is a bit depressing when our friends or our kids friends move out. I’ve started asking parents outright if they are here for the long haul so as not to invest too much energy in people who will be gone in 6 months. There are load of us who are sticking around thank goodness.

In many ways I’d love to leave London but my work is niche and can only really be done in here.
I hate commuting so no way I’d move to Slurrey or similar home counties hell.

But in a few years I’ll have retired and will move then.

I think a lot of people who have moved out miles away will get a shock when their employer expects them back in an office 3 days a week and they are spending £400 a week on the train.

boy from hicksville meets girl from hicksville, they both work have flats in London, they meet, fall in love, marry decide to have children, then the case arises where to live, his hicksville or hers. Because that is where the family are. I have seen this so many times. Friends saying well do we live near your parents or mine. Cities are fluid places, always have been. Friends warn them, well if you leave London you can never afford to come back. Your two flats value combined will buy you a lovely place with large garden in hicksville but it will never make you the money two flats in London will accumulate.

@KarensChoppyBob

Was about to say look at Manhattan! Much as I loved visiting pre-Covid I would have preferred to visit 100 years ago when all the different neighbourhoods were vital and thriving.

I think Manchester's the next one to watch out for. All the previously abandoned districts being snapped up, not for accessible living but for luxury apartments etc.

Manchester is definitely an avoid. It was amazing ten-fifteen years ago. I have family who moved away and considered returning when their kids grew up. They went to the old neighbourhoods, no way. It's changed too much, it's become slick and shiny and overrun by finance bros. Northern quarter is a mess now, people are going for the coolness, the music scene and the down to earth atmosphere. Even Affleck's palace has gone a bit.. Sadly that's all gone now, the references are there but not the reality of it. Having said that, there's still a lot going on round the University if you like music (a lot of the venues are heavily student run!).

BeagleEagle don’t worry- I very much doubt you’ll get hoards of Londoners flicking to your neck of the woods!
I love many other parts of the UK - Cotswolds, Yorkshire but restaurants in London are very much in a different class. As agreed by most critics. Also most Londoners eating out at weekends would always know to book - especially if friends are staying/ you want somewhere decent. Says more about your friends than London tbh 😁

A colleague of mine moved up from London to the North of England two years ago with her husband and baby. Had been there for about 15 years. They sold their two bed flat and bought a five bed detached house in a pleasant semi-rural town on the doorstep of a major city, with good transport links. Earn less but the cost of living is lower, so it works out about the same. Now much closer to both their sets of parents.

Ok BeagleEagle if you say so. But I don't think you can decide that Londoners aren't able to talk about race with knowledge, sense, and ability based on a couple of trips to Dishoom.

If you are talking about how 'The Media' represents discussions of race that has very little to do with people in general in Birmingham OR London.

I have lived in other towns in the UK - including Birmingham actually - and the one thing they have that is different from London is a certainty of their own superiority. It's very excluding actually

I have lived in many towns and cities throughout England and Wales (Dp’s work moved him around a lot)

Trying to find the right words. You have summed up what I couldn’t explain.

A village and local town I lived in was like stepping back in time

Some of the strange thoughts and practices made me think I had stepped back in time. Driving was only for men. Only prostitutes went to the pub on Sunday. I met women who had never been more than 5 miles from where they had lived and thought the shit hole local town was the best place in the world.

If that is country living you can keep it.

@DollyParton2

BeagleEagle don’t worry- I very much doubt you’ll get hoards of Londoners flicking to your neck of the woods! I love many other parts of the UK - Cotswolds, Yorkshire but restaurants in London are very much in a different class. As agreed by most critics. Also most Londoners eating out at weekends would always know to book - especially if friends are staying/ you want somewhere decent. Says more about your friends than London tbh 😁

From this thread I'm not concerned at all, we will remain a best kept secret for now. Most critics come from and live in London so restaurants outside don't get visited as often. We've got some Michelin stars and excellent reviews when food editors did give us a fair punt, and didn't have to pay the world for it.

I think the planning process in Manchester has been under the spotlight. So many one and two-bed flats being built, for young childless people, no place for families or older people. There are concerns for what that means for the city centre. Mixed use, mixed communities are needed for a thriving city. But it suits developers and they drive land use.

@ThePlantsitter

Ok BeagleEagle if you say so. But I don't think you can decide that Londoners aren't able to talk about race with knowledge, sense, and ability based on a couple of trips to Dishoom.

If you are talking about how 'The Media' represents discussions of race that has very little to do with people in general in Birmingham OR London.

It's happened again - twist words, assume then allege. It's kind of proving my point. Also that I'm talking from inexperience. I don't think you know how often I come in. I have family in the city, many friends from different social groups and often go in for work too. I went to Dishoom many years ago when it was still relatively unknown.

London's population does tend to go up and down. i remember a big big fall in the 1990s when we sold our last house (and two buy to "lose" flats at huge losses) for example.

Inner London is currently less popular but our bit of outer London, wood opposite, horses go by type of outer London with detached houses and gardens is fairly popular still.

"The size of London’s population has changed dramatically over the past century; falling from a pre-Second World War high of 8.6 million people in 1939 to around 6.8 million in the 1980s. The fall was most pronounced in Inner London, which saw its population reduce by almost half over 50 years.

London’s population has been growing since the early 1990s and hit a new high of 8.9 million in 2018. In a reversal of the mid-20th Century trend, both Inner and Outer London have been growing steadily, although Inner London is still a million people short of its population in 1931. By 2030, London’s population is expected to be almost 10 million." [ that last bit may not be true given Cv19 and Brexit however]

@Bythemillpond

I have lived in other towns in the UK - including Birmingham actually - and the one thing they have that is different from London is a certainty of their own superiority. It's very excluding actually

I have lived in many towns and cities throughout England and Wales (Dp’s work moved him around a lot)

Trying to find the right words. You have summed up what I couldn’t explain.

A village and local town I lived in was like stepping back in time

Some of the strange thoughts and practices made me think I had stepped back in time. Driving was only for men. Only prostitutes went to the pub on Sunday. I met women who had never been more than 5 miles from where they had lived and thought the shit hole local town was the best place in the world.

If that is country living you can keep it.

Where on earth are you going that there are attitudes like that?! What village exactly held the view that women can't drive and only prostitutes go to the pub on a Sunday. That is absurd.

No one has mentioned the ''foreigners'' in London. Some people leaving London are also leaving the country as well - I expect a large % of the Eastern Europeans who have returned home were located in London - 1.3 million Romanians have returned home because of Brexit, for example. Poles have left for Poland etc. Then there are the settled Londoners from international backgrounds who would not go outside M25 anyway because perceived prejudicial attitudes are suspected there.

I sort of did everything in reverse, grew up in the West Country, left at 16 and would never move back. Lived in the Home Counties while DC were young, then moved to London when they were mid teens. I won’t ever leave London now. I couldn’t live without all the conveniences. DC were so happy we moved here when they were at an age where they were going out socialising etc. It’s given them so many more opportunities.

I’m with a housing association and have lived in quite a few different places. I’ve found that outside of London, SH is very similar and all bunched together. Moving to London got me a lovely Victorian place, with lots of original features. The street is mixed between privately owned, private rented and HA properties. So a good mix. That’s another reason I wouldn’t move out as I wouldn’t get anything like this outside of London.

BeagleEagle I don’t think Birmingham is a secret exactly 🙄 I’d say most people have visited but no desire to stay or live there. Glad you like it! Give me London as a city anyway over the majority in the UK, I think it’s just a lot more people don’t really want to live in a city right now/ any more.

I live in one of the SE towns people flock to from London when they decide to start a family. 6 out of 8 couples in our NCT group had just moved from London when our babies were born. DC is in Reception at a very sought-after state primary and I am one of the only parents originally from our town (and even I lived abroad for 15 years before returning to live here, and my DH is from overseas). Most of the parents moved here from London in the past couple of years; many chose this town because of this particular school's reputation, which I find bonkers when you have no guarantee of getting a place in your chosen school. As for more-bang-for-your-buck and big gardens, the school's catchment area is so tiny that most people are obliged to live in Victorian conversions with no outdoor space or overpriced terraced houses that are charming but tiny, with postage-stamp size gardens that never get any sun. This can't quite be what many of them were hoping for and it makes me wonder how bad London life and schooling must be that people make such a choice.

@tara66

No one has mentioned the ''foreigners'' in London. Some people leaving London are also leaving the country as well - I expect a large % of the Eastern Europeans who have returned home were located in London - 1.3 million Romanians have returned home because of Brexit, for example. Poles have left for Poland etc. Then there are the settled Londoners from international backgrounds who would not go outside M25 anyway because perceived prejudicial attitudes are suspected there.

Weird thing is that I think we live in a bubble as me and my partner genuinely haven't experienced any overt racism in Brum - but we have in the far East of the country, including two very scary events in one day, and in London when someone wearing a football shirt from a "team whose fans are pretty racist" was being hostile in a cafe.

@catspider

This is the Governments fault. The only people who can afford to live in London are the very rich and those who get their rent paid for by benefits or have a council home. Everyone else has to leave if they want any kind of security.

How are the government to blame for the expensive housing market in London? It's been the case for decades and is the same in the vast majority of capital cities the world over.

@Iknewyouwerewaitingforme

BeagleEagle I don’t think Birmingham is a secret exactly 🙄 I’d say most people have visited but no desire to stay or live there. Glad you like it! Give me London as a city anyway over the majority in the UK, I think it’s just a lot more people don’t really want to live in a city right now/ any more.

Living here is a secret, and a very well kept one. Many move to Digbeth, Moseley or Brindley Place which is a mistake. Plenty of great neighbourhoods which are a bit less well known. It's city living with access to amazing experiences but without the cost of living. There also seems to be enough space so you never feel like you're living in each other's pockets. Again, that's fine if you don't believe it, you don't have to. I'm glad you like your situation.