Why do people live in London?

[Waahaawoowoo]

This thread is inspired by a thread where people where explaining how a £100k salary doesn't go far in London. Examples were given of mortgages costing £25k pa. (This is my salary). Childcare bills for 2 kids costing £40k. Our joint salary is £55k pa.

I live in NE Wales. Our house costs us £12k pa for a 3 bedroom semi. Wraparound Childcare used to cost a maximum of £12k pa. But we no longer pay due to age of kids and me WFH. I cannot get my head around DH and I being significantly better off than a couple who earn double what we do.

The logical answer to me would be to move from London. So why do people stay? Is it family? The type of work you do? I'm curious more than anything about what keeps people there when they could possibly have a better standard of living elsewhere.

It’s crazy dismissing anywhere based on one visit, whether that’s London or Wales. Living somewhere is very different to visiting.

There was one playgroup in the village I grew up in.

However I had one for each day in just our area of the northern city first place we lived with children- including Saturday for DH and kids and often a choice on some days. There were loads of churches I used to joke it must be on the hell mouth but I think in past the area was very densely populated.

We then moved to a town - two neighbourhoods and I again found playgroups in same neighbourhood and walkable for every day of the week.

There were more softplay in city only two in the town - and in the town only one swimming pool. Current small city had 3 pools and many lesson options. Il small town had two pools and many playgroups and a fine selection of softplay areas.

IL town is near two big cities - our small city is easily transport to another 4 bigger cities - that and my DParents location have many historical and cultural events and places.

Outside of London varies vastly.

Personally we never intend to never go smaller than a city again but you do have to pick locations carefully and look what is there and what you need.

We speak to a lot of our neighbours and most of them are nice but most definitely don't like anyone "out of the ordinary".

There is another neighbour who is white but has lots of tattoos, piercings and dreadlocks. Most don't talk to him either. We have become pretty friendly with him and often walk our dogs together, have coffee in each others' houses etc. We had a neighbour warn us that we shouldn't get too friendly as "you never know"! Not quite sure what that was meant to mean.

Asking people point blank if they're white is actually very unhelpful. White is just a skin tone. There is no such thing as white ess. You can be white and Polish, or mixed race but appear more white but be disadvantaged in every other way, or white but the grandchildren of holocaust survivors with a lot of inherited trauma... It's such an unhelpful way of looking at the world, to confront people about their skin tone as if that qualifies them or disqualifies them from talking about racism.

Midlands

Disgusting. I'm glad you're not like the rest of your neighbors.

Couldn't think of a worse place to live due to the levels of air pollution. I prefer very rural or semi rural.

I was using that poster’s word. She said the non-racist was region was 98% white so I used her descriptor to question her. No need for the lecture.

And skin colour is the first thing people see. So yes in terms of immediate judgements, people do get discriminated against due to skin colour alone. And I am more than aware that E European people can be victims of xenophobia too.

Both DH and I have very specialist jobs that we literally wouldn't be able to do anywhere else in the country, which allow us to follow our interests, and which pay reasonably well. Household pre-tax income is around £140K - which we wouldn't be able to get anywhere else.

Yes, we pay £36K a year for our mortgage, but when we retire we can go anywhere and do anything with the money we can sell or rent our house for.

We both grew up outside London in small town, predominantly white Conservative/Brexit voting areas, and don't want to live there again because some of the mentality (and we know it well, having grown up with it) feels very uncomfortable.

We have friends here, and a community which we've built up over 30 years of like minded and lovely people.

Yet another London landlord was selling up, no one else would rent to us as we claimed top up housing benefit. I was working at the time but I have a parent who was spiralling into dementia who made that hell for me, then I got very ill and could only claim SSP, so we were fucked with staying in London anyway. Only silver lining was that dh job had gone mainly remote a few years ago so his boss didn’t mind him moving a couple of hours away.

I was too sick to go and view places, dh was working so the easiest option was to move to where the inlaws are so they could sort out a rental here for us.

It was also one of the only places we could afford, dh may have a london job but it’s for a local authority so pay isn’t great.

On the good side we could afford to buy a house here just on dh wage. On the bad side, neighbours each side are weed dealers. But there weren’t many places we could afford to rent anywhere within a two hour drive of london for dh to go in to work twice a month, let alone buy (and like I said, I was very ill and dh trying to work and hold things together so needed PIL to find us somewhere to live).

Snap.

When we first moved here, one of MILs friends looked at me and said, “oh, why didn’t they move to the reservation, she might have liked it there”.

The “reservation” is the area in the next town over where lots of Indian families live. It’s commonly referred to as that here. I am half Indian. I was absolutely crushed by that comment.

Because it’s my home

born and raised in London. Have lived abroad for a few year but London, well south London always feels like home to me

many of us get by on average wages and have an ok lifestyle though at the minute it’s a struggle

i wouldn’t want yo love anywhere else even knowing I could buy a bigger property and have more money.

when I loved abroad I missed London. Never occurred to me I would miss the city but I did

@hotcrossbiscuit

DH and I tried relocating to another part of the country as our jobs allowed it (civil service). Thought our money would go further etc

We’re abroad at the moment (in a world city that isn’t a patch on London tbh, though much less crime and cleaner), and are thinking of moving back in the North for similar reasons. Would you mind sharing where you moved to? This thread has given me the jitters about our plans 😂

Oh absolutely! Me too!

However I have no hope of ever earning even half of 6 figures and I’d never get a council flat, so within the next couple of years I will be forced to move out to some godawful backarse of nowhere and I’m dreading it.

I've lived all over the UK and am seriously ill.
I've received better medical care under a London Trust than anywhere else.
Better access to consultants, equipment, procedures, drugs.
I include Oxford.
Now that, for me, is a huge reason I'm staying.

Asking people point blank if they're white is actually very unhelpful. White is just a skin tone. There is no such thing as white ess. You can be white and Polish, or mixed race but appear more white but be disadvantaged in every other way, or white but the grandchildren of holocaust survivors with a lot of inherited trauma... It's such an unhelpful way of looking at the world, to confront people about their skin tone as if that qualifies them or disqualifies them from talking about racism.

@Hostofgoldendaffodils no, they were totally right to bring up the question. I look racially ambiguous (though not white). My experience is very different to someone with darker skin or a different hair texture.

Although other white groups do experience racism, I would say fully black and Asian people are particularly susceptible and will stand out a lot more. My dc are 3/4 black - a white European child (or another white-passing person) in a village school is not going to be teased the same way my children might be.

Some people like the busyness of London and some don't. Both are good enough reasons to live there or not live there.

The end.

I refer to a central London trust. I am, quite literally, seeing the best doctors in the world. But you can only be referred to them if you live in London.

I live in NE Wales. Our house costs us £12k pa for a 3 bedroom semi. Wraparound Childcare used to cost a maximum of £12k pa. But we no longer pay due to age of kids and me WFH. I cannot get my head around DH and I being significantly better off than a couple who earn double what we do.

Because there’s more to life than a cheap house??

I have coffee shops, restaurants, wine bars all within a 3 minute walk from my front door. I have a garden. The public transport it great, I never need to drive so I ditched the car.
Interesting things to do only a few stops into town on the tube at the weekend. The list goes on.

Going back a bit, there are loads of people with Tory politics in London. Pretty much all of outer London has Tory MPs and Westminster and the City of London have had Tory MPs since the dawn of time.

Some outer borough to the East and South can be very Brexity too if that is your bag.

‘Some outer borough to the East and South can be very Brexity too if that is your bag’

That made me smile. London: there is something for everyone!

Yes London boroughs very hugely. Islington is nothing like Bexley for example.

Hit me with it then: what makes London so exciting?

Not living in the arsehole of nowhere for one.

This! We live in London and absolutely the best arts, culture, museums, restaurants, activities are on our doorstep. I love that I could walk out my door and there's a vibe around, at any part of the day. There is just no need to drive to anything, any major stores, supermarkets, etc. Weekends are great, because there's always something to do. Not to mention endless excellent restaurants. I would feel very depressed in a village type area, remote or where there's just 1 shop of everything. It is an expensive lifestyle though...