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.

You'd think that but somehow everywhere is 40 minutes away from everywhere else

Lots of that area is social housing, as is much of central London. Locals (as in born Londoners) are more likely to live in social housing. It was around 50% so middle and working classes, especially teachers, scientists, academics, artists, writers, people in film and the arts, NHS, postal workers and school staff and other essential workers in central London would be in affordable housing. All changing and ruining our city unfortunately.

Why would anybody remain in the UK?! Household income of £100K would have a better standard of living outside the UK (pick a decent city in OZ, the Gulf or Singapore), rather than making the move from London /SE England to Wales, lol.

'Why would anyone remain in the uk?'
No idea oh wait!!!

You win the lottery every day being born here idiot.

Check your privilege

@limitedperiodonly err plenty of people were saying one reason they live in London was because public transport is so good that they don't near a car. I simply said now I have dc & am not in z1/2 I need my car & that public transport can be very dependent on where you actually are. I'm not sure why you conflated that with a car obsession & by that logic you must be equally obsessed with not owning a car. My teacher, police, doctor & nurse friends all drive to work. You may dislike it but it's often the most practical option & very normal.

Oh I've encountered this attitude plenty in London.

This tired old trope? Seriously?

Did you go to France and complain about people speaking French in your presence?

Don't you need to deduct income tax/NI first? That probably accounts for £25k between them.

Maybe she's a womble?

Sadly no longer in my 20’s, two children, not very well off, not in a leafy borough, our son goes to a fantastic outstanding state primary school, good work life balance due to a 30 minute walk to work and working part time. It’s great fun for all of us and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the UK.

I’m also impressed that they can hear through the walls before they even enter a building!

especially teachers, scientists, academics, artists, writers, people in film and the arts, NHS, postal workers and school staff and other essential workers in central London would be in affordable housing.

Not sure this is correct, most in this category I would think commute into work and wouldn't qualify for affordable housing without 2 salaries and a hefty deposit.
The few new build properties prices are still inflated in central London Zone 1-2. I would think Zone 3 outwards maybe but again pricey and needing a huge deposit.

It is such a stupid trope and never makes sense. Why would Welsh people do this? And how would they know OP's mum wasn't Welsh speaking when she walked into the pub?

I love visiting London and lived and worked there for many years when I was younger (30 years ago!). Certainly more job opportunities but as regards people, you can find interesting people anywhere. One of the things I love about living in the north is that I can meet people who have something to talk about other than the value of their property and which school they are trying to get their child into! Also I find on the north people tend to be more genuine and less obsessed with material things. When I visit London I really notice how everyone looks so stressed 😥

I've noticed how many people have mentioned cheap, comprehensive public transport. It occurs to me that if the rest of the country had the same per capita public transport subsidies that London gets, we'd have decent public transport too.

The reason people live in London is because the rest of the U.K. is absolutely shite. If you can't live in London, just go abroad.

I think that is a very good point about Londoners always seeming stressed and obsessed about house prices and schools. I was one of those people until recently and it's amazed me since moving, how people don't really talk about schools anymore. It's a very competitive environment in my experience, even in primary school. My child has flourished in a school that is less academic and more relaxed.

A friend of mine lives in a approx 1.5m terrace house and I could hear the envy in her voice talking about her friend who's house was probably 3m nearby, wondering what her partner must be earning to afford it, as her own husband earns well over 150k. So even with that level of income, she was still experiencing a feeling of not quite having enough.
I also found a lot of the most interesting people end up moving on as they can't afford to live there so the community can be very transient which is unsettling.
I loved the diversity, the fact that the parents at the school came from all corners of the world and that really prevented cliques, I truly miss it, but on the whole I feel like people are happier where I've moved to, more relaxed and content.
We did purposely choose a vibrant area to move to though, I would have really struggled to move somewhere soulless or too curtain twitchy.

This. I mean, how does it work? You go into the pub, in a Welsh speaking area, it’s full of people speaking English, they all switch to Welsh as soon as you order?

I met a woman on holiday recently who was outraged that when she went to a wedding in Wales some of the other guests had the effrontery to be speaking Welsh.

@DdraigGoch it is true London gets a lot of investment in public transport and so should other places.

One of the really good things Ken Livingstone did as Mayor was invest heavily in public transport.

One of the things people forget is the population densty of London means infrastructure is cheaper long term as you get a good return. Millions of people a day use the buses, tubes and trains in London.

It is the same with things like broadband.

We recently got a full fibre connection run up our road. For three days work the company accessed hundreds of potential customers (our road has four blocks of flats on it as well as a good nimber of houses). In a rural area the same company might have to do three times as much work for just one or two potential customets.

Hence we get 1gbit/s full fibre connection built for free on our road and some in rural areas are being quoted thousands of pounds just to have an connection to something just above 10mbit/s built.

@KimberleyClark it is odd isn't it. I have been to Welsh speaking areas of Wales a lot and it really doesn't bother me. Why should it? People are speaking their native language in their own country.

However I live in London so if I was offended by other people speaking their native language in bars, on buses even in my workplace I would have had a meltdown a long time ago! Last night I was sat in the bus and two women in front of me were speaking French to each other and to the right of me a group of men were chatting away in Spanish.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Wales. There are very warm and welcoming Welsh people and there are some who quite strongly anti-English. In fact Welsh speaking Welsh can also be anti non Welsh speaking Welsh so it’s not even specific to the English.

London transport is NOT cheap. It costs about £10 a day to go from my house and back for a working day = 50 a week (we live in London outer (zone 5). We have one of the most expensive public transport systems of a capital City in Europe. Also even just this week on one day there was a tube strike, on the day after the underground near us was still all bolted up and locked down after the strike so my son and I had to come home and he worked fro home - that is 2 days this week out of 5 without proper London transport (we do have over ground options too).

It is about to cost me £4500 a year in outer London to drive my older car to the shops or bank or post office each day due to Khan's extension this later this year of the ULEZ unless my council which is Tory and opposes it manages to win.

My DM walked into the pub with my stepdad and they were both speaking in English of course, sorry for the drip feed! My stepdad ordered drinks which they sat down to drink. As far as I recall they noticed some men near them speaking English and DM had wanted to ask them a question but they turned their backs on her (eg ignored her) and deliberately spoke Welsh. This was also in 1970s when it was or could be unusual to see a woman in a pub alone (she wasn’t alone).

@Xenia London transport is NOT cheap. It costs about £10 a day to go from my house and back for a working day = 50 a week (we live in London outer (zone 5).

Compare how much you would be spending on train fares/petrol if you didn’t live in London though (either commuting into London or from one town to another) £5 each way is actually cheap.

That said, London transport isn’t subsided to the extent of other European countries so it’s more expensive than some.

A lot of London transport subsidy comes from London business rates not national taxation. And overall London contributes more in tax than is spent on it Vs the rest of the country..

I am all for more investment in public transport everywhere though - London public transport is much less subsidised than Paris or other similar cities - and the climate crisis means we need to get people out of their cars.