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.

@Simonjt yeah only the cultured majority in London obviously understand photographic art 🙄
Suspect it was more to do with cutting costs and the fact that Bradford essentially had a bomb site in the city centre and wasn't on the surface much of tourist draw....

I live in Shropshire ( lovely) but would buy in Like neon, as near to the centre as I could, if I could afford it.

London!

I think a lot of people who move to London are sold on the brand, 'London'. There's great culture and food in other cities. For example Leeds has much eating out. Without the massive queues. Birmingham has better theatre. Manchester a vibrant gay scene.

@Clowdee What a tragic loss you are to the people of London. I hope the people of Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester realise what they're getting.

For me it's many reasons. I am born and bred in London, but at the end of my teens hated it and spent the next 8 years travelling as well as living elsewhere in the UK. Then I started to miss the diversity of London so came back and have loved it every since.

Work wise both me and my OH could work anywhere, (healthcare) However promotions come about more frequently and there are more options for career progression here. But the biggest one for me with children, is firstly it's a great city to grow up in, so much to do and see. But my children are mixed race and it was very important to us for them to grow up amongst cultural diversity. Now I know other parts of UK have some diversity, some more than others, but there's no where like the melting pot of London.

Evidence?

Absolute and utterly bollocks to suggest that anywhere else in the country doesn't have this! Talk to me about the culture that London has that say, Manchester or Birmingham doesn't have. And interesting people? Do me a favour. The last time I was in London it was dire. Men trying to lure my 17 year old daughter away (can't say foreign or I'll be called racist, even though they were South Eastern European) pick pockets on the tube and in shops - just a couple of things. Give me ANYWHERE else in this country. Normal working people in London must live a hand to mouth existence. Mortgages ££££££ Childcare ££££. Travel £££££ Nights out (if you can afford it) ££££ Christ 😂i feel sorry for you. You need to get out of that 'London Bubble ' you are stuck in and see how happy people are in other parts of the country. There is plenty of culture, art, interesting people & professional opportunities and are paid excellent salaries. You need to get your head out of your arse.

And you made the absolutely right decision 👏 👌 Same with my husband, and we did the same!

In my experience, when you live in London, you don’t submerse yourself in all the “cultural” opportunities (theatre, museums) that people who live there claim to love and frequent. We lived in London for 10 years and we would rarely go into central London to the theatre, museums, etc. on a weekend. Neither did our friends. At first we did but there are only so many times you can walk around the tate.

Before we left London we thought there wouldn’t be any nice restaurants to go to in our local area. When you live in London you think it’s the centre of the universe. How wrong we were. We absolutely love where we live and we commute to work a few days a week. It is an hour into London and it’s so nice to leave the city and come home to more space, clean streets, polite people and less stress. We wouldn’t change it for anything, not even if you paid us. Now we don’t know why people want to live there when there are so many better options just outside. Unfortunately much of London is dirty, crime is out of control, people have no respect for others, and accommodation is unaffordable for most.

Because it never rains in London and everyone talks to you and is super polite 🙄

Except a lot of us have said we do. I would like to have the choice.

I am agog at comparing eating out in Leeds to London

Could you give specific examples?

The rainfall is relatively low
People talk to you if you talk to them
Generally there are less people who scream abuse in the street and tell you to fuck off than I find say in Leeds or Manchester.
Certainly less drunks than most Northern cities

laughing at the many sweeping statements such as 1) everywhere outside London is racist 2) everywhere outside london is boring 3) everywhere outside london has no jobs 4) london is the only city with a transport system etc

I was born and raised in London and only moved away aged 30. In my opinion london is not what is used to be, it gets ‘samey’ after living there most of your life - just like anywhere, it is overly expensive and you don’t have a great quality of life unless you own a property in london (which is hard to obtain for most) and are also left with a sizeable sum of money to actually enjoy what london has to offer.

i find the vast majority of people who are defensive about living in London haven’t lived anywhere else before or they’re comparing it to a deprived area in the UK. I was once the same.

in terms of working/ jobs - many people have moved out of london because they work remotely, and so have kept their london salary yet achieved a better quality of life (myself included) better access to nature, cleaner air, bigger house, bigger garden, affordable mortgage while still being close to the UK’s second largest city should i feel the rare need to feel like a sardine again.

Tolerance….my husband grew up in London. My brother lives in an ex mining town in the North. My brother and his friends turned their back on him when I left the room when I first took him out up there. My DH’s sister used to live in another area up North and she was abused for being a Londoner whilst living there. Now, it’s not like that everywhere in the North. I am from a different part originally and DH has not faced such hostility there. However, I have never faced any hostility whatsoever in London for being a Northerner.

If you never used the museums etc when you lived there, it made sense for you to leave. For those of us that do regularly go to the theatre etc, leaving London would be a wrench. It’s great you are happy where you moved to. It’s the best state of affairs when people live somewhere they love!

We live in Greater London and due to work. My clients are generally in London and a London wage is often better (combined income exceeds £250K which we wouldn’t get elsewhere). That said, I do work remotely most of the time and so does my DH, so it is not as necessary as it once was. We might move at some point though (abroad).

The Manchester gay scene is well-established and brilliant. I am sure Leeds has great restaurants. But B’ham having better theatre than London is a bit of a reach surely?

We would go to the theatre after work, and we still do. But we’d rarely travel in from zone 2 on a weekend to go to the theatre. If anything, now we live outside of London, we enjoy going there more than we did when we lived there.

‘london is the only city with a transport system‘

Do you not think London receives disproportionate investment in its transport system? I am a Londoner and think it’s disgraceful how poor public transport is in some other parts of this country. Eg trans pennine and travelling east to west generally. Are you saying it’s great all over the country?

@Clowdee I am from Leeds originally and the restaurants are not a patch on London. How many Michelin star restaurants are there in Leeds?! ONE!!!!

Even visiting London is my idea of a nightmare. Definitely couldn't live there.

Are you trying to tell me that it rains more in say Birmingham than it does in London? If you talk to someone on the underground they think you are mentally ill, squirm in their seat, pretend they can't hear you by pointing at their earpods and look at the floor or put their books up to their face. The only time people were openly polite & welcoming to me and my family in London was in 2012 during the Olympics, and most of the greeters were from elsewhere! I'm glad you enjoy living in London but the majority of this country live elsewhere and are very happy to.

of course it does. But every city has a transport system, and I think if an excellent transport system is the overriding most important factor to consider when choosing somewhere to live, then that person should stay in London.

overall though, it’s still not enough to make me stay. And I don’t even drive!

Why do you live in North Wales@Waahaawoowoo ?
It’s depressing, deprived and rains all the time.