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.

I don’t think in London there should be benefits, Local Authority or Social Housing. If you can’t afford to stay there then don’t.

That's just silly - what about other expensive cities e.g. Bristol and Edinburgh, should there be no benefits, LA or Social housing for their citizens either?

Waahaawoowoo What do you do as a job?

Well for a start I was born there, all my family live there so I didn’t have much fucking choice 🤣 I watched however as my quiet suburb became overcrowded and incredibly gentrified and was priced out. We have since moved to Essex where we could just afford a small house. DH still commutes to his various clients in central London. What we paid for our house you couldn’t buy a one bed flat with there.

I lived there prior to DD. ... It has alot of history, free museum s and amazing things happening around every corner....we used to just walk and take it in....sadly the price of renting made us leave...would I return..yes but only if I could afford a house so that's a no...

Couldn’t agree more tirednewmumm. And peanut poster love my ‘middle of the road life’ having access to great northern cities, culture, countryside, and living in a beautiful house that is easily affordable and which would cost at least a million (or two, depending on the area)in London 🤣

I lived in London in my 20s and early 30s. I prefer a more quiet existence now and have moved to the country.

So many reasons to live there though. Where would we start?

I don't like there anymore. I've lived all over in the UK and found people in London to be the most friendly. Particularly with kids. At Brixton tube there was always someone to help with the buggy. In the countryside I just got far more dirty looks for older folk judging me how my kids noise etc. Also mums outside of London - god - so many trying to be Mrs Hinch...London mums are far more relaxed with a healthy dose of dry humour.

@Swashbuckled TBF I live in London and this time last year the biggest topic of conversation locally was the big tree that had fallen down and when tne council were going to move the big tree that had fallen down.

We all went to look at the big tree.

Most decent jobs are in London, hence the "brain drain". Graduates tend to leave their home town and Uni town to get jobs in London. (Granted a few other major cities too). London basically sucks all the talent because most bigger firms closed down their local/regional offices.

My Son has been applying for decent graduate jobs and really struggled to find many that weren't London based as he didn't really want to move there. He's managed to land himself a good job in a Northern city (still 2 hours away from family home) but it's better than 4 hours to London.

I’m sat on one of our balconies having a morning coffee, all I can hear is bird song, no traffic, no people, like most mornings. I live in zone 1.

If you look at stats, there is no suggestion that financially people in London have a lower standard of living. Quite the opposite.

Regardless of that, the reason so many people are here is disposable income.

Sure if you live in a quiet and cheap town your costs will be lower but if your take-home pay, from which costs will be deducted, is lower to start with, by the end of the month you will tend to have in absolute terms, less to "play with" (not in the sense of entertainment necessarily). Pre-Brexit I had a lot more foreign friends on relatively low incomes by London standards. They would often cut costs around housing and other but at the end of the month they would have a sizeable amount to save. These are not people who are middle-class and looking to get the UK housing ladder. They have money to send to relatives back home, professional projects or the aspiration to go back home and start off financially comfortable.

And yet your posts was ‘if you talk to someone on the tube’.

I live in London, have fainted three times on the tube due to an illness and every time people have outdone themselves to be kind and helpful.

I am 22 (turn 23 on 22nd March) and I am moving out of London. If someone has established a life in London then I can understand why they would stay. I haven't, and so I am moving to Kent, it also puts me closer to family which was the main reason I decided to move, but getting away from the costs of London is definitely an upside. It also gives me a lot more quiet and wooded areas to have walks. Crime stats are down almost 50% as well (area where I lived vs area moved to), you never realise how awful the place you live in is, until you get hard data.

I have a decent corporate job, and am currently on £33k pa, and was renting a studio for £1k pcm and now renting a 2 bedroom house in Kent for £1.2k pcm. The difference is insane, London has awful value. Someone might say that it leaves me with little money to do stuff, but with my lifestyle I wasn't really using the leftover money after bills anyway, so I have decent savings and credit score. To add to that my manager (bless her - an amazing woman) has been restructuring our team, and the way things are set up I am going to be promoted further down the line with this additional responsibility, which will give me another pay increase. Needless to say I will definitely get my value for money if I am patient, and continue to work hard.

One major trade off is the distance from my work is greatly increased, however I WFH 3 days a week, I have no problem doing a 1h 30m journey twice a week, and I know some people who do even more, so it's nothing.

Firstly it is virtually impossible to have a conversation on the tube, it's too noisy!
I get tube 2 to 3 times a week. I'm 60 with grey streaks and I am always being offered a seat.

It has been explained time and time again that London is a major world city and millions of people pass through it every day. It is, by and large a miracle of small civilities. There is very little violence or conflict day to day and this is because Londoners have developed a set of strategies and unwritten rules to rub along together well.

One of those is do not attempt cheery conversation with a stranger when you are packed in to a rush hour tube train like sardines.

Now if you get a tube at 12pm in a Friday night, you will find a very different atmosphere!

If I see someone looking a bit lost in a tube station, I actually approach them and smile and ask if they need any help. Get your head round that, London-haters!

On the flip side I have seen people bodily throw people off the bus if they are being too noisy or disruptive.

But then I do live in SE London.

Good to know; I feel rather cosmopolitan now 😊

Ha ha, people are people wherever we live!

There is a reason for it, to put people like you off driving. You speak like a dangerous antisocial driver. It should be banned altogether. Everyone able bodied can cycle instead of walking or using public transport.

Couldn't agree more. I'm a Londoner through and through. Born and bred and live in central London. Couldn't be more pro ULEZ and the congestion charge if I tried. We should be making it hard for people to drive unless absolutely necessary, especially so those in polluting cars.

What's your alternative Chesapeakeafan? A dangerously polluted and I'll city?

Me too. I regularly help with buggies / big suitcases as well.

As for talking to strangers on the tube, I wonder how many of the people who are shocked that we don’t do that would welcome a few random people to chat with them whenever they’re driving somewhere.

The things I like most: some parts are beautiful and elegant. I go to theatre once or twice a month. I like the tube, so easy to get around without a car if you're on a tube line. State schools are good. I feel like I can blend in, it feels like it doesn't matter where you are from (as a foreigner, I appreciate that, I felt more pigeon holed in my own country). I do find it crowded and noisy but I'm getting older and less tolerant. London has been very good to me.

We're selling our house near a bustly road on the edge of an edgy area. Someone was attacked nearby and someone knocked down. There are beggars and junkies and all kinds of dodgy people and a food bank nearby. But a young couple are moving in for the parks, the fancy pubs and cafes and bakeries, nurseries and access to everything other people have described. You take from London what you want to take from it and that's why people live here, there's something for everyone. Living here with a young family gives you confidence socially as it's diverse and tolerant, you're all thrown into a big mix and there's less social wrangling that there is in smaller communities.

But the thread you were referring to is really just a stealth boast fest and MN should ban people from describing their high wages. It's vulgar - and depressing for people on an average wage who are then made to feel inadequate. It's wage shaming.

But the thread you were referring to is really just a stealth boast fest and MN should ban people from describing their high wages. It's vulgar - and depressing for people on an average wage who are then made to feel inadequate. It's wage shaming.

Not seen the thread but MN wage envy really gets my goat. Due to poor health I can only work PT and have a relatively low income. But I do not give a monkey’s bollock if people want to discuss high income on here.

Why are posters are so self-centred as to read threads in terms of themselves?Your own feelings of inadequacy and depression are no-one else’s issue. Why should your emotions bar posters on above average wage from asking advice here?

Wherever you live there are always people with more money around (and indeed less) you can’t block it out.