Londoners have absolutely decimated my city

[CrushedOrange]

NC as really outing.
I'm a musician and over the years I have seen what was a steady stream of londoners turn into a flood this year.
I'm so gutted. I know everybody has the right to live here but it has pushed so many of my friends out, artists and other musicians. It pisses me off that the whole reason these londoners moved here, they are also destroying.
I'm lucky as my landlord is really decent and hasn't put my rent up in years, so I can afford to stay here. But now I'm considering just leaving because of the vibe factor. It makes me really sad. I still gig a few times a week but the crowd is different. I miss my community, but now everybody is scattered as everyone who was pushed out has gone to different places.
I'm considering just jumping ship and moving on myself but I don't know where to go.
Today some more londoners moved into the street...The whole street is full of scaffolding as they seem to really love doing home improvements 😅
I know I sound really bitter. I guess I am. I don't know whether to stay or go, and of I go, where to?

I'm so glad someone knows what decimated means!!😀

How long have you lived there? I guess if you were born and bred Brighton, fair enough, but if you moved there from somewhere else…!

I’ve heard the same complaint recently for a town in Wales, outsiders buying property meaning it’s selling quickly.

You cracked me up with the last part 😂

I feel the same as a Londoner who’s neighbourhood is being decimated by people from outside London

No-one should move from where they were born - no migration, no immigration, no emigration - that should sort the problem

@Delawear You do realise that the same issues happened in London? My friend is from a part of London that had the same thing happen, both the vibe, culture (especially cockney culture) and the pricing out.

The only difference is it started happening to London years sooner, and has been more extreme than almost anywhere else in the UK.

As I said already my friend left London years ago but still has childhood friends there. London has the worst housing affordability issues in the UK.

Also as I said, I used to think she was OTT about issues facing Londoners. Not only being priced out but also made to feel unwelcome where they're displaced to by 'London bashers'.

The bashers also, imo deliberately as an "excuse' to 'London bash', ignore that many of the incoming 'Londoners' aren't 'born and bred' Londoners and are originally from other parts of the UK. I suspect these are people who simply love bashing, and 'London bashing' seems more tolerated than bashing of some other groups.

I owe my friend an apology for dismissing her talk of the unfair treatment of Londoners as OTT.

Heh, my next door neighbour is just moving from London to Brighton. Sorry.

Oh FFS, first of all it’s not YOUR city. Secondly, what the hell do you think is happening in London to cause this?

I fear you could be in for a flaming OP 🔥

Could be? Have you skipped the contents of the whole thread?

You make Londoners sound like a flock of locusts, OP 🤣

The trouble is that everyone is more mobile nowadays than they once were. My parents' generation expected to live down the road from their parents; now, we think nothing of relocating for work, and commuting at least an hour each way; and WFH has opened even more possibilities for living anywhere we fancy.

I miss Brighton and its environs so much! It was my home for many, many years. Then, it started becoming too much "like London" - Madeira Drive with its traffic calming = no more Whitehawk boy racers burning rubber at 02:30; the fish and chip shops along the seafront turning into glitzy bars; the Victory Inn losing the armchair by the fire and replacing it with gig posters on the walls, etc. It all got a bit hectic, and I moved abroad in search of a quieter life.

And then COVID happened, and Brexit, and now I can never afford to return. House prices have shot up. I'm an economic exile. I grieve the place so much that I daren't visit for a holiday for fear that I will want to go back to my old home and stick my nose up against the window, crying to be let in.

Guess what, though?! I've fucked up the place I moved to. As a relatively wealthy incoming person, I must have had some impact on the housing market.

Look up "geoarbitrage" 🙂 I suppose it was always thus, but things have sped up since (a) the invention of the motor vehicle and (b) the internet and (c) WFH becoming more common since COVID. I lie awake at nights sometimes wondering where next, to find a peaceful and authentic life. Maybe the jungles of Borneo!!!!!!!!! thus displacing the people of Borneo, of course, to serve my craving for tranquillity.

Parts of London are being decimated though. If that term can be stretched to include schools closing because there are no more families able to live in those areas. Hollowed out , if you prefer.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons people are moving to the coast or the SW. Those who can afford to anyway. I have every sympathy for them. But the second home owners are a plague alright.

We've got londoners next door. A village on the south coast near Brighton. When introducing ourselves the male told my husband how great it was as you get so much more for your money here. Well yes, you used to! It was still expensive for us locals but to someone with a property in the capital to sell its like winning the lottery. Just to say, we've had a lot of Brightonians move here too. It's all completely changed. Thats life I'm afraid.

Come up to Manchester, it’s thriving. You’ll need to bring a brolly though, and we’ve already had our annual four days of summer.

Londoners get driven out of London by the same forces as are driving you out of your city. They are just people who are adapting to changing times.

I was a Londoner for a time. But I wasn’t born and bred there. When will I stop being a DFL? never I suspect as prejudices are helpful so people can pin the blame.

Yep - DBro is looking to sell his flat in London and buy in Brighton. OP would hate him. We grew up in Lewes though, we’re locals. Most of the “Londoners” moving to Brighton are actually Sussex people moving back to be closer to family after living in London for a few years in their 20s/30s.

I bet OP wasn’t born in Brighton at all but just moved there for uni and never left.

No point fleeing to Sheffield. Half my street is now Londoners with their scaffolding and urban jeeps 😶

I'm glad my own friendship group isn't as unpleasant as some posters appear to be on here. We're mostly 'born and bred' but we all welcomed my London friend (and my neighbour from abroad). I used to think most people were like us. I hope so but threads like this make me wonder.

My friendship group don't get our kicks by bashing 'incomers'.

We have distaste for hypocrisy, like seen on threads like this. Where everyone's a local if 'born and bred'. Except Londoners, when then it becomes 'someone lived in London before moving here so they're a Londoner regardless of where they're originally from'.

We realise some people have always moved around. Happened for centuries, and we appreciate the new faces.

We don't generalise about any group (including Londoners or any other "incomer'.

Finally, we're not ignorant of the root causes of mass displacement and what needs to be done to reduce issues like housing and job pressures. Like more social housing and good work opportunities across the country.

No point fleeing to Sheffield. Half my street is now Londoners with their scaffolding and urban jeeps 😶

Could try moving to London if you want to be around people from Sheffield.

There's lots of people from Sheffield in London.

Although tbf lots moved back to Sheffield, jeeps and all, in recent years. I understand from this thread some moved to Brighton though...

Brighton is pretentious anyway.

Yeah, I do see it happened also in London. It has happened in multiple places.

I’m pointing out that newcomers everywhere must make an active and positive contribution to the communities they join. It then makes the best of the situation for everyone.

What does "creating a vibe" actually mean?

Have we suddenly been transported back in time to 1967 san Francisco?

You could sit in your back garden blasting this out, OP.

Ironically Norman Cook isn’t from Brighton either.

I don’t live where I was born and bred (Neither London nor Brighton) and it never occurred to me I was such a blight on my adopted home city. Though many do take the piss out of my accent. Maybe that’s the front for a burning hidden hatred and resentment of me!

I live about 40 mins by car from Brighton. I have to be really desperate to have to go there.

Had to pick DD up from a party late one night, it was like a war zone, ambulances patching people up in the street and the smell of beer and weed. I'd never seen anything like it then or since

Horrible place

Blaming social issues on "outsiders", who else do we know who thinks like that 🤔🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿