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?

At the same time!

So it seems that people aren’t Londoners even if they have lived here for years and years. But if they then move from London to another place, they then become Londoners by infiltrating other areas and raising house prices. Is that right?!

It’s ok to differentiate between born & bred Londoners & other Londoners though in certain contexts. I’m a millennial & growing up in the 80s/90s London was very different than to now and also an amazing experience. I only have an issue with the everyone is a Londoner concept re some housing conversations & when the Londoner stereotypes are used eg DFL etc as they imo don’t apply to many born & bred Londoners. So many “Londoners” leave with older dc because the thought of a London comp is terrifying to them but I and many others survived! And schools are far better these days!

I’m a 2nd gen immigrant as we’re most of my neighbourhood friends & school friends. Our parents still identify as being from their respective countries but despite our different backgrounds growing up in London was our shared experience & it really was a melting pot. Where I grew up has now become far less diverse in a number of different ways.

I also don’t believe if you moved to Manchester or Liverpool etc you could claim to be a Liverpudlian or Mancunian after a few yrs and others would see you as such but maybe I’m wrong?

@Whothefuckdoesthat you explained it far better then me!

There is a great quote from a Ben Aaronovitch book that basically says some people can step off the plane at Heathrow and by the time they get off the Piccaddilly line at Leicester Square they are a Londoner, Whereas some people are born there and spend their lives looking for a way out.

I've lived here 24 years and consider myself a Londoner but equally the sea is in my blood in a way Mr Monkey - a born and bred Londoner - does not understand. (That said I am part descended from dreaded DFLs - my great grandad moved from the East End of London to Kent for work at Chatham Dockyard).

It’s also why on so many property threads you see “I can’t find a house in London with my 1m budget”. London is ridiculously expensive but there are plenty of areas where you can get a 3 bed house for far far less than that in areas that are family friendly. They just aren’t fashionable areas or even known about because they aren’t on “Best places to live in London” guides.

Or don't have three reception rooms, a massive garden and en suites for everyone. Too many people trying to live a suburban lifestyle in one of the more expensive cities in the world and getting frustrated they can't.

It’s the same everywhere. Covid reminded people why living in flats is shit. So people move out and swap for houses , thus putting up prices for everyone else.

The more I read this thread the more depressing I find it. Just switch in the word “Pakistani” for example, for Londoners. Doesn’t sound particularly pleasant, does it? There is always a background reason for mass immigration by the way and it’s rarely just to piss off the “locals”.

Oddly, I was back in London the last few weekends, SE1 and around the O2. Moved here in my teens from a dead south coast seaside town a bit further down from Brighton, filled with old people who hated kids, and their dogs, and promenades filled with packs of fighting mods n rockers and the post drinking vomit- Brighton was equally hideous back then. Its current iteration really a fairly recent - in part, I suspect, due to the influx of educated bohemian Londoners and their arty ways, but we’ll overlook that, shall we? I also lived in London for about 5 years after uni, worked there commuting in for another 10 until had kids. DH still spends 30-40% of his working life there - 30 years of living/commuting/working there.

I was stunned by the atmosphere, the people of all nationalities chatting over their balconies whilst watering their hanging baskets; by how friendly people seemed when walking their dogs in the green spaces; by how clean it looked compared to 20 years ago; by the music pumping out of the bars and the pavements decorated with tables, flowers, lights, all filled with laughing punters. By the fact that the businesses/restaurants seemed to be thriving, unlike the local market towns where I live, where half of the shop fronts are boarded up now due to landlord rents rocketing and the roads being in permanent gridlock, where only the same big chain companies can afford a presence so all the boutique bars/shops have closed down. By the fact that if you live there you can more easily get cheap/box office return tickets for the things DH and I love - the theatre, the gigs, the cricket (DH, not me, on that last one).

DH has been wanting to move back for years, esp now kids are planning London-based uni courses, and I am finally with him on this.

The OP sounds like a twat, but there is definitely a certain type of well off dickhead Londoner that moves to other places and does not endear themselves to the locals - my dad has had people move to his small village who seem to think the local farmer (ie him) is some sort of public service to cater to their requirements but mostly should be purely decorative to avoid spoiling their rural idyll.

But to be honest they were probably the same well off home counties dickheads that moved to London 20 years earlier and did not endear themselves to the locals there either.

Surely you’re not considering moving? Pushing out locals and destroying the community they already have in place.

My parents moved to Wales 52 years ago. I married a Welsh man. A Welsh person wouldn't consider me Welsh, but would my children and grandchildren.

We're in a tourist, retirement area. There's a lot of unhappiness that because of retirees, airbnbs our children can't afford homes here. But it's more to do with jobs in some areas.

Society is more fluid, we move around, marry and settle somewhere we are happy with if we're lucky.

Nothing to do with Londoners, but we lived in a lovely house with a lovely LL for 10 years who didn't increase the rent. Was gutted when we were given notice as he's selling. Got the shock of my life when I discovered we couldn't really afford anything similar, and we are now moving to a 2 bed flat (with 3 teens) as that is all we could find. Every city is experiencing growth, and that in turn puts pressure on resources (we also have a severe school place crisis) and increases the price of accommodation. That's life unfortunately!

Well I will still be calling myself a Londoner, sorry if that upsets you! This city is part of my identity in a way my race, town of birth etc aren’t. My kids are born here but we are all equal Londoners. They are not a ‘separate and distinct group’ to us in terms of ‘London-ness’. Your category definitions are clearly important to you but I am afraid they don’t matter to me.

How on earth have you concluded all that?!

Have you been to Brighton recently? It is pretty accurate 😂

I honestly don’t care how others see me. After 35 years in London, having studied here, married here, had my kids here, schooled them here, worked in the public sector and intending to retire here, I see myself as a Londoner. Despite not being born here.

I am amused that it matters so much to others though.

I honestly don’t care how others see me. After 35 years in London, having studied here, married here, had my kids here, schooled them here, worked in the public sector and intending to retire here, I see myself as a Londoner. Despite not being born here.

I am amused that it matters so much to others though.

For someone who says they don’t care you really do seem to care 😆😆😆

Exactly. It’s hostility towards incomers dressed up with this “arty” and “creative” veneer. Nasty.

😂 It doesn’t upset me at all. You can call yourself a giraffe if it makes you happy. I mean, you’re not a giraffe and we all know you’re not, but it’s no skin off my nose if you want to pretend. All that really matters is that you appreciate London in the way it deserves to be appreciated.

+1

I do wonder where this sort of belief stops I have good friends whose parents came over with the Windrush generation, some so young they've never known any different. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to know they're not really Londoners.

I also have friends, colleagues and clients who were born here but to families from Ireland, Greece, Spain, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Poland and more, so didn't grow up in British/London origin households. Do they count, or do we have to have been here when the Romans turned up?

It actually reminds me of a couple of places I lived in when I was young; in one particularly insular dump people would ask anybody they didn't know their surname so they could try go establish how 'local' they were. I've never heard that sort of thing here before though.

I also have friends, colleagues and clients who were born here but to families from Ireland, Greece, Spain, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Poland and more, so didn't grow up in British/London origin households. Do they count, or do we have to have been here when the Romans turned up?

@SocksAndTheCity I fit the above as do most of my friends. My parents aren’t English but I was born & bred in London, my parents weren’t though. Is that confusing?

My parents also wouldn’t say they were from London, nor would their friends. They would say they were Indian/Greek/Irish/Nigeria etc but that they have lived in London/moved to London 50 yrs ago or whatever. Maybe it’s a generation thing?

Yeah, that’s exactly what I said. You have to have a British family and to be able to trace them back to a London address for several generations to be a Londoner. Well done you for grasping the content of my posts so firmly. 🙄

It is possible to have more than one identity or affiliation.

In my mind it is what you do and contribute is what matters, not how long you have lived somewhere or how many generations you can trace your family back.

Sometimes it comes in a sudden realisation where you belong. I knew I was a Londoner the day of the 7 July tube bombings. I was at a work conference in Harrogate and got stranded and has to sleep on the floor of the conference centre. I remember someone saying that I must be glad I wasn't in London and would I want to go back now anyway?

All I could feel was a deep, emotional almost visceral pull to be back in London, I was desperate to get back there. I felt outraged to my core someone had done this to MY city.