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?

@Mirabai do you see a difference? As you say it’s interesting.

I genuinely didn’t know there was such equivalence and that being a Londoner was such an abstract term. I am thinking about this literally and if someone was suggesting they were a Londoner I suppose I would have think they grew up there and would ask which part and what school they went to.

The more recent history of Britain - say, the last four hundred years or so - glosses over the very tribal heritage of these islands.

Those not from the British Isles (and quite a number who are) tend to see us as Scottish, English, Welsh, etc., but don't see the deeper tribalism.

This tribalism throughout these modern nations, e.g. the Scottish Borders have their own identity, distinct from Scotland and England.

When we hear about the North/South divide, and ideas such as 'levelling up', we are simply hearing echoes from our past.

I just wish the London/SE 'blob' could recognise this. The BBC has a 'North of England' correspondent FFS 🙄as if we were all one group!

@ExpressCheckout

Fine, and I agree with you having a “North of England” correspondent is daft. That has more to do with the economics of journalism than anything else.

But that kind of tribal mentality is radically at odds with life in cities. People come to places like London (and other big cities) precisely because they want to get away from all that.

The tribalism you describe (of the sort which defined the formation of the British isles) doesn’t survive long in a city where nearly half of the residents were born outside the UK, never mind London. Unless you live in a very insular and sectarian community no one would give a monkeys whether you had Celtic or Anglo Saxon heritage in London. It’s just completely irrelevant to how people live.

Partly agree. But you can't visit London and then claim there are no (modern) tribes, because there so obviously are. They're just not Celts/Anglo Saxons, etc., but they are the 'new tribes' - creatives, middle class professionals, wealthy tribes buying up loads of property and then not living in it, plus a whole range of tribes who are defined by traditional cultures and languages. On this basis, London is very tribal.

@ExpressCheckout

There are tribes, absolutely, it would be naive to think otherwise. But people have often moved to London to escape a kind of tribalism that they feel has been forced upon them through the accident of their birth.

You have to allow people their right to determine their own tribes as opposed to forcing tribes from hundreds of years ago onto them. That’s kind of the whole point of London.

Thanks. I don't disagree at all with your points, about modern London (or elsewhere for that matter). We do need to rub along. The point I'm making is that Britain has always been - to use a modern word - a very diverse set of islands compared to many places in the world.

Media, politicians etc. are still in rapture to ideas of nationalism and use this to provoke people. A visitor to a Roman or Medieval port or city in Britain would have heard many languages and met folks from countless ethnicities from all over continental Europe, north Africa and the near East.

Britain has always been diverse and tribal, and this is one of the reasons why so many folks want to live here today. This is the strength of Britain, although of course it brings along conflicts and other problems. I actually think we'd probably agree on quite a bit here, but we are explaining it in different ways!

I don’t care enough to stop calling myself a Londoner! i am one you see ;-)

I am not pretending. I am a Londoner!

I found this quote from 2016 from sadiq khan after becoming mayor. I know he is unpopular with some for all sorts of reasons but here is his definition! I like it

We all have multiple identities and being a Londoner is one that many of us are proud of. Whether you are living or working in London now, or once lived or worked in London, you may well consider yourself a Londoner. And that is fantastic - London is an open and diverse city and we welcome all those from around the globe and around the country who contribute to every aspect of life in our city. My vision of a city for all Londoners focuses on those who live in London, but I am also clear that our city will only thrive if it also works for those who work here, and for visitors.

@ExpressCheckout

Britain has always been diverse and tribal, and this is one of the reasons why so many folks want to live here today. This is the strength of Britain, although of course it brings along conflicts and other problems. I actually think we'd probably agree on quite a bit here, but we are explaining it in different ways!

I completely agree! I guess I am quite protective of London. It has huge problems but I still think it represents much of what is good about the UK.

I know you weren’t doing this but it really winds me up that people (who have usually been to London a handful of times) feel it’s acceptable to make grotesquely prejudiced comments about it on here because it’s “rich” and disproportionately powerful. See also the endless posts about it being “dirty” and full of stabbings.

These things are true and there are legitimate questions about the way London dominates our economy and the organisation of power. But these comments are gross and overly simplistic. It’s a huge metropolis full of people from every walk of life and every corner of the globe. And these charges are never levelled at other major cities.

It’s just insulting to reduce it to one word cliches around stereotypes as the OP has. I will get off my soapbox now!

So after 35y in London, if I bought a second home in Cornwall (ha won’t happen), would I be seen as a ‘Rich Londoner’ buying up local property, or a nice ordinary person who spent her first 18y in a northern city…🤔?

Trenchant I think

Oh definitely the latter in Cornwall.

@Thepeopleversuswork These things are true and there are legitimate questions about the way London dominates our economy and the organisation of power. But these comments are gross and overly simplistic.

^This, exactly.

Living in Wales I came to realise how tribal we are. If you went through, primary and secondary school with the same groups only diverging if you went away to university. Then you lived wherever in the world.

But often when they start families they come back for family support and familiarity. With working .

sons friend now nearly 40 is back. He's had an amazing career, living in far flung places. He's senior enough now to run teams worldwide from his computer.

When people retire it's attractive to move somewhere quiter, cheaper than London.

Oh you creative types, such short attention spans - dropping bombs of division and hate and then fucking off, you can write a little morrisey type song about it

Ok 😊

I am meaning in the literal sense not in abstract way- you can feel like you are part of a community, I certainly feel that in Brighton having lived here for 20 years but I would still not refer to myself as a Brightonian, I’m a Londoner. I know a few people who have been born and grew up here and they would ask you what school you went to such is a Brightonian such a rarity. I wouldn’t be offended by that, what’s to be offended by! When our DC started reception so a good 12 years ago for my eldest, some of the Mums went for a coffee to get to know each other on the first day and it was an array of areas people can from and nationalities, Sweden, Japan, a Mancunian Mum was asked by the Swedish Mum where she was from and she replied, “Brighton”, the Swedish Mum looked confused as she had a Northern accent. She was making a point but frankly I think that is ridiculous and what is wrong with being from somewhere else. My 90 year old neighbour is an original Eastender and still refers to being a Londoner despite living in Brighton for 50 years. My parents moved to London late 60s and lived their respectively for 45 and 25 years, they never referred to themselves as Londoners, that’s not to say that their identity and references weren’t of London but I suppose like me they thought Londoners to be in the literal sense.

I don’t think it is particularly helpful or fair to people who have lived there their whole lives to tell them their woes about a new development in Ealing or a redevelopment of Walthamstow grey hound racing stadium for example or invalid and actually move on if you don’t like it, in fact you probably won’t have much choice as you will be priced out of the area. Dismissing these issues as hostility doesn’t help anyone, is London to just be pocket studios for couples or single tiny spaces, then people shoved in 4 to a room, then incredibly wealthy people? You can’t really blame families that lived in communities where people had average income jobs, teachers, retail staff, etc, lamenting the absence of that now and be told that their concerns are irrelevant!

I don’t know what that means either 😂

The last time we had snow on the ground here (approx 15 years ago), a Yorkshire-born friend absolutely pissed herself at the number of people who managed to crash their cars in it. She found it hilarious that an inch or so of snow had caused utter chaos on the roads.

She reckoned that southerners should have to take a special course before they're allowed to drive north of Birmingham.

London hasn’t always been like that at all, it is an international city now but it hasn’t always been like that. Many of the issues over housing and redevelopments come from that friction - I have loads of insight on this and public consultations over redevelopments often are testament to that friction - people that are Londoners that have been born and grew up there are angry about being pushed out to make way for micro housing.

I would never dismiss anyone’s concerns? Why are you saying all this stuff to me?

I came to London as a student in 1990 and lived in shitty places like everyone else. I compromised and moved away from posh areas to somewhere I could afford on my public sector salary.

All I am doing here is saying I identify as a Londoner. It’s great. It’s the only place I feel I belong.

if someone was suggesting they were a Londoner I suppose I would have think they grew up there and would ask which part and what school they went to.

I’ve met a few people in my time who say they are Londoners from X (my bit of London) but when I’ve asked what school or do you remember X they have said oh I moved here as an adult. Admittedly I have found that a bit odd.

I agree with this - I don’t call myself a Londoner - and if people ask me where I am from I will go back further and describe my personal history - but I have been in London since the late 90s.

I agree with the quoted post - after a childhood feeling I didn’t belong anywhere - with an English parent, an Italian one, and growing up in a third EU country - London is the one place where my lack of belonging doesn’t matter as so many people come from elsewhere.

And for that I love it.