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?

Again, the level of arrogance is fucking astounding!

Stay in Brighton and produce whatever it is you’re producing there. I don’t think Hastings or Worthing would be your target audience somehow. And by that, I mean that they’re less likely to pay out for some dodgy sculpture you’ve made from recycled crap you found on the beach.

Were you born and raised in Brighton?

Although OP has expressed themselves badly, they do raise a valid point about the housing situation in the UK.

Too many overseas investors leaving properties empty, too many second homes decimating communities, too many new build estates without infrastructure and public transport driving cars onto the roads

We need a sustainable long term plan not piecemeal interventions. Change is inevitable but we shouldn’t be at the mercy of vested interests (like multipleproperty owning MPs).

I was thinking we hadn’t had a good London-bashing thread for a while and it’s not even the summer holidays.

So much self importance and sanctimony in this gormless post it’s hard times know where to start but off the top of my head:

a) “Londoners” are facing the same economic challenges that everyone else does, which is presumably why they are leaving? Do you want them all to congregate in a specially designated post London zone so they don’t contaminate your precious “vibe”?
b) You don’t own Brighton. You don’t get to decide who is fit to live there (thanks be to God). Would it be OK if wealthy people came in from Glasgow or Leeds? Or is it just Londoners you want to keep out?
c) The greatest irony of your post is that most of the distinctive Brighton culture was created by Londoners in the first place. It’s been called “London on Sea” for decades for good reason. Your precious “vibe” was largely created by Londoners.
d) What is you swapped out the word “Londoners” for the word “immigrants”. Doesn’t sound so progressive or “vibey” any more does it?

Get over yourself.

Surely Brighton is called ' London by the sea' for a readon. Londoners have been moving there for decades! Blame the fast train into London Bridge! I live in a city where there is also an influx of Londoners ( including me!) and it has pushed house prices up, because Londoners sell their 2 bedroom flats and then everything here seems like a bargain do they pay over the odd. I think we did the same.

OP it will be no consolation to you but this happens to Londoners too. The area of London I was born in is completely unaffordable now. During a class reunion a few years ago I found out not a single one of my classmates lives there now. Houses that cost £20k in the 1980s when absolutely no-one wanted to live in the area now cost around £1.5 million and the vibe/community is a very different one from my childhood. There are still significant numbers of working class, lower income residents who have been able to obtain rapidly disappearing social housing. It would otherwise be impossible for them to live there.

I met a lot of middle class parents at my DC’s school who moved to the area and bought the £1mill houses as they said they wanted to be part of a ‘vibrant, multi-cultural area’. They’ve opened up art galleries and Pilates studios, only mix with other MC parents and socialise in the expensive cafes and bars that exclude the multi-cultural locals. I’m not opposed to gentrification per se but I’m really opposed to the displacement it brings about.

I’m sorry about Brighton. I’ve never been precisely because it’s full of Londoners and I know how intensely irritating we can be😂

It’s more peripheral geographically I guess. Both cities had different purposes originally - Liverpool the port, Manchester more industrial. Now both those activities have declined there’s only enough business for one hub in the north west.
manchester’s full of Mancunians though, so that’s the downside

how about Falmouth?

otherwise I knew someone who moved from Brighton to Hastings, and are really happy

people have been moving to and from london for ever!

You seem to have touched a nerve here OP!

My city is very similar, very laid-back arty vibe, which is why I moved here. Of course, I wasn't the only one to do that! Recently lots of people moving from London for cheaper property, and exactly the same issues- rents and property prices have sky-rocketed incl. commercial rents.

Also, I think once you've lived in London you get used to a faster paced more aggressive style of living, which is quite apparent here as well now.

So the laid-back, arty vibe that they moved here for is lost sadly.

It's a well known trend though, and isn't really about 'Londoners'. Cheap places attract artists and outsiders like the gay community, cool vibe develops, attracts new people (often younger) who have more income so little shops, bars and restaurants open. Estate agents latch-on and market the area as gentrified and suddenly the area changes and the cool-kids go elsewhere.

imagine working in the NHS/education and trying to live in London with their prices?
you can't blame people for leaving

Sorry, this is bollocks. You think there’s no Londoners producing music etc? 🤣
All of the people I know who moved to Brighton are creatives of some kind…

Actual born and bred Londoners are pretty rare in London. I know as I'm one and it's a red letter day when I meet someone like me. Also we generally don't want to leave our home city but, like you, are increasingly being priced out of the places we grew up in.

@ScholesPanda

So the laid-back, arty vibe that they moved here for is lost sadly.

Where do you think the “laid-back, arty vibe” came from in the first place?

Most of these arty boltholes have been created by expatriate Londoners.

Everyone hates on London/Londoners for some reason, especially on MN.

Also, you need the consumers AND the producers. How lovely that you have an audience for your music.

Creatives or part of the creative vampire industries?

The greatest irony of your post is that most of the distinctive Brighton culture was created by Londoners in the first place
I agree with this. Where I live, the "vibe" is because of incomers, not just Londoners but others coming in from outside. It's silly to say Londoners have ruined the vibe of Brighton. I thought you were talking about some sleepy village being ruined by Chelsea Tractors and basement gyms! Brighton would be another Margate without Londoners

Instantly knew you'd be a disgruntled Brightonian. Loads of our middle aged raver mates have moved out to Hastings and St Leonards and are loving it. If you are renting you can always give it a try.

Daft comment...

41% of Londoners were born outside the UK.

People come to the capital from all over the UK to study and work in London every year.

So there is no such thing as a typical 'Londoner' and most have roots somewhere else.

With your logic do you suggest Londoners should send people from other parts of the UK back packing as well?

It is not healthy either for a small town or village to not have incomers, unless you are a fan of inbreeding...

Rather ridiculous to suggest everyone should stick to living in the place where they were born. It would be a very limited world if that was the standard practice...

I was born in London and lived there until a few years ago. I would have liked to stay but we never would have been able to afford a house.

It's frustrating that everyone feels they have a right to move to London but people from London are unreasonable for ever going anywhere else.

"Creatives or part of the creative vampire industries"

Oh no, people want to earn money, in one of the most expensive cities in the country. How dare they not all be accountants and programmers.

I live in 'English valley' in a part of Northern france. Actually it seems almost all the other english have either moved out (or died) so now tyhere is only myself and then my neighbours who run Chambre d'hote and integrated fully here years ago. I joined the local village committee just to kick start my French and have been accepted because I put effort in to do things for others. Returning to the UK is not an option for me now but I wouldn't want to return now anyway as I have made my life in Europe

Southern Pembs below the Landsker Line has been ‘little England beyond Wales’ for several hundred years. If you are local I would have thought you would know that?

😂😂 I was thinking parochial but your description is better

Is this thread an example of how 'creative' you are? Does anyone else other than other creatives have the awe for creatives that from the OP I feel they expect the hoi-polloi to have?
Reminds me of Adrian Mole and his lofty self opinion! 😆

I live in a town where the same has happened. I have to admit, all the ones I’ve met have been absolutely lovely but the town is gradually being gentrified.

In just a couple of years the supermarket car parks are full of expensive Range Rovers, you can see the mums walking to school wearing expensive clothes and dog in tow. House prices have shot through the roof. Now you are looking at £345k for a 2 bedroom flat. My house has almost doubled in price since we moved in 8 years ago.

No one can get a nursery place now unless they book one when they start trying to get pregnant. Houses are being built all over the surrounding countryside to try and keep up with the demand.

There’s a trendy market once a month which is popular with the new arrivals, selling artisan goods such as blocks of cheese for £10 or trendy vegan food. I wouldn’t mind but my children haven got a hope in hell of being able to afford to buy a home of their own unless something drastic happens 😢