To think London is in a major decline?

[Phannyphart]

I’ve lived in London (zone 2) for 10+ years. It’s always been pretty ‘real’ here but since the end of covid really everywhere just seems so, so awful.
Dog shit everywhere, spit everywhere, council owned parks closed and locked, people littering more than ever before. Get on a bus and it’s just people screaming in to a FaceTime on top volume, people blasting TikTok. Kids being stabbed in broad daylight, people shooting up heroin near the nearby primary school. The area has a lot going for it but it really seems wherever I go there is an awful decline.
Has anybody feeling the same actually moved out? Do you regret it?

Also, I know the area I lived in had so much crime 20 years ago people were terrified to leave the house at night - my hairdresser told me he used to see people robbed an knife point in front of his shop. The same area that now has lovely cafes, restaurants and lots of middle class hippies mingling at night. To me, this is the opposite of "decline".

I lived in Herne Hill pre-gentrification because it was cheap, and DH was mugged at knife point outside our front door. It’s changed completely in the last 20-odd years, I gather.

The rubbish is awful, I think the sheer amount of takeaways/ McDonald’s on every corner doesn’t help. Never any bins (no excuses but reason why perhaps) or they’ve been vandalised/burned and melted.
And you’re right about the harassment, I must admit I haven’t experienced it myself for a long time but I know other women get catcalling or photographs/videos taken of them on the transport system and it must be very scary.

That type of thing hasn’t really touched our area, it’s still mainly ethnic shops/takeaways.

Yup, I'm SW London born and raised but one of my kids needed to go study in eu (she's underage) so we are most of the year now in eu. Wow what a difference. I go back to London reluctantly and at first I was in tears leaving. Now any holidays I don't bother going back every time, instead friends and family prefer to come visit me.
My area isn't even that rough but it's just dirty with dog poo etc, seems everyone is smoking cannabis (here we don't even get a whiff ever!) And I can't adjust to being that little bit more aware. Atm I carry my phone back pocket of jeans without even worrying I'll get robbed 😂
Omg and my local shopping centre in London got done up but its only got like a handful of shops. All the big shops closed and for good like Debenham etc been empty for years. Just looks sad. Up the hill there's a nice little range of shops and restaurants and bars but as a mum I don't really care for those anymore!
I've not officially moved out of London but I go back less and less and really have to consider what my next moves are. I think living somewhere peaceful and going back really just opens your eyes.

First post nails it! Just be grateful you can travel to the nicer bits OP 😁

Lived there in the 90s. Think I had the best of it.

Went back recently, found it very commercial…

The London buzz was hard to find, it’s soulless.

I live in SE London and I think it's pretty lovely. Streets are clean, we've just got a lovely new square in the centre of our area, parks are great. I think a lot of London was rougher and more run down when I moved here 20 years ago. I'm sure there are drugs and gangs but I never see it. I do think there are some economic and social problems in the country but I don't think an 'everything is going to the dogs' mentality is always correct or helpful.

Agreed, my DD and I were recently in Camberwell, just walking down the street and we were aware that a group of men were sort of stalking us. They were not walking together but we caught them casting glances to each other. Next thing a black cab screeched to a halt next to us and the driver shouted watch yourself ladies.
We got in his cab and he told us that he actually recognises that particular gang of thugs and they regularly target women to rob.
Nothing gets done about it though.

Bloomsbury is perfectly OK. However, I don’t think UK infrastructure is very good outside of London. Go to Boston or Skegness rail station (which admittedly is finally being done up). Pretty grim.

I agree it’s gone downhill massively, and I’m talking about fairly gentrified/posh parts of London. Lots of shops closing as well, crime/thefts increasing…
We’re so fed up we’re leaving this summer after over 25 years in this country, going back to our home country in the EU. Since Brexit this place has lost the appeal it used to have. We’re high earners, paying huge taxes in this country but getting very little in return so we’re done.

30 years ago I lived in London and in the space of a few months saw someone shooting up in a telephone box, our car was broken into and we were burgled. I lived in another part of London and never had any problems, So, IMHO, it's always been a shithole in parts, and other parts have been fine.

It's the same now. We have friends who live in a decent area. But you also hear horror stories.

London is a so much better cleaner and safer than it was in the 80s/90s.

I do agree that things in general feel a bit worse in the last few years, but that really isn’t a London thing. I think the decline of public services has been a big part of it - nothing works well, interventions for social problems are generic and not well tailored. Councils cut back things like street sweeping and reduce refuse collection and hours of street lighting to prioritise their statutory functions which does make things seem more run down. Town centres tend to be more run down and generic. Overall people are poorer and more stressed and there is a loss of “civility” and consideration. Think about the coarseness and selfishness tolerated in public life which wasn’t previously the case.

To say modern life feels a bit rubbish. But I don’t think it’s a London thing.

Not in my part of London, I live in zone 2 SW London, I have lived here 30 years. The local high street is thriving, full of coffee shops and restaurants. The transport system is fantastic, I can get to any part of London quite easily. Yes there is dog shit every where and there is litter on the streets but its always been like this. But it has certainly changed for the better not worse.
I feel London gets an unfair battering from those who live outside of London. It has so much more going for it than any other area in the country. World class theatre, museums, shops, dining, just the general buzz of London cannot be replicated anywhere else in the country. You couldn't pay me to move out of London.

I live in the Midlands and it's even worse here, but yes London has been in slow decline for a long time too.

It's so much more noticeable when you go anywhere abroad and come back.

I’ve read my post and it’s rather depressing! I agree with you on how amazing London is too and fantastic opportunities of being here.

I moved out of London to a very nearby suburb. It was not the degradation though - it was the cost.

I think the rough areas of London have always been shitty but the lack of care people take for their own areas is a worry but seems to occur across the UK. I have always found the UK filthier than some other comparable cities in other countries.

I don’t have kids but if I did have a son then I would probably move somewhere remote to keep him away for gang groomers.

The drug addiction and homelessness issue has massively worsened. I moved overseas for a decade and on returning to the UK that is the number 1 difference I noted. And beggars coming up to cars to ask for money is not something I expect in England in 2024 (maybe in the Victorian era.)

I don't think it is that bad and it's better now than a year or two ago. As for people being stabbed in broad daylight, that is extremely rare. The media obviously make a big report on any violent crime but most Londoners never see anything like that. Regarding rubbish and dog's doings, a lot depends on the local council. I do not see that where I live but just a couple of miles away is awful in all sorts of ways and has been for a very long time. I can remember spitting being a common occurrence, almost fashionable, in some quarters during the 1990s; it was awful but the phase faded out, not seen it recently. All cities have their bad bits, that is life. Everything was relatively subdued during lockdown which is why you notice it more now but even so, it isn't everywhere. London has much to offer.

That said when I am in the nicer parts of London I remember why I love this city 😍

They are fed there, in the Strand, where that great Austin watchshop was, and just behind it, another amazing jeweller's. All shut now, just homeless queues for food. I think they are doing a great thing (it is Pret?) but it just looks awful.

London should be a lot better than it currently is though, it's not improving at the rate of other European cities, especially Scandi ones. Going into London occasionally, I've noticed it's definitely declining, albeit very slowly.

The dog shit thing is everywhere now, it's absolutely vile to the extent that I wouldn't call this a clean country any more. There should be a dog licence to fund mobile dog poo cleaning and sanitisation by councils.

Genuine question, what about Brexit made the place so filthy and the people so arrogant?

I’ve lived in London almost my entire adult life. Most parts are far better now than they used to be. I can’t think of a single area which I’d be afraid to walk in after dark - whereas when I first arrived, I wouldn’t like setting foot in parts of Elephant, or Tottenham, or Hackney even in daylight. I found some old photos I’d taken from about twenty years ago a while back, and was surprised by how dreary and unkempt some parts of London looked then.

People’s attitudes have gotten shittier everywhere and I think it’s just that we’ve all somehow become more tolerant of casual disrespect, probably driven by a lack of proper policing. There’s nothing about Brexit or the Tories or being poor which leads people to leave their dogs’ shit all over the payments, or throw their trash in the ground, or play their music out loud on the bus, or vandalise their own community, however much people like to dress it up like that.

Maybe you're seeing a decline, but there are places in the U.K that have always been poor or messy (those two things aren't always aligned). I've seen some streets in rural towns that almost look like Victorian photographs of what some slums looked like in London. Rubbish everywhere, dilapidated houses, abandoned sofas, that kind of thing.