To think London has become a parody of itself?

[NattyBrickMember]

Everything is overpriced, gentrification is out of control, and the chaos somehow feels unbearable and iconic at the same time. AIBU to think London has become a caricature of what it used to be - like a city pretending to be itself for tourists and TikTok?

Please share for everyone which bit of London, so we may fully understand the context?

Public transport in London is amazing .... I can't understand anyone slagging that off! Ok, can be a bit grubby but apart from that. Cheap and easy.

Also London is very walkable, things are much nearer than you think, if you're willing/able to walk a bit and you see so much more.

Why the assumption it's superficial?

Fabric is still going!

According to my 20-something hairdresser

I have lived in London all my life. I don’t think it’s “pretending to be itself”

I do think the divide between poor and rich is very apparent, although it has always been this way. But you can feel the difference moving between areas sometimes and it feels worse because of the CoL crisis currently. Is this what you’re getting at?

It doesn’t take much to get out of the touristy areas and get to the areas where “real” Londoners go. I wouldn’t really hang out at the Houses of Parliament or Big Ben for example, but I love going to galleries, museums, Kings Cross, East London etc.

Looking out of my very central window and I can't see one piece of chaos...which is a shame because I could use some excitement.

Bland? Have you ever been to the National Gallery? The Portrait Gallery? The V&A? The Science Museum? The Natural History Museum? Museum of London? Kensington Palace?...........

I'm less about shopping than this so it still is good as @LeticiaMorales says

Also @LondonPapa post too

There are various issues no doubt, but it's still good in many ways

😂😂😂

I came to London from a rural area in 1997. It's changed a lot since then but the city has constantly evolved for good or bad throughout it's 2000 year history.

I can no longer afford to live there as a single person and am planning to leave as soon as I can. But my London -born daughter says London is where it's at to pursue a career in her chosen creative industry, and she's happy to live in a tiny bedsit for silly rent prices to pursue that.

My parents still live to visit the city and they are in their 70s whereas I am pretty much done with the place. Maybe it's my age, maybe I want a different life, maybe the grass seems greener elsewhere...but I think the cost of living is a major issue, alongside with the sense that, apart from the touristy areas, London is being neglected quite a bit. Too many developments are being thrown up without considering the location population. Too many people wanting scant resources from the NHS. Too many parks and open spaces left to rot. Schools are closing & merging as families run to cheaper areas to live. Toi many cheap caffs closing down to make way for s Gail's. The place lacks a sense of future. Yes, maybe the 1970s are rolling around again?

Ugh I hate Gail’s!

I agree with a fair bit of what you say OP. DP and I are London born and bred but will hopefully be moving out later this year. I don't actively hate it, but much preferred it in the '90s and early '00s when everything felt vibrant, optimistic and edgy (as opposed to dirty and sketchy), and the cultural vibe was a lot more organic and less pre-packaged and commercialised.

A few random observations (we live in an outer northern suburb, not one of the posher parts, and last visited the centre on Saturday):

• Might be an age thing, but the sheer volume of people has become a bit overwhelming (for us). It just feels overcrowded now, and at times this seems to make people aggressive as they compete for limited space.

• There are barely any functioning public toilets. DD7 nearly had an accident as we couldn't find anywhere for her to use the toilet around the Monument/Tower of London area - we ended up queuing in Starbuck's with what seemed like half of London.

• Tourists are massively pandered to, and IMO things have become too commercialised - the centre in particular can feel very sanitised and Disneyfied. A lot of the cultural scene feels derivative and cynical, but I don't think that's specific to London.

• However, sanitised and Disneyfied is preferable to what you now experience in some of the suburbs (including my own), which is increasing grime, crime and a sense of urban decay. When I was growing up the suburbs were largely much nicer, cleaner and more affluent than most of inner London; this has now completely flipped.

• Public transport: It has, post-Covid, become much harder for us to access more central areas due to less frequent trains (we often have only one an hour from our overground station at weekends, and the nearest Tube station is a bus ride away). There are often no drivers at weekends so trains are cancelled, and using London for anything other than work feels like a struggle, so increasingly we don't bother. It took us 2.5hrs to get home from a recent trip to the Science Museum with DD, and 1.5hrs, 4 Tube lines and a bus to get back this past Saturday, due to a fatality that caused all the overground lines to go tits up. Increasingly it just doesn't feel worth the hassle. We had to get off one of the Tubes and wait for the next one as two hoodies, clearly high on something, were riding Santander bikes up and down the carriage and intimidating people.

• All the Cockneys, including much of my own family and all my parents' friends are now out in Essex and Herts, and have been for years. My elderly parents have clung on where we live now, but are likely to follow us when we move out.

London just isn't our favourite place any more tbh, and most of our childhood friends have concluded the same and moved on too.

Let me guess, you live hundreds of miles from London and haven’t visited for years? If ever

And how old are you now?🤔

I live in London and love it. My children are away at university and, although they are having a great time, want to come back to London afterwards. They will have to live at home for a while due to the sky high property prices but, for them, that doesn't outweigh the draw of coming back.
The central tourist areas can be a nightmare - I really wouldn't go to Big Ben, Buckingham Palace etc but there are lots of things to do and places to see outside of there.
Public transport is brilliant. Neither child has learnt to drive despite my nagging because they have absolutely no need to in London.

As other posters have said @NattyBrickMember Of course London isn't the same as it used to be 3-4 decades ago, but then again, nowhere is. Even my little town (several miles from my village) has increased from 10,000 people to 17,000 in 15 years, all the banks have shut, there is no public transport to and from the surrounding villages, and the high street has had a load of shops go in the past 5-6 years..

It now consists (largely) of a load of eateries, nail technicians, barbers, hairdressers, and vape shops, also a Greggs, a Specsavers, and around 7 or 8 charity shops. It used to have a Peacocks, a B & M, a WH Smith, 2 shoe shops, an Argos, a Poundstretcher, a New Look, a Wilkos, a butchers, a bakery, a jewellers, and 4 or 5 quirky gift shops and a few other shops... they have ALL gone. The biggest shop the high street has now is a big Card Warehouse. Oh and there is a building society and a post office!

There is a big B & M and a Home Bargains and a huge Morrisons and an Aldi and a Lidl and an Iceland, and a few other shops and retail outlets including McDonalds, but they are on a retail park 1 mile from the centre/main high street. No good for people who don't have cars! All they have is a small Tesco Express in the high street.

NOWHERE is the same as it was 30, 40+ years ago. I lived in London in the mid to late 1980s, and back then people said it's not the same as it was in the 1950s and 1960s! Go figure!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I do live here and have done for decades thanks. A lot of cockneys moved out to Essex when gentrification set in and they could no longer afford business rates etc. I have friends whose families this includes. There are TV documentaries about it. No need to be so aggressive.

It's not as young anymore which is a shame, I think some of the buzz as gone.

I first lived in London 25 years ago and now just visit for work. I don’t think it’s changed more than many other capital cities. Across the world, the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer and cities are just a microcosm of this.
Compared to Paris, Rome or New York, London is way more ‘real’

What has changed is that when I first arrived I could afford Islington, by the time I left I could only afford Stoke Newington despite being on a much higher salary.

I can assure you there is still nothing all the gentrified about Stoke Newington - unless a Lidl is generification.

* London has always been expensive*

Plenty of parts were cheap in the 80s/90s

I agree. I am a Londoner. There are a few things that have become an issue in the last 5 years that are probably not unique to London - the cannabis smell, dog shit everywhere and e-bikes and e-scooters being a total menace.

But otherwise it is a great city to live in. Housing is very expensive but other things are not.

I can assure you there is still nothing all the gentrified about Stoke Newington - unless a Lidl is generification.

You obviously haven't been to Stoke Newington Church Street in recent years - it's gentrified to the hilt!

I've lived here all my life and I think it's the most amazing city.

It hasn't changed that much OP, no matter where in London you live.

Do people really not notice the overcrowding or do they not travel by public transport? the traffic on the roads?
We used to have the best high street shopping in the world.

In which areas is gentrification pushing people out with its empty flats? (we've already asked for some evidence!)

Don't know if there are empty flats but Brixton locals have campaigned for years about gentrification. Definitely empty investment flats in Vauxhall.

Genius writing

Lol.

30 miles often takes me 90 minutes on the M62 and M6. Or train Liverpool-Manchester costs me £20 and is late every. single. time.

(Although transport links are undoubtedly much better here in a city)