Why is everyone hating on London

[greenwichvillage]

Recently a lot posts I read on social media is about how much people hate London. Its has been called all sorts of names - cesspit, dirty, crime ridden and the foreigners have taken over. They don't recognise London anymore and they are glad they have moved to whiter areas with cheaper housing.

For context, I have lived here all my life, lived in North West London and now live in Southwest London. I admit there are parts of London that have deteriorated, equally there part parts of London that are really nice. Yes it is expensive to live in and properties are expensive but that does not make it a cesspit.

I love living where I am and I love all that London has to offer. I'm not English but I am British and I'm not white and I feel really safe here in London. Yes there are problems with crime, but there is crime everywhere.

I have been to other areas in the UK and really none of it appeals to me, I have been to beautiful country side and small towns and cities and tbh I would get bored after two days there. But I would never go as far as insulting it which people seem to do quite a lot with London.

I think Farage/ Reform and Tommy have a lot to answer for.

I don't hate London and enjoy occasional visits but would definitely not want to live there. It is too busy for me. I think the problem many of us from outside the capital have is that everything is so London-centric, especially in the media. The dislike of Sadiq Khan has nothing to do with him being a Muslim but because he has made far too many disastrous, costly decisions. I have never liked Boris Johnson, either, but I think he was a far better London mayor than he was a Prime Minister and genuinely made some good changes for London.

I agree, but also the bigger narrative of northerners hating (on) the south is deemed acceptable

What disastrous costly decisions? And what did boris do that you liked?

People can't leave when their jobs are in London and equivalent/identical jobs aren't available elsewhere.

@Violinist64 you don't live in London, only visit occasionally but think our Mayor (elected by us) has made disasterous and costly decisions. Would you care to elaborate, with examples?

I'm voting YABU just for using that phrase.

There is of course much to dislike about London (not least the insane housing costs). But the reason housing costs are so high is because people want to move here. Because there are more jobs, those jobs are better paid, there is more to do once you get here, etc etc.

This is an issue though & one reason why our productivity is so bad. We have far too much concentration in one city only.

I’m a born and bred Cockney and I love London. I tried elsewhere and moved home as soon as I could. You either love it or hate it. Yes, there are problems, in some areas, but not all, like every town and city. 🙄

Yes and it has become very built up but without any services I believe

there is Aldi and Warminster has Waitrose (I don’t live there btw)

I don’t think the outer boroughs are particularly enamoured with him especially Ulez but that another debate

I agree with you OP.

I know people who live there. None of them like Ulez. What was advertised as a green project is, as was expected, the very opposite as perfectly good cars have had to be scrapped for no reason other than being too old. It has proved extremely costly for people who have had to scrap older cars and fork out for new ones. It also affects any of us who would like to visit friends in outer London boroughs as we don’t always know whether or not our cars are Ulez compliant.
l was also asked what l liked about Boris Johnson’s tenure as mayor as an outsider. His new design of buses and bikes were a really good idea and a much more practical option for greenness than Ulez.

@bldy

This is an issue though & one reason why our productivity is so bad. We have far too much concentration in one city only.

I completely agree: London has far too much influence over the wider UK economy and to be fair recent governments of both stripes have tried to change this by investing outside London. Manchester and parts of the North East have benefited from this.

But that undermines the argument that you get from small minded people that London is one giant shithole. If its really that much of a lawless dump, why is it still able to punch way way over its economic weight, generating about 20% of GDP.

Sadie Khan has been a disaster. But the suckers for punishment keep voting for him. Under him, the city has deteriorated. What a shame for London.

Again, just randomly being like oh you’re pulling stuff off the daily Mail in some way to accuse me of being a right winged idiot and unable to form an opinion - why? Like why would I not be able to form an opinion with my own eyes? I’m not right winged and I’m not from Devon, I’m from London as I said. But regardless, other people’s opinions are valid. And yours is too - I’d just implore you to really take a look around where you’re walking through not only London, but our country. It is shabby and uncared for at best. And if you take off those blinkers and look with honest, objective eyes, you might understand what people are saying. Even if you are happy with rubbish and graffiti, you must surely understand that other people have a right to find it upsetting? I mean how does people not liking rubbish lying around offend you so much that you have to find weird ways to disprove the validity of their feelings by calling them racist?

And yes there are places that are shit everywhere. But I was literally on my own feet walking through London last week and the month before and - from Euston way to Kensington and to Islington and to Hackney and more I saw rats in 3 different places in the daytime just running around like how pigeons do. I saw rubbish. I went on 10 tubes all of which were covered in graffiti inside and out - this is not how it used to be. And I don’t see how saying other places have problems too makes it better that our capital city or country is not being looked after. It is not ok that as a society we accept it (and apparently even justify it!). Just my opinion.

edited to say I didn’t say rats on every corner - in some area there were rats running around in the open on the day on some of the roads in these areas. Not alllllll over. But yes in the day hold as brass.

I didn't move her until my early 30's but love it, can't imagine moving out and we don't live in a particularly nice bit. There is so much happening all the time, our kids get great opportunities, it's a but expensive, we don't earn as much as I'd like to make the best of it, but still it's fab.

I was in New York last month. I have to say it gave me an appreciation of our tube trains which seemed much cleaner and run more frequently, with nicer platforms! No city is perfect I guess, especially the big busy ones.

I live in London, have a car (and also walk, cycle and take public transport) and I bloody love ULEZ. I don't think I've heard anyone mention ULEZ in person for at least 12 months and our street WhatsApp group the other day was having an exchange about how great 20mph limits were.

I live in a Borough where supposedly ULEZ was going to make a massive difference to mayoral elections and in the event more people voted for SK than previous, and voted in some green leaning candidates for the first time.

Why do people who don't live in London care so much about us tackling our filthy air? Very odd.

But isn't it the city that is generating the tax - not Londoners in general- and the more the city generates the more Londoners get whilst elsewhere gets little.

I think it’s the hypocrisy though especially with the airport producing emissions and people who live in the outer boroughs felt he shouldn’t have expanded it as they needed their cars for various reasons and couldn’t afford to update them.

@greenwichvillage My Mum is from London and I lived in London for a while in my twenties when it was deemed better overall so my opinion isn’t just based on the unfriendly couple across the road.

Why does everyone hate London? Not everyone does.

The Mayor has consistently opposed the airport expansion though, it's out of his control (pending any potential legal action). He can control car emissions. You're right that wider emissions policy is inconsistent, but London can only do what is in its power to do.

Car ownership in London is falling overall, and of the houses that have them, the trend is for fewer houses owning multiple cars (so a clustering of cars in richer houses). Poorer people in inner London who are not car owners themselves are impacted much more by emissions. It's ok to make radical policy so kids don't die from breathing crap. 9 out of 10 cars were compliant in the outer boroughs at the time it came in so I just don't believe anyone can know loads of people who had non-compliant vehicles.

Edit to add- I do actually (just, technically) live in an outer borough, and I think I know one person who changed their car. They were fine with it.

@Violinist64 Boris Johnson presided over the knocking down of the whole of tin pan alley and various other awful planning decisions - he spent vast amounts of money on stuff that never happened and took credit for stuff that had all been done and dusted before he even took office . We lived in London during that time. He was rather good at blowing his own trumpet off other people’s work

I hate my own city let alone London with so many more people and thus many more problems. I don’t get the hype it’s just another overpriced overcrowded place.

Just like I wouldn’t visit Cornwall in the school holidays overcrowded hype but at least they have nice beaches. London has, smog and traffic and congestion charges, high phone theft just walking down the street, over crowded tubes and yeah nothing that appeals to me personally. A few green spaces or free museums don’t make up for natural beautiful coastline, lakes or forests.