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.

When all the work in centred there, they have little choice.

Im originally from London, but I have been living in the Highlands of Scotland for the last ten years. I do not miss it at all. I go back every few months to visit family and friends and everytime I go it just cements further the idea it was completely the right decision to get away from it. Its noisy, dirty, expensive, getting anywhere takes forever and full of nutters and crime. I do get the occasional pangs of missing the city buzz but I turned on the radio the other day and heard "teenager stabbed to death with machete on a bus" which is not to far from my parents house and thats put that idea to bed

I agree that currently the apparent hate for London is led by the right wing.

Every major city in the UK has problems with crime, homelessness, boarded-up shops, traffic congestion etc. but London is often held up as an example of all that is wrong with the country.

For my part, London is great and I wouldn't live anywhere else - every day is an adventure with so much to do.

And.... we have the best public transport, and fine sunny weather (right now!)

I love London so much and feel it’s such a friendly place , people are always willing to help or interact. It’s a really vibrant place to live and you do have to be tolerant and respectful of other cultures and ways of life - that is not for everyone. Leaving London feels like stepping back decades. You can tell a lot about a person in the way they feel about this amazing city

They talk funny, because they're not from Manchester.

Just personal choice I guess.

I grew up in a London overspill town so everyone there wanted to move out of London in the 60's/70's - largely due to house prices. A lot of young 'middle class' people in these areas now think London is wonderful and can't wait to move there 😅

Yes Trump and Vance along side Farage and Reform have spread so many lies calling parts of London no go areas. I don't know of any no go areas in London. Where they also state that no one speaks English on public transport is a load of rubbish too. I get on the tube regularly for my commute to central London and yes there are plenty of languages spoken but a lot of them are from tourists. And who care if people speak in their won languages when they are conversing between themselves. Do British tourists in other countries speak the native language?

I’m not. I like London. I’m not from round there and I don’t live there but I think it’s a very interesting place. Like its own little country.

If people don't know what is meant by the far right hating on London, it's this sort of thing.

It was awful in the early 2000s but got a wash and brush-up for the Olympics and I felt proud of it then. I think it was the proliferation of fast food outlets and the English or British apparent tolerance of ankle-deep litter - we are bad at this. I’d avoided going but enjoyed short visits after the clean-up.

i like the historical aspects of London but am so over the West End theatre. Just realised one day that I never wanted to pay £80 to sit in a cramped seat in the gods watching something pretty meh again. So much pretentiousness about the theatre!

I love art but over the last 20-30 years galleries have had massive blockbuster exhibitions which are ridiculously busy. Went to Van Gogh first thing on a Monday morning and still could hardly move. The horrendous crowdedness of central London puts me off. I like to explore the interesting suburbs instead.

I guess if you’re young, as I was once 😄 it’s exciting but I have to have a very good reason to go into London now from the end of my tube line. Far, far too many people.

I for one love it. I don't live there now but go back as often as I can and enjoy taking my children there too.

I often think to myself maybe I'll retire there! It's a pipe dream 😀

London is big city
Some people love cities others don't. It had it's fair share of problems but so do other cities. Personally I love it.

I live in NW of the city in a culturally diverse, not affluent neighborhood, white, Muslim, hindu , Romanian , Chinese and long established Irish families. My Muslim neighbour sends me Christmas cards and offers food at Eid. I send them cards at Eid. When I couldn't start my car another neighbour, also Muslim, also rushed out to help me.

I agree it's a right wing racist trope. They hate Sadiq Khan because he is brown, a Muslim and Labour. Their hate is promulgated through the right wing press (Daily Mail), AI posts on social media and from the mouths of leaders and supporters of the usual suspects. They are also the people who are pounding home the message that the UK is finished, the great replacement theory, two tier justice and more. So you have to ask why.

London has money poured on it - buses every 2minutes,trains or tubes every 3minutes -where I live 4buses a day -now they are spending millions on building social housing. They claim money is made in London but not elsewhere -it is but in the financial sector run by overpaid private school kids not the rest of the population -the rest of the country can go hang

Team Samuel Johnson here:
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life"

Should add - as many commentators have said - London is very different from the rest of England, or the UK. Possibly more different than other capitals are from their countries.

It’s just way too big and stressful for me - information and stimulation overload!

YABU for saying 'hating on'.
I lived in London in my 20s and loved it, but there have always been plenty of things to dislike about it (as there are about any huge city) and some of them have got worse, no doubt.

I certainly wouldn't live there or in any city now, but that's a me thing, not a London thing. I find it exhausting, over-stimulating and dirty.

Hmmm…Samuel Johnson’s London was a VERY different animal. More like a village.

I always say the best that about visiting London is knowing I get to leave 🤣 I can cope with it for a few days but I find it so claustrophobic and it operates such a depressive affect on my mood! However, I live in the literal highlands (which I LOVE) and I’m fully aware most people would choose London over that any day!!

I love London and always did.

I'm always shocked when I leave london about how would run down some places are.

There is a thread on here about how grotty cambridge is. I went to canterbury for the first time a few months ago, and I was shocked by it. Outside of the cathedral quarters, it's pretty grim. Lots of rough people and being harassed by youths, among others. This was in only two days of being there.

As for saying, it's run down and grotty, take a look at liverpool and the areas around it birkenhead, Ellesmere port... Utter dumps.

If it was up to me, I would turn london into a city state. It already has the orbital motorway m25 as a natural barrier to build a border. Turn it into a city state like singapore, and then london can keep every last penny of taxes generated for itself and the rest of the country can do one.

London is a great city. I have always been proud to work there. So many different sites, ethnicities and opportunities. It is a really exciting place. I have never felt it to be a dangerous place ever.

It's always been a thing for the rest of the UK to make uninformed derogatory comments about London, and now that has merged with right wing talking points.

I’m on a community Facebook page for people living in my particular area of London. I use it for things like updates on roadworks and the like. It is rammed full of ex residents who pop up frequently to tell the rest of us how it’s become a shithole and that they’re so glad they moved to Sussex/ Suffolk/ Devon/ Dorset etc. Drives me mad and wastes my time, I’m not interested in the opinion of my lovely neighbourhood from someone who lives hundreds of miles away.

Some people just really hate Muslims, many of whom live (well) in London. I think it boils down to that alone in regards to the "London is ruined" rhetoric online.

Yes this exactly, I feel they need to justify that they are happy leaving London but putting London down