To wonder why people choose to live in London?

[Cantbloodyrememberthenameonthread]

I always wonder. And reading a recent thread prompted me to ask the question. Why do people do it by choice? People complain about the house prices (rightly), ulez, nursery fees, cost of everything being more expensive, commutes, tubes etc.

if you’re not absolutely tied to London for work or health or I guess family. Why do you choose to live there when there are so many cheaper easier lifestyle options in the country?

I don’t actively hate it @ChocolateAddictAlways but I know I’d prefer living in town as I call it. In another life maybe!

It's a weirdly phrased question to be honest?

Why stay at a Four Seasons when you can stay at Travel Lodge?

Why eat at Gordon Ramsay Hospital Road when you can eat at a Harvester?

Why drive a Range Rover when you can drive a 15 year old Fiestia?

Jobs, community, connections, culture, car-free lifestyle. I can’t imagine wanting to live in lots of other places but each to their own.

I live in London. I have a great job I love, my kids went to great schools (state). I live in a great part of London. I have a range of great food shops (including M&S and Waitrose) within a 5 minute walk of my front door. I have lots of great restaurants and cafes within 10 mins of my house. I have loads of lovely green spaces nearby. I have 2 great cinemas within a 10 minute walk walk. Central London is easy and quick to get to for theatres, museums and other events. I don’t need a car as have great public transport, which is so much cheaper than out of London. We can walk to our local premier league football stadium. I could go on, DH and I are not Londoners, but can’t se that we would leave now. Our DC are definitely Londoners - oldest has just bought their first home near us, so hopefully the kids will stay close

I live outside of Bristol. I love the west country but:
Two pretty shite Museums
Only West end type shows and pretty fringe theater
No big bands play here
The nightlife is pretty average, I'm into 50s Rock and Roll London has a lot more of that
Transport...there is no bus after about 10 o'clock to my town
Taxi to my town..last time I got one was 2005 and it was £45...9 miles from the centre of Bristol
Impressive architecture... Bristol Central shopping area was flattened in the main and replaced by a concrete eyesore
The British library
Parks, Bristol city council has stopped spending on them and they are an absolute disgrace and no where I'd like to sit or even visit
Bristol city centre is a shit hole with a badly painted stretch of tarmac right in the heart... getting from one side of the city to another is a ball ache and the transport system is shocking

As I say I love the west and would never move despite having the opportunity to move to London...but if I did those are the reasons.

I've not lived in the UK as an adult (only as a child), but have spent 6 months there working in various parts of the country.

Nowhere felt like London. I was in Manchester, Portsmouth, Glasgow and Leeds for a few weeks at a time. Every time I caught the train back to London (where I also lived for 3 weeks), I got a little feeling of excitement. Theres something about the place that gets to you and coming out of Kings X and seeing the bustle, or getting on the tube, the parks, the architecture, the river, the parks - I don't even know to describe it - its just got everything. I'd happily live the rest of my life in London, but not in any other city in the UK.

my DS lives there.

he moved there in his twenties. He’s a musician. Nowhere else in England really has a music scene like London.

other people on his music course who had to move away from London for financial reasons are going into music teaching or similar because you just can’t start a band and have all the gig opportunities that London offers in the middle of the countryside.

he loves it.

it’s funny because my mum and dad were both born and grew up in London and moved out to afford a house when me and my brother were born.

now my son is totally a Londoner and loves it.

can’t see him moving out - he grew up in a market town and hated it. He’s a big city person.

No one "needs" access to any museum, but I go to a major art gallery or museum once a fortnight on my day off (and other times besides) and it significantly enhances my quality of life, it's how I spend much of my downtime. I'm from a city in the north of england so I feel qualified to say there simply isn't the depth of quality or variety in museums and galleries there that would support such regular visiting. Of course if you only go a couple of times a year any city will do and that's fine, it's not everyone's major interest, but that's not how many Londoners use galleries and museums.

Do you appreciate that the main driver of property cost is demand?

Therefore - a reason the other parts of the country are cheaper is precisely because people don't want to live there as much. (Lots of good reasons on this thread why London is so popular)

Different people like different things and different places.

I live in Manchester and I do love it here; it's a brilliant city I've been here for more than 20 years now. It's a great place to live. But I'm originally from London and if I had the option to live in London again, I absolutely would. It's just completely different from living anywhere else in the UK and I still feel more at home in London than I do in any other place.

Living in London was my big ambition growing up, and I achieved it when I got a job there when I was 23. I love the museums, galleries and all the parks and places to visit. I grew up in Harrogate where there is one museum that used to be a well, so not very big.

I have been here for 30 years after growing up in a lovely part of the midlands. Apart from my neighbourhood being very friendly with a strong sense of community.. I just love living here.

I love walking around London with spectacular sights around every corner, I love the open mindedness and diversity. You can be completely anonymous or part of a group.
There are so many events at your fingertips for anything you could possibly want to do. The parks, restaurants, theatres.. just everything!

I still get a real energy from walking around London even now and it’s an energy that I just don’t feel anywhere else.

Of course it’s a personal thing and different people prioritise things that are important to them. I wouldn’t live here if my priority was lakes, sea or mountains (which I also love but I can visit those).

My DCs are older teens now and I have loved bringing them up here too.

Yes there are cheaper places to live and I am not rolling in it but there is more to life than living somewhere cheaper. Where you choose to live isn’t always quantifiable. It’s often just a feeling.

This. London is a wonderful place but with the cost of living crisis has become hard. However, personally the only place I could live in the UK. I am leaving as politics and cost ruined the city for me. I have come to a point where coming to visit once or twice a year would be the sweet spot before retirement in a sunnier climate.

I think us woollybacks are quite justified in being annoyed by the London-centric attitude which has always prevailed in the UK. Being made to feel we are lesser than those who live in London is hardly conducive to good feeling.

Actually I'm glad Londoners have so much culturally going on, that they have great public transport, high paying jobs, etc etc. But I'm very much annoyed that the rest of the country doesn't.

Jobs- DH's only exists in London really (or cities outside UK). Mine could be done in a couple of cities of which London is one.
Friends- mainly in London.
Cultural life- of course exists outside London as well, but not many places have the number and variety of options- New York maybe. We go to the theatre 15-20 times a year, opera and ballet maybe 10 times, galleries once a fortnight or so.
I also live the vibrancy and busyness of it- not for everyone, sure.
I don't whinge about house prices, although they are high. Supply and demand.

That's true of most global cities worldwide.

Two of my DD’s live in London, both of them for work. One in particular loves living there, and really makes the most of the museums, theatres etc on offer.

I was born in London, then ended up living all over the country from a teenager.

Moved back to London aged 30 (in 2010) as I met dh who was studying there. We ended up staying for 11 years until we finally got priced out of renting.

we were both working, but had to claim top up housing benefit as the rents were so ridiculous. Dh loved living in London (he’s from the midlands), but I don’t know why.

Yeah, parks and museums are free but we were so so exhausted from working to pay 2k a month for a shithole that we couldn’t do anything. I worked nights so we wouldn’t have to put dc in childcare and eat up even more money.

We didn’t actually do anything other than work.

We moved to the midlands 5 years ago, bought a house, which is something we could never do in London, I could stop working, we had another baby with no stress over money. Now we can actually live and go on holidays.

I lived in Ealing and over the years we lived there it went Seriouly down hill. Not worth the money to live there at all.

Been here 22 years (most of my adult life) and no plans to leave until retirement at the earliest. Very fortunate to have made it onto the housing ladder just before it would have become unaffordable for us. There is a marked decline in numbers of kids in schools in inner London with several closures and that is slowly filtering outwards towards the burbs - likely due to families leaving London to set up home in more affordable areas. Why do I love it here? One of my top reasons is the diversity of the population - I am a better person because of it.

I was born in London so I feel a special tie to it, but I didn't grow up there.

I was recently on a trip there. There is just so much vibrancy, life, beat. You can feel the buzz of people around you.

I loved that when I needed to quickly go to the shop I didn't need my car.

I was a little struck by how rude quite a few people were though.

I can certainly see why people would like to live there. If I was to live there though I would need my own sanctuary away from the buzz. But I could never afford that!

I live in the country, I have no intention of moving as as I love it, I'm definitely a country person.

BUT I had to stay in London for 6 weeks some time ago, and the variety of food available was AMAZING that alone could (almost) get me to want to live in London.

I do like to visit, but I also like my countryside quiet.

Because it’s brilliant? I grew up in a very rural area and moved to London straight after university as I’d always been desperate to live there. We have great schools, great transport links, access to culture and green spaces, diversity, good shops, huge variety of restaurants/takeaways, etc etc. What’s not to like?

Is there a city in the UK which has as many museums though? Or as many art galleries? Or theatres? You could literally go somewhere new every week and not repeat yourself in ten years.

Bus fares are much cheaper than nationally.
There’s always stuff to do, including free stuff.
Top education both state and private, very good universities.
Very good public transport. People moan about the CC, ULEZ, and LTNs but there are now much less cars on the road in Central London making it more pleasant to live in.
Cycling infrastructure is improving all the time, again, good for air quality.
If you want food at 3am you can probably find it, and if you need a particular ingredient for a challenging recipe, ditto. You can eat around the world.
It’s amongst the safest cities in the world for the size of the population.
I think as long as you live in Zone 5-6 and further and commute in, it’s still a doable city to live in. But having kids is expensive and many families are moving away. Many schools are closing down. It’s a shame.

Very Central London is chaotic but you go back a few streets and you can have these incredible, peaceful squares and streets.

When I lived in London, the food, the beauty, the variety of activities on my doorstep etc were big draws.

I lived in a big Mansion flat with tennis courts by the communal gardens at the back, a tube at the end of the street and parks and canals within a 2 minute walk.

Where I live now is better for our family (close to family , on the coast) but it absolutely lacks the vibrancy and diversity of London.