To question whether northerners are actually poorer than southerners ?

[Naegriafowlia]

As we know a lot of northerners seem to think all southerners are living like the Russian Romanov family pre murder and funds from the south should be directed up north because they are apparently so much poorer than us.

But is this even true? If you can buy a family home up there for 100k or less and the same size home costs 300-400k on average in the south. You already have a lot more disposable income. I know they say they get paid less, but Tesco (for example) pays the same every where and has branches everywhere. I know they also say there’s no good jobs there but where there’s people there’s schools and hospitals so you want us to believe there’s no teachers and doctors?

I know someone will say “move there then” personally I won’t be moving anywhere anytime soon as I started my family young (first born a few months after GCSEs) and my kids are all really settled in school and with friends.
Based on what I’ve heard from northerners they are more welcoming to people from countries on the other side of the planet than they are their fellow countrymen from 100 miles to the south.

You’re ill informed, OP. Where are you getting this information from?

I was about to start rebutting your bullshit sentence by deluded sentence, but then I saw that you have created a username especially for this goady thread.

I get it now. I won't bite, because I just can't be arsed.

@Naegriafowlia I'm from the North and have never said anything about Southerners, most of my family are actually from London. I've also never heard anyone saying anything you've accused use of

I do that so people like yourself don’t go hunting for personal information to use as a personal attack. You are genuinely deluded yourself if you think someone paying 700 a month rent is poorer than someone paying 1600. Even if they have a slightly better paying job (most southerners are not bankers)

This has clearly struck a nerve for whatever reason though

Yeah, when two households have the same income it goes further in the average northern area than the average southern area. However incomes are higher on average in the south so there's that.

Can i suggest you visit places like Redruth and Camborne in Cornwall, Frome and Chard in Somerset. Southmead, Knowel and Hartcliff in Bristol. The Bournville estate in Weston-super-Mare.

Poverty exists in many parts of the west. The problem being hiden/exacerbated by the exodus from London/South East in an "escape to the country " type idea.

You sound like the BBC radio 4 presenter of a programme called The Patch, where random post codes are visited. She was given Redruth and went with the concept that everyone was living idyllic lives by the sea. The Taxi Driver dismissed that idea and said the only family living locally who she'd seen be to the sea, she gave a free ride as they were walking 4 miles home. The presenter couldn't find a single cornish person on the nearest beach.

There's a folk singer called Corkie...watch his YouTube "ginsters paradise ".

As a possible idea of what I am talking about roughly 7,000 men worked on the Bristol Docks 70 years. Today its about 600.

You have struck a nerve because you are saying things that are not true. Not all Northerners this Southerners are stuck up. Not all Northerners are poor, not all Southerners are rich. In the north we tend to get more for our money property wise, but that's not our fault.

You seem to agree with me but say what I’m saying isn’t true? My whole point is not all northerners are poor and southerners are rich. And you get more property for your money up there (which I never said was anyone’s fault)

Where I live in the North West a 3-bed semi typically goes for between 300 and 380k while a 4-bed house can easily be over half a million, especially if it is detached.

And they want us to believe theyre impoverished and we’re all posh and stuck up
I've lived in the North all my life and I really don't think this is true.

Thanks for the laugh though

These prices are very low. You are not living in reality.

The north-south divide is real.

I am a northerner. I live in commuter land down south for 20 plus years. Then I came home. Your more expensive house will be worth way more than mine 25 years from now. There is no comparison. Life in the south offers way more opportunities.

Medium income in London is ~50k a year.

In the North East it's 34k.

So that's one thing, but essentially you are trying to reduce an incredibly difficult social-economic issue into a pithy, goady thread with no understanding of the actual issues at hand.

"If you can buy a family home up there for 100k or less and the same size home costs 300-400k on average in the south."

I'm not commenting on anything else, just literally picking up on this.
If one person can only get a mortgage for 100k, and the second person can get one for let's say 350k, then their disposable income is irrelevant. At the end of the mortgage term the second person will have significantly more wealth than the other, particular when we take into account the increase in value over time.

Colliery villages.

I think @Naegriafowlia is having a laugh.

What a mad take! Did northerners tell you this directly or is it more of an assumption?

the main difference is opportunity is reduced the further away you are from London (or a major city). Jobs/opportunity are limited at the entry point and higher levels. It’s nowhere near as affordable as it was 20 years ago and yes, services are strained by brain drain /stagnant talent pools disproportionately.

However, I’m constantly surprised that, of the people I meet, I can see a pattern that those from the south have barely been anywhere that could be considered north. I think that explains why so many people are so mad for Cornwall/Norfolk. They are nice but totally comparable in niceness with other places in the UK!

For my southern cousins, I think inequality feels sharper and more extreme. I have colleagues who are objectively doing very well with household incomes in top 5%, yet they feel very stretched and yes, poor, because the the mega, mega wealth is more visible.

What about renters? Who don’t own their property eventually. Rent is still way cheaper up north.

Wrt the mortgages it’s not about what you can get but about what you need to get. There’s no option for a southern to buy a family home for less than 200k in the south. They have no choice but to bust balls to pay their mortgage every month so their family aren’t homeless

When I said what you are saying isn't true was when you said And they want us to believe theyre impoverished and we’re all posh and stuck up

I’m aware not all northerners think this but there are certainly some who do!

Personally I am feeding my pack of Whippets up, to lead the Charge down the M6 …

Investment has been made in the SE that hasn’t been made in the North, such as Transport Infrastructure, which has made the North a less attractive place for Business, and the wealth an opportunity that goes with it.

The North was more reliant on Industry for employment, which was decimated during the 1980s, with very little going in its place. London and the SE were more Service Industries which grew during the same time.

Housing has added to the problem, with landlords who live in London, buying swathes of properties in “poor” areas, making them unaffordable to buy by locals, forcing them into renting .. the rent going on the mortgage of the London Landlord.

We have generational issues around the disparity of wealth that need sorting out.

Why that name, as a matter of interest?

And I'm sure there area some Southerners who think we are all impoverished in the poor North.

It’s the name of an amoeba, I know spelt incorrectly.

The problem with these threads is they're full of massive generalisations. "The North" is a huge area encompassing large post industrial cities, remote rural areas, market towns, former mill towns and older tourist destination cities (like York or Chester).

This is the same in the "The South". There will be poverty and wealth depending on where you are in the region. I live in Cumbria in an area where housing is very expensive and many people can't afford to buy. Other parts of the county are cheaper. Stop making pointless sweeping statements.

You’ve just listed (relatively low paying) jobs that are available in the North and the South. If I added on all the (higher paying) jobs that are available in London and the South, then there would obviously be more jobs in the South. No one is saying there’s no jobs here, it’s not District 12.

Also the comparison doesn’t mean that the richest person in the North is poorer than the poorest person in the South. But on average, yes. Property prices alone must mean this is true, because your more expensive property will likely be worth more than my less expensive property when we both die, and I as a Northerner probably don’t have the capacity to generate unearned wealth like that on my main asset.

(with a caveat that I’m a reasonably well off Northerner with no desire to waste money moving to the South. Some of us manage to do alright for ourselves!).

But just like the South, you can find cheaper property if you live in a shithole area. This idea that ALL areas of ‘the north’ are cheap, while all areas of the south are megabucks is nonsense.

Conversely my DS lives in a tiny two-up two-down in the north. It cost £350K because it’s in a nice area. He could have bought a 2 bed house in Clacton for half the price.

We paid £800k for our 4 bed house in the north almost a decade ago. Our council tax is £440 a month.

My southern DNs have both managed to buy cheaper homes in the south than my northern DCs and they are similar properties.

Of course overall southern prices are more expensive but the idea that we’re all snapping up 3 bed semis for £100K is just laughable.

And living standards here are lower not just because of higher unemployment but because our infrastructure and services are shockingly poor.