There is an issue in places like Stoke and Middlesbrough where lots of middle class people from the South have bought up loads of houses as buy to lets for investment purposes because their equity increases enabled them to do this. This priced out huge numbers of working class people on low incomes from being able to buy their own home because they couldn't compete with buyers who had more money, particularly cash buyers.
There's also a lot of southerner who bought down south and then gained lots of equity and moved north, again pushing up prices in the north and edging out working class people from northern areas which were regarded as nice. Many of these were ex-council properties. I regularly come across locals here who initially make a dig and inquire about how long I've lived in the area. They immediately change tone when they know I've been around for a long long time and didn't move north.
We hear a lot about immigrants coming over and taking housing but there's also a big class resentment about gentrification from white middle class southerners and landlords from the south changing the character of an area massively which isn't talked about anywhere near as much as it should be. Often because it is white middle class southerners who control political agendas because politics is so centralised in the UK so it's an inconvenient story that no one really wants to admit to because the chances are they have skin in the game.
I have had mutual acquaintances say to me that there isn't a cat in hells chance they'd ever visit us even if we lived on a gated estate because they had no desire to Go Up North, such is the level of snobbery and superiority I've come across. And no it wasn't tongue in cheek it was deadly serious. I've had friends who I've ultimately lost touch with because they were never willing to travel north because there was everything they needed in London.
I've also had real issues with TV representation of the North as simply because grim, terrace houses, working class oinks with no manners. One of the worst was the portal of Colin Parry father of Tim Parry who was killed in the IRA bombing of Warrington. As he's a real life person it was particularly jarring as they 'working classed' him rather than show him as northern middle class. Again this is decisions made by southerners. That ultimately grate and I think create tension and then there's a lot of northerners who get rather grumpy about the South.
As a rule I think there is also something of a cultural difference between the middle class in the south and the middle class in the north. It's is often about this need to virtue signal or keep up appearances. I think there's a much more down to earth attitude in the north. It's not everywhere - I think Manchester can be full of shit on this at time - but as a general rule I think it applies.
I think theres a lot of north / south clashes that the north is aware of, but the south ultimately just doesn't have much of a clue about in terms of it's impact and real world consequence because they simply have never been to a lot of these places. Northerners are much more likely to visit various places in the south for numerous reasons. Not least because we are more dependent on cars than the average Londoner (this doesn't apply to the SW though) as public transport is a fantasy outside the cities. That's why Burnham's Bloody Buses are significant and important.
We also have massive issues in terms of how long term policies have favours cities and had massive negative effects on small towns and rural areas. The inability for various London based governments to grasp issues like food security and critical industries that are based outside the SE is really starting to have some significant impacts. This is going to increasing become a major political narrative over the next few years.
If southerners want to be ignorant to how life is in the north - or just generally outside the SE, I don't really have a lot of time for it and yeah I probably do have an attitude about it.
There's too many people who never venture outside London and simply don't understand the world beyond in the rest of the country!
The handwaving away about the issues the north has, really isn't ok.
I do think the north is better in quality for many middle class people compared with the pressures of London. But this really doesn't mean that it's economically better off. Nor does it mean that there isn't really dreadful poverty in some places. None of this takes away from issues with poverty in London.
I just wish there was a better understanding of anywhere outside the SE bubble tbh as it's now getting to a point where this divide has been neglected for so long that these issues have been somewhat existential to the functioning of the country as a whole.