You need to define what you mean by North and South.
Newcastle is the North. Cumbria is the North. The South is more than London.
Even more confusing is that parts of Yorkshire arguably are really smack bang in the centre of the country and have no business saying they are Northern. They are the Midlands.
The usual people referred to in this context though is not those from Cumbria, nor Newcastle. But Yorkshire. And Lancashire. They moan the most.
The North as in Yorkshire and Lancashire do indulge in believing they are hard done by. They do think the South is full of people who have more. That they do not get opportunities. It is in danger of becoming embarrassing if they don’t stop. You cannot say you are a fast moving, exciting area and still beat that drum of needing to level up. The record has got a bit stuck.
There are poor people in the North ( all of the North) and the South. But also in the West and the East. In our Coastal towns. In the Midlands.
There are plenty of areas that need levelling up to the North I would say.
A lot of the Civil Service is in the North. And I do not mean No10 North. And long before Andy B became PM. Digital industries are in the North. They have shopping malls galore. Race courses. Michelin star restaurants. The big cities are university towns.
Our new PM realised that the focus on Manchester would mean more attention on it. And that it would not make sense with the we need ‘levelling up’ message. And tried desperately to say Manchester of today has just occurred recently.
No it has not.
As to housing. There are plenty of houses in the North that are as expensive as in the South. When I moved from the North to the South it wasn’t that much difference price wise for an ordinary house.
When I moved to the North I had no idea of how some, not all, hate Southerners. I soon learnt. But I had not grown up with the same loathing of Northerners in the South. I was once told Northerners were ‘better people’. Imagine telling a Northerner Southerners were ‘better people’. You wouldn’t hear the end of it.
I found generally Northerners friendly. But it is not always genuine. So you have to be careful. Very nosy. I did not find them blunt at all compared to where I am from in the South. That is rubbish. Frugal, yes. Southerners could learn a thing of two there. They expect value for money. But blunt. No. They are too worried about being seen to be ‘friendly’.
In the South at work nobody would go out for lunch or after work with someone they didn’t like ( unless it was a whole team thing).
They do. Was my experience.