Harpenden or Highgate? Wise words desperately sought.

[muffinchops]

Pleeeeeasse help with major indecision bordering on paralysis! In short, used to live in London pre-birth of ds, moved to commuter 'town' just outside Hertford where depression ensued and now want to move again. In my heart, I'm still hankering after London but hubster is dead against (but he gets to work there seemingly 24/7).
Have been torn apart by decision making process. Harpenden has lots to recommend it on paper but am terrified of making a mistake again and there is a potential house in the offing, but I am paralysed.
Please, please can anyone make the case for the respective 'H's for a young family.

Surely it's not as simple as Highgate or Harpenden? Surely in one area you will get to see more of your dh and the other you will get a bigger house? So it depends on your priorities I guess. What do you want? What are the most important things?

(there are more annoying people where I am BP).

I know people at St Michaels - it is very hard to get into.

Would you consider other places than Highgate? I quite like Kentish Town...

Sorry but big Yuk to London. I cant put my finger on it but i have always hated the place. I was born there and went to school there but nothing drags me back there. Nothing to offer me I suppose.

I like Harpenden alot, to be surrounded by all that countryside is much better than London, and there are great parks. St albans is a great city to be nearby for kids.

There was a thread here a while ago by someone looking at Harpenden/St Albans if you want to investigate the archives.

Feeling a bit miffed that everyone's so anti-Harpenden - why?

Highgate,Highgate,Highgate!
Hampstead Heath close by so feels quite rural and yet can zoom into West End in less than half an hour.What's not to like?
Also as your kids grow up there is just so much more for them to do in London.Friends of ours have moved from here to near Ipswich and their (London raised) kids are going stir-crazy with boredom.

Highgate is poncy kids need the freedom of the countryside!

Oh, btw, I'd go for Harpenden, pretty, very family-friendly, good schools, more house for your money, fast commute - just generally nicer, easier place to live in than London (Highgate's too prissy and has that major London social divide between relatively wealthy people living in twee Victorian houses and real poverty/urban squalor just a few streets away). IBut then, I'd got tired of London after nearly 20 years, you may feel differently.

All these posts are much appreciated and the strength of feeling is noted!

I know to many of you it probably seems a ridiculously simplistic choice, but it is v much muddied for me by the fact that dh is anti living in London now, and on such a big issue as moving, I feel it would nice to at least have my partner's support. If anything were to go awry, I would be getting the 'told you so' mantra.

I have and always will have an intense passion for our fair capital warts and all and I think if I were with someone who shared that to the extent I felt it, then there would be no issue to debate.

Just v hard for me (hence the ridiculous wranglings which has become a standing joke with all our friends) because am slightly terrified of getting sucked into an existence I didn't envisage. I gave up my career as a solicitor to look after ds whilst dh has continued with his, making partner (I had another angst-ridden thread when I was in turmoil about returning to work).

I'm just about clawing something back career-wise having taken up a part time PSL role, but as with all women it seems, I do everything else as well.

So whilst dh works v hard, attends countless client functions involving nice restaurants, essential 'bonding' and being fun time daddy at the w/e, I am terrified of being surrounded by Stepford Wives somewhere.

Now I'm mortified as this all sounds so bloody navel gazing and petty, but it's really not.

Highgate then I can hand deliver the lemon drizzle cake.

Close to Muswell Hill which is very family friendly.

I grew up in Harpenden and it was a lovely place to live, don't know if i could live there as an adult though friends who still live there seem very competative and very money orientated.

nooooooo. dont even think of becoming thameslink woman in harpenden. and dont stress re going back to hideous ratrace as lawyer.... trust me: law + dh with "proper job" + children = misery (am about to take year off from barristering lark.) LONDON is where its at. good luck!

I've never been to Harpenden, but I rented in Highgate when I first moved to London. If I could afford it I'd move back there in a flash. Why hesitate? There's also lovely places around - Crouch End, Tufnell Park down the road, Hampstead Heath a stone's throw away, Highgate woods, East Finchley for your normal shops, lovely pubs...

I don't know either Highgate or Harpenden, but... I would go for London. Suburbia is really hard going. You either want to live in a proper city, or in proper countryside.

As controlfreaky2 says so rightly, "law + DH with "proper job" + children = misery". I'm not a lawyer but had a similarly stressful type of job and know that it would not be possible to go back to that level of professional activity post children. However, I need to live right in the city (Paris) and look at my girlfriends a few minutes' drive away in suburban Neuilly (and there is a lot of Stepford Wife existence there) and could never do that. EEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUGH.

sounds like your DH can afford to say he doesn't want to live in London, as he gets to go there everyday, and enjoy the buzz! Meanwhile, you're stuck in Stepford.

I reckon if you have a Highgate sized budget, then you can afford a family house in London. Not having a whole house and garden is probably the only thing that might make me leave the glittering metropolis (glittering because of all the bloody police car lights ). I also find that because people are always moving around London, all the mother and toddler groups etc are really friendly, as everyone knows what it's like to be new.

Baz
SE15 and bizarrely proud.

Muffin I have the same problem with DH hating London and me having a deep-set affection for it, litter, crime, rudeness, tube and all. He wants to move, the thought of ending up somewhere dead terrifies me. But if you can afford such nice parts of London and you think you'll be happy there, is there any way of talking through your fears of suburbia with him?

I grew up near Harpenden and then lived in London for about 15 years after university.

I'd move to Edinburgh.

They are both such different places - you really have to sit down as a couple and decide what's important to you. Seriously. Harpenden and Highgate = chalk and cheese!

Don't know Highgate, but I don't like St Harpenden personally (I live nearby), although it has a lot going for it in terms of good schools. I'd go for St Albans over Harpenden any day. To me, Harpenden is very 'ostentatious wealth' and over competetive parenting, whereas St Albans is more understated and friendlier (people don't seem to feel the need to prove their worth by the size and shininess of their cars to the same extent). Just personal bias. I'm sure there are lots of lovely people in Harpenden too.

sorry, many typos. ds helping.

Is there a reason that this thread has been revived (it's 18 months old)? Does the OP still have the same question?

Oh Highgate, Highgate!
Best place to live in London I think - so much around you. Have actually fantasised about winning lottery and moving there (from E17 so figures maybe..)
It's slightly more 'real' than hampstead, a bit more old skool bohemian lefty which H'stead isn't any more, architecture lovely, waterlow, highgate woods one of nicest parks in london, Jackson's Lane, if you've got the cash you mightn't be worrying so much about secondary schools with Highgate School round teh corner..

I'm also puzzling as to why such an old thread has been revived (and not by the OP...)

how weird, just noticed that. Where did OP go to, anyone know?

Hadn't noticed the date. Would have kept my anti-Harpenden thoughts to myself.