If you live in London and hate it, tell me why!

[OMaLittle]

We're thinking of moving back and I just want to make sure we're not looking through rose-tinted retrospectacles! We'll probably be in SE23 or Hackney.

I've lived in London all my life. I'm currently living in an area I love, and I would recommend it to anyone. But lots of London is unpleasant, I reckon. It's the constant aggro that wears you down...

I've lived in London for nearly 25 years now and I still love it.

We live up the road from SE23 and it is a great area to live with children. We have been very happy with our local primary school and are now very happy with the secondary school DD has gone to (even closer to SE23!) We have loads of like-minded friends, lots of stuff for us all to do, lots of green spaces, loads of nice shops/cafes/bars/pubs/restaurants, etc.

If you are not currently in London, where are you and why don't you want to stay there?

I hate that pitying look I get from Londoners when I say I'm from Yorkshire - until I point out that my monthly mortgage is less than their monthly travel costs, and I can get back and forth to work during my tea break.
The pitying look turns to envy quite quickly.
London: lovely to visit, couldn't live there.

Gay40, for me Yorkshire is lovely to visit, couldn't live there!

It's each to their own, I guess. My friends who live there love it, they don't understand how I can live in such a primitive and backward place.

Aww, I don't think Yorkshire is primitive or backward (infact there are lot's of nice people from Yorkshire who live here!), it's lovely for a hol, but I love the buzz of London.

We used to live not far from SE23

Pluses
-great diverse circle of people we knew (& good for kids to grow up in a culturally diverse environment IMO)
-public transport and cycling possible
-SE london leafy & lovely period houses
-being in the middle of things generally
-good for work - lots of opportunity
-good churches (for us this was important)

Minuses
-miles (100's) from countryside/mountains
-awful trying to get away for weekend driving up through the city (family all in the north)
-stinking commute & crowded trains
-dodgy schools (although improving I gather)
-generally expensive and could only afford shoebox house with handkerchief garden

We moved out in the end when a job opportunity came up but there are quite a lot of things we miss. It's not that clear cut.

We almost moved out of London a few years ago but the house sale fell through. We are now glad to have stayed.

It is a huge privilege to be able to live in a nice area in London. Cannot think of anything better. But I accept that cost of housing and the variability of state education, particularly at secondary level, is a negative.

I don't find Londoners unfriendly. Quite the opposite. They don't like to make eye contact. But scratch the surface, there will be a few who will surprise you. Of course, in time you learn who to ask and who to avoid.

greenlotus, whilst the traffic is definitely the worst thing about living in London, it is not 100's of miles to countryside - you can be in Kent countryside in just over half an hour and by the beach in an hour. Though it would be 100's of miles to mountains!
And although it is a pain travelling back up north through London, if you leave around 8am on a weekend, it's much quicker

And furthermore, the schools round here are not all dodgy, some of us ensure we have jobs within walking distance and so avoid the commute. And some of us find that a handkerchief garden is all they can manage

SW london suburbs is obviously lovely. NW suburbs offers low crime, good schools, and on average not as expensive as SW. Never lived in SE or NE

Tilly obviously there are workarounds for all these things but not everyone's circumstances mean they can take advantage of them.

I too would have defended the area to the hilt whilst I was living there but in the end it wasn't for us. I know the schools particularly Southwark are much improved now but 7-8 years ago was a very different picture when we moved.

We live in SW London and love it. I grew up in north Yorkshire which was lovely but my dc will still have a great childhood just different. We know all our neighbours and have an annual street party, we live near a park. Our street is a cull de sac and my dc ride up and down on their bikes, skateboards etc as do the other kids and as a plus we are 20 mins from big ben! Not all of London is aggressive, smelly and horrible.

Can't comment on SE London but we lived in Hackney for 5 years, on Victoria Park in the 'posh' bit. We moved to Suffolk 2 years ago with our (then) 3 and 2 yo.

We lived in the catchment for a wonderful outstanding primary school, and being around V.P with very little children was brilliant as there is so much to do and easy access to central London etc.

Then i looked at the secondary schools and they are, almost without exception, very poor/average in Hackney.

In the 5 years we lived in Hackney we were broken in to (police astounded, we had THE most secure house they'd ever seen but someone just shimmied up the front of the house and crawled through a small window 4 floors up with a 40 foot drop the other side), I was mugged for my handbag at 9am, an old lady was mugged in daylight outside our front door, taxi driver stabbed to death 20 yards from the front door, 14 yo girl gang raped about 50 yards from the front door, car broken in to twice outside the house. And that's the stuff that was very close to us, won't bore you with all the other.

Enough was enough. I just didn't want my children growing up somewhere where I seriously feared for my own safety never mind theirs. And I wanted space for them.

They will probably hate me as teenagers but there we are. When we moved here I read the crime report in the parish magazine, it said, "PC Plod reported one crime for the last quarter. Some dog biscuits and a dog collar were stolen from an unlocked car. PC Plod reminded all parishioners to lock their vehicles at all time.". Oh...I laughed...

London is a brilliant brilliant place. Just wasn't for us long term, in the end.

Lived in both Hackney and Walthamstow, prefer Walthamstow. Was victim of crime in Hackney twice (mugged and burglary) and it didn't feel safe.

In Walthamstow we had a break in but they were disturbed and it was a bit silly of us (single glazed window with dodgy locks and open curtains showing playstation and gadgets). We sealed windows and bought longer blinds and no problems. The only thing is it's a bit dirty as in most parts of London where street rubbish is a problem.

I would have moved back there as very arty and family friendly (lots of surestart centres with kids activities)but have decided to stay in Cambridge.

All my friends are in London and that's where my career was but am now working from home.

Thought the OP asked about London, not slow deaths in the suburbs/idyllic-looking but in fact dreadfully boring villages? herhonesty - agree entirely.
I used to work in Hackney (up til earlier this year), my experiences of which were similar to Spudbaloo's...not long before I left the road was cordoned off after someone was shot dead. It is an undeniably diverse and vibrant borough, but I (personally) didn't feel very safe there, particularly after a colleague was mugged at knifepoint.
Obv. Hackney is a big borough, and I think areas like Stoke Newington are nice for families with lovely shops and Clissold Park, whereas Dalston/ Haggerston isn't so nice for children but is good for young trendy types! Having said that, the new flats are lovely, and "Dalston Village" (oh, how we laughed) is artsy.
Can't comment on SE23, have only been through Forest Hill on the train!
I love London very much and although we have just recently moved out, we would have stayed but really couldnt afford to, we outgrew our flat and would have had to uproot to a different borough to get something slightly bigger, which would have meant changing DC's prospective nurseries/schools. In the end it made sense for us to move out, but I dont think it is better or worse to be elsewhere, just different...the pro's and con's already outlined.

A lot of posts about crime. You probably get this everywhere but London in particular, nice areas live side-by-side with not so nice areas and one street could be safe but the next one not. By and large, you know with experience which streets to avoid particularly at night, though of course if the general area is high crime then that is not easy to.

Our house has a burglar alarm. You do have to take more precautions on the safety front.

at my slow death in the suburbs. Not that bad thinkim...good schools, less pollution, a few trees, etc isn't so bad compared to fast death in the city?

London is not the only city in the country you know! We have just moved from NE London to Norwich, we are actually much closer to the city amenities (theatre, pubs, museums, galleries, parks) than we were in London, with a much bigger house, near a much nicer school, with a much lower mortgage. What's not to like?

Oh yes and 15 mins from the beach :)

Oxford is expensive but a good allrounder

megbusset how jealous am I? Friend lives in Beccles, and it is just about the loveliest place ever.

True lots of post about crime, but Hackney has a high crime rate, need to be honest about it. It is quite a deprived borough, with the problems that go hand in hand with that. Doesn't mean children cant have a childhood, but I think it becomes more of an issue as they get older and want to have some freedom - on the plus side they would certainly be more streetwise, which is no bad thing. For me personally, however, I would not choose to bring my children up in Hackney. (Had to say that, was getting splinters in my bum from this fence)

Indeed, secondary schools were more of an issue for us than primary - especially as our nearest was a boys' grammar so we'd have to either go the whole tutoring/pressure route (and send the DSes to a single-sex school which I'm not a fan of) or failing that, send them to a mediocre comp where all the brightest boys had been creamed off. No thanks.

I don't know Hackney so can't comment on living there, but I do live in London and within zone 1.

personally for my family I can think of only one advantage to leaving - the roads aren't so busy, but the advantages to life in London are too many to list here and far outweigh any disadvantages IMHO.

"When you tire of London you tire of life itself" How true!

London - central London - fabulous (and we live in a council flat, so not wealthy). So much to do here - and when we fancy a change, on our doorstep is the high speed rail link - so can be at the Kent coast in under an hour and in Paris in 2!