Please help me find a city - not an easy one

[icecreambrownrice]

I've been thinking about this for months. I'm indecisive and suffer from acute anxiety. I tend to ruminate and second guess my decisions.

I know no one can objectively say which location is 100% ideal but I'm open to suggestions and recommendations.

I have twin DDs in sixth form, am a single parent. Family in South, not close to them. Currently renting a three bedroom house in a village near Cambridge.

Have saved up a healthy deposit looking to move to a city. I love love love London but I can't afford it, at least not in the SW areas that I want.

DDs will be at different unis, I'm in my 50s, my no.1 priority is location and amenities. I just want a little house with shops and excellent transport links.

Max budget £400k for 2-3bedroom home. I'd be so happy in a cottage-style home with a patio garden.

My criteria:

I need hustle and bustle
I hate living in the suburbs
I need excellent public transport (phobia of driving)
House as close to the bustling city centre as possible

No flats due to leasehold, service fees etc
Multi-cultural - I'm mixed race
Safety is key as I'm alone most of the time.
I commute to Farringdon, London once a month.

I've thought about Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham, and Reading. I just don't know if they're right for me. Not keen on Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds. I spent most of adult life abroad so I still see these cities as foreign places.

I can't even narrow it down. Help.

I'm confused by the OP's statement that she would consider Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham or Reading but not Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds because "I see these cities as foreign places."

@icecreambrownrice if you could explain what you mean there, it might help people to understand what your needs are.

If you read my original post, I explained that I spent most of my adult life overseas. I spent many happy years working in Hong Kong.

I don't know why I'm ruling out Cardiff. There is no logic, I admit. I don't mind it, it's just not up there.

I only need to be in London once a month. So it's not a deal breaker if I have to spend a little longer travelling.

Absolutely fine . You've got some great options. Personally I'd start with Manchester. Birmingham might be more affordable though (pure guess, haven't looked). Leeds is a lot smaller.

But how does living in HK explain that you see Nottingham, Manchester, Birmingham and Reading as “not foreign” and Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield and Leeds as “foreign”?

I agree long travel time in itself isn't a deal-breaker, and if you find somewhere you truly want to be, you will make it work. BUT making regular but not very frequent trips can be absolutely soul destroying when you get the kind of day-long travel fuckups that are so common to North-South journeys in this country. The real catastrophes are actually the easy ones (eg all trains from Scotland halted due to bad weather which has happened twice in a week). You just go home and rearrange your trip. It's the ones where you get halfway up or down and then trains start being cancelled left right and centre, the train you're on terminates several stations short of where you want to get off and you have to cram into the only regional service still running, pressed into someone's armpit and arriving hours and hours late, and the first thing you have to do at your destination is work out how the hell to get home. Those waste your entire day and you can't get your business done in London so you have to stay over or rearrange the trip for another time.

I used to work for an organisation with offices in South and North and the amount of staff time lost going between sites was staggering. It can be much worse to do an infrequent but regular journey because if you're unlucky the disruption affects a disproportionate number of your journeys. You don't have much of a routine so every journey feels non-standard, and every journey is slightly high stakes compared to eg a weekly commute.

London dominates in a way that capital cities in other countries don’t. If you like London you won’t find a similar experience in our next biggest cities (Manchester, Birmingham etc). They’re just not comparable at all.

I’ve lived in London for 15 years and have also lived in Manchester and Bristol. My job requires me to regularly spend time in Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle and they are very different places. Smaller, scruffier, less diverse.

I think you would be happiest compromising on property size and living in London.

A 3-bed maisonette in Cricklewood with no service charge: https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131700677#/?channel=RES_BUY

@icecreambrownrice Milton Keynes! In particular, Wolverton which has a direct slower train to London of around 45mins. Diverse and a lovely friendly place.

Fast direct trains from MK central in 30mins 😀.

Lots of us ex Londoners here!

Wolverton has plenty of period property also and Op doesn't drive which is handy as Wolverton does lack houses with parking!

Have a look at Levenshulme in Manchester. It is not on the Metrolink, but does have a train station and lots of buses into the city centre. It is multicultural and more gritty than Chorlton or Didsbury.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143134169#/?channel=RES_BUY

If you want London, compromise and stay in London. Nothing else will do.

Sutton or Morden might work for you?

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/86431791#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/141993455#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/142663451#/?channel=RES_BUY

@peachgreen that's a cute cottage. Sutton to Blackfriars is very easy. journey was also reading about the influx of Hong Kong immigrants to Sutton. The food looked so good..maybe that would work?

As someone who has lived in pretty much every city mentioned here.
Many of the recommendations are just no.

I only recommend Manchester or Birmingham.
Birmingham is busy, extremely diverse and right in the middle of England with quick & affordable train tickets everywhere. Only downside is it can be a bit rough and too many poor areas.
The only decent areas I will live if I had your budget are city, Edgbaston or jewellery quarter. Any area past the A4540 in jewellery quarter is ghetto. I won’t go anywhere else.
Harborne is mehh, just expensive houses with one high street, Moseley is also meh. Has a vintage feel to it. Kingsheath is rough in my opinion.

Manchester is just the same, big & diverse but further up north and not as poor.
Train tickets are more expensive & longer so can be discouraging if you need to commute down south.

I was in this exact situation last year trying to decide where to settle and ultimately chose Birmingham cause all my family is down south and I didn’t want the painful or expensive commute.

But Manchester might just be it for you.

What about Leicester?

I think if you love London anything else won’t do.
If your life and heart is in a place I would live there. You have a good budget. If you can compromise from the SW then there will be lots to choose from.

@Duckingfun leicester is dead. There’s not really much going on except you’re a student.
Not a bad place to raise kids though if you go south like wigston, oadby but the OP doesn’t have young kids. Her kids are off to uni and she wants to be somewhere busy so I don’t recommend Leicester

Also transport links from other big cities can look good in theory. There are some fast routes into London from the north. Train fares are so expensive though. The days of cheap advance tickets have gone. Worth factoring in.

I haven’t been for years, it’s a shame it’s gone like that really.

OP If you settle on Manchester or Leeds, then I hope you will be very happy there. Or even if you find somewhere in London. But can I just put in another - belated - plea for Glasgow. It's compact, it has fab architecture and lots of lovely parks, compared to London it's cheap, it has bags and bags of culture - from excellent free art galleries and museums to orchestras and theatres and all sorts of specialist groups plus a massive arena. And university outreach. It's very diverse. It has good buses and trams and local trains and lots of taxis. It's also easy to get out of to either the coast or to smashing countryside. It is most certainly buzzy. For maximum buzz, perhaps try Finnieston (west central) or Dennistoun (east).

I used to travel to London regularly and very quickly - in time for a late business lunch plus meeting then back to Glasgow by 10 pm - on the late lamented Virgin highspeed trains, which I cannot speak highly enough about. I hope that current HS2 related problems can be overcome. I am naturally rather reticent but I have never waited more than 10 mins at a Glasgow bus stop before getting involved with very direct but also mostly courteous conversation, instigated by fellow passengers. As a city it has lots of problems that one should not deny but it is also a very special place.

Goodness knows where 'trams' came from in the above. There are no trams in Glasgow now!!!!!

I know you said Nottingham was off the list but did you look at The Park? Lovely houses of all sizes very close to the centre. Nottingham also has a big Chinese student community if that makes any difference. The city centre has suffered from COVID/austerity but is slowly working through a regeneration plan.

I've lived in London and Birmingham too and I don't think anywhere is really like London, good and bad points. Doesn't mean you can't make a home somewhere else though. The benefit of a small city is that it's easier to get around to places on public transport.

@Sparsely Yes! The new restaurants are amazing. I don’t live there but my sister does and I love it. Would move there in a heartbeat if I could afford it.

To me, Manchester has a similar energy to what London used to have before it got expensive. Lots of young people and buzzy. Good nightlife-although people dress up more than London. Chorlton is a mixed, multi cultural suburb which has a feel of a part of a city rather than 1930s suburbia. Monton is leafy-bit like say Hanwell/Ealing. Altrincham is nice but doesn’t feel part of a city. My son and daughter both live there-flats. Son lives in Northern Quarter, gritty and independent but very safe and 10 mins walk from Piccadilly. Flats though-houses a bit further north. Large Asian community-K-pop and bubble tea bars aplenty. I left London a long time ago, still miss it, but I enjoy visiting Manchester.

Thank you, these are right up my alley. I know nothing about Sutton except that there's a bus to Morden tube station? So might do more research on that.

Yeah, 20 minute busses to Morden for the Northern Line or Wimbledon/South Wimbledon. Or there’s also an overground in Sutton itself which goes to Victoria. Pretty handy and very good value for money (at the moment!). You could
also look at North Cheam.