York, Leeds, Sheffield or somewhere else?

[Eastender123]

Hi, I’ve reached the point where I am no longer enjoying living in London and would like to move back north closer to family. My family live rurally - I don’t think I could manage that, but I would like to be in a smaller city or could do a village very close to a city. Ideally would like to be somewhere that is left leaning, has a good community vibe and has good secondaries (will be applying next year). We don’t know anyone in these cities - so openness is equally important. Feels a bit daunting to be starting over again in our early 40s. Thanks all.

Medium sized town (20k ish population) big abbey, lots of history, big flood risk, not at all comparable to Leeds, Sheffield or York (12 miles away).

I feel that I have to counter some of the “not left-leaning” assertions about York on here, because every city will have a mix of people with different views and opinions, and you could get a bit hung up on that as part of a place’s character. York central has a very left Labour MP; York outer just switched from staunchly blue to red in the last election (but may be regretting that as there must be quite a bit of farming influence across that constituency). The city council switched from Lib Dem to Labour at the last round of elections. The LDs seemed to be mired in corruption and controversy for years. So it’s hardly a dyed in the wool true blue area!

There are two universities so tons of academics and their families and children at schools living around the city (stereotypically they tend to be more left leaning). Of the private schools there are two Quaker schools which tend to be a bit more liberal in outlook and their parent community (not generally Quakers themselves) largely share the same outlook and approach.

the flag guy in York is just a self-publicising idiot. There will always be pockets of housing where a prevailing outlook doesn’t appeal, but there’s lots of choice around all these cities that mean you can mix with people you feel you’d get on with. At least wherever you look for a house you can tell where not to go by spotting England flags on lampposts!

There is a general woolly lefty guardian-reading vibe, which is up our street.

As for Selby… nice abbey. That’s it really.