Londoners?

Pross

Quick question for all you Londoners - what exactly is it that attracts people to living there? I've just come back from a weekend there and other than the relatively small proportion of people who are able to get very high paid jobs there that they wouldn't anywhere else in the UK I really struggle tounderstand the attraction. I guess there are some other reasons e.g. my sister has moved there to teach as there were no jobs available around here but for me the downsides are the crowds, the dirt / pollution (I feel filthy by the end of the day) and the fact that everyone using the streets from pedestrians to bus drivers seem to have a death wish. I like to go there every now and again for a show but I couldn't cope with it for more than a couple of days. Maybe it is just a case of what you are used to and having grown up ina small market town surrounded by hills and countryside it is an alien environment but I have worked in smaller cities for the past 13 years and still struggle when I go there.

So come on, defend your city and help me see the error of my ways!

Weejie54

Maybe it's because.....

rick_chasey

Career wise - London is often where it happens, particularly in professional services. The big career jobs are often in London, especially the important or international ones.


Access to quiet country stuff aside: everything is there to do in London. Gigs, bars, pubs clubbing, eating out, clubs, societies, big events, chllingi in a cafe somewhere, etc

As for the filthiness/crowds - I moved from just outside of Cambridge and I don't particuarly notice it. I did for maybe 3 days, but after that I don't really. You adjust very quickly to it.



But it's mainly the career stuff > at least, that's why most of my friends who grew up in tiny little fendland villages have all ended up in London. S'where the money and the job status is!

pitchshifter

Despite many negatives, its regarded by many as the best city in the world.

Weejie54

S'where the money and the job status is!

I did point out to my London-dwelling brother that there was a distinct lack of posh new motors on his street - a contrast from Aberdeen, where there are more vehicular playthings per square mile than his neck of the woods.

APIII

It depends on where you stayed and what you visited. I suspect for most visitors, the west end is all they get to see. I used to live near Putney and it's just like a small town out of London.

Apart from the job market, the diversity of pretty much everything - food, entertainment, arts, etc, etc, is beyond anything you'll find outside of the capital.

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

Career wise - London is often where it happens, particularly in professional services. The big career jobs are often in London, especially the important or international ones.


Access to quiet country stuff aside: everything is there to do in London. Gigs, bars, pubs clubbing, eating out, clubs, societies, big events, chllingi in a cafe somewhere, etc

As for the filthiness/crowds - I moved from just outside of Cambridge and I don't particuarly notice it. I did for maybe 3 days, but after that I don't really. You adjust very quickly to it.



But it's mainly the career stuff > at least, that's why most of my friends who grew up in tiny little fendland villages have all ended up in London. S'where the money and the job status is!

I sort of get that but outside of financial services and the associate professions such as lawyers it's not really the case. Yes, in my line of work I would get a bit more in London but I wouldn't be able to afford a similar house in as 'good' an area. The clubbing thing I understand in younger people but others stay there once they have a family and those days are behind them. Others stay there and work in low paid jobs they could get anywhere else. I guess it is partly that I tend to only see the more central parts of the city and that the more residential areas aren't quite so packed although I felt pretty much the same when I had to go to hospital in Hampstead and had to travel up there a few times. I think I'm just a boring country boy who likes the peace and quiet too much.

Salsamander

i too grew up in the fens and couldn't wait to leave!

Ever since i moved to london (7 years ago) i've loved it. i came down for Uni and never left.

Everything that I could want to do happens in London.

rick_chasey

Pross wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Career wise - London is often where it happens, particularly in professional services.

I sort of get that but outside of financial services and the associate professions such as lawyers it's not really the case. .

Disagree.

Pross

Rick Chasey wrote:

Pross wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Career wise - London is often where it happens, particularly in professional services.

I sort of get that but outside of financial services and the associate professions such as lawyers it's not really the case. .

Disagree.

I guess it depends on the fields you look at. From looking at salaries in my own field of Consulting Engineering (Civils) the pay is only about 5% higher. Outside of the financial services and associated lawyers, IT etc. who would you say benefits greatly career wise in London? I suppose I should have included media / advertising and those sorts of things which don't really exist much outside the capital.

Weejie54

Everything that I could want to do happens in London.

Can't say the same. I'm writing on a cycling forum primarily because of my cycling interests, and the wide open road doesn't happen there much.

It can be fun once in a while - however, the last 'while' was not long after the July 2005 bombings.

Stewie Griffin

Weejie54 wrote:

Maybe it's because.....

+1, I was born ere guvna 8)

Pross

Stewie Griffin wrote:

Weejie54 wrote:

Maybe it's because.....

+1, I was born ere guvna 8)

Yeah, but you are allowed to leave you know (just remember it's not as noisy in other places so you can turn the volume down on your voice - most Londoners don't appear to realise this)

Stewie Griffin

Pross wrote:

Stewie Griffin wrote:

Weejie54 wrote:

Maybe it's because.....

+1, I was born ere guvna 8)

Yeah, but you are allowed to leave you know (just remember it's not as noisy in other places so you can turn the volume down on your voice - most Londoners don't appear to realise this)

We dont talk to each other anyway Apart from the Traffic and the neighbours directly next to us that I dont know (not kidding) London is great, I can get (within reason) what I want when I want.

Pross

Stewie Griffin wrote:

Pross wrote:

Stewie Griffin wrote:

Weejie54 wrote:

Maybe it's because.....

+1, I was born ere guvna 8)

Yeah, but you are allowed to leave you know (just remember it's not as noisy in other places so you can turn the volume down on your voice - most Londoners don't appear to realise this)

We dont talk to each other anyway Apart from the Traffic and the neighbours directly next to us that I dont know (not kidding) London is great, I can get (within reason) what I want when I want.

Fair point. I didn't get to try that as I had the wide and kids with me but I saw the ads in a phone box

desweller

I'm with you Pross. I have been living here since August on a secondment to our technical centre and I hate it.

There are a couple of minor pluses (a vast variety of music is very accessible and pubs with good beers are plentiful), but they are massively counterbalanced in my view by the claustrophobia of the place and the infrequency of Green Things and Wildlife. Richmond Park is pretty good, but the 5-mile ride to get there from Acton is not much fun, being largely high levels of traffic, potholes and (nowadays) always being in the dark.

I get depressed about it as soon as I get onto the M4 at Swindon. I can't wait to go back home in April.

flasher

Work in London, live in Surrey, best of both worlds 8)

Used to live in town before wife and kids, but tbh couldn't wait to get out nothing worse than coming home at 1am. and having to park 3 streets away :x

It's nice being only 30 minutes away by train though, food, music, museums, theatre, sport what's not to like?

deptfordmarmoset

APIII wrote:

It depends on where you stayed and what you visited. I suspect for most visitors, the west end is all they get to see. I used to live near Putney and it's just like a small town out of London.

Apart from the job market, the diversity of pretty much everything - food, entertainment, arts, etc, etc, is beyond anything you'll find outside of the capital.

I think this is mostly true. I've heard northerners say they don't know how you can live at such a pace - but it turns out that they've made more nights out in the West End in a week than I've had in a year.

Living on the outer edge of the inner city, local life tends to take care of itself locally, and London can become to feel like a series of overlapping villages rather than a big metropolis.

Mind you, it's a bit of a hike if you want to get out onto quiet country roads. It's sometimes simpler to get an awayday train ticket to get out for a countryside ride than to pedal through several miles of suburbs.

verylonglegs

I can see the attraction with regard to entertainment and places to visit. I live in Norfolk and it really can feel like a cultural graveyard at times. The pollution is a concern though, certainly in the very centre anyway, a visit in the summer months leaves me with black snot from all the fumes. Nice.

The claim ‘best city in the world’ is thrown around a little too easy imo, I did ask someone after they made this statement about London how many of the other cities in the world had they actually tried and it turned out the only other place they’d lived was Mansfield

alan_sherman

Having just had a load of the inlaw fmaily coming to visit has made me really appreciate London, but particualrly where I live in it. The centre has amazing architecture and history, with museums, gallerys and theatres that are not equalled anywhere else in the UK, and some debate globally.

yet London is very green for a city with many parks and trees on streets. Apparenly it is cleaner and less smally than Paris (I've not been so can't confirm) and is the most multicultural place I have ever been to.

By living in the South West of the city I have Richmond Park then a bit of city followed by the Surrey Lanes so have some good riding. There is more racing in London that anywere else in the country....

The downside is noise, for me mainly aircraft noise to Heathrow, then the big pain - the cost of housing. Apart from beer other living costs are the same as elsewhere in the country.

cjcp

Been here since '96 (but for 12 months or so my wife and I were off travelling), after growing up just outside Cardiff.

It's a great place in certain respects - diversity, the buzz, the access to huge parks (at least where I live), but, as with anywhere, it's each to their own - I couldn't live in the country, for example.

Been to a lot of other big cities and the only others I've really enjoyed is Vancouver, but Geneva's another option. It's easier for me to move abroad with work than it is to move within the UK.

Schooling is a problem, though, and if I ever move out, that'll probably be why.

hells

I am here because I had two options
a) go to university (again) to get a degree in Paramedic Science at the cost of 3k a year, however as I already have 1 degree I cannot get student loans again and would have to take out private loans making this impossible. Also is 9k debt from tution plus an overdraft debt from living at uni plus large private loan debts worth it for a job that only pays 20k a year?

b) Get onto the London Ambulance Service direct entry student paramedic course and get paid to get your hpc registration and become a paramedic.

This was a no brainer to me and so I chose option B. I do not like London but then I think I have a bit of a warped view as I moved to Lewisham 2 days before the start of my course and I now live and work in East London (posted to Hackney) so I have only seen London through the eyes of an ambulance clinican which isnt the most pleasant!

The rota you have to work when you first join the service is pretty horrible and you end up with 0 life working on average 55 hours a week sometimes more and working 8 out of 10 weekends mostly as night or late shifts then there are exams, study for exams and essays ontop of this. I am off of that rota now and onto a marginally better one giving me an extra two weekends but still the same average hours to work per week. I never knew anyone when I moved here and the unsocial hours makes it hard to meet anyone, working relief rota and being posted east when my course mates got posted south means it's also hard for me to socialise with other people on the job. I'd love to join a cycling club but the lack of weekends and free time means I can't.

The relatively low wage for student paramedics and high rent means I cannot afford to go out even if I want to. I have been kept sane purely by having a wonderful supportive boyfriend but he lives 120 miles away and thats where I go to on my rest days when I can afford the fuel. I now also have a friend who has recently moved to London which is nice and makes it a slightly happier place for me.

I find it to be a dirty, overpolluted, over priced, over populated place where people are very rude and often (extremely) violent. I do like cycling through the city though even though it's pretty slow! I can't wait to get out of here and there is only one more year to go :-)

Gazzaputt

hells wrote:

. I do not like London but then I think I have a bit of a warped view as I moved to Lewisham

Jesus if I lived in Lewisham it'd put me off London for life.

Inner city London is grim and the suburbs aren't much better. Central London is ok but overpriced for everything.

I live on the edge of London and leafy Kent lanes are about 15 minute ride away.

Dream is to move to a leafy Kent village

dmch2

I lived there for 3-4 years shortly after university then moved to Newcastle (and now Durham). Unless you like the theatre/musicals (can't stand them) I simply couldn't see any advantages. I was working at an investment bank and took a third reduction in salary to move North but got a 3/4 bed house rather than a 1/2 bed flat so even money wasn't a downside when I moved.

Actually, I admit that the buses / tube etc mean you can always get home easily after a night out without paying a fortune to a taxi.

Downsides are
- It's huge so takes ages to get anywhere but most of it is just more of the same. Do you really need to be within 10 miles of 20 different branches of M&S?
- Housing. If you want any space then you have to live miles out of town. Lots of people do that and have a 90 minute commute each day. That's 3 hours a day wasted!
- Traffic. If I wanted to go somewhere for the weekend it could take me 3 hours to get from work to the edge of London (M25). From Durham I can get 150 miles in 3 hours from leaving work.
- Traffic (again) Huge traffic jam coming back after the weekend in to London on a Sunday.
- Work. Personal one this but I was bored stiff in my job. All my lower paid jobs (only just reached the same salary after 6 years) have been far more interesting.
- Cycling - I only commuted by bike in London (4 miles each way on a hybrid) but if I wanted to do proper road cycling it'd be 20 miles to get to the countryside. From home now it's 1/4 of a mile.

So I agree with the OP!

rick_chasey

My work colleagues said when I joined; if you don't like London, you're living in the wrong bit.

Sounds about right to me.

unixnerd

I did point out to my London-dwelling brother that there was a distinct lack of posh new motors on his street - a contrast from Aberdeen, where there are more vehicular playthings per square mile than his neck of the woods.

A mate of mine from Newcastle said he never worried about getting his car broken into in Aberdeen, because whever he looked someone always had a nicer car than he did!

I had a friend who moved from Aberdeen to London, his car insurance on an MG TF went up five fold.

shouldbeinbed

Provincial likes London shocker.

I think a lot of the people you meet are a long way up their own backsides about being in london and I detest wandering round the place as everyone is frankly pig ignorant of any other human beings. it makes you the same just to move about and its a hateful thing to become. primarily in the touristy bits but you need to get quite a way off the beaten track before people become chatty and don't travel/walk/ride like they're in an invisible Panzer tank.

BUT with millions of hick tourists cluttering the way and the sheer number of locals to get through I can understand why. there is green space if you look for it, even right in the centre & there are little squares and odd courtyards to find and (dodge the dog poo) sit down for a breather or a bit to eat. and personally I could never get sick of leaning on the wall on the embankment watching the river, nicer down Chelsea way than parliament but isn't that true generally and even nicer further along either way.

I can live without the bars and clubs but to have near as dammit free ready access to the V&A or Science Museum or similar is an absolute treat. (I take photogrpahs for my hobby - I can always find something new to do in places like this) to be able to sit in Trafalgar Square and watch the word go by for an afternoon is lovely - even better if you have something else to do & minutes away from big green bits too. Sitting in Albert Square or Picadilly gardens for an afternoon in Manchester doesn't quite have the same entertainment and relaxation value.

the tube - the value for money is superb. 1 day saver gives me an area near the size of Greater Machester to roam over all day for the price of a single metro ticket from Altringham to Bury. it may be busy but avoid rush hour where possible and it is a magical system compared to a limited uncomfortable Metrolink that costs a kidney to use or just as crowded busses stopping every 30 yards and constant roadworks.

I could happily live around zone 4 London where the vilagey feel starts to kick in but I do see why people like to have a little place in the country too just to recharge their humanity ready for next weeks panzer walk and elbows out existence just to get anywhere.

Given a completely free choice though I'd move back to the Newcastle area, for me that has the best combo for a nice and a convenient life.

Clarion

I live in London.

It's where the work is.

I'd love to move, but didn't have much choice. Now the kids are in education here, I suppose I'm stuck till I retire.

Then I escape home.

Pross

Nice to see some positive views and to be honest most of the plus points are reasons I either visit occassionally (entertainment / museums) or find it tolerable for a couple of days (the parks / walking the river). I do find it strange when we here people in London moaning about their transport system as, other than the crowding in peak times (and off peak on some lines) and lack of air conditioning on the tube trains I think it is a fantastic system and well priced.

I'm also interested to hear comments about 'village' feel in the more outlying parts of the city. Where do people class as having this atmosphere? I've mainly visited central London doing the touristy stuff (and find tourists who block pavements on the likes of Westminster Bridge one of the most annoying things!) but I have also visited my sister when she lived in Ilford, had to visit Hampstead regularly, have stayed in Hounslow several times and have been to Newham for a site I worked on. The closest I've seen to a village feel was when I went to Kew but even though it felt quiet compared to the bustle of the city it was probably more comparable with the centre of a large provincial town rather than a village.

rick_chasey

Pross wrote:

I'm also interested to hear comments about 'village' feel in the more outlying parts of the city. Where do people class as having this atmosphere? I've mainly visited central London doing the touristy stuff (and find tourists who block pavements on the likes of Westminster Bridge one of the most annoying things!) but I have also visited my sister when she lived in Ilford, had to visit Hampstead regularly, have stayed in Hounslow several times and have been to Newham for a site I worked on. The closest I've seen to a village feel was when I went to Kew but even though it felt quiet compared to the bustle of the city it was probably more comparable with the centre of a large provincial town rather than a village.

I'm moving to Fulham in December which I'm very keen on - has a very particular feel, even if that feel is a little Sloane Ranger. It's a bit of a self contained bubble.

Gazzaputt

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm moving to Fulham in December which I'm very keen on - has a very particular feel, even if that feel is a little Sloane Ranger. It's a bit of a self contained bubble.

In it's own bubble because it costs a fortune to live there!

I know someone who lives in Parsons Green. 4 bed Victorian house semi detached. Is very plush inside but no garden. £1.2m! :shock:

If I had £1.2m to spend I'd be outta London like a shot.