Is It Me, Or Is London A Complete Dump?

[SarahBell]

Never spent more than a night there I don't think.

Think it's a bizarre place and have no idea why anyone would want to live there.

[Oliver Sutton]

London has its charms, but they are largely superficial ones to me.

Superficial - you mean like theater, music venues, museums, opera, places of world historic importance.

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[swissy_fit]

Superficial - you mean like theater, music venues, museums, opera, places of world historic importance.

Those are the reasons I would visit my flat in Covent Garden regularly in my fantasy rich life.

However the rest of the time I would prefer to be able to breathe and have normal coloured snot.

[@contradevian]

Never spent more than a night there I don't think.

Think it's a bizarre place and have no idea why anyone would want to live there.

Well you would think that if you have never lived there, because I thought that before I did.

Once you are there it all seems perfectly normal and fits together, plenty to see and do.

Spent ten happy years in London, mostly in E14, and later moving out to the leafy suburbs of taxi driver land (Gidea Park) and loved it.

[Byron]

Superficial - you mean like theater, music venues, museums, opera, places of world historic importance.

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Yes, superficial.

The only real life is outside in the country, woods, fields, mountains, rivers, beaches.

Theatres, music, museums, operas etc. are just distractions to amuse the inmates. They are not real.

[Riedquat]

Really? Officially, in census terms England is 80% white british, 85% white overall.

Hospitals suggest that white british births make up about 70% of all births, 77% white overall. Schools suggest pretty much the same thing. Given the younger profile/breeding age population of non-whites that would seem to suggest the census is pretty accurate.

We're talking London though, there are vast regional variations throughout England.

[Riedquat]

Yes, superficial.

The only real life is outside in the country, woods, fields, mountains, rivers, beaches.

Theatres, music, museums, operas etc. are just distractions to amuse the inmates. They are not real.

I'd mostly call them distractions too but they can be valuable and worthwhile in their own right. Personally I could live without them but not the country, woods, fields, mountains, rivers, and beaches but life is much better with both.

[Oliver Sutton]

Yes, superficial.

The only real life is outside in the country, woods, fields, mountains, rivers, beaches.

Theatres, music, museums, operas etc. are just distractions to amuse the inmates. They are not real.

Found myself closer to nature while living in cities. Did a lot of walking.

Nearly everyone drives everywhere in the country and actually spend very little time outdoors.

[@contradevian]

Found myself closer to nature while living in cities. Did a lot of walking.

Nearly everyone drives everywhere in the country and actually spend very little time outdoors.

Very good point actually. Did a lot more walking and cycling in London, than I do here actually though that is actually down to topography!

http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2014/04/01/45-charming-photos-of-london-from-march/

[StainlessSteelCat]

I'd mostly call them distractions too but they can be valuable and worthwhile in their own right. Personally I could live without them but not the country, woods, fields, mountains, rivers, and beaches but life is much better with both.

My thoughts exactly. They have a lot of charm and value - but they don't satisfy on a deeper level.

As for walking and being in nature in cities, yes of course it is possible - but somehow it's a very narrow highly manicured version of it. I had some good commutes in London which took me along the River Lea and Regents Canal etc. But I felt I could never really relax when I couldn't see anything except a manmade horizon or enjoy complete solitude outdoors.

I'm not sure the other poster's point about everyone in the countryside being in cars is a completely fair comparison. After all, many in London likely spend most of their traveling time on a bus or in the Tube. Personally, I cycle and walk everywhere in the countryside - just as I did in London.

[Oliver Sutton]

But I felt I could never really relax when I couldn't see anything except a manmade horizon or enjoy complete solitude outdoors.

The UK countryside is totally manmade.

[StainlessSteelCat]

The UK countryside is totally manmade.

Give me snow capped mountains (even if denuded by sheep) and the sea rather than skyscrapers.

[gadget]

Is London safer than it was 20 years ago? I lived here in the very early 90s, now living here again. It seemed like reading about a murder was much rarer then, or am I just getting old?

I think you're just getting old.

The murder rate is actually much lower than it used to be

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/murder-rate-hits-42yearlow-in-london-8462974.html

London was lauded today as “one of the safest cities on the planet” after the murder rate fell to a 42-year low.

A total of 99 people were murdered in the capital last year, with the lowest previous figure of recent years — 105 — recorded in 1970.

[SpewLabour]

Really? Officially, in census terms England is 80% white british, 85% white overall.

Hospitals suggest that white british births make up about 70% of all births, 77% white overall. Schools suggest pretty much the same thing. Given the younger profile/breeding age population of non-whites that would seem to suggest the census is pretty accurate.

In London, which the thread is about, it was 45% white british in 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20680565

That'll also be an optimistic figure as illegal immigrants don't fill in census forms......

[Executive Sadman]

In London, which the thread is about, it was 45% white british in 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20680565

That'll also be an optimistic figure as illegal immigrants don't fill in census forms......

my point was simply that most people who dont fill in the census form who have kids (and many of them will, as they're in that age bracket) will have kids at hospital and enroll them in schools. schools/hospitals record this and their records tally rather well with the census, london or not.

[Rave]

I've lived in London- Catford- for all but 4 years of my life, when I lived in Southampton (which I thought was a nice place to live). And after all this time, I could take it or leave it. If there's a major house price crash in the next few years so that I can afford to buy here, I'll stay. And if there isn't, I'll go.

I like being able to walk to a choice of supermarkets, shops, pubs, restaurants and train stations in under 15 minutes, I like being able to get a bus anywhere within reason, I like the fact it never takes me more than 25 minutes to get to my unpleasant but pretty lucrative job on my scooter. I just don't like the fact that the house I'm living in (with my mum) cost my parents £57,000 in 1984 and would sell today in unmodernised condition for £400,000 or more. According to the inflation calculator on thisismoney £57,000 in 1984 is £156,000 in today's money. I never expected to be able to live in Central London, and never wanted to, but I had hoped to be able to buy a house in the modest area where I grew up.

[Frank Hovis]

Yes, superficial.

The only real life is outside in the country, woods, fields, mountains, rivers, beaches.

Theatres, music, museums, operas etc. are just distractions to amyuse the inmates. They are not real.

I wouldn't quite go that far but 95% of my active leisure time is being outside: beaches, rivers, hills etc.; and 5% sat indoors: pubs, theatres.

So I was very bored for most of the time I lived in London and I'm not now, unless the weather's bad enough to keep me indoors.

[SarahBell]

Well you would think that if you have never lived there, because I thought that before I did.

Once you are there it all seems perfectly normal and fits together, plenty to see and do.

Spent ten happy years in London, mostly in E14, and later moving out to the leafy suburbs of taxi driver land (Gidea Park) and loved it.

Maybe. But I have never seen anything that made me think it'd be nice to make the effort of living there.

We have museums, parks, countryside, and shops up north too.

And nutters. A healthy supply of locals.

[crashmonitor]

Seems to have gotten like american cities.

So a spotless, heavily policed city centre the nice middle class folk can spend their working hours in, surrounded by miles and miles of what used to be pleasant enough semi-land, now turned into bedsit, immigrant min wage worker and back garden shanty land, surrounded by commuter towns the nice middle class folk can return to at night.

I guess its not quite the same form as the US as we have the green belt, so villages and towns take the place of gated subdivisions, but the white (and middle class indian) flight seems much the same.

My memory of city centres in the 1970s was of grimy infrastructure. Even London Covent Garden was falling to bits. At the same time we were getting the last of the inner city slum clearances and shiny new social housing surrounding the centres.

Things have turned full circle, the city centres have become immaculate and the inner city housing starved of refurbishment.

Can't believe the amount of money they have spent on Nottingham city centre lately....the refurb of the square, the tram network and the multi million pound refurb of the spectacular Midland Railway Station façade that now looks like one of the Wonders of the World.....

http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/travelling-with-us/our-network/trains-to-nottingham/nottingham-station-changes/

[Riedquat]

The UK countryside is totally manmade.

Which always sounds like it's trying to equate fields and concrete. I'd call most of the countryside man-altered rather than manmade. In any case it's still a massively more pleasant environment, apart from maybe the bits with really turned as dull as possible (the most intesively farmed areas, or those bits which seem to have a continuous scatter of crappy development that manages to kill off most of the attractiveness without providing any of the benefits of heavier development).

[crashmonitor]

You need to get out more.

We underrate our architectural heritage because we live with it everyday. 300 years of being world number 1 gets you the best building in the world when you could hire labour cheap. It's a lot better than the brutalist concrete that make up 95% of Paris, Berlin etc. etc.

[Riedquat]

We underrate our architectural heritage because we live with it everyday. 300 years of being world number 1 gets you the best building in the world when you could hire labour cheap. It's a lot better than the brutalist concrete that make up 95% of Paris, Berlin etc. etc.

There's a good chance that almost every minor town will have a few really impressive buildings that people just walk past and ignore every day. Concrete can be made to look good with a bit of effort (the Kylesku Bridge is a great example, in a really remote example where you'd expect it to stick out like a sore thumb).

[Austin Allegro]

Really? Officially, in census terms England is 80% white british, 85% white overall.

Hospitals suggest that white british births make up about 70% of all births, 77% white overall. Schools suggest pretty much the same thing. Given the younger profile/breeding age population of non-whites that would seem to suggest the census is pretty accurate.

England may be, but we're talking about London. The 2011 census, according to the BBC, said only 45% of Londoners were white British.

As I mentioned, the census is not accurate, from what I have seen of how it works. It stands to reason that anyone in the country illegally is not going to declare themselves on a census form. Even those legally here are likely to be afraid of government inspectors coming calling, or can't understand the forms. Even in leafy suburbia during the 1991 census I got quite a few people who just refused to answer - legally they are obliged to but in practice this is not enforced unless a breach of the peace is involved (eg somebody kicking off at the door).

So the White British figure is only 45% of those who responded to the census, which means in practice it is probably a lower figure.

[the gardener]

To misquote Samuel Johnson "The man who has tried life is tired of London."

[The Eagle]

The icing on the cake is seeing Camden Market converted to a huge tourist fast food bar. The food vendors have doubled in number and the stalls are selling the same generic tat as each other mostly.

That conversion has been on-going for at least 25 years now, even in the early 2000s Camden Market had changed completely from how I remembered it in the late '80s/early '90s.

In the early '90s I remember seeing EAs in Camden advertising terraced houses for 40K, while in the early 2000s similar houses were already 400K. The whole area has changed from a rough area in the '80s to a trendy and upmarket area with loads of posh new-builds today.

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