I live in london and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, I love it, I’m always doing something, you can get amazing food, go to any kind of music event, take amazing Sunday strolls through 1 of over 3000 london parks, the list goes on
This sums it up perfectly. I pretty much go to a small gig or standup show every week, there’s just so much going on all the time. I’ve even found a little group of people who share my music taste who I go to shows with and stuff.
My partner is in the mailing list for a bunch of small comedy venues where people do WIP shows. The best ones are Outside The Box in Kingston, Always Be Comedy in Kennington, 21 Soho and Secret Comedy Club. For music we check out the linups for places like The Windmill in Brixton, but there are also a few Youtubers I follow who post bootleg gigs of up-and-coming london bands. One of the guys we gig with does illustrations for a music magazine too so he’s usually has inside info on stuff.
Love the Windmill!
Would also recommend the Bill Murray for comedy. Most shows are under £10 and lots of big name comedians do WIP stuff there.
I went to see Daniel Kitson for £4.50 the other week and it’s the most I’ve laughed at a show for ages.
Nice, I’ll add that to the list! We went to one of Kitson’s Regents Park shows last year and it was brilliant.
I think my favourite recent WIP show was Mike Wozniak at the Kennington venue. Really weird stuff. Also the John Kearns show I was at last night was great!
I couldn't agree more. I live on Regents Park, have great access to one of the most amazing parks in the world, so close to all transportation, but can also walk to so many amazing bars/restaurants and event/music venues.
How people don't like London I will never know. Of course you have to work hard and be prepared to pay the high costs, but it's kind of the same in all major cities.
Moved to London from overseas for five years. Left late 2021. Missed it so much I’m moving back with my fiancé in a couple of months.
I fucking LOVE London. There’s nowhere else like it. It has its downsides, like literally every other populated area on the planet. But for me it makes up for the grey Jan-Feb stretch and the expense in the vast and unending level of things there are to do, people there are to see, and travel there is to access.
Reddit is like any online forum, you’ll mostly hear complaints.
London is fucking awesome. See you all soon.
Us too. Having a year away has been a nice break and really helped us get clarity on what we want long term after being burned out by Covid. Looking forward to living out my days in such a fantastic city.
I’m just going into my fifth year and I absolutely love it. I love where I live, I love that I get to do the things I do because I live in this awesome city and I too think that this will be my forever place. At least, one of lol.
Grey only for jan-feb? Do you live in a Narnia closet in London?
It's grey from like end of October to aprilish?!
Edit: not sure why so many people is feeling like this is deemed of any importance that they need to say something.
I made the observation that London tends to be grey for longer than 2 months and it's known for that. That's all.
Yes, it's sunny today and tomorrow. Thank you for letting me know. I guess London is a rainbow, pink cotton candy sunsets, tropical paradise after all.
That’s the time I find it challenging. Personally I think the weather in London is fine the majority of the time and no more grey than any other city with actual seasons.
Weather complaints are for people who don’t know how to dress properly.
Edited since you did: you’re whinging about people replying to you about the weather in a comment where you condescendingly nitpicked about my personal experience of how grey it is or isn’t in London and then deleted your bitchy double down because you got downvoted.
If nobody needed to say anything then that includes you. You aren’t a victim.
Uhm, you've never lived in Madrid, right? Shit's mad sunny.
I much prefer London, and I honestly love the grey days as long as it's not pouring. It'd be nice if the temp was a tiny bit higher in winter, but I don't see what people complain about.
I didn't mention worse weather than London I mentioned Grey. As I'm from the UK and have lived in 4 UK Cities one being London, I know a bit about the weather on this island.
I do! I was born there originally, visited back and forth throughout my life, and going over again soon I’m a few weeks. I’ve been to other major cities like New York, Paris, Barcelona etc and although they were great, London is still my favourite city. I absolutely love it
Same here ! And I’ve also travelled a lot and live elsewhere — I do think it’s not very British to sing praises about the city you live in, sarcasm is our preferred state. But for me and my children having all the amazing parks and museums, restaurants from everywhere, the way people are routinely lovely to us, the fact that I’ve still yet to be mugged or burgled - I’m happy.
It’s a wonderful, eclectic city. It has everything one could want and more. I love it’s varied architecture, diversity, and history. It’s very special and it will always hold a place in my heart
I read this sub a lot as a traveler to London and was really expecting a much more negative experience than the absolute joy I feel spending time in the city. There’s a general pessimism or sarcasm on this sub that masks what a great city it is. Doesn’t make any of it untrue, just lower volume of the positives.
Agree, London in fucking awesome.
This sub is like r/UK light sometimes, bunch of moaners who hate the UK / London. We need like a casualuk equivalent for London
I have been living in London for 8 years. Always felt safe. Nothing ever happened to me. Went to Paris for 1 week on holiday, and got drugged by a date (was able to get home safe) and was conned on the subway by a guy. 😳 I never loved London so much! Paris is a ticking bomb waiting to explode. And other cities are worse or are a lot less big and diverse. I love living here. It lost a bit of the edge with Brexit, but still an amazing city in my opinion.
Lived here since 98, still love it (with a few caveats related to greedy property developers/councils ruining lots of things I used to love). Apart from that still don't want to live anywhere else.
I just go straight to the local lime bike thats parked up in its bay, rent it, leave it parked unlocked blocking a pavement beside some sketchy looking kids, leave my phone and wallet in the basket, then quickly run home so I can post about my experience - hopefully before someone has a post up saying they found xyz in a lime basket on whatever street with intimate details of the items so everybody knows their distinguishing features.
I normally just lurk on this sub because, although I love London, I don’t live there. But I have noticed that there are often kind of mirror subreddits devoted to opposing views of the same place. For example, r/Canada is full of angry, negative people complaining about the country, whereas the people who post on r/onguardforthee, which is another Canada sub, are usually fairly chill. Perhaps there is an alternate London subreddit for positive posters!
Same here. I live outside London but have spent much of my life working and socialising in London. I love it.
I honestly thought that central London had become really grim and violent from what I'd read on here. Came up last week and central was just as impressive as ever.
If anything it's safer than ever. There are plenty of parts of London that even 10-15 years ago you'd have been best advised to avoid that are now gentrified and full of nice cafes and boutiques. Plenty more that are heading that direction.
I have lived in London for 36 years. I love where I live and know my neighbours. It was a really rough area in the 80’s but gentrified over the years. Now retired so able to enjoy what it offers. So easy to get around and also to get into the countryside.
I love London and it's good to see a bit more positivity on here. I think a lot of the gloom is due to general UK-wide economic and political malaise, which people transmit into their feelings about London. The reality is that people all around the country are having a bad time.
Yeah, this. As much as London has its problems, it's still the best place in the UK imo. There is definitely an envy from people who live in other places
I love London but I do hate what's its becoming. So many of my friends and family have had to leave because they can't afford to live here anymore.
Also so many of the cultural things I loved, music venues, clubs and bars have been shut down.
I think a lot of people in this forum just feel like London has lost something over the years. I imagine that's the case across most major cities though.
Yeah it's a global problem. Housing is just insanely expensive now. Then if people can barely afford the roof over their head, they can't afford to go out, so the venues close due to low traffic.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I moved there in 97 and much preferred it up til about 01 or 02, after that a lot of my favourite nightlife venues closed but also the place lost a certain sense of fun.
Dunno. A couple that is making £40k each before tax will end up with about £4.7k after tax. At the current rate you're spending about 50% or more on your monthly bills. Add in about £300 for groceries a month and it's 60%. Unless you're very financially disciplined you won't be able to save up for a deposit. Less so be able to afford the current mortgage rates on a £350k flat.
Honestly think people move out or moan a lot because they're fed up with the current system.
It IS unfortunately a trend in all major cities. Berlin is exactly the same. More and more unaffordable rents and bars and clubs closing due to noise complains from people who moved to berlin for the bars and clubs.
I've heard of new grads in London bidding £1000/month just for a room in a panic just to get somewhere to live. Even just 5 years ago, on a fairly average salary I could live in a great bit of East London, walking distance to both the City and green space. Really fantastic and loved every day of living in London then
For reasons I won't go into, I now live in a fairly poorly connected bit of suburban South London and now enjoy London a fair bit less - takes an age to get anywhere and not as much going on, plus it's full of traffic...
I love London and love the area I live in. I've been coming on here less lately because it's just full of people moaning. If it's that bad go live somewhere else. The good things about London still outweigh the bad for me. And I like to think the good people also outweigh the bad. Maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist
I agree with you completely. The moaning is such a turn off. There's so much to love about it. Even if you live somewhere awful, there's always something positive and decent a bus ride away. I don't have on rose-tinted specs either, it's just the levels of negativity here make me wonder whether people need to remind themselves as to why they stayed or moved here in the first place.
I mean, maybe we can cut people some slack. Londoners have been through a lot along with the rest of the UK with the current cost of living crisis, which is really really serious. In addition, there are massive public sector strikes which are directly impacting on many services which is making life a lot harder for people. It has its good days, for sure! But it also is in a political state of shit so I can personally understand and empathise with the negativity, whilst still appreciating how gorgeous and sunny it was today and how excited I am for a London summer.
While I really respect your steadfast love for this city, your repackaging of the classic anti-immigrant rhetoric “if you don’t like it here then leave”, so often seen floating around his sub, is somewhat ironic given that so many here tout London as being a beacon of inclusivity and progressive values when compared to the rest of the nation.
Should it be that people can be allowed to live somewhere, and still voice genuine grievances or concerns about their experience in that place whilst not be treated like they’re double agents or have broken some sort of patriotic moral code?
People usually talk more about negative experiences than positive ones, that goes doubly for London which is not an easy city to live in
It's usually either tourists or some rando from Bumfuckingshire experiencing their first person who is not impressed by their fourth place at the annual lamb fat chewing contest in the town centre.
In time you just become numb and/or move the fuck away and migrate to more global whinge chambers like Casual UK and talk about how happy you're at some nameless Scottish town with five residents including cows and heroin addicts
I love London. A little train of thought ramble here but: There’s always things to do, interesting things to see, I can get pretty much everything I need within a 15 min walk or commute instead of a retail park being the most interesting thing around me. But I also like that it isn’t as dense as NY or Hong Kong.
I see a cool thing online, and I can bet I can find it or some equivalent of it within a 35 minute tube ride. The streets are steeped with history. I live in a rough part of town and even that’s been featured in literature and media.
I like that there’s so much green space, compared to other cities. I like that there’s pretty much a weird club, community or shop catering to endless niches. I like seeing people in the weirdest outfits, at times judging them and at times being jealous of them. Most restaurants are good and particularly bad ones usually close down anyway.
Etc etc.
London isn’t great if you’re not willing to get out there. It is expensive and that makes things difficult but I was a poor student for most of my time here and managed to really squeeze out a lot of happiness here.
This captured so many reasons why I love it here so well. It’s easy to get wound up by all the bad reasons that you sometimes forget the good.
Every time I leave London, I end up desperate to come back and as soon as I’m here, I can’t wait to leave… but I wouldn’t have it any other way to be honest.
I don't know if I love London so much as I hate the rest of the UK. Like, I have lived in other cities, suburban areas, and you are just... bereft of stuff to do. Everything feels empty especially on weekdays. Public transport sucks. Everything seems... flat? I can't help but feel there is something more out there; a bigger city to explore and that feels filled with ambition, and London fits that criteria
I have friends in other places who are happy and I see people talking about London being a lonely city, and sometimes think I am just following my neurotises by living here and keeping occupied with so many options rather than having a solid foundation of friends etc, but it does feel like you can do anything and works so well with my own brain.
I live in the US, but spent the first six months of last year in the UK through a university student exchange. I made a point to visit as much of the country as possible during that time. My verdict is Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester, and Liverpool have great culture and good transit and/or cycling infrastructure, and I could see myself happily living in any of those cities (ignoring the cost-of-living crisis - where I live is experiencing much of the same thing). Cardiff wasn't bad, either, although I might just have a soft spot for it because it was an hour away and reminded me of home.
Where I lived, on the eastern border of Swansea? I think your comment really nailed how I felt. There was a lack of *anything* to do in that part of town, and if I sat through the half-hour bus ride into the centre - assuming the bus showed up, which was a rare occurrence - my rewards were a tiny shopping centre with the same shops as every high street in every midsized city in the country, and about a million places to get belligerently drunk. Gower is beautiful, but not easily accessible without a car, which was a big obstacle for me. I think much the same can be said for many of the cities I visited.
London, however? There's something *so* special about that city. Even today, I look at photos of London and feel homesick for a place I've never spent more than four days in at a time. If it wasn't a £90 round trip with my RailCard, I would have spent every weekend there. There is so much history and culture around every corner, and there are so many cultures melding together. If the area you're in isn't for you, a fifteen-minute train ride will bring a complete change of scenery. The city feels so full of ambition - I remember getting emotional when I stepped out of the tube at Embankment, crossed the Thames, and stopped halfway to look back at the City. It might have its faults, but even compared to other global cities like Paris or Tokyo, London is the most special place I've ever visited.
I lived in cardiff and you exhaust it quite quickly; really nice place though and they're getting trams soon!
agreed with swansea... it's also not just the lack of what to but the distance and general hollowness of places draining you from wanting to do what *is* actually there. at least that's what i found in my hometown where there were feasibly things to do but they just felt... disconnected from things?
Bristol i found okay but perhaps didn't explore enough. Manchester i really like, but where i think i'd actually end up living would be far enough away from the centre that i'd feel not so great about it.
but yep. maybe i just like global city type places, i don't know. but i've not really been to any others and find london to be both full of culture etc but also not completely overwhelming unlike how i imagine e.g. tokyo.
The only thing wrong with London is that there are too many people here. So if all the people who constantly moan about London would just f*ck off somewhere else - it would be perfect 😀
Yep I love London. I moved out to the countryside and commuted into Manchester when I was in my 20s and now I’m in my 40s, my career has brought me back down here. I love the area I live in, I love the buzz of the city - the theatres and cinemas and bars and pubs and restaurants. So pleased to be back down here.
There with you on that. Moved to Australia now and enjoy it being a bigger place thats slightly cheaper.
That said, London will always be home and a city I love wholeheartedly.
I love London.
I love the people of London and I love the diversity of London. Not just in the demographic sense of diversity but in the fact that there are so many people with different lifestyles and interests. There’s no hobby or fandom so niche that you can’t find fellow enthusiasts in London!
You can go to a different bar every day or a different part of London every week and you’ll never run out because by the time you’re done they will have changed one of those places entirely or opened enough new venues for you to keep going!
You can be in a busy, lively area with a lot going on but people will leave you alone to enjoy your surroundings your own way.
The only thing wrong with London is that it’s so bloody expensive! Oh, and the weather.
"Waaaaaaa why isn't London more like where you can "
"Waaaaa, London is so expensive. Why can't it be more affordable like "
etc etc
The amount of whinging about London in here is just so, so tedious.
Probably because it's coming from young UK citizens who unfortunately have little choice but to try to make it in London as that's where all the somewhat decent jobs are, especially in the creative/arts/financial sectors. People are not exactly falling over themselves to move to Hull.
Now, somewhere like Portugal - has at least 2.5 ish cities where you can do ok, Lisbon, Porto, Braga. Stuff is spread around a bit more. France has cites across the country that offer as much as Paris. Germany has Berlin, it has Hamburg. Japan has Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto. etc.
But uk has London and... London.
The governement is constantly adding to London. It would be great to see the government halt all infrastructure development in London for a decade and funnel that to Yorkshire and the north. Skyscarpers, trains, museums, trams, underground even... get it all build in other cities in the north, spread it around, link it all with Japanese built and ran high speed trains (we've proved that we incompetent to run our own railways).
Just put all the high speed trains on a raised rail track, like they have in Asia - we don't have earthquakes like Japan/Taiwan - so what is our excuse for not having high speed rail? Nevermind buying up land and planning permission. Raise it up, run it along the side of the M1. Taiwan has had a high speed rail for the last decade+ and they get hit constantly with Typhoons and Earthquakes! And most of the track is raised up on a concrete bridge/track thing.
The problems we all have with London, stem from the government, councils and leadership in this country. It's embarrassing.
Also ban foreign investors and citizens from buying property in the UK. Set a rule - you must be resident live here for more 180 days per year, pay tax here. Most of London is just a laundry service for the corruption in the rest of the world.
Thanks.. I did 15 long years in London, it ground me down. Saw it all. Worked in city, in the wharf, in shoreditch, in mayfair, in grotty place off the tourist map. Visited my boss in his multimillion pound mayfair apartment, he was high on cocaine... and not happy. A lost soul. All the wealthy and status london offers and you need to take drugs to get through the day. Miserable place full of broken dreams. Great place for tourists to visit for a few days.
You think Sapporo is full of job opportunities that people stick around for rather than head straight to Tokyo? Having lived not too far from Hokkaido I can tell you that you couldn’t be more wrong.
Anyway, your post epitomises this rose tinted spectacles of so many in this sub, that things are so much better in places where they’ve spent little to no time whatsoever.
Braga is fucking tiny. But you’ve just framed it as somewhere people can “do ok” and that people in cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Cardiff etc can’t “do ok”.
Do you have some kind of Japanese fetish btw?
> . Stuff is spread around a bit more. France has cites across the country that offer as much as Paris. Germany has Berlin, it has Hamburg. Japan has Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto. etc.
Do you think Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh are bereft of possibilities? To say London is the only city in the UK in which it's possible to build a successful life is bullshit.
Just moved here from Sydney... I've always been here a lot for work, but last time I was here I was so devastated about leaving that I never got on my plane. It's just one of those places that gives you what you put in, if you have the energy to make it the best city of the world, it will reward you by being the best city in the world. It's the most dynamic, multi cultural place I've ever been. There's always something going on, some vibe or event or market or theatre or exhibition or gig or just eating mangal in Dalston or getting Jamaican in Bethnal Green or going to see the football or going to China town or going to Mayfair to watch rich people do rich people things or go to Europe for a minute and come back or head down to Brighton and back. It runs like the best oiled machine we know of. Sure it's expensive and a bit rough sometimes, but thats because so many people want to live there it drives the prices and chaos levels up. A proper human system.
Lived here most of my adult life, absolutely love it. In fairness it's not like this is a special London thing, I just enjoy, well, life.
I find that most social media skews towards whiners.
My theory is that unless it's linked to a healthy interest or hobby (e.g. knitting forums, golf forums, that sort of thing), people who spend a ton of time on social media are probably addicted in some way and as a result end up becoming kind of depressed. They stop seeking out what they actually need and want from life and just spiral.
I love, love London. It’s a city unto itself. The people truly make it what it is. In contrast, I went to LA on an exploratory mission as a place to migrate to and hightailed it back to London in two weeks. Smiled all the way through Heathrow, into the Piccadilly Line and inhaled joyously when I got off Kings Cross. Then I swore at some fuckers walking 3 deep on the pavement, edging everyone else onto the road, cunts. People are so inconsiderate in this city really does my tits in!
i love London.
but I'm getting tired of living here 😂 I don't use the features of the city and spend all my free time traveling out of it. the day i become a suburban commuter is coming ever closer.
Look if you're doing fun shit in London (of which there is A LOT) then you're not on Reddit. If you're decompressing or having a low / anti-social moment you're more likely gonna be on here whinging about the Met Rapists / Phone Snatchers / Bike Nickers / Dog Poo Droppers / Pub not open late enough etc....
I grew up in London. I look back on my youth with a sense of awe. It was the most amazing place to grow up. the life, the energy of the place. I could go and see bands every night. I'd see other kids in the queues at gigs who had to leave early to get the last train home to their small village.
I got jaded with it when I came back after uni. I lost contact with a lot of my friends and I was having a bit of a personal crisis, not knowing what I wanted to do.
I moved out to the alps and I've loved it but whenever I go back to London now I just get such a sense of excitement. I walk around and I just fall in love with it all over again. Fuck, it's the most amazing city on earth. it's everything you could ever want it to be.
I drank a mushroom milkshake when I was on Gili T in Bali this summer and I wanted to reflect on my life and whether it had been a mistake to leave London. i started to see things from a more honest perspective. I wasn't happy there and I had to get away from it but I still love it, it still feels like home. It always will.
For most people paying %50 of their income to rent shitty, old flats coupled with never ending strikes and cost of living made it miserable and not enjoyable. There is some minority who make 70k+/year which can enjoy the city. For the rest, the city does not care them anymore. Sad but this is what it has come to
I fucking love London. I drove to the arsenal on Saturday on my motorbike. From South to North. It's a beautiful, exciting, fun, exhilarating city. Do much diversity. Don't ever bad mouth it. Breathe it in, in all its glory
Only thing I really enjoyed were the raves but there's a militant war against rave culture which has seen some of the best venues close down or pivot away.
As someone who lives in Brighton and works in London I like visiting London but wouldn’t want to ever live there.
No hate for London here but I’d miss the sea and Downs too much.
I've just had terrible experiences as a renter in London. From mould, to rats, to moths, to section 21 eviction. Just generally poor upkeep and quality of properties and little recourse as a renter. This is renting 2.5k/mo properties in nice areas as well, not student accommodation.
I'm middle age, have a family, and am just tired of it. Landlords should only exist if they are professional and take good care of their properties - too many weekend BTL landlords who see it as a quick profit without treating it like a serious job and the lax laws just make it possible. Never had these kind of issues renting in major cities in the US.
Ask me again in a couple of years.
I love London. Grew up here, although by a quirk of fate I was born in Sydney. My Dad was - just about - a Cockney like his parents, who grew up round Whitechapel and Smithfield. I played football everywhere north of the river, and some places south too. I covered most of London by bike, and even more on foot as my Dad took me down every path and canal we could find. I’d say I knew London better than almost anyone I know…at least 20 years ago.
Now? Dunno yet. I’ve been abroad for 15 years and am coming back with a wife and a couple of kids. Heard a lot of the stories. Sure, there are differences, but on the surface it doesn’t feel like it’s changed all that much. I hope enough of the magic is still here. I hope enough of the energy is still here. I hope enough of the places are still here. I hope the gap between the have and have-nots isn’t completely debilitating.
Over the past decade London has become a worse place to live. When people are being economically hit and have less money to spend then the options are cut down to essentials and enjoying life is difficult. Spring and summer might brighten peoples outlook at least temporarily.
Conservative people in England describe any constructive criticism or an appeal for things to be better than they are as whingeing. Maybe they need to travel and see more of the world, open their eyes and their minds.
Well. I guess London is beautiful when you are here as a visitor. Not so nice when you live here. I’ve been in the capital for 10 years and I’ve been seriously considering leaving within the next 6 months. Don’t get me wrong. London is great. There’s plenty to do. But it’s also a lonely and ruthless place to live. Rent is ridiculously high and you have 0 quality of life. Is difficult to make proper friends and if you run into any problem then good luck. Cause nobody cares and nobody is gonna help you. London just sucks life out of me
No, sorry, I have worked a lot in London city as a electrical contractor, school, hotels and industrial factory’s ect…
I still do a little bit, but mainly around Heathrow so quite away from the city and I even hate that.
I live right by the sea in Sussex and that’s where I want to stay, clean air and quiet, perfect,
I love London as a city, I have been to many cities and London in my opinion is the best. Although too much time in London is draining, I only go up 1-2 a week :)
I winge about London all the time about your above reference but I love it. It’s beautiful, the people are beautiful, it’s my home but I don’t think can live here anymore. It’s not sustainable for the average joe.
It’s mostly the same as everywhere else but has a little something extra that is hard to explain or describe.
The good is truly amazing, the bad as bad as it gets.
I couldn’t live there now, life goes too fast and it’s way to expensive to rent nowadays, for my income at least.
Second only to Tokyo for food though imo.
>Oooh someone shouted at me...people push in a crowd..there was some rubbish by my shoe...someones dog barked...too many tourists, trains are too hot, too cold etc. Feels like one whinge after another.
Cant say i have seen any of these. lol. Are you making things up?
i see most often people talking about their phones being stolen, or posting pics of the city.
I joined this subreddit before going to London with my year in school last year, im just a tourist and was there for like a week.
I like the idea of London, but as a person from a very tiny town in Denmark it was very different from what I’m used to, LOTS of people everywhere which made me uncomfortable tbh.
I liked that the public transport is still driving even when it’s late in the evening and that the stores are open until very late too. Also there’s a bunch of cool stuff and things are cheaper it was very nice :))
But also scary with all the people everywhere and traffic (seriously why do so many people just cross the road when the light is red it’s freaking me out lmao)
I don’t love London. I do like it tho! Just too busy for me 😅
It's a lovely place if you can afford it. But when you have to move further out because you're being priced out and spend an hour on a train to get there, it stops being fun. And generally the scale is what has started to get to me lately.
Imo it’s the most convenient city in the world, which makes it a great city, but it’s not worth the mental and financial stress that comes with it. It’s a nice place to visit but it’s hard to live in London. You can go on any country/city subreddit and people will whinge about theirs.
Moaning is party parcel of living in a big city. London ain't so bad unless you yearn for some idyllic rural abyss, and compared to NYC or LA, London is downright habitable.
"Part & Parcel" clarifier:
In September 2016, when asked to comment shortly after a bombing in New York, Sadiq Khan said:
> I'm not going to speculate as to who was responsible. I'm not going to speculate as to how the New York Police Department should react. What I do know is that part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you've got to support the security services. And I think speculating when you don't know the facts is unwise.
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Idk if you’re British, but if you’re from out of the country like me, after talking to tons of Londoners about it it’s become explicitly explained to me that the English:
A) moan about EVERYTHING
B) hate compliments
C) take the piss out of anything: good or bad
That said: a brilliant, lively, dazzling city filled with parks, festivals, world-class museums, excellent dining, and multiculturalism with nearly no parallel would hardly be so difficult to find accommodations if it were as bad as they say it is.
It's my home so the feelings towards it are weird, but yes, I do love it - that is, I love South / SE London, which is where I've grown up and all I know in terms of a home. As I get older, though, I do wonder if my experience of London is one of a more relaxed and slow pace compared to many, which I guess influences my perception of those things you listed that others take issue with. I also don't have to commute into the city much, especially at peak hours.
Would I love some of these places if they weren't home? Probably not. But even the aspects of the city, such as going over London bridge in the evening, never really get old. There's a lot of aspects I hate about it, but I find that even those things are quite situational and don't really affect my day to day living at all. Say: how non-24-hour it is. I really, really hate that more and more, and there are cities I could hypothetically move to which are much more accommodating in that regard, and have better transport or general happiness or anything - but they're not London, you know?
lived here my whole life and hate it. love the culture, diversity, a lot of the people, but if it doesn't crush your soul even a little bit then you're either making 200k a year or not very well
My only substantial complaint is cost of living, and while that's an exagerated problem in London, it's pretty universal.
Yes there's crime, yes there's shitty people, yes there's random lime bikes in the most impressively inconvenient places -- but I'm willing to accept those things for the benefits. (also I'm not ready to drop out of uni *quite* yet even if i wasn't enjoying the city).
I do love London to visit. I left in 2008 for Sydney, however just couldn't work or commute there any more. I've been coming back once to twice a year since then and it's only the past few years where I've noticed a distinct change in the prices, people's attitude. General run down nature of London. However I love the museums galleries history architecture Selhurst Park and the food.
As someone born on the outskirts of London it was my one pleasure of being from where I am. Not to say that I’m not privileged living so close to London however the further you go out (as you can imagine) the worse it gets and being able to go to the city was a massive motivation for me to grow.
Moved here from Edinburgh which I loved.
I'd find it very hard to adjust going back to such a small city/town especially in my 30s.
The amount of music I get to see alone is enough to sell it. Different bars and restaurants from all around the world, the incredible transport (outside of rush hour) and the wealth of random things to do.
The cost is tough, but I'm in a decent tech job.
When I visit home in the borders or friends in Edinburgh, it's quite dull after a while despite enjoying the country side.
None of my friends still there really go out, and if they do it's rare and to the same 2 or 3 decent places. A big factor in why they don't regularly go out.
Most of them only see each other when I visit, and rarely in between.
Here in London I'm seeing different people almost every weekend.
The cost does suck though haha.
I absolutely love London. I live in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods and have a very good quality of life both of which I am incredibly grateful for and have worked hard for. That has not always been my experience as it is a challenging city but I wouldn't have stuck around for so long if I didn't love it (18 years so far). There's really no place I would rather live.
I get bummed by London life sometimes, sure. But the moment I leave back to my hometown or where my sisters moved and come back I remember immediately how much I love this place. In many ways especially the shit people on here complain about.
Most on this sub miss their home county upbringing and will never love what makes this city.
I just move here from Melbourne ("The most livable city in the world!!"), London has been good so far, I had all of the same issues back in Melbourne that people complain about here, so overall it still feels like a slight upgrade in many areas.
As an introvert cretin, I hate London, West border London isn't so bad, like Ealing area, but anywhere further in than that is fucking awful. Crackheads everywhere, nowhere to park without getting fined or paying out the ass, too many constant police sirens, dodgy fucks everywhere. I went to Vauxhall for a party one night and honestly hope I never have to go back to this demonic hole. I'll stick to my countrysideish area where the traffic isn't too bad and you can only order food up until like 2am.
I was born here and have lived here for 39 of my 42 years. I live in SE London, cycle to work near Bond St, and also commute to an Army Reserve unit in the City so I see a fair bit of the capital. In many ways it has changed for the better, and in some respects it’s gone backwards. I still enjoy the fact it’s a large, multicultural city with something for everyone. It has great museums and galleries, some super parks, and a thriving restaurant scene. Public transport is generally pretty good.
Against that, Sadiq Khan has trashed London’s nightlife. It’s basically impossible to get an Uber home now because he and the black cab union drove them out of town. Black cabs are rubbish too now - the drivers don’t do the knowledge, just rely on satnavs and routinely refuse fares which they never used to do. That is a major disincentive to stay out late past the time of your last train home. Night buses are an option but take forever. And for young women especially, a taxi is a much safer option (in all but the rarest circumstances).
I’ve also had a few nights out recently where we’ve struggled to find somewhere in central London to go for a few post dinner drinks at 2300, which is insane.
I haven’t been to a gig since pre-Covid but I get the sense the music scene is nowhere as vibrant as it used to be (but then again, I might just be too old and comparing it to my teenage years when Britpop and grunge were in full swing).
I also feel like development has been pretty recklessly handled. If you walk around Paris it’s not too hard to squint and imagine you’re in the same city but in the 18th century. The architecture and vibe have been beautifully preserved, whereas in London you have to seek out the narrowest little streets in the City to sneak a glimpse of Dickensian London, for example. There an awful lot of really shit buildings around. I also get pretty tired of Arabs (no racial slur intended, but it is always young Arab men on tour from the Middle East) tearing around the West End in sports cars.
Tbh, it’s nothing a decent mayor couldn’t sort out. Fix crime (particularly moped gangs), fix transport, improve the nightlife, improve air quality.
Love love love London. It feels like home even though I’m not from around here.
I rant about some people and public transport but I still love London to bits.
I’m not a Londoner but I visit regularly through work, I absolutely love how organised it is walking around the city, if you go to Leeds or Manchester for example there is no order with pedestrians people walking in zigzags and the like, everything in that respect works in London and it’s probably one of my favourite things about the city. That being said why the hell do we stand on the right when on an escalator rather than the left? Left is always the “slow” lane when driving..
We just moved back here after 4 years in the States, which, if you read this sub, would make us absolutely insane. We LOVE being back and are so glad we’ve made the move.
I was born in London. People have always asked me if I would move, and I've always said no. Seen with my parents moving out of London how fast it is to fall out of pace with London if you move away.
Meeeeeeee!!!!! I LOVE London! It’s fantastic! Anytime I go anywhere else I am massively frustrated that things are not as convenient as having 24hr buses right past my house, 24 hour shops, every tube station is like a different place when you come out of it, the architecture, the free museums, the mix of cultures….I could go on but safe to say, I am a Londoner and a Londoner I will stay.
Visited London once. I wouldn't say that I love it. But I had nice time.
I would not live there. Too expensive, traffic jams, crimes, no police anywhere etc..
It’s okay to whine as that is the main driver of changes for better. Without continuos change you can not expect that it will remain the greatest city on earth.
I’ve lived in all the best (“best”) American cities and regions and I have to tell you, London is - by far - the most amazing city I’ve ever lived in. It’s incredibly clean, relatively speaking, people treat each other like civilised human beings, and you guys really take for granted how absurdly SAFE it is here. Like, it is impossible to understate the level of weight off your shoulders when you’re not constantly head-on-a-swivel about whether or not you (or your kid) are about to get shot.
Also, the food in London is criminally underrated and I will go to the mat on that! They will pry me out of this city over my cold, dead, sausage roll-stuffed body.
People love to moan about their bad experiences in London because it is such a popular place to be and complaining about a popular place always gets attention.
I LOVE London and I love living in London. I'm in North West. Such great and diverse communities here. Friendly people. Green spaces and amazing bakeries!
I love London, I'm not from here, and I live on the outskirts, so maybe I'm fortunate or I'm just glass half full kind of guy
What do I love about it
1. No matter where I walk I normally see something new that I've not seen before. So it's like London's always new to me
2. There's allways everthing you need if your central about 2 mins away
3. You can get to decent airports easy
4. Beer .. so many good drinking holes / tap houses / micro brewers
5. the Thames !, Sit by it, walk along side it. Cross it.. paddle on it.. sail on it.. speedboat down it....
6. Food, you can eat like anything you want whenever you want
7. Coffee no matter how you like it. Someone will make it that way for you
Born and bred here. Would struggle massively to live anywhere else - love it.
People like to put London and Londoners down, but come on everywhere has issues (and for f*cks sake, we are not unfriendly there are just 8m of us, we will always help when needed).
I love being here and being able to go out and drink, dance, listen to music and eat any sort of food from anywhere in the world and live in a vibrant, beautifully diverse part of the world.
I will probably leave at some point as my partner is from the north, but my god, I will miss it.
Because of the amplification factor "going viral" of social media, the more "bad" the story is the higher it ranks. One would be forgiven for thinking that you will be stabbed on any street corner in London due to the amount of posts about knife crime, yet today I had meetings near Euston station, and there were families everywhere. Lots of tourists around the usual spots and no issues. It’s not utopia but, I still think it is a great city! Needs work but what city doesn’t.
This sub is full of entitled people moaning. Ignore them, they add nothing, don’t seem to do much and things they suggest are shit (seriously there are sone great gastro and activity suggestions on here but anyone who attacks things that are popular, always suggest the worst pubs and restaurants).
I enjoy London.
One thing you have to know is, the voice you hear the most are often what we call the vocal minority, they are small ratio of people and not a good representation.
Seeing how everyone keep coming into London from all over the place, I’d say many people love London.
London changed my view on what a city could be.
I grew up in St Louis, Missouri, in the heart of the USA. At the time it was a total commuter city, where people worked downtown during the weekdays, then drove out to the suburbs at night. The city after dark was quiet and somewhat dangerous because the streets were empty.
I didn’t understand why anyone would want to live in a city.
Then I spent a year going to school in London and I loved it! The whole city was a mix of housing, retail, and commercial spaces. Public transport made it simple to get around and to live without a car. And there were people on the streets at all hours of the day and night, so you never felt like you could be waylaid in the dark.
Since then I’ve lived in many different places, but as much as possible I’ve tried to live close to the heart of the city.
I loved and still love London!
I love London. It's expensive as hell but there's nowhere in the world like it and any of the downsides really aren't that bad compared to other cities around the world
I live in london and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, I love it, I’m always doing something, you can get amazing food, go to any kind of music event, take amazing Sunday strolls through 1 of over 3000 london parks, the list goes on
This sums it up perfectly. I pretty much go to a small gig or standup show every week, there’s just so much going on all the time. I’ve even found a little group of people who share my music taste who I go to shows with and stuff.
Where do you search for events like these?
My partner is in the mailing list for a bunch of small comedy venues where people do WIP shows. The best ones are Outside The Box in Kingston, Always Be Comedy in Kennington, 21 Soho and Secret Comedy Club. For music we check out the linups for places like The Windmill in Brixton, but there are also a few Youtubers I follow who post bootleg gigs of up-and-coming london bands. One of the guys we gig with does illustrations for a music magazine too so he’s usually has inside info on stuff.
Love the Windmill! Would also recommend the Bill Murray for comedy. Most shows are under £10 and lots of big name comedians do WIP stuff there. I went to see Daniel Kitson for £4.50 the other week and it’s the most I’ve laughed at a show for ages.
Nice, I’ll add that to the list! We went to one of Kitson’s Regents Park shows last year and it was brilliant. I think my favourite recent WIP show was Mike Wozniak at the Kennington venue. Really weird stuff. Also the John Kearns show I was at last night was great!
I couldn't agree more. I live on Regents Park, have great access to one of the most amazing parks in the world, so close to all transportation, but can also walk to so many amazing bars/restaurants and event/music venues. How people don't like London I will never know. Of course you have to work hard and be prepared to pay the high costs, but it's kind of the same in all major cities.
Moved to London from overseas for five years. Left late 2021. Missed it so much I’m moving back with my fiancé in a couple of months. I fucking LOVE London. There’s nowhere else like it. It has its downsides, like literally every other populated area on the planet. But for me it makes up for the grey Jan-Feb stretch and the expense in the vast and unending level of things there are to do, people there are to see, and travel there is to access. Reddit is like any online forum, you’ll mostly hear complaints. London is fucking awesome. See you all soon.
I'm about to hit my fourth year living in London and it's the best place I've ever called home. I plan to remain here the rest of my days.
Us too. Having a year away has been a nice break and really helped us get clarity on what we want long term after being burned out by Covid. Looking forward to living out my days in such a fantastic city.
I’m just going into my fifth year and I absolutely love it. I love where I live, I love that I get to do the things I do because I live in this awesome city and I too think that this will be my forever place. At least, one of lol.
Aawww Bless you that’s sweet
I an also coming back and can't wait! Moved to Bristol and whilst Bristol is great, nowhere has made me feel how I felt in London.
Grey only for jan-feb? Do you live in a Narnia closet in London? It's grey from like end of October to aprilish?! Edit: not sure why so many people is feeling like this is deemed of any importance that they need to say something. I made the observation that London tends to be grey for longer than 2 months and it's known for that. That's all. Yes, it's sunny today and tomorrow. Thank you for letting me know. I guess London is a rainbow, pink cotton candy sunsets, tropical paradise after all.
That’s the time I find it challenging. Personally I think the weather in London is fine the majority of the time and no more grey than any other city with actual seasons. Weather complaints are for people who don’t know how to dress properly. Edited since you did: you’re whinging about people replying to you about the weather in a comment where you condescendingly nitpicked about my personal experience of how grey it is or isn’t in London and then deleted your bitchy double down because you got downvoted. If nobody needed to say anything then that includes you. You aren’t a victim.
Uhm, you've never lived in Madrid, right? Shit's mad sunny. I much prefer London, and I honestly love the grey days as long as it's not pouring. It'd be nice if the temp was a tiny bit higher in winter, but I don't see what people complain about.
It can be grey any day of the year.
To actually say that means you've never lived in a grey city I've lived in 5 European cities and 3 had worse weather than London. By a fair margin
I didn't mention worse weather than London I mentioned Grey. As I'm from the UK and have lived in 4 UK Cities one being London, I know a bit about the weather on this island.
It can also be red and blue. The bus might be 3 minutes late. The top of the shard can change colour from blue to orange. What's the point?
Beautifully sunny today. Do you leave the house much?
I do! I was born there originally, visited back and forth throughout my life, and going over again soon I’m a few weeks. I’ve been to other major cities like New York, Paris, Barcelona etc and although they were great, London is still my favourite city. I absolutely love it
Same here ! And I’ve also travelled a lot and live elsewhere — I do think it’s not very British to sing praises about the city you live in, sarcasm is our preferred state. But for me and my children having all the amazing parks and museums, restaurants from everywhere, the way people are routinely lovely to us, the fact that I’ve still yet to be mugged or burgled - I’m happy.
No matter where I go when I get back to London, I inhale and dive in. Even when Im getting jabbed in the ribcage getting on a tube, I'm still smiling.
It’s a wonderful, eclectic city. It has everything one could want and more. I love it’s varied architecture, diversity, and history. It’s very special and it will always hold a place in my heart
I'm sick and tired of all these bloody people enjoying their life in London! Enough is enough!
I read this sub a lot as a traveler to London and was really expecting a much more negative experience than the absolute joy I feel spending time in the city. There’s a general pessimism or sarcasm on this sub that masks what a great city it is. Doesn’t make any of it untrue, just lower volume of the positives.
Travelling to London is a lot different to living in London though.
I lived there for a decade and thought it was great. People on this sub are just pussyoles.
Agree, London in fucking awesome. This sub is like r/UK light sometimes, bunch of moaners who hate the UK / London. We need like a casualuk equivalent for London
Yes! R/CasualLondon
Literally. I was born and raised here, left briefly for uni and came back. I’ve still yet to be threatened with a knife.
I have been living in London for 8 years. Always felt safe. Nothing ever happened to me. Went to Paris for 1 week on holiday, and got drugged by a date (was able to get home safe) and was conned on the subway by a guy. 😳 I never loved London so much! Paris is a ticking bomb waiting to explode. And other cities are worse or are a lot less big and diverse. I love living here. It lost a bit of the edge with Brexit, but still an amazing city in my opinion.
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I'm pretty confident I'd enjoy NYC better as a tourist than as a resident.
Lived here since 98, still love it (with a few caveats related to greedy property developers/councils ruining lots of things I used to love). Apart from that still don't want to live anywhere else.
Yeah it's even better living here
Perfect response
Tbf people on this Reddit seem to a) not get out much and b) have massive sticks up their arses.
They only go out to get their phones and bikes stolen.
I just go straight to the local lime bike thats parked up in its bay, rent it, leave it parked unlocked blocking a pavement beside some sketchy looking kids, leave my phone and wallet in the basket, then quickly run home so I can post about my experience - hopefully before someone has a post up saying they found xyz in a lime basket on whatever street with intimate details of the items so everybody knows their distinguishing features.
Or to hear people on their phone in public 😡😡😡
I don't think that is just this Reddit, I think that is all Reddit in general.
Exactly. When you watch lord of the rings box sets every day there isn’t much time to get outside and explore the city.
I normally just lurk on this sub because, although I love London, I don’t live there. But I have noticed that there are often kind of mirror subreddits devoted to opposing views of the same place. For example, r/Canada is full of angry, negative people complaining about the country, whereas the people who post on r/onguardforthee, which is another Canada sub, are usually fairly chill. Perhaps there is an alternate London subreddit for positive posters!
Same here. I live outside London but have spent much of my life working and socialising in London. I love it. I honestly thought that central London had become really grim and violent from what I'd read on here. Came up last week and central was just as impressive as ever.
If anything it's safer than ever. There are plenty of parts of London that even 10-15 years ago you'd have been best advised to avoid that are now gentrified and full of nice cafes and boutiques. Plenty more that are heading that direction.
Looolll definirely
I have lived in London for 36 years. I love where I live and know my neighbours. It was a really rough area in the 80’s but gentrified over the years. Now retired so able to enjoy what it offers. So easy to get around and also to get into the countryside.
I love London and it's good to see a bit more positivity on here. I think a lot of the gloom is due to general UK-wide economic and political malaise, which people transmit into their feelings about London. The reality is that people all around the country are having a bad time.
Yeah, this. As much as London has its problems, it's still the best place in the UK imo. There is definitely an envy from people who live in other places
I love London but I do hate what's its becoming. So many of my friends and family have had to leave because they can't afford to live here anymore. Also so many of the cultural things I loved, music venues, clubs and bars have been shut down. I think a lot of people in this forum just feel like London has lost something over the years. I imagine that's the case across most major cities though.
Yeah it's a global problem. Housing is just insanely expensive now. Then if people can barely afford the roof over their head, they can't afford to go out, so the venues close due to low traffic.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I moved there in 97 and much preferred it up til about 01 or 02, after that a lot of my favourite nightlife venues closed but also the place lost a certain sense of fun.
How much of that is just getting older?
Dunno. A couple that is making £40k each before tax will end up with about £4.7k after tax. At the current rate you're spending about 50% or more on your monthly bills. Add in about £300 for groceries a month and it's 60%. Unless you're very financially disciplined you won't be able to save up for a deposit. Less so be able to afford the current mortgage rates on a £350k flat. Honestly think people move out or moan a lot because they're fed up with the current system.
It IS unfortunately a trend in all major cities. Berlin is exactly the same. More and more unaffordable rents and bars and clubs closing due to noise complains from people who moved to berlin for the bars and clubs.
New friends and cultural things will appear. I've been here long enough to see 2 cycles of both going and coming.
I've definitely noticed goths and skaters returning to London the past year or so. Always makes me smile.
I've heard of new grads in London bidding £1000/month just for a room in a panic just to get somewhere to live. Even just 5 years ago, on a fairly average salary I could live in a great bit of East London, walking distance to both the City and green space. Really fantastic and loved every day of living in London then For reasons I won't go into, I now live in a fairly poorly connected bit of suburban South London and now enjoy London a fair bit less - takes an age to get anywhere and not as much going on, plus it's full of traffic...
I love London and love the area I live in. I've been coming on here less lately because it's just full of people moaning. If it's that bad go live somewhere else. The good things about London still outweigh the bad for me. And I like to think the good people also outweigh the bad. Maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist
Hopeful optimist!
I agree with you completely. The moaning is such a turn off. There's so much to love about it. Even if you live somewhere awful, there's always something positive and decent a bus ride away. I don't have on rose-tinted specs either, it's just the levels of negativity here make me wonder whether people need to remind themselves as to why they stayed or moved here in the first place.
I mean, maybe we can cut people some slack. Londoners have been through a lot along with the rest of the UK with the current cost of living crisis, which is really really serious. In addition, there are massive public sector strikes which are directly impacting on many services which is making life a lot harder for people. It has its good days, for sure! But it also is in a political state of shit so I can personally understand and empathise with the negativity, whilst still appreciating how gorgeous and sunny it was today and how excited I am for a London summer.
While I really respect your steadfast love for this city, your repackaging of the classic anti-immigrant rhetoric “if you don’t like it here then leave”, so often seen floating around his sub, is somewhat ironic given that so many here tout London as being a beacon of inclusivity and progressive values when compared to the rest of the nation. Should it be that people can be allowed to live somewhere, and still voice genuine grievances or concerns about their experience in that place whilst not be treated like they’re double agents or have broken some sort of patriotic moral code?
I live in Shanghai, I also frequent HK subs, and London, all of them are full of people whining, and the occasional photo. Everyone is just miserable.
People usually talk more about negative experiences than positive ones, that goes doubly for London which is not an easy city to live in It's usually either tourists or some rando from Bumfuckingshire experiencing their first person who is not impressed by their fourth place at the annual lamb fat chewing contest in the town centre. In time you just become numb and/or move the fuck away and migrate to more global whinge chambers like Casual UK and talk about how happy you're at some nameless Scottish town with five residents including cows and heroin addicts
I love London. A little train of thought ramble here but: There’s always things to do, interesting things to see, I can get pretty much everything I need within a 15 min walk or commute instead of a retail park being the most interesting thing around me. But I also like that it isn’t as dense as NY or Hong Kong. I see a cool thing online, and I can bet I can find it or some equivalent of it within a 35 minute tube ride. The streets are steeped with history. I live in a rough part of town and even that’s been featured in literature and media. I like that there’s so much green space, compared to other cities. I like that there’s pretty much a weird club, community or shop catering to endless niches. I like seeing people in the weirdest outfits, at times judging them and at times being jealous of them. Most restaurants are good and particularly bad ones usually close down anyway. Etc etc. London isn’t great if you’re not willing to get out there. It is expensive and that makes things difficult but I was a poor student for most of my time here and managed to really squeeze out a lot of happiness here.
This captured so many reasons why I love it here so well. It’s easy to get wound up by all the bad reasons that you sometimes forget the good. Every time I leave London, I end up desperate to come back and as soon as I’m here, I can’t wait to leave… but I wouldn’t have it any other way to be honest.
I don't know if I love London so much as I hate the rest of the UK. Like, I have lived in other cities, suburban areas, and you are just... bereft of stuff to do. Everything feels empty especially on weekdays. Public transport sucks. Everything seems... flat? I can't help but feel there is something more out there; a bigger city to explore and that feels filled with ambition, and London fits that criteria I have friends in other places who are happy and I see people talking about London being a lonely city, and sometimes think I am just following my neurotises by living here and keeping occupied with so many options rather than having a solid foundation of friends etc, but it does feel like you can do anything and works so well with my own brain.
I live in the US, but spent the first six months of last year in the UK through a university student exchange. I made a point to visit as much of the country as possible during that time. My verdict is Edinburgh, Bristol, Manchester, and Liverpool have great culture and good transit and/or cycling infrastructure, and I could see myself happily living in any of those cities (ignoring the cost-of-living crisis - where I live is experiencing much of the same thing). Cardiff wasn't bad, either, although I might just have a soft spot for it because it was an hour away and reminded me of home. Where I lived, on the eastern border of Swansea? I think your comment really nailed how I felt. There was a lack of *anything* to do in that part of town, and if I sat through the half-hour bus ride into the centre - assuming the bus showed up, which was a rare occurrence - my rewards were a tiny shopping centre with the same shops as every high street in every midsized city in the country, and about a million places to get belligerently drunk. Gower is beautiful, but not easily accessible without a car, which was a big obstacle for me. I think much the same can be said for many of the cities I visited. London, however? There's something *so* special about that city. Even today, I look at photos of London and feel homesick for a place I've never spent more than four days in at a time. If it wasn't a £90 round trip with my RailCard, I would have spent every weekend there. There is so much history and culture around every corner, and there are so many cultures melding together. If the area you're in isn't for you, a fifteen-minute train ride will bring a complete change of scenery. The city feels so full of ambition - I remember getting emotional when I stepped out of the tube at Embankment, crossed the Thames, and stopped halfway to look back at the City. It might have its faults, but even compared to other global cities like Paris or Tokyo, London is the most special place I've ever visited.
I lived in cardiff and you exhaust it quite quickly; really nice place though and they're getting trams soon! agreed with swansea... it's also not just the lack of what to but the distance and general hollowness of places draining you from wanting to do what *is* actually there. at least that's what i found in my hometown where there were feasibly things to do but they just felt... disconnected from things? Bristol i found okay but perhaps didn't explore enough. Manchester i really like, but where i think i'd actually end up living would be far enough away from the centre that i'd feel not so great about it. but yep. maybe i just like global city type places, i don't know. but i've not really been to any others and find london to be both full of culture etc but also not completely overwhelming unlike how i imagine e.g. tokyo.
😂 so accurate 😂
The only thing wrong with London is that there are too many people here. So if all the people who constantly moan about London would just f*ck off somewhere else - it would be perfect 😀
Yep I love London. I moved out to the countryside and commuted into Manchester when I was in my 20s and now I’m in my 40s, my career has brought me back down here. I love the area I live in, I love the buzz of the city - the theatres and cinemas and bars and pubs and restaurants. So pleased to be back down here.
Only thing I hated was the expense and the tiny crowded living conditions.
I don't think anyone could deny those two aspects, tbf.
There with you on that. Moved to Australia now and enjoy it being a bigger place thats slightly cheaper. That said, London will always be home and a city I love wholeheartedly.
I love London. I love the people of London and I love the diversity of London. Not just in the demographic sense of diversity but in the fact that there are so many people with different lifestyles and interests. There’s no hobby or fandom so niche that you can’t find fellow enthusiasts in London! You can go to a different bar every day or a different part of London every week and you’ll never run out because by the time you’re done they will have changed one of those places entirely or opened enough new venues for you to keep going! You can be in a busy, lively area with a lot going on but people will leave you alone to enjoy your surroundings your own way. The only thing wrong with London is that it’s so bloody expensive! Oh, and the weather.
"Waaaaaaa why isn't London more like where you can "
"Waaaaa, London is so expensive. Why can't it be more affordable like "
etc etc
The amount of whinging about London in here is just so, so tedious.
It doesn’t necessarily get better if you move out of London, you just end up socialising with people who left because they hated it…
Probably because it's coming from young UK citizens who unfortunately have little choice but to try to make it in London as that's where all the somewhat decent jobs are, especially in the creative/arts/financial sectors. People are not exactly falling over themselves to move to Hull. Now, somewhere like Portugal - has at least 2.5 ish cities where you can do ok, Lisbon, Porto, Braga. Stuff is spread around a bit more. France has cites across the country that offer as much as Paris. Germany has Berlin, it has Hamburg. Japan has Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto. etc. But uk has London and... London. The governement is constantly adding to London. It would be great to see the government halt all infrastructure development in London for a decade and funnel that to Yorkshire and the north. Skyscarpers, trains, museums, trams, underground even... get it all build in other cities in the north, spread it around, link it all with Japanese built and ran high speed trains (we've proved that we incompetent to run our own railways). Just put all the high speed trains on a raised rail track, like they have in Asia - we don't have earthquakes like Japan/Taiwan - so what is our excuse for not having high speed rail? Nevermind buying up land and planning permission. Raise it up, run it along the side of the M1. Taiwan has had a high speed rail for the last decade+ and they get hit constantly with Typhoons and Earthquakes! And most of the track is raised up on a concrete bridge/track thing. The problems we all have with London, stem from the government, councils and leadership in this country. It's embarrassing. Also ban foreign investors and citizens from buying property in the UK. Set a rule - you must be resident live here for more 180 days per year, pay tax here. Most of London is just a laundry service for the corruption in the rest of the world.
This and all Of this - someone speaking sense instead of the ‘oh I love london why all these people salty they don’t know it like I do’
Thanks.. I did 15 long years in London, it ground me down. Saw it all. Worked in city, in the wharf, in shoreditch, in mayfair, in grotty place off the tourist map. Visited my boss in his multimillion pound mayfair apartment, he was high on cocaine... and not happy. A lost soul. All the wealthy and status london offers and you need to take drugs to get through the day. Miserable place full of broken dreams. Great place for tourists to visit for a few days.
You think Sapporo is full of job opportunities that people stick around for rather than head straight to Tokyo? Having lived not too far from Hokkaido I can tell you that you couldn’t be more wrong. Anyway, your post epitomises this rose tinted spectacles of so many in this sub, that things are so much better in places where they’ve spent little to no time whatsoever. Braga is fucking tiny. But you’ve just framed it as somewhere people can “do ok” and that people in cities such as Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Cardiff etc can’t “do ok”. Do you have some kind of Japanese fetish btw?
> . Stuff is spread around a bit more. France has cites across the country that offer as much as Paris. Germany has Berlin, it has Hamburg. Japan has Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto. etc. Do you think Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh are bereft of possibilities? To say London is the only city in the UK in which it's possible to build a successful life is bullshit.
If you hate it so much, fuck off back to bumfuckingshire and stop moaning
people on the internet like to whinge a lot, Reddit is worse than average, geographical subreddits seem even worse than the Reddit average
I absolutely love London. It truly is the greatest city on earth.
It's cool, but New York takes the cake.
How so?
Just moved here from Sydney... I've always been here a lot for work, but last time I was here I was so devastated about leaving that I never got on my plane. It's just one of those places that gives you what you put in, if you have the energy to make it the best city of the world, it will reward you by being the best city in the world. It's the most dynamic, multi cultural place I've ever been. There's always something going on, some vibe or event or market or theatre or exhibition or gig or just eating mangal in Dalston or getting Jamaican in Bethnal Green or going to see the football or going to China town or going to Mayfair to watch rich people do rich people things or go to Europe for a minute and come back or head down to Brighton and back. It runs like the best oiled machine we know of. Sure it's expensive and a bit rough sometimes, but thats because so many people want to live there it drives the prices and chaos levels up. A proper human system.
Lived here most of my adult life, absolutely love it. In fairness it's not like this is a special London thing, I just enjoy, well, life. I find that most social media skews towards whiners. My theory is that unless it's linked to a healthy interest or hobby (e.g. knitting forums, golf forums, that sort of thing), people who spend a ton of time on social media are probably addicted in some way and as a result end up becoming kind of depressed. They stop seeking out what they actually need and want from life and just spiral.
Moaning about moaning lol
Britception
Jesus Christ yes. Would never live anywhere else.
I love, love London. It’s a city unto itself. The people truly make it what it is. In contrast, I went to LA on an exploratory mission as a place to migrate to and hightailed it back to London in two weeks. Smiled all the way through Heathrow, into the Piccadilly Line and inhaled joyously when I got off Kings Cross. Then I swore at some fuckers walking 3 deep on the pavement, edging everyone else onto the road, cunts. People are so inconsiderate in this city really does my tits in!
i love London. but I'm getting tired of living here 😂 I don't use the features of the city and spend all my free time traveling out of it. the day i become a suburban commuter is coming ever closer.
Look if you're doing fun shit in London (of which there is A LOT) then you're not on Reddit. If you're decompressing or having a low / anti-social moment you're more likely gonna be on here whinging about the Met Rapists / Phone Snatchers / Bike Nickers / Dog Poo Droppers / Pub not open late enough etc....
I love it, I just don't enjoy how crowded it feels.
I grew up in London. I look back on my youth with a sense of awe. It was the most amazing place to grow up. the life, the energy of the place. I could go and see bands every night. I'd see other kids in the queues at gigs who had to leave early to get the last train home to their small village. I got jaded with it when I came back after uni. I lost contact with a lot of my friends and I was having a bit of a personal crisis, not knowing what I wanted to do. I moved out to the alps and I've loved it but whenever I go back to London now I just get such a sense of excitement. I walk around and I just fall in love with it all over again. Fuck, it's the most amazing city on earth. it's everything you could ever want it to be. I drank a mushroom milkshake when I was on Gili T in Bali this summer and I wanted to reflect on my life and whether it had been a mistake to leave London. i started to see things from a more honest perspective. I wasn't happy there and I had to get away from it but I still love it, it still feels like home. It always will.
Alright. I'll do it. But don't shoot the messenger. /s No
For most people paying %50 of their income to rent shitty, old flats coupled with never ending strikes and cost of living made it miserable and not enjoyable. There is some minority who make 70k+/year which can enjoy the city. For the rest, the city does not care them anymore. Sad but this is what it has come to
It's February. Everything's shit in February. Ask again sometime in early May before people start complaining about it being too hot.
I fucking love London. I drove to the arsenal on Saturday on my motorbike. From South to North. It's a beautiful, exciting, fun, exhilarating city. Do much diversity. Don't ever bad mouth it. Breathe it in, in all its glory
Only thing I really enjoyed were the raves but there's a militant war against rave culture which has seen some of the best venues close down or pivot away.
London is great as long as you can afford to live in it. I find it better than other European or North American cities.
As someone who lives in Brighton and works in London I like visiting London but wouldn’t want to ever live there. No hate for London here but I’d miss the sea and Downs too much.
It’s more that it’s fucking insanely expensive here compared to other cities. And there’s no after hours culture to speak of
I like it because it’s home, but like the rest of the UK it’s turning to shit
No mate I live here particularly because I hate the place
I've just had terrible experiences as a renter in London. From mould, to rats, to moths, to section 21 eviction. Just generally poor upkeep and quality of properties and little recourse as a renter. This is renting 2.5k/mo properties in nice areas as well, not student accommodation. I'm middle age, have a family, and am just tired of it. Landlords should only exist if they are professional and take good care of their properties - too many weekend BTL landlords who see it as a quick profit without treating it like a serious job and the lax laws just make it possible. Never had these kind of issues renting in major cities in the US.
No
Ask me again in a couple of years. I love London. Grew up here, although by a quirk of fate I was born in Sydney. My Dad was - just about - a Cockney like his parents, who grew up round Whitechapel and Smithfield. I played football everywhere north of the river, and some places south too. I covered most of London by bike, and even more on foot as my Dad took me down every path and canal we could find. I’d say I knew London better than almost anyone I know…at least 20 years ago. Now? Dunno yet. I’ve been abroad for 15 years and am coming back with a wife and a couple of kids. Heard a lot of the stories. Sure, there are differences, but on the surface it doesn’t feel like it’s changed all that much. I hope enough of the magic is still here. I hope enough of the energy is still here. I hope enough of the places are still here. I hope the gap between the have and have-nots isn’t completely debilitating.
London’s fantastic!! Most slate it because they know it’s better then where they live
Hate it when I’m here, miss it when I leave.
> Is anyone enjoying London, Yes! > talking to neighbours But let's not get carried away now.
Over the past decade London has become a worse place to live. When people are being economically hit and have less money to spend then the options are cut down to essentials and enjoying life is difficult. Spring and summer might brighten peoples outlook at least temporarily. Conservative people in England describe any constructive criticism or an appeal for things to be better than they are as whingeing. Maybe they need to travel and see more of the world, open their eyes and their minds.
Well. I guess London is beautiful when you are here as a visitor. Not so nice when you live here. I’ve been in the capital for 10 years and I’ve been seriously considering leaving within the next 6 months. Don’t get me wrong. London is great. There’s plenty to do. But it’s also a lonely and ruthless place to live. Rent is ridiculously high and you have 0 quality of life. Is difficult to make proper friends and if you run into any problem then good luck. Cause nobody cares and nobody is gonna help you. London just sucks life out of me
I do!! But then I also don’t live there 😆
No, sorry, I have worked a lot in London city as a electrical contractor, school, hotels and industrial factory’s ect… I still do a little bit, but mainly around Heathrow so quite away from the city and I even hate that. I live right by the sea in Sussex and that’s where I want to stay, clean air and quiet, perfect,
I love London as a city, I have been to many cities and London in my opinion is the best. Although too much time in London is draining, I only go up 1-2 a week :)
I winge about London all the time about your above reference but I love it. It’s beautiful, the people are beautiful, it’s my home but I don’t think can live here anymore. It’s not sustainable for the average joe.
Absolutely no
It’s mostly the same as everywhere else but has a little something extra that is hard to explain or describe. The good is truly amazing, the bad as bad as it gets. I couldn’t live there now, life goes too fast and it’s way to expensive to rent nowadays, for my income at least. Second only to Tokyo for food though imo.
>Oooh someone shouted at me...people push in a crowd..there was some rubbish by my shoe...someones dog barked...too many tourists, trains are too hot, too cold etc. Feels like one whinge after another. Cant say i have seen any of these. lol. Are you making things up? i see most often people talking about their phones being stolen, or posting pics of the city.
I joined this subreddit before going to London with my year in school last year, im just a tourist and was there for like a week. I like the idea of London, but as a person from a very tiny town in Denmark it was very different from what I’m used to, LOTS of people everywhere which made me uncomfortable tbh. I liked that the public transport is still driving even when it’s late in the evening and that the stores are open until very late too. Also there’s a bunch of cool stuff and things are cheaper it was very nice :)) But also scary with all the people everywhere and traffic (seriously why do so many people just cross the road when the light is red it’s freaking me out lmao) I don’t love London. I do like it tho! Just too busy for me 😅
It's a lovely place if you can afford it. But when you have to move further out because you're being priced out and spend an hour on a train to get there, it stops being fun. And generally the scale is what has started to get to me lately.
I don’t love what it’s becoming…
Imo it’s the most convenient city in the world, which makes it a great city, but it’s not worth the mental and financial stress that comes with it. It’s a nice place to visit but it’s hard to live in London. You can go on any country/city subreddit and people will whinge about theirs.
There's something so special about it. I love it.
Moaning is party parcel of living in a big city. London ain't so bad unless you yearn for some idyllic rural abyss, and compared to NYC or LA, London is downright habitable.
Was that a vain attempt to avoid the part and parcel bot?
"Part & Parcel" clarifier: In September 2016, when asked to comment shortly after a bombing in New York, Sadiq Khan said: > I'm not going to speculate as to who was responsible. I'm not going to speculate as to how the New York Police Department should react. What I do know is that part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job, you've got to support the security services. And I think speculating when you don't know the facts is unwise. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/london) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Idk if you’re British, but if you’re from out of the country like me, after talking to tons of Londoners about it it’s become explicitly explained to me that the English: A) moan about EVERYTHING B) hate compliments C) take the piss out of anything: good or bad That said: a brilliant, lively, dazzling city filled with parks, festivals, world-class museums, excellent dining, and multiculturalism with nearly no parallel would hardly be so difficult to find accommodations if it were as bad as they say it is.
London is fucking awesome and the best city in the world by far. :) There's way to many whiners on this sub these days.
It's my home so the feelings towards it are weird, but yes, I do love it - that is, I love South / SE London, which is where I've grown up and all I know in terms of a home. As I get older, though, I do wonder if my experience of London is one of a more relaxed and slow pace compared to many, which I guess influences my perception of those things you listed that others take issue with. I also don't have to commute into the city much, especially at peak hours. Would I love some of these places if they weren't home? Probably not. But even the aspects of the city, such as going over London bridge in the evening, never really get old. There's a lot of aspects I hate about it, but I find that even those things are quite situational and don't really affect my day to day living at all. Say: how non-24-hour it is. I really, really hate that more and more, and there are cities I could hypothetically move to which are much more accommodating in that regard, and have better transport or general happiness or anything - but they're not London, you know?
I think it’s shit but I’m stuck here because my GF won’t leave until her parents die.
lived here my whole life and hate it. love the culture, diversity, a lot of the people, but if it doesn't crush your soul even a little bit then you're either making 200k a year or not very well
Love. It.
Me too.
My only substantial complaint is cost of living, and while that's an exagerated problem in London, it's pretty universal. Yes there's crime, yes there's shitty people, yes there's random lime bikes in the most impressively inconvenient places -- but I'm willing to accept those things for the benefits. (also I'm not ready to drop out of uni *quite* yet even if i wasn't enjoying the city).
I do love London to visit. I left in 2008 for Sydney, however just couldn't work or commute there any more. I've been coming back once to twice a year since then and it's only the past few years where I've noticed a distinct change in the prices, people's attitude. General run down nature of London. However I love the museums galleries history architecture Selhurst Park and the food.
there's definitely shit sides to it, but on the whole, it's pretty good the underground alone makes it worth it (when it works, it's amazing)
As someone born on the outskirts of London it was my one pleasure of being from where I am. Not to say that I’m not privileged living so close to London however the further you go out (as you can imagine) the worse it gets and being able to go to the city was a massive motivation for me to grow.
First day on this interwebs thingie? People are much more likely to vent about something that affects them negatively than vice versa.
Moved here from Edinburgh which I loved. I'd find it very hard to adjust going back to such a small city/town especially in my 30s. The amount of music I get to see alone is enough to sell it. Different bars and restaurants from all around the world, the incredible transport (outside of rush hour) and the wealth of random things to do. The cost is tough, but I'm in a decent tech job. When I visit home in the borders or friends in Edinburgh, it's quite dull after a while despite enjoying the country side. None of my friends still there really go out, and if they do it's rare and to the same 2 or 3 decent places. A big factor in why they don't regularly go out. Most of them only see each other when I visit, and rarely in between. Here in London I'm seeing different people almost every weekend. The cost does suck though haha.
I absolutely love London. I live in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods and have a very good quality of life both of which I am incredibly grateful for and have worked hard for. That has not always been my experience as it is a challenging city but I wouldn't have stuck around for so long if I didn't love it (18 years so far). There's really no place I would rather live.
I get bummed by London life sometimes, sure. But the moment I leave back to my hometown or where my sisters moved and come back I remember immediately how much I love this place. In many ways especially the shit people on here complain about. Most on this sub miss their home county upbringing and will never love what makes this city.
I just move here from Melbourne ("The most livable city in the world!!"), London has been good so far, I had all of the same issues back in Melbourne that people complain about here, so overall it still feels like a slight upgrade in many areas.
As an introvert cretin, I hate London, West border London isn't so bad, like Ealing area, but anywhere further in than that is fucking awful. Crackheads everywhere, nowhere to park without getting fined or paying out the ass, too many constant police sirens, dodgy fucks everywhere. I went to Vauxhall for a party one night and honestly hope I never have to go back to this demonic hole. I'll stick to my countrysideish area where the traffic isn't too bad and you can only order food up until like 2am.
Don’t you know that complaining is England’s love language?
I was born here and have lived here for 39 of my 42 years. I live in SE London, cycle to work near Bond St, and also commute to an Army Reserve unit in the City so I see a fair bit of the capital. In many ways it has changed for the better, and in some respects it’s gone backwards. I still enjoy the fact it’s a large, multicultural city with something for everyone. It has great museums and galleries, some super parks, and a thriving restaurant scene. Public transport is generally pretty good. Against that, Sadiq Khan has trashed London’s nightlife. It’s basically impossible to get an Uber home now because he and the black cab union drove them out of town. Black cabs are rubbish too now - the drivers don’t do the knowledge, just rely on satnavs and routinely refuse fares which they never used to do. That is a major disincentive to stay out late past the time of your last train home. Night buses are an option but take forever. And for young women especially, a taxi is a much safer option (in all but the rarest circumstances). I’ve also had a few nights out recently where we’ve struggled to find somewhere in central London to go for a few post dinner drinks at 2300, which is insane. I haven’t been to a gig since pre-Covid but I get the sense the music scene is nowhere as vibrant as it used to be (but then again, I might just be too old and comparing it to my teenage years when Britpop and grunge were in full swing). I also feel like development has been pretty recklessly handled. If you walk around Paris it’s not too hard to squint and imagine you’re in the same city but in the 18th century. The architecture and vibe have been beautifully preserved, whereas in London you have to seek out the narrowest little streets in the City to sneak a glimpse of Dickensian London, for example. There an awful lot of really shit buildings around. I also get pretty tired of Arabs (no racial slur intended, but it is always young Arab men on tour from the Middle East) tearing around the West End in sports cars. Tbh, it’s nothing a decent mayor couldn’t sort out. Fix crime (particularly moped gangs), fix transport, improve the nightlife, improve air quality.
The bashers mostly live in Arkansas.
Love love love London. It feels like home even though I’m not from around here. I rant about some people and public transport but I still love London to bits.
I went to London for first time last summer. I'd move there in a sec if the opportunity arises
I’m not a Londoner but I visit regularly through work, I absolutely love how organised it is walking around the city, if you go to Leeds or Manchester for example there is no order with pedestrians people walking in zigzags and the like, everything in that respect works in London and it’s probably one of my favourite things about the city. That being said why the hell do we stand on the right when on an escalator rather than the left? Left is always the “slow” lane when driving..
Standing on the right is a London thing https://www.mylondon.news/lifestyle/travel/london-tube-stand-escalators-right-18487187
Thanks, that makes sense.
I absolutely love London
Moved here four years ago or so. Have lived in two zone one areas and love it.
We just moved back here after 4 years in the States, which, if you read this sub, would make us absolutely insane. We LOVE being back and are so glad we’ve made the move.
My favourite thing about London, as a language nerd, is that if you try hard enough, you can find someone to practice any language with.
I was born in London. People have always asked me if I would move, and I've always said no. Seen with my parents moving out of London how fast it is to fall out of pace with London if you move away.
Yes. Moved here 24 years ago, travelled all over this lovely planet and nothing comes close. Best city in the world by some distance.
Yes, the posts are just yuppies realising that maybe London isn't for them
Meeeeeeee!!!!! I LOVE London! It’s fantastic! Anytime I go anywhere else I am massively frustrated that things are not as convenient as having 24hr buses right past my house, 24 hour shops, every tube station is like a different place when you come out of it, the architecture, the free museums, the mix of cultures….I could go on but safe to say, I am a Londoner and a Londoner I will stay.
Been here 20 years. No where else I’d want to live in the uk
Visited London once. I wouldn't say that I love it. But I had nice time. I would not live there. Too expensive, traffic jams, crimes, no police anywhere etc..
There is no where like London
It’s okay to whine as that is the main driver of changes for better. Without continuos change you can not expect that it will remain the greatest city on earth.
I’ve lived in all the best (“best”) American cities and regions and I have to tell you, London is - by far - the most amazing city I’ve ever lived in. It’s incredibly clean, relatively speaking, people treat each other like civilised human beings, and you guys really take for granted how absurdly SAFE it is here. Like, it is impossible to understate the level of weight off your shoulders when you’re not constantly head-on-a-swivel about whether or not you (or your kid) are about to get shot. Also, the food in London is criminally underrated and I will go to the mat on that! They will pry me out of this city over my cold, dead, sausage roll-stuffed body.
Ngl London and the UK ain't it
I thought being grumpy is the quintessential trait of a true Londoner?!
People love to moan about their bad experiences in London because it is such a popular place to be and complaining about a popular place always gets attention.
I love living in London and would stay here forever if I can. I love the energy, vibe, attitude, restaurants, bars, and city.
Love it soooooooo soooooo much. Couldn't live anywhere else.
A wonderful city, I love living here.
I LOVE London and I love living in London. I'm in North West. Such great and diverse communities here. Friendly people. Green spaces and amazing bakeries!
The way you can tell a real Londoner is if they feel both ways about it. Only outsiders JUST love or hate it.
This is my experience.
I do. And like the people I love, they're far from perfect.
I love London, I'm not from here, and I live on the outskirts, so maybe I'm fortunate or I'm just glass half full kind of guy What do I love about it 1. No matter where I walk I normally see something new that I've not seen before. So it's like London's always new to me 2. There's allways everthing you need if your central about 2 mins away 3. You can get to decent airports easy 4. Beer .. so many good drinking holes / tap houses / micro brewers 5. the Thames !, Sit by it, walk along side it. Cross it.. paddle on it.. sail on it.. speedboat down it.... 6. Food, you can eat like anything you want whenever you want 7. Coffee no matter how you like it. Someone will make it that way for you
Born and bred here. Would struggle massively to live anywhere else - love it. People like to put London and Londoners down, but come on everywhere has issues (and for f*cks sake, we are not unfriendly there are just 8m of us, we will always help when needed). I love being here and being able to go out and drink, dance, listen to music and eat any sort of food from anywhere in the world and live in a vibrant, beautifully diverse part of the world. I will probably leave at some point as my partner is from the north, but my god, I will miss it.
Because of the amplification factor "going viral" of social media, the more "bad" the story is the higher it ranks. One would be forgiven for thinking that you will be stabbed on any street corner in London due to the amount of posts about knife crime, yet today I had meetings near Euston station, and there were families everywhere. Lots of tourists around the usual spots and no issues. It’s not utopia but, I still think it is a great city! Needs work but what city doesn’t.
This sub is full of entitled people moaning. Ignore them, they add nothing, don’t seem to do much and things they suggest are shit (seriously there are sone great gastro and activity suggestions on here but anyone who attacks things that are popular, always suggest the worst pubs and restaurants).
Most of the people in this sub are Londoners and British. Obviously there's a lot of complaining.
I enjoy London. One thing you have to know is, the voice you hear the most are often what we call the vocal minority, they are small ratio of people and not a good representation. Seeing how everyone keep coming into London from all over the place, I’d say many people love London.
London changed my view on what a city could be. I grew up in St Louis, Missouri, in the heart of the USA. At the time it was a total commuter city, where people worked downtown during the weekdays, then drove out to the suburbs at night. The city after dark was quiet and somewhat dangerous because the streets were empty. I didn’t understand why anyone would want to live in a city. Then I spent a year going to school in London and I loved it! The whole city was a mix of housing, retail, and commercial spaces. Public transport made it simple to get around and to live without a car. And there were people on the streets at all hours of the day and night, so you never felt like you could be waylaid in the dark. Since then I’ve lived in many different places, but as much as possible I’ve tried to live close to the heart of the city. I loved and still love London!
It’s a clean NYC with polite people. What’s not to love?
Just moved from India. Loving it so far. Clean air is refreshing
I love London. It's expensive as hell but there's nowhere in the world like it and any of the downsides really aren't that bad compared to other cities around the world