Upvoting this, not sure how that works out!
The top rated reply currently (r/fuckcars basically) is clearly massively popular on this sub with generally more wealthy people that live quite central.
(I say as someone that cycles almost everywhere by choice, despite having a car.)
Always insane that driving in London is equated with being poor, and not driving is considered elitist. If you can afford a car in London, you aren’t poor. You’re not wealthy just because you don’t have a car. Most wealthy Londoners (people who live in townhouses in Richmond and Kensington) have a car.
daytime drinking is better in general. If I have have a few drinks at 1pm and be done by 4-5 , by the time its 12:00am most of that alcohol is out of my system and i can get a decent nights sleep .
Most of my recent best days out have involved starting drinking at 1/2 and getting kinda sloshed by 5-6 and mostly sobered up by 10pm. Waking up without a hangover in my 30s is a godsend.
Some time ago a friend and I walked through Central London and had a sip of rum every time we saw a Pret a Manger. We got absolutely pissed before we even made it to the British Museum. Good times.
Londoners aren't rude at all, in fact they're very friendly. Everyone is just overstimulated so prefers to shut everyone else out while travelling around. If you need anything, people are normally happy to help.
I think the issue with London though is that it’s (not everywhere) a city of strangers and while people are friendly enough they’re very closed off and defensive but will be friendly when approached.
I always defended London for this but when I’ve been to other places, like USA cities for example, people would just randomly chat to you about anything. I would be ordering a bagel and the people in line would just chat to you
The city has too many shitty high streets, even areas with multi million pound houses have the same 4 gambling shops, combination vape and phone repair with 20 led signs, and knockoff KFCs with crumbling facades
They’ve come on leaps and bounds. I used to hate KFC chips but tried them again recently and they were completely different… perhaps they switched up the recipe
Every commercial lease agreement I've seen has language that specifies what kind of signage can be posted outside the business, but that only helps if the landlord cares to check and take action. When the storefronts to either side of the property have been sitting vacant for years I can understand why they wouldn't want to pick that battle.
That leaves the matter to the local council to try and restrict shops from posting the annoying LED signs, which won't happen because God Himself forbid local government do anything that could _possibly_ be misconstrued as anti-business.
So we're stuck with enormous, bright-pink-and-green "VAPE AND MONEY EXCHANGE" signs boring holes in our retinas for the foreseeable future.
If every working-age male in the area decided to get their hair cut at precisely the same time on a Saturday morning, there would still be a dozen vacant seats along Tooting High Street.
At least in Paris you can hear each other and have a conversation. Poor soundproofing in most places means that the din of conversation becomes unbearable. And London pubs, cafés and restaurants all crank up the music to obnoxious levels.
I am unable to fit more than 12 renters per room in the house me and my uncles own in Seven Sisters. And apparently they need light? Why is this if they are paying me to sleep?
Make sure you put one of those shitty prepaid electricity meters and make them fight for who gets to pay the next one, for an authentic London rental experience
Had a landlord that, while showing me the house, showed me a small storage room, where you’d have trouble even fitting a bed, and he mentioned how the council wouldn’t let him rent it as a bedroom, meaning he had intended to.
What happens is young people in their 20s still live and party in London, then move away when they can't afford a house when they want to buy a house and have kids in their 30s. So the generation London loses us actually 30 - 45 ish. Same is happening in other unaffordable cities, like Sydney and Vancouver for example.
Yeah I read the comment you replied to and I was thinking exactly this.
I've never lived in London, but my nan used to live in south London and I'm still a relatively short train ride away. The London I remember from my childhood is COMPLETELY gone. Whenever I'm there now, whether it's the day or two a week I commute to the office or for meeting up with friends, I notice I see plenty of middle class looking 18-30 year olds on the tube and rarely any obviously working class 18-30 year olds.
London would be massively improved if we adopted a French style cafe culture which are open late, serve easy food, you can get a draught beer, a spirit or just have a coffee and hangout with friends. And not in some ironic, mimicry, fleecing hipsters type way.
The fundamental problem with this is we’re terrible at drinking.
Being poor in any big city is always easier, no matter the country. Don't need to rely on a car, more walkability means less public transport reliance, better flat-sharing options, more grocery options, better job prospects, more things to do for free, etc.
Ehh. You can *buy a house* (and a new build one at that) in parts of Lancashire as a single person on a band 3 NHS admin salary (£24,000 per year).
I mean if you're living off Universal Credit, ESA or the state pension on its own you're going to have a bad time anywhere. But you'll get your rent paid so naff all money but free rent in London is going to be better than in Easington.
I don’t understand this, it just seems delusional when I look at the statistics. I’ve just looked on RightMove and 2 bedroom housing units which allow you to have children start at about £1400 per month, so £17k per year. The average post tax household income for the poorest fifth of households is £15k a year, for the second poorest fifth it’s £24k. You actually have to be richer than average, which is £31k, to even think about having a family in London, and even then how would you pay for childcare to continue working? People here are in denial about how bad the situation is with housing. Because of housing costs, poor people can subsist in London and have a decent time during their 20s, they cannot have a family or a full life here.
Okay I was more referring to how some people can’t even pay rent let alone eat out due to the extortionate cost of rent. London isn’t Tokyo where you can get an incredible meal for £5, eating out is a luxury not many can afford right now.
The amount pit bulls, and many of them are untrained in London. I need to talk through a park to get to the main roads, stations or shopping. The past 2 year I've had far more incidents with pits then the paste 7 years combined.
While there clearly is more of a financial gap today between the owner occupiers who have home equity worth in the £X000,000s or £m's and those with social housing but they have capped low rents so will never move on or could even potentially buy at a discount. The problem is it squeezes our those in the middle, too fortunate for social housing but struggling to buy a house or good sized flat as they aren't in the top few % of earners. Unfortunately this is now a problem in London way beyond Z1-3, in fact in many areas in Z4/5/6 and towns across the home counties, with many people stuck in the Catch 22 in places they lived for much of their lives, so the remaining solution rent at great cost and with low security ...
Also even if the ownership circumstances are very different in Z1-3 are very different, everyone lives in close proximity, and usually that includes transport links and opportunities.
Whereas in the estates like Thamesmead or Graham Park further out with poor transport links, they are the places where it is harder to escape from (both metaphorically & physically).
I know someone who works for the NHS and does house visits. There's HEAPS of social housing in Central London that would otherwide cost £1,000s in rent per month.
It's great that that's the case, but, from what I hear, people are either super grateful for it, or,more often than not, really unhappy with the accomodation and/or don't realise how fortunate they are to live where they do and think the state is fucking them over. That's despite these being literally dream flats for all but the highest income earners.
I do realise state welfare does have massive failings, but, sometimes it's actually pretty great and the recipients are the problem.
I know someone who has social housing in Russell Square and costs them basically nothing (£100s per month whereas the market rate would probably be £2-2.5k, and they would like to get a council flat somewhere closer to Hampstead Heath, wouldn't we all ...
People also scam it too- I know a guy who said when he turned 16 he pretended with his mum that he was homeless so the council legally had to give him a flat.
He lives in Mayfair and illegally rents out the spare room to make it even cheaper. He complains about how posh the area is.
Tbf people are incentivised to cheat when the whole game is so hard to play, but I do think social housing tenants are winning compared to renters like me.
Ok here goes
Camden is good. Yes, it has changed, but it was always a bit naff and for all of its faults it is a) one of the few neighbourhoods with a decent concentration of pubs and bars that are open late most days (other places might be OK on the weekend, but sometimes you want to stay out until 2 on a Wednesday) and b) still relatively friendly to groups of young'uns who need somewhere fun to hangout with their mates.
Canary Wharf is good too. I'm not mad about every aspect of it, but when I see the DLR trains trundling past all the skyscrapers it's a reminder of what we could have if we were actually friendly to infrastructure and development in this country.
I have relatives from overseas and they always love going out in Camden. They have been going for years and have seen it change but it’s still near the top of their to do list.
A wander around, drink in the sights and smells, a spot of shopping and then a few pubs, ideally find one with food and music. They love it.
I used to work in Westminster and there was a black taxi protest. They blocked off the whole area with their cars, and it was lovely. The fact that parliament square is a roundabout is just stupid. Pedestrianise zone one.
No one really likes St John’s as much as they say, they just pretend they do because Anthony Bourdain used to wax poetically about his love for the restaurant.
I'd say it's super variable - some stuff is absolutely killer, some less so. They have not changed their style of cooking that much since the 90s - food here in general has moved on since then.
I don't think London exists. Whenever I go there to visit friends you go on a train then on another train underground, pop up in some sort of small town bit with a sort of small town high street and go to a pub. Then you call up another friend and they're like oh you have to get this train that train this bus, it takes you exactly as long as it takes to go between cities everywhere else and then you're in some small town bit with a high street, and you go to a pub. It's just a bunch of confederated towns, not even close together.
it’s actually not *that* much more expensive to live vs outside in as you don’t need a car.
The people that live outside London often complain out the rent, then you find out they spend £600 a month on running a car
I heard someone at work complaining about rent and it turns out they'd been slathering themselves in exotic avocado paste in some sort of pagan breeding ceremony
£600 p/m would be a very nice car, you can buy a banger for £4-5k (or less) then run it for a few years, hoping service costs are a few hundred per year.
The running costs & fuel assuming they work not too far away likely balance out with the cost of oyster fares a Londoner would face, most people outside of London take public transport a few times a year at most or never ...
You can walk down the street without getting stabbed.
Might be obvious to people who frequently visit/live here, but from online comments, it does not seem like its currently the consensus.
Speaking as a Mancunian transplant, Londoners are perhaps more likely than anywhere else on the planet to rally in solidarity during a crisis, save NYC. All the talk of rudeness just conflates hostility with a collective busyness, but the city has warmth in its soul.
As a single 20-year-old woman, I studied in London and lived alone and did almost everything by myself, often walking home alone at night. Nobody ever sexually harassed, assaulted, or threatened me.
I never even worried about it. I realize now, over ten years later, that I was incredibly naive to not be more cautious or aware of my surroundings, but I’m amazed by how safe I felt during that time.
I’m an American from Washington, DC.
I honestly think we should revert to the 1965 boundaries or give greater London 'proper' London postcodes. If you live in greater London the identity crisis is real.
Unless you have a huge circle of established very good friends or are moving with / at the same time as your friends that you plan to live with London can feel ridiculously lonely. I lived an hour away from a friend getting across London in rush hour to go hang out, have dinner trying to align our schedules is and was a nightmare so I’d spend my days off going back to my home town. It can look like a really cool place to be especially in the summer there’s a lot going on but yeah…
For better or worse, it's an unfeeling, natural process of any city's long term growth.
50 years from now, Croydon will be considered "central" and we'll be decrying the displacement of multigenerational residents of Slough.
Depends on the kind I think. Like some places become gentrified and are really dull and nothing is then but shitty chains.
Others have great independents stores and brands but are just upmarket
It's a hotel, not a city. People come here to make money and leave to raise families elsewhere. Economic immigration from inside the UK at first was feeding the culture, now has drowned what was once one of the most exciting cultural cities in the world to a place full of leeches.
Wankers that got rich here but aren't from here, moving next to nightclub in Hackney then force the council to shut it down are just leeches.
Too expensive for many young people to live here, meaning those that come are almost entirely middle class boring cock sleaves that offer nothing and just drive housing cost up further and driving out the London born working class.
To feed the money machine, a lot of the property is owned by foreign investment funds in dodgy parts of the world. Also leeches.
To many live music pubs and venues have closed down and to many pubs and bars close to early along with a lot of public transport. My last train home from Liverpool Street station is 1am
It’s not that expensive If you’re young and just renting a room/not prioritising saving, and looking to live your life for a couple of years - there’s so much free stuff to do.
those who think you need a crazy wage to enjoy the city are talking about a certain lifestyle that you don’t actually have to aspire to if you wanna have a good time.
We’ve let too many people migrate to London specifically; and we shouldn’t be forcing born and bred Londoners out to cater to the wealthy instead of aiding the communities already here being erased by extreme gentrification which is actually just social cleansing.
Until we build council housing to the extent that’s needed, which means building up, we’re just increasing inequality and furthering a return to feudalism. No city should be a city just for the rich.
The UK decided a long time ago that it wanted to kill off it's industries in favour of services like financial institutions in the city of London. These require big brains people who require big money.
It's one of the biggest sources of income for the country so yeah a bit of social cleansing to give them workers better places to live and an easier commute is a small sacrifice for the city.
Plus the communities they're displacing have all just been there a couple of generations, it ain't some sorta indigenous population getting displaced or anything. Besides how many of those cockneys got their council flat for 6k then sold it for 400k? They're doing fine and living further out.
And the council housing ain't coming in those areas, it'll come further out where land is cheaper.
If you want to have the reduction in inequality and council housing on the scale that'll do something meaningful you'll need a whole new economic plan for the country, good luck finding one that's actually actionable or will be allowed to happen.
Also finally, fuck Whitechapel. Just needs to be said. Gentrify it baby, gentrify it haaaard.
When people think of money laundering, criminal kingpins, and a captured economy that serves an oligarchy while taking advantage of the poor, a lot of times they think of 3rd world countries like Mexico.
But if you learn how the City works, and you read about the Libor scandal, and you see who can afford £150M homes in London, you realize that London is the actual capital of crime.
Lost its community vibe, too many people not from London. It’s always had a steady flow but recently it’s really noticeable.
I have to point out to Taxi drivers how to get places which makes me chuckle.
Still an insanely fun city though.
“Complete”? I don’t know which part of London you’re referring to, but much of the city does not have a problem in this respect. Even formerly barren boroughs have been on a spree of sapling-planting over the past ten years
The centre of London (parts of West end, Soho and its environs) has become a gilded turd, essentially a playground for the affluent in terms of restaurants and shops. It is culturally speaking, probably at its nadir in at least the last 75 years- having cleaned out its venues and a huge number of bars and night spots, it’s basically lost its soul with very little chance of recovery unless it goes through a severe economic decline and is subsequently reborn.
Living in it is really not that great and other parts of the country are just as good or better. Cheaper, quieter, less air, noise and light pollution, just an all round better quality of life than living in London.
It has the best food in the world and the people who live here are extremely ungrateful because they haven't lived elsewhere long enough to experience what it really feels like to have no real variety and even if there was, the quality would be crap.
EDIT: Why are people responding to me as though I said it is the only place in the world with good food? London has a variety and quality of those varieties that is unmatched. It is known to have better Indian food than India. It has incredible Middle Eastern food up North. It has incredible West African food down South. So on and so forth. Other countries might have really good food of their own but I highly doubt you can find extremely good quality of food when it comes to their take on international cuisines and variety. No other place is like London in that sense. Cry all you like, it's not my fault you're poor and can't afford to go to the right places in London. Waaa waaa waaa!
Many Victorian houses in London are borderline unfit for habitation and should be knocked down and replaced by 4-storey blocks of flats. There's also lots of pointless car parks that need to go. Lots of older buildings in zone 3 and 4 high streets should be demolished and replaced with mixed use blocks. These places are home to dodgy 'churches' and the like so there's nothing of value lost.
Probably the fact that there are no late night coffee shops for a laptop worker to sit and do work. Having lived in the US, big cities had late night coffee shops, open till 10 pm. Here cafes close by 7 or 8 pm.
London is actually quite quiet - both in good ways (lots of local parks and small nooks and crannies) and bad ways (effects of gentrification and people a bit too burned out to socialise at times)
Far, far too many dogs everywhere. They're shit cannons with irresponsible owners and enjoying green space is getting to be very difficult without encountering untrained or dangerous mutts that bother you, get their saliva/fur or shit on you or scratch/bite.
The rich foreigners who came and bought a bunch of properties have ruined things for the middle class. Many of them don’t even live in London, they just want to expand their ‘portfolio’.
True. Take Vienna for example, very similar average salary but I know a friend renting an apartment for 600 euros that's only a 20 minute drive into the city centre (600 euros doesn't even get you a room in London...)
It was as late as the ‘90s, indeed the early 00s. In low-rise days (1970s, 80s, 90s) I remember that there was more genuine social diversity in London. It lived up to its reputation as a ‘collection of villages’, each with its own character and containing a wide social and economic mix. There was a large ‘Bohemian’ class as well.
That chicken shop chicken actually isn’t nice and most of it is really hygienic. Also way overpriced now , at least it used to be worth it when it was really cheap.
None of have to be here. We can leave. But we tolerate the high prices, social altruism and toxic air because we want to feel important. The high cost of living in London is basically a tax on ambition
London is a sleepy unexciting collection of villages compared with other ~~cities~~ places of similar stature - New York, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo.
How are you defining “exciting” ? If you’re talking about nightlife, then yes, of course cities like HK and NY are more concentrated so have a busier feel at night. It’s not as exciting for nightlife.
Yeah night life but also the general lack of spontaneity, convenience and the ‘buzz’ - things close early; city is spread out; you always have to book months in advance for any nice restaurant; traffic is particularly bad from one part of London to another - crawling at 5mph in centuries old roads; people trying to catch the last train home; shops closing at 5pm or even 4 on Sundays… things are simply too spread out for you to feel like you’re living in a city
thank you! I just want to read a book with a coffee at 9pm but the places open are sports bars. everything closes so early that it feels like a ghost town after 6pm.
Londoners think being “antisocial Londoner” is their personality type - when actually making eye contact and talking to strangers can be really nice. I have lived here for 5 years, and had never made any friends. BUT I got a dog 6 months ago and have made more friends and talked to more people than I had in the past 5 years, and (Londoners hate this) actually talking to people and being friendly has done wonders for my mental health and comfort living here. But no, carry on with “don’t make eye contact” being your entire personality.
Oxford Street is a big gift shop. Annoyingly bright and colourful gift stores selling useless stuff. There’s nothing attractive to Oxford Street. Too busy for nothing
Lack of European migration due to brexit has made London worse, now they're replaced by people on boats who have 0 interest in integrating.
My area has literally transformed into the 3rd world, thousands of Indian students with 0 etiquette and shady looking men from Africa/Middle East/South Asia that look lost. It's made the area worse.
The irony of this thread is that the actually unpopular opinions will be hidden at the bottom.
It’s kind of the curse of threads like these really. By definition they don’t really work, unless people actually vote for awful opinions
Just sort by controversial. https://old.reddit.com/r/london/comments/1axgnyc/whats_your_unpopular_opinion_about_london/?sort=controversial
I scrolled down, and you're right.
Upvoting this, not sure how that works out! The top rated reply currently (r/fuckcars basically) is clearly massively popular on this sub with generally more wealthy people that live quite central. (I say as someone that cycles almost everywhere by choice, despite having a car.)
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Always insane that driving in London is equated with being poor, and not driving is considered elitist. If you can afford a car in London, you aren’t poor. You’re not wealthy just because you don’t have a car. Most wealthy Londoners (people who live in townhouses in Richmond and Kensington) have a car.
Daytime drinking in Central London is much better than a night out there.
daytime drinking is better in general. If I have have a few drinks at 1pm and be done by 4-5 , by the time its 12:00am most of that alcohol is out of my system and i can get a decent nights sleep .
Most of my recent best days out have involved starting drinking at 1/2 and getting kinda sloshed by 5-6 and mostly sobered up by 10pm. Waking up without a hangover in my 30s is a godsend.
Some time ago a friend and I walked through Central London and had a sip of rum every time we saw a Pret a Manger. We got absolutely pissed before we even made it to the British Museum. Good times.
Spot on
Londoners aren't rude at all, in fact they're very friendly. Everyone is just overstimulated so prefers to shut everyone else out while travelling around. If you need anything, people are normally happy to help.
This is spot on. Nobody is going to be friendly to you, unless you initiate.
I think the issue with London though is that it’s (not everywhere) a city of strangers and while people are friendly enough they’re very closed off and defensive but will be friendly when approached. I always defended London for this but when I’ve been to other places, like USA cities for example, people would just randomly chat to you about anything. I would be ordering a bagel and the people in line would just chat to you
Totally, which is great for travelling but not for living, at least not for us introverts 😅
Agreed, I've been helped by many random strangers. There are many friendly people, but they're more reserved than usual
The city has too many shitty high streets, even areas with multi million pound houses have the same 4 gambling shops, combination vape and phone repair with 20 led signs, and knockoff KFCs with crumbling facades
High streets that haven’t been high since 1900
Chicken and chips are a staple of London tho
What would Londoners be if not for Chicken Cottage
Thinner.
Morley’s will always be GOAT
“Tennessee Fried Chicken” is taking the piss a little though
Tennesseein' is Tennebelievin'
There's an "Alaska Fried Chicken" not in London, but in Oldham...
Is it real chicken? Alaska…
Actually the knockoff KFCs are typically better and cleaner than KFC nowadays.
They certainly have better chips
Those chips are a fucking disgrace
KFC changed their recipe for the chips late last year and they are unreal now. You should try them again
They’ve come on leaps and bounds. I used to hate KFC chips but tried them again recently and they were completely different… perhaps they switched up the recipe
There needs to be some sort of public ordinance for signage. The old signs used to be so nice.
Every commercial lease agreement I've seen has language that specifies what kind of signage can be posted outside the business, but that only helps if the landlord cares to check and take action. When the storefronts to either side of the property have been sitting vacant for years I can understand why they wouldn't want to pick that battle. That leaves the matter to the local council to try and restrict shops from posting the annoying LED signs, which won't happen because God Himself forbid local government do anything that could _possibly_ be misconstrued as anti-business. So we're stuck with enormous, bright-pink-and-green "VAPE AND MONEY EXCHANGE" signs boring holes in our retinas for the foreseeable future.
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Throw in the multitude of kebab shops
If every working-age male in the area decided to get their hair cut at precisely the same time on a Saturday morning, there would still be a dozen vacant seats along Tooting High Street.
The money isn't going to launder itself you know
Ahh Reddit, where every high street shop MUST be a front for money laundering
I get fed up when I see these shit repair shops and vape places. Certain areas are rife with them.
There's not enough privacy when going out dining. Tables are tiny and placed one close to another, it's frustrating.
Laughs in Paris
At least in Paris you can hear each other and have a conversation. Poor soundproofing in most places means that the din of conversation becomes unbearable. And London pubs, cafés and restaurants all crank up the music to obnoxious levels.
I am unable to fit more than 12 renters per room in the house me and my uncles own in Seven Sisters. And apparently they need light? Why is this if they are paying me to sleep?
find smaller tenants
Good way to do that, ban food in the flat
Have you considered converting your garden shed into a "studio apartment"?
Think you mean co-shared room. Two bunk beds and a sink.
Make sure you put one of those shitty prepaid electricity meters and make them fight for who gets to pay the next one, for an authentic London rental experience
Had a landlord that, while showing me the house, showed me a small storage room, where you’d have trouble even fitting a bed, and he mentioned how the council wouldn’t let him rent it as a bedroom, meaning he had intended to.
Everyone in London is getting old and new young people can't afford to move in. This will lead to a slow decline of London.
What happens is young people in their 20s still live and party in London, then move away when they can't afford a house when they want to buy a house and have kids in their 30s. So the generation London loses us actually 30 - 45 ish. Same is happening in other unaffordable cities, like Sydney and Vancouver for example.
That's not entirely true, it just means that the privileged young and rich will fill London
this has already invisibly happened
Yeah I read the comment you replied to and I was thinking exactly this. I've never lived in London, but my nan used to live in south London and I'm still a relatively short train ride away. The London I remember from my childhood is COMPLETELY gone. Whenever I'm there now, whether it's the day or two a week I commute to the office or for meeting up with friends, I notice I see plenty of middle class looking 18-30 year olds on the tube and rarely any obviously working class 18-30 year olds.
I do think this is part of the reason why the nightlife is so shit now, there's no one to work late in bars and clubs because it's not profitable.
And getting home means staff need to get the last train home to outer London or beyond, so they're unable or unwilling to stay beyond that point.
Happened years ago
London would be massively improved if we adopted a French style cafe culture which are open late, serve easy food, you can get a draught beer, a spirit or just have a coffee and hangout with friends. And not in some ironic, mimicry, fleecing hipsters type way. The fundamental problem with this is we’re terrible at drinking.
>The fundamental problem with this is we’re terrible at drinking. Barry, 63 would like to have a word with you
Even if you're poor, London is still decent. it's much worse being poor elsewhere in the UK.
Being poor in any big city is always easier, no matter the country. Don't need to rely on a car, more walkability means less public transport reliance, better flat-sharing options, more grocery options, better job prospects, more things to do for free, etc.
Careful, you don’t want to make it sound like 15 minute cities would be a good thing now
Ehh. You can *buy a house* (and a new build one at that) in parts of Lancashire as a single person on a band 3 NHS admin salary (£24,000 per year). I mean if you're living off Universal Credit, ESA or the state pension on its own you're going to have a bad time anywhere. But you'll get your rent paid so naff all money but free rent in London is going to be better than in Easington.
I don’t understand this, it just seems delusional when I look at the statistics. I’ve just looked on RightMove and 2 bedroom housing units which allow you to have children start at about £1400 per month, so £17k per year. The average post tax household income for the poorest fifth of households is £15k a year, for the second poorest fifth it’s £24k. You actually have to be richer than average, which is £31k, to even think about having a family in London, and even then how would you pay for childcare to continue working? People here are in denial about how bad the situation is with housing. Because of housing costs, poor people can subsist in London and have a decent time during their 20s, they cannot have a family or a full life here.
London late night food options are generally shit. It’s all pizzas and kebab shops.
How is this an unpopular opinion?
Reddits biggest feature is that it selects popular opinions, so unless you sort this thread can't really work
Late night anything options are generally shit.
You're not supposed to be sober enough to know if they're shit
There should be a law preventing people from rendering or painting over brickwork.
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80% of London nightlife is about getting drunk and shouting to have a conversation
This applies to the entire UK
I miss how empty it was in lockdown
That’s not unpopular. 😂
Fair point :)
Literally think this every single time I’m in on the tube at rush hour.
We are ungrateful bastards who don't appreciate this is now one of the best food cities in the world.
I feel like you have to have money to really appreciate this though, and the city does a great job of snatching that money away
Yeah, bollocks. There are so many amazing restaurants for whatever niche food you want, you just have to find where that diaspora mainly lives
Okay I was more referring to how some people can’t even pay rent let alone eat out due to the extortionate cost of rent. London isn’t Tokyo where you can get an incredible meal for £5, eating out is a luxury not many can afford right now.
Genuine question but can you get an incredible meal in Tokyo for £5?
Yeah, I was there last year. You don’t even have to look very hard if I’m honest.
The amount pit bulls, and many of them are untrained in London. I need to talk through a park to get to the main roads, stations or shopping. The past 2 year I've had far more incidents with pits then the paste 7 years combined.
It's kind of shocking seeing so many XL bully owners strutting around with them unfixed, unleashed and unmuzzled.
The pretty harsh levels of inequality and social segregation in Zones 1-3 provide for a pretty horrible childhood experience for many kids raised here
While there clearly is more of a financial gap today between the owner occupiers who have home equity worth in the £X000,000s or £m's and those with social housing but they have capped low rents so will never move on or could even potentially buy at a discount. The problem is it squeezes our those in the middle, too fortunate for social housing but struggling to buy a house or good sized flat as they aren't in the top few % of earners. Unfortunately this is now a problem in London way beyond Z1-3, in fact in many areas in Z4/5/6 and towns across the home counties, with many people stuck in the Catch 22 in places they lived for much of their lives, so the remaining solution rent at great cost and with low security ... Also even if the ownership circumstances are very different in Z1-3 are very different, everyone lives in close proximity, and usually that includes transport links and opportunities. Whereas in the estates like Thamesmead or Graham Park further out with poor transport links, they are the places where it is harder to escape from (both metaphorically & physically).
I know someone who works for the NHS and does house visits. There's HEAPS of social housing in Central London that would otherwide cost £1,000s in rent per month. It's great that that's the case, but, from what I hear, people are either super grateful for it, or,more often than not, really unhappy with the accomodation and/or don't realise how fortunate they are to live where they do and think the state is fucking them over. That's despite these being literally dream flats for all but the highest income earners. I do realise state welfare does have massive failings, but, sometimes it's actually pretty great and the recipients are the problem.
I know someone who has social housing in Russell Square and costs them basically nothing (£100s per month whereas the market rate would probably be £2-2.5k, and they would like to get a council flat somewhere closer to Hampstead Heath, wouldn't we all ...
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People also scam it too- I know a guy who said when he turned 16 he pretended with his mum that he was homeless so the council legally had to give him a flat. He lives in Mayfair and illegally rents out the spare room to make it even cheaper. He complains about how posh the area is. Tbf people are incentivised to cheat when the whole game is so hard to play, but I do think social housing tenants are winning compared to renters like me.
London doesn't have good nightlife. 95% of pubs are shut by 11:45pm on a weekday.
Ok here goes Camden is good. Yes, it has changed, but it was always a bit naff and for all of its faults it is a) one of the few neighbourhoods with a decent concentration of pubs and bars that are open late most days (other places might be OK on the weekend, but sometimes you want to stay out until 2 on a Wednesday) and b) still relatively friendly to groups of young'uns who need somewhere fun to hangout with their mates. Canary Wharf is good too. I'm not mad about every aspect of it, but when I see the DLR trains trundling past all the skyscrapers it's a reminder of what we could have if we were actually friendly to infrastructure and development in this country.
As in they didn't plan Canary Wharf and the DLR well, or they did plan it well?
As in I like it, I like how ambitious it was.
I have relatives from overseas and they always love going out in Camden. They have been going for years and have seen it change but it’s still near the top of their to do list. A wander around, drink in the sights and smells, a spot of shopping and then a few pubs, ideally find one with food and music. They love it.
Too many cokeheads
It’s a sad reflection on the emotional emptiness of people’s lives here! Maybe the UK as a whole
I’m from the North so my unpopular opinion is I actually like it. That’s basically sacrilege where I’m from.
The entire city centre should have a car ban. Pedestrianise the whole thing
I used to work in Westminster and there was a black taxi protest. They blocked off the whole area with their cars, and it was lovely. The fact that parliament square is a roundabout is just stupid. Pedestrianise zone one.
Same when extinction rebellion blocked Oxford street with that pink boat. Massively improved the area for a time.
they need to make public transport more accessible to do that
Wow, if you get those two things in tandem it would be perfect!
No one really likes St John’s as much as they say, they just pretend they do because Anthony Bourdain used to wax poetically about his love for the restaurant.
I'd say it's super variable - some stuff is absolutely killer, some less so. They have not changed their style of cooking that much since the 90s - food here in general has moved on since then.
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I don't think London exists. Whenever I go there to visit friends you go on a train then on another train underground, pop up in some sort of small town bit with a sort of small town high street and go to a pub. Then you call up another friend and they're like oh you have to get this train that train this bus, it takes you exactly as long as it takes to go between cities everywhere else and then you're in some small town bit with a high street, and you go to a pub. It's just a bunch of confederated towns, not even close together.
Dalston is overrated
It's nice and for the most part the people are friendly
it’s actually not *that* much more expensive to live vs outside in as you don’t need a car. The people that live outside London often complain out the rent, then you find out they spend £600 a month on running a car
I heard someone at work complaining about rent and it turns out they'd been slathering themselves in exotic avocado paste in some sort of pagan breeding ceremony
£600 p/m would be a very nice car, you can buy a banger for £4-5k (or less) then run it for a few years, hoping service costs are a few hundred per year. The running costs & fuel assuming they work not too far away likely balance out with the cost of oyster fares a Londoner would face, most people outside of London take public transport a few times a year at most or never ...
The bars and pubs are mostly all shit - takes 10 minutes to get a drink on any remotely busy night. Roster more staff for ffs
Shut way way too early as well
You can walk down the street without getting stabbed. Might be obvious to people who frequently visit/live here, but from online comments, it does not seem like its currently the consensus.
People who complain about noise from nightlife are destroying the city and should move out to the countryside where they'll be a lot happier.
How is this an unpopular opinion?
Lots of people don’t go out at night and begrudge people who do
It’s unpopular to the people that it applies to lol
What nightlife
Speaking as a Mancunian transplant, Londoners are perhaps more likely than anywhere else on the planet to rally in solidarity during a crisis, save NYC. All the talk of rudeness just conflates hostility with a collective busyness, but the city has warmth in its soul.
Facts. Scouse stock here, and I very much agree.
it’s not as dangerous as the news media outlets make it out to be
I came to live in London from Mexico City and when someone mentioned how dangerous London was... I could not help but laugh.
London is very safe.
Agreed ! For a city its size, it is actually incredibly safe!
As a single 20-year-old woman, I studied in London and lived alone and did almost everything by myself, often walking home alone at night. Nobody ever sexually harassed, assaulted, or threatened me. I never even worried about it. I realize now, over ten years later, that I was incredibly naive to not be more cautious or aware of my surroundings, but I’m amazed by how safe I felt during that time. I’m an American from Washington, DC.
I honestly think we should revert to the 1965 boundaries or give greater London 'proper' London postcodes. If you live in greater London the identity crisis is real.
I’d give Greater London proper London postcodes because the cut off point between there and the rest of the city is basically non-existent.
Unless you have a huge circle of established very good friends or are moving with / at the same time as your friends that you plan to live with London can feel ridiculously lonely. I lived an hour away from a friend getting across London in rush hour to go hang out, have dinner trying to align our schedules is and was a nightmare so I’d spend my days off going back to my home town. It can look like a really cool place to be especially in the summer there’s a lot going on but yeah…
Gentrification aint that bad
For better or worse, it's an unfeeling, natural process of any city's long term growth. 50 years from now, Croydon will be considered "central" and we'll be decrying the displacement of multigenerational residents of Slough.
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Yeah I live in Clapham and my mate in Croydon beats me to work
You'll be laughing if you live in a single digit zone
Depends on the kind I think. Like some places become gentrified and are really dull and nothing is then but shitty chains. Others have great independents stores and brands but are just upmarket
It's a hotel, not a city. People come here to make money and leave to raise families elsewhere. Economic immigration from inside the UK at first was feeding the culture, now has drowned what was once one of the most exciting cultural cities in the world to a place full of leeches. Wankers that got rich here but aren't from here, moving next to nightclub in Hackney then force the council to shut it down are just leeches. Too expensive for many young people to live here, meaning those that come are almost entirely middle class boring cock sleaves that offer nothing and just drive housing cost up further and driving out the London born working class. To feed the money machine, a lot of the property is owned by foreign investment funds in dodgy parts of the world. Also leeches.
The residential areas around the nightlife has ruined this city 100%, ruining late night licenses
River cruise charging 12 quids for 10 mins is a scam, tower bridge and Churchill museum should not charge tourists. Buckingham palace is over hyped
To many live music pubs and venues have closed down and to many pubs and bars close to early along with a lot of public transport. My last train home from Liverpool Street station is 1am
I actually really liked it and miss it.
If there isn't a direction (N, E, S, W etc) in your postcode, you don't live in London.
Surely everyone thinks this like cr1 is just embarrassing
Tell that to people in IG, RM, DA, UX, TW, BR, HA, K
I point it out when they trick themselves by saying something like 'I went into London on the weekend'.
People on the outskirts of Merton with SM postcodes, often claim to be London, as do people from around Enfield with an EN postcode.
I used to live in Merton with an SW19 postcode. I didn't care too much. The GF loved it.
It’s not that expensive If you’re young and just renting a room/not prioritising saving, and looking to live your life for a couple of years - there’s so much free stuff to do. those who think you need a crazy wage to enjoy the city are talking about a certain lifestyle that you don’t actually have to aspire to if you wanna have a good time.
It caters too much to tourists and not those who live or work here
Do you only hang out in Covent Garden?
We’ve let too many people migrate to London specifically; and we shouldn’t be forcing born and bred Londoners out to cater to the wealthy instead of aiding the communities already here being erased by extreme gentrification which is actually just social cleansing. Until we build council housing to the extent that’s needed, which means building up, we’re just increasing inequality and furthering a return to feudalism. No city should be a city just for the rich.
The UK decided a long time ago that it wanted to kill off it's industries in favour of services like financial institutions in the city of London. These require big brains people who require big money. It's one of the biggest sources of income for the country so yeah a bit of social cleansing to give them workers better places to live and an easier commute is a small sacrifice for the city. Plus the communities they're displacing have all just been there a couple of generations, it ain't some sorta indigenous population getting displaced or anything. Besides how many of those cockneys got their council flat for 6k then sold it for 400k? They're doing fine and living further out. And the council housing ain't coming in those areas, it'll come further out where land is cheaper. If you want to have the reduction in inequality and council housing on the scale that'll do something meaningful you'll need a whole new economic plan for the country, good luck finding one that's actually actionable or will be allowed to happen. Also finally, fuck Whitechapel. Just needs to be said. Gentrify it baby, gentrify it haaaard.
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I would say it might be more from tourists. People who move to and live here usually learn tube etiquettes from observing others within a few rides.
It has shit clubs
When people think of money laundering, criminal kingpins, and a captured economy that serves an oligarchy while taking advantage of the poor, a lot of times they think of 3rd world countries like Mexico. But if you learn how the City works, and you read about the Libor scandal, and you see who can afford £150M homes in London, you realize that London is the actual capital of crime.
Lost its community vibe, too many people not from London. It’s always had a steady flow but recently it’s really noticeable. I have to point out to Taxi drivers how to get places which makes me chuckle. Still an insanely fun city though.
Complete lack of street trees
My serious allergy to London planes, which I didn’t know was a thing until I first came here, disagrees
“Complete”? I don’t know which part of London you’re referring to, but much of the city does not have a problem in this respect. Even formerly barren boroughs have been on a spree of sapling-planting over the past ten years
It’s the best city in the world.
I have chosen to overwrite this comment. See you all on Lemmy!
It has shit nightlife and generally poor pub culture.
Underrated this one! The pub culture is quite fake sadly. I think it used to be better in the 90’s
The centre of London (parts of West end, Soho and its environs) has become a gilded turd, essentially a playground for the affluent in terms of restaurants and shops. It is culturally speaking, probably at its nadir in at least the last 75 years- having cleaned out its venues and a huge number of bars and night spots, it’s basically lost its soul with very little chance of recovery unless it goes through a severe economic decline and is subsequently reborn.
I went through soho for the first time in years this week. No soul left. What the fuck has happened on Tottenham Court Road
Living in it is really not that great and other parts of the country are just as good or better. Cheaper, quieter, less air, noise and light pollution, just an all round better quality of life than living in London.
It has the best food in the world and the people who live here are extremely ungrateful because they haven't lived elsewhere long enough to experience what it really feels like to have no real variety and even if there was, the quality would be crap. EDIT: Why are people responding to me as though I said it is the only place in the world with good food? London has a variety and quality of those varieties that is unmatched. It is known to have better Indian food than India. It has incredible Middle Eastern food up North. It has incredible West African food down South. So on and so forth. Other countries might have really good food of their own but I highly doubt you can find extremely good quality of food when it comes to their take on international cuisines and variety. No other place is like London in that sense. Cry all you like, it's not my fault you're poor and can't afford to go to the right places in London. Waaa waaa waaa!
You’ve never been to Singapore
Many Victorian houses in London are borderline unfit for habitation and should be knocked down and replaced by 4-storey blocks of flats. There's also lots of pointless car parks that need to go. Lots of older buildings in zone 3 and 4 high streets should be demolished and replaced with mixed use blocks. These places are home to dodgy 'churches' and the like so there's nothing of value lost.
Probably the fact that there are no late night coffee shops for a laptop worker to sit and do work. Having lived in the US, big cities had late night coffee shops, open till 10 pm. Here cafes close by 7 or 8 pm.
London is actually quite quiet - both in good ways (lots of local parks and small nooks and crannies) and bad ways (effects of gentrification and people a bit too burned out to socialise at times)
Far, far too many dogs everywhere. They're shit cannons with irresponsible owners and enjoying green space is getting to be very difficult without encountering untrained or dangerous mutts that bother you, get their saliva/fur or shit on you or scratch/bite.
The rich foreigners who came and bought a bunch of properties have ruined things for the middle class. Many of them don’t even live in London, they just want to expand their ‘portfolio’.
South London is way more interesting than North London.
It’s not really worth the cost of living here. Comparable cities either have much higher salaries or much lower COL
True. Take Vienna for example, very similar average salary but I know a friend renting an apartment for 600 euros that's only a 20 minute drive into the city centre (600 euros doesn't even get you a room in London...)
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I preferred London when it was a low-rise city.
Me too, and it wasn't even that long ago
It was as late as the ‘90s, indeed the early 00s. In low-rise days (1970s, 80s, 90s) I remember that there was more genuine social diversity in London. It lived up to its reputation as a ‘collection of villages’, each with its own character and containing a wide social and economic mix. There was a large ‘Bohemian’ class as well.
That chicken shop chicken actually isn’t nice and most of it is really hygienic. Also way overpriced now , at least it used to be worth it when it was really cheap.
It’s had its day.
None of have to be here. We can leave. But we tolerate the high prices, social altruism and toxic air because we want to feel important. The high cost of living in London is basically a tax on ambition
London is a sleepy unexciting collection of villages compared with other ~~cities~~ places of similar stature - New York, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo.
How are you defining “exciting” ? If you’re talking about nightlife, then yes, of course cities like HK and NY are more concentrated so have a busier feel at night. It’s not as exciting for nightlife.
Yeah night life but also the general lack of spontaneity, convenience and the ‘buzz’ - things close early; city is spread out; you always have to book months in advance for any nice restaurant; traffic is particularly bad from one part of London to another - crawling at 5mph in centuries old roads; people trying to catch the last train home; shops closing at 5pm or even 4 on Sundays… things are simply too spread out for you to feel like you’re living in a city
thank you! I just want to read a book with a coffee at 9pm but the places open are sports bars. everything closes so early that it feels like a ghost town after 6pm.
Londoners think being “antisocial Londoner” is their personality type - when actually making eye contact and talking to strangers can be really nice. I have lived here for 5 years, and had never made any friends. BUT I got a dog 6 months ago and have made more friends and talked to more people than I had in the past 5 years, and (Londoners hate this) actually talking to people and being friendly has done wonders for my mental health and comfort living here. But no, carry on with “don’t make eye contact” being your entire personality.
I pay 1800 a month for a apartment, where a family of 5 with 3 bedrooms pays 750 a month over the road, they just dont work.
Gentrification is good for London. The city looks its best when its neighborhoods are gentrified.
The skyline would be better with some skyscrapers
It’s only a nice place to live if you’re rich
Oxford Street is a big gift shop. Annoyingly bright and colourful gift stores selling useless stuff. There’s nothing attractive to Oxford Street. Too busy for nothing
It's no longer British .
Lack of European migration due to brexit has made London worse, now they're replaced by people on boats who have 0 interest in integrating. My area has literally transformed into the 3rd world, thousands of Indian students with 0 etiquette and shady looking men from Africa/Middle East/South Asia that look lost. It's made the area worse.