London = Awesome / Rest of UK = Rubbish... Discuss...

[XJ Flyer]

theboss said:

This notion of 'wannabe' Londoners is bizarre. Most people outside the area regard anything within the M25 as 'London' and so if I were describing a location in the surrounding counties to somebody outside the area I would be inclined to call it London. For example if I were staying in Harrow I would tell somebody it was "in North West London", or Croydon I would say South London, etc. Yes incorrect in terms of actual boundaries but in this sense London is being described as a region rather than city 'proper'.

If I were talking to somebody more familiar with the London area I'd be more specific.

It's no different to somebody from Jersey City telling a Brit they are from NYC - incorrect but far more helpful to anyone who isn't that familiar with US geography...

The issue isn't one of Croydon and Harrow not being in London the fact is they are in London since at least the mid 1960's.

However the idea of regarding the M25 as now forming any type of border is something else and one of the issues.In this case it's more a case of London's administration and developers wanting to push the idea of that meaning something in the public's view.As part of an agenda related to present and future development policies and target market for it,as being applied by the government outside London's borders.Just as they've done previously in the case of the previous steps of expansion.Which is why as has been referred to previously we've got places like Epsom and the Green belt areas surrounding it being regarded as urban development potential for the 'London' buyer market.

In which case the erroneous idea of the M25 being seen as in any way meaning anything becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.In which case my comments are directed more towards our local authorities to finally halt that situation.

[kingston12]

XJ Flyer said:

IE a liking for big City life in a place like 'London' is mutually exclusive to a liking for the rural/semi rural aspects,of what remains of,the character of the surrounding counties like Surrey etc.In which case your comparison won't look so good 'if' that erroneous inclusion is removed from the equation.Being that such areas,being seen as a convenient get out clause,for those 'claiming' to like City life,is as bad as them also being seen as a land resource for London's further expansion.

But aren't you forgetting about the unfashionable subset of people (like me!) who actually like living in the suburbs. I know you are not supposed to admit it, but a lot of people who live around Kingston actually seem quite happy with it.

For my part, I love spending time in central London during the week, mostly for work, but going to theatres, bars and restaurants as well.

I often spend time there on the weekends as well, but if I am honest I probably prefer mooching around Richmond Park, eating and drinking locally most weekends. Kingston is over-populated and the housing developments are ugly compared to, say, Dorking, but there wouldn't be the variety of things to do if there were not the amount of people to do them.

I appreciate that it is not for everyone, though.

Edited by kingston12 on Monday 14th July 10:38

[Hackney]

WreckedGecko said:

Well exactly.

I may be in the minority here but I love London. I live just outside Richmond and work in Putney. It's great.

So, do you get up to London much?

[fido]

Spent most of this weekend in Hyde Park, but I live in Zone 4 (around Wimbledon). It's just amazing that you can be shopping or chilling out in the burbs before lunchtime and then get on a train/tube and listen to Neil Young in the Park. It's awesome x 10 .. but I can understand why people outside London don't get it .. because they just don't have such an awesome experience every day/week of the year.
The central zones versus outer zones thing does depend on the transport links and bus routes. Some places outside Z1/2 feel a bit more local because they are a bit harder especially after the trains stop running.

[Mr_B]

Any city where you can smell the pissed stained streets from inside a car aint that great. South London is mostly a dump filled with overly aggressive idiots in chavy BMWs with an inability to drive, only mad worse by Addison Lee clue-less cabs.
There are many great attractions in London, but such is the sheer pain in the arse and nastiness of visiting and using public transport, I find it takes a long time to want to go again after one days visit.

[Bill]

fido said:

... Neil Young ... because they just don't have such an awesome experience every day/week of the year.

Er...

[Disastrous]

I've been thinking about this over the weekend and I think it's the amount of effort you need to go to, to go anywhere in London that puts me off.

Everything is a trek due to the size of it. Plus crowds of people. And every 'event' is hugely over-subscribed, leading to folk having to sit about in the road like in the picture posted earlier.

[fido]

Disastrous said:

I've been thinking about this over the weekend and I think it's the amount of effort you need to go to, to go anywhere in London that puts me off.

You're living in the wrong place or not using the best route in that case. Even on a busy Saturday afternoon it took my half an hour to get to central London, avoiding most of the mob. You could spend that time getting stuck in a traffic jam outside London. Of course it helps if you have The Knowledge of the buses tubes and train connections.

[rover 623gsi]

So it took you half an hour to drive 8 miles - on a good day. Awesome.

[okgo]

rover 623gsi said:

So it took you half an hour to drive 8 miles - on a good day. Awesome.

Its a city of 10 million people, what on earth do you expect?

[fido]

rover 623gsi said:

So it took you half an hour to drive 8 miles - on a good day. Awesome.

Didn't drive, that would have taken twice as long. 2 stops on the train and about 5 stops on the tube. Sorted. As a rule, I only drive to London in the evening - to do otherwise is madness - especially if you have already spent £160 on a travelcard for the month.

[kingston12]

rover 623gsi said:

So it took you half an hour to drive 8 miles - on a good day. Awesome.

There is no doubt that driving is a massive problem in London, and that will be a deal-breaker for some. The difference that I find is the public transport is used by all walks of life in London(because pretty much everyone has to) rather than the more limited cross-section who might use it outside London.

Even living in the suburbs, I only keep a car because I enjoy driving ocassionally outside of London. The car does not get used on a daily basis as it would be more hassle than anything else.

Apart from over-crowding, the only real problem with London's public transport system is that it is always based on getting people in/out of the centre.

Not a problem for me, as I spend most of my time in the centre ar in my bit of the suburbs, but it would be a problem for someone living in outer SW London if they got a job in the outer SE. They would either have to go into the centre and back out, or drive for hours each day.

[rover 623gsi]

is very much what I would expect - and it is one of the reasons why I decided to move away.

[XJ Flyer]

kingston12 said:

XJ Flyer said:

IE a liking for big City life in a place like 'London' is mutually exclusive to a liking for the rural/semi rural aspects,of what remains of,the character of the surrounding counties like Surrey etc.In which case your comparison won't look so good 'if' that erroneous inclusion is removed from the equation.Being that such areas,being seen as a convenient get out clause,for those 'claiming' to like City life,is as bad as them also being seen as a land resource for London's further expansion.

But aren't you forgetting about the unfashionable subset of people (like me!) who actually like living in the suburbs. I know you are not supposed to admit it, but a lot of people who live around Kingston actually seem quite happy with it.

For my part, I love spending time in central London during the week, mostly for work, but going to theatres, bars and restaurants as well.

I often spend time there on the weekends as well, but if I am honest I probably prefer mooching around Richmond Park, eating and drinking locally most weekends. Kingston is over-populated and the housing developments are ugly compared to, say, Dorking, but there wouldn't be the variety of things to do if there were not the amount of people to do them.

I appreciate that it is not for everyone, though.

Edited by kingston12 on Monday 14th July 10:38

My point is that it's the 'demands' of those with that view which are the problem.Assuming our local authorities had done historically,what I'm calling on them to finally do now,your ideas would obviously have to stop within the old LCC boroughs because there just wouldn't be enough housing capacity to house both Surrey's residents and London's.In either case you'd need to like living in massive Chinese type high rise developments.Which is the logical conclusion of city living being that population growth of cities always outruns housing space in the long term.

My argument is simply that of saying those who want to live in London should live there 'if' that's what they really want.But in general it's too often a case of them 'saying' that they like and want to live in a city 'in London' and then calling on Surrey to build them the housing on our fields and gardens etc etc,in the form of high density housing and flats and/or green field housing estate development,to do it.

Which is more or less the exact stand off which exists now.Between the pro development further London expansionist lot.As opposed to those of us who want our local authorities in Surrey to finally call a halt in the form of much tighter and stronger development rules, concerning garden grabbing,flats being put on sites where pubs and houses were and guarantees which would stop the continuing calls to build on the green belt etc etc and the land speculation turning countryside into potential development land which results from it.

So yes if you really like London live there but get used to the realities of the over priced high rise living that inner city living means.Assuming that is our local authorities finally wake up and say enough.Surrey is no longer prepared to keep sacrificing the character and borders of the county to house those who who'd like to think they like London.

Although,as has historically been the case,it's obvious where the main political Parties,which make up the government,stand on that issue.All based on the lie that it's 'good for the economy' to keep using the surrounding counties to house London's unsustainable population growth.

Edited by XJ Flyer on Monday 14th July 12:33

Edited by XJ Flyer on Monday 14th July 12:36

[MarshPhantom]

okgo said:

rover 623gsi said:

So it took you half an hour to drive 8 miles - on a good day. Awesome.

Its a city of 10 million people, what on earth do you expect?

Exactly.

[Amateurish]

"The capital is forecast to receive a record 18.7 million visits - equivalent to more than the entire population of Holland - putting it ahead of nearest rivals Bangkok, Paris and Singapore."

Compare this with

"In 2013, Paris once again saw an increase in tourist figures with 29.3 million tourists for Paris and 46.8 million for Greater Paris." according to the French.

[rover 623gsi]

fido said:

Didn't drive, that would have taken twice as long. 2 stops on the train and about 5 stops on the tube. Sorted. As a rule, I only drive to London in the evening - to do otherwise is madness - especially if you have already spent £160 on a travelcard for the month.

fair enough - public transport in London is pretty good. Nonetheless, I think the point stands that it takes a relatively long time to get anywhere, compared to most other parts of the country. Whenever I visit friends and family in London by far the worst part of my 140mile journey is getting out of the capital. It’s about 10% of the distance and 50% of the time.

[kingston12]

XJ Flyer said:

kingston12 said:

XJ Flyer said:

IE a liking for big City life in a place like 'London' is mutually exclusive to a liking for the rural/semi rural aspects,of what remains of,the character of the surrounding counties like Surrey etc.In which case your comparison won't look so good 'if' that erroneous inclusion is removed from the equation.Being that such areas,being seen as a convenient get out clause,for those 'claiming' to like City life,is as bad as them also being seen as a land resource for London's further expansion.

But aren't you forgetting about the unfashionable subset of people (like me!) who actually like living in the suburbs. I know you are not supposed to admit it, but a lot of people who live around Kingston actually seem quite happy with it.

For my part, I love spending time in central London during the week, mostly for work, but going to theatres, bars and restaurants as well.

I often spend time there on the weekends as well, but if I am honest I probably prefer mooching around Richmond Park, eating and drinking locally most weekends. Kingston is over-populated and the housing developments are ugly compared to, say, Dorking, but there wouldn't be the variety of things to do if there were not the amount of people to do them.

I appreciate that it is not for everyone, though.

Edited by kingston12 on Monday 14th July 10:38

My point is that it's the 'demands' of those with that view which are the problem.Assuming our local authorities had done historically,what I'm calling on them to finally do now,your ideas would obviously have to stop within the old LCC boroughs because there just wouldn't be enough housing capacity to house both Surrey's residents and London's.Unless you like living in massive Chinese type high rise development

My argument is simply that of saying those who want to live in London should live there 'if' that's what they really want.But in general it's too often a case of them 'saying' that they like and want to live 'in London' and then calling on Surrey to build them the housing on our fields and gardens etc etc in the form of high density housing and flats and/or green field housing estate development,to do it.

Which is more or less the exact stand off which exists now.Between the pro development further London expansionist lot.As opposed to those of us who want our local authorities in Surrey to finally call a halt in the form of much tighter and stronger development rules concerning garden grabbing,flats being put on sites where pubs and houses were and guarantees which would stop the continuing calls to build on the green belt etc etc and the land speculation turning countryside into potential development land.So yes if you really like London live there but get used to the realities of the over priced high rise living that inner city living means.Assuming that is our local authorities finally wake up and say enough.Surrey is no longer prepared to keep sacrificing the character and borders of the county to house those who who'd like to think they like London.

Although,as has historically been the case,it's obvious where the main political Parties,which make up the government,stand on that issue.All based on the lie that it's 'good for the economy' to keep using the surrounding counties to house London's unsustainable population growth.

I see where you are coming from, but I think it is much more about general over population than just about people liking London living or not. I am sure that a lot of people would like to go to somewhere like Guildford and live in a £2m house on an acre of garden, but few will be able to afford it. More will be able to afford to live there if it was knocked down and 4 terraced houses built in it's place, and more still if a block of 20 flats.

I don't think it is anything to do with wanting to live a 'London' lifestyle so far out of London, but it is the best that a lot of people can afford.

I definitely don't think that is right, and we should definitely be preserving the character of this type of area, but successive governments have favoured high immigration and benefits policies that encourage British people to have as many children as possible, so clearly they are going to do anything they can to get more people housed.

This government's dream economy seems to be one where we survive on selling over-priced houses to one another and they seem to have run out of ideas for anything else. A lot of people, both inside and outside London will share your view, but the government will be dead against it unfortunately.

[MarshPhantom]

Amateurish said:

"The capital is forecast to receive a record 18.7 million visits - equivalent to more than the entire population of Holland - putting it ahead of nearest rivals Bangkok, Paris and Singapore."

Compare this with

"In 2013, Paris once again saw an increase in tourist figures with 29.3 million tourists for Paris and 46.8 million for Greater Paris." according to the French.

Paris is a short drive away for many millions of Europeans. 15 Million go to EuroDisney every year. A quick Google shows France (80 million per year) gets loads more tourists than the UK (30 million), yet 70% of UK visitors go to London while a third of visitors to France go to Paris.

London wins over UK and Paris.

Edited by MarshPhantom on Monday 14th July 13:51

[Bill]

MarshPhantom said:

Paris is a short drive away for many millions of Europeans. 15 Million go to EuroDisney every year. A quick Google shows France (80 million per year) gets loads more tourists than the UK (30 million), yet 70% of UK visitors go to London while a third of visitors to France go to Paris.

London wins over UK and Paris.

And the rest of France wins over London. We need a better measure