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London is HORRIBLE nowadays! My rant...

bi0boy said:
If London has fucked everywhere it's not more shit than everywhere else, therefore it's not a hole in comparison. Or maybe the entire UK is a shit hole, in which case why are people leaving in droves?
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So your argument comes down not to how shit it is globally, or historically, but to "it's still better than the other places it's ruined". Nice work. You could be mayor.
 
The fact a lot of you laugh at Kensington & Chelsea, or don't even dare to step foot in that borough, means you agree with me.
 
mauvais said:
So your argument comes down not to how shit it is globally, or historically, but to "it's still better than the other places it's ruined". Nice work. You could be mayor.
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No, the contention is "London is a shit-hole". I argue that an overwhelming majority of people living there don't regard it as such. Nor in fact do an overwhelming majority of other people. I think this suggests that it might be unreasonable to regard London as a shit-hole.
 
(My mate's girlfriend owns a flat in in S Ken, she's owned it since about 2000 though so she's only a little wealthy)
 
bi0boy said:
No, the contention is "London is a shit-hole". I argue that an overwhelming majority of people living there don't regard it as such. Nor in fact do an overwhelming majority of other people. I think this suggests that it might be unreasonable to regard London as a shit-hole.
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Indeed. It's not a shit hole. There's shitty parts, for sure, but that's the same for every city in every country. London also has some fucking amazing things that are as good as - if not better than - anywhere else in the world. Things like museums, parks, public transport, music etc etc.
 
Pickled Egg said:
I hate to say it, but... London has become such a shit-hole.

As soon as I came back from Tokyo in March after not being there for almost 10 years, I realised London hadn't really advanced as a city as much as Tokyo had in any way shape or form. It's as if London's been stuck on pause. London has become a stale and stagnant city. And then we find out all the tax evasion bullshit by Cameron. People who are there to create a "better London" are making sure they don't have to pay tax. Hah. Who's interests are they really serving? Isn't it a shame university graduates can't even live in central London anymore? Now you have to dish out £2million+ just to get a fucking matchbox piece of shit in Notting Hill. And who ends up affording that? The internationally rich. And how long are they here for? The holidays. Who loses out? London. Who runs off laughing with money in their pockets? The estate agents.

I'm tired of hearing "but they pump our economy when they're here" bullshit. OK they pump the economy for a few months a year - but then what? Businesses permanently bump up the prices because rent is increasing, and majority of Londoners are left out and forced to move further out. And it's keeps spreading and spreading, and it will continue to spread until the original Londoners who made London what it is are pushed out of the city completely. Why is London becoming so selfish? Why is the over-catering to the internationally rich being accepted? Surely some sort of tax should be implemented for long-term vacancies in homes owned.


Did you know that in 2002, the average price of a home in Knightsbridge was £745,000. Now it's £3.4 million. Who else other than the internationally rich can afford properties at such prices? As such, 20% of these homes are VACANT for the majority of the year. To add more insult to injury, most of these vacant properties were bought through a loop-hole system meaning the buyers avoid paying any tax. There is a 40% annual increase of vacant homes in Kensington & Chelsea. Living in that borough my whole life, I can see first-hand the transformation of this borough, and what a ghost-town shit hole this borough has become. It's literally become a dumping ground/garage for the internationally rich. Empty homes. Garages blocked up with nice but dusty cars. I've watched my favourite shops pack up and leave. Prices for properties are sky-high, rent is increasing more and more, and as a result, businesses are closing down and moving out.

Look at High Street Kensington, It looks like a shit hole nowadays yet new residential buildings are still being built (for example Across Kensington Gardens, also where ODEON cinema stands, also near Olympia). Who cares about the local businesses and the people, right? "We don't care about the future of London. As long as those rich people are willing to pay what we ask, we're going to keep knocking buildings down and building new ones, we're going to keep transforming your markets to high-streets" is what they think. I mean, TESCO's closed down the other week. Fucking TESCO's. They tried to knock down the legendary ODEON cinema for another block of high-end apartments - what the fuck is actually going on? Only after protest from the locals, did they decide to keep the cinema active, yet they are still combining it into a high-end residential block. The same exact thing was going to happen to Portobello market but the locals fought back.


I don't know... Sorry to sound so pessimistic, but this city really isn't what it used to be anymore.
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welcome back to London. Never been to Japan but isn't Tokyo one of the most poluted and expensive cities in the world? Is London as bad on general polution / expensiveness scales (excluding property prices)
 
London 2016 has jobs. Far more jobs than the rest of the country. People want jobs. People live here.

Yes London has changed I agree but it's job creating success is unquestionable.
 
Pickled Egg said:
Well obviously in 2002 it was still stupidly expensive - but look at the increase. Is this the road we really want to go down?
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The mass of us don't want to go down it, we're driven down it.

The whole situation has been an obvious one for at least the last 20 years. If you don't even increase housing supply in keeping with demand - and no government in the last 35 years has - then you get a bottleneck of demand over supply that inflates the cost of housing over and above the material value, hence the ridiculous situation where prices have doubled, trebled or quadrupled in some parts of London compared to prices at the turn of the century.

The effect that the super-rich have on the housing market in London is quite small, and confined to a handful of locations. The REAL issue lies with the transformation of housing into an investment opportunity for the comfortably-off, hence the ever-increasing number of properties owned by Buy to Let landlords or by non-national landlords in the "Far East"

As for Tokyo - no, they certainly do not have that problem. The city itself is immensely advanced, compared to when I visited 10 years ago. Coming back to London was incredibly depressing. I've never once come back home and felt my home city was much worse than where I was.

I love the belittling responses though.
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People are ribbing you because Londoners have been making some noise about this stuff all the time you've been away, and then you rock up and appear to be lecturing us about something we've lived. :)

In all, as said before, this city, UNFORTUNATELY MY HOME CITY, has become one of the worst in the world, let alone Europe. London has become the dumping ground for the globally rich.
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Nope. Anywhere with the right balance of financial conditions and property prices has.
 
friendofdorothy said:
welcome back to London. Never been to Japan but isn't Tokyo one of the most poluted and expensive cities in the world? Is London as bad on general polution / expensiveness scales (excluding property prices)
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People in Japan were literally shocked when I told them what I was paying for my flat in London last year (and I'm getting a relatively good deal too).

Eta: that was in Kyoto to be fair, which I preferred to Tokyo. Osaka was my favourite city mind.
 
I moved to London in 1989 , it didn't seem that expensive then , usually rented rooms in shared houses for £50-£60 a week.

I doubt that I would move here now as rents are insane. But I can afford to live here because we bought a flat 20 years ago.

I love living in London and count my blessings that I can afford to on an average income.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
People in Japan were literally shocked when I told them what I was paying for my flat in London last year (and I'm getting a relatively good deal too).

Eta: that was in Kyoto to be fair, which I preferred to Tokyo. Osaka was my favourite city mind.
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Also Japanese urban dwellers are possibly the only people who will remark as to how spacious your London flat is without being sarcastic.
 
Japan has a flat economy .....stagflation etc.

Lived in or around since 1979 , whilst commuting drags the spirit down , still an amazing city (and we should and are , no doubt. grateful that the London of 1982 or so - in deep physical and economic decline - has pulled around , smartened up and remains vibrant. Still lots of free and affordable things to do)

In my extended family group - no less than 4 of 8 nephews from Hereford and Bradford and Brum have moved to the city for all the things they want to see and experience + work. Maybe not so easy to start off as it was , but they seem to relish. Both my sons are up there tonight enjoying the city.
 
marty21 said:
I love living in London and count my blessings that I can afford to on an average income.
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Seconded. Just had a perfect day in London. Breakfast up by the Heath, then a stroll around and down to Camden Town which was packed. Wandered into Regent's Park and lay down in the Rose garden, reading for a couple of hours. Finally, cycled back to London Fields and went for a swim. Now back home watching Champion's League on t'internet. London is the best.
 
Also, with few notable exceptions, most British towns and cities are cookie cutter brand infested homogenised shitholes. Every high street is nearly identical, Greggs, Costa, Boots, Starbucks, HMV, Holland and Barrett, Weatherspoons, Pizza Express, Odeon, Mc Donalds, Nandos, River Island, Weatherspoons, Pennys, Weatherspoons, and All Bar One.
 
8den said:
Also, with few notable exceptions, most British towns and cities are cookie cutter brand infested homogenised shitholes. Every high street is nearly identical, Greggs, Costa, Boots, Starbucks, HMV, Holland and Barrett, Weatherspoons, Pizza Express, Odeon, Mc Donalds, Nandos, River Island, Weatherspoons, Pennys, Weatherspoons, and All Bar One.
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Most cities and towns have more to offer than a single street of familiar retail outlets.
 
davesgcr said:
Lived in or around since 1979 , whilst commuting drags the spirit down , still an amazing city (and we should and are , no doubt. grateful that the London of 1982 or so - in deep physical and economic decline - has pulled around , smartened up and remains vibrant. Still lots of free and affordable things to do
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We're going to The Globe in a few weeks for a Mid Summer Nights Dream and the tickets were a fiver. A fucking fiver for that experience? I've never been and I can't wait. I won't know what the fuck is going on mind, but that's not the point really for me.
 
I realised the other day that I'd stopped feeling attached to London at all. I used to be able to walk around anywhere, Mayfair, Holland Park, the City, and think "you may own these buildings but this is just as much my city as it is yours" but I don't feel that any more. When I hear about outrageous bullshit like the Heygate it makes me angry because it's outrageous bullshit that makes life miserable for people, but I don't feel anything special about it being in London.

All of the things that have happened, dying pubs and local businesses, rental prices and consequent constant movement, mass evictions and redevelopments, huge sudden changes in the nature of areas, they all contribute to alienation and division, and I guess they've worked. I'd leave London in a minute if it weren't for all the practical aspects. Nowadays it's just a city where I know how the public transport works.
 
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