> London has pretty much a bit of everything. And even next door boroughs can be polar opposites.
People say this in defence of the city. But I was an occasional visitor (usually seeing Uni mates). My experience as someone that occasionally used to visit to see friends was usually awful and expensive.
Just getting in an out of the city is generally difficult on public transport. It is like a 3 hour train ride and then another hour or two on the underground. Driving used to be OK (I've done it twice), but I've heard it has got worse.
I've been in London quite a bit during my 20s and 30s. I hate the place and I never went back after 2018.
- It is really expensive. This is coming from someone that grew up in Dorset (which is known for being expensive).
- People are constantly rude and aggressive. Usually there is like no reason for it.
- I had to pay a fine on the underground even though I had the London Travel for car for it (forgot what it was called now). I was treated as a criminal and forced to pay a fine on the spot. It was total BS.
- I got fined for getting lost and driving down the wrong street. I was less than 1 minute on that road before I realised my mistake and got a £80 fine. Also total BS.
- I had a man scream in my face because I went in the wrong lane at a junction.
- Had some guy rapping his Grime single presumably to sell CDs / iTunes album. I thought I was in a skit. Everyone was just waiting for the dude to shut up. Everyone had that look on their face of "not this shit again", as if it happens often.
- I had a man try to mug me in a Train station (Euston).
After that last incident decided, I am not ever going back to London.
> I don't think anyone can go London and think it is all bad unless you just don't like urban places.
London is awful. I used live in Dorset/Hampshire, every weekend there is literally an exodus from London to Hampshire and Dorset. Half the people I work with that go to London for work, hate it. So, it isn't just me.
I've lived in Southampton, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield (I used to travel a lot for work as a contractor / consultant) and while I wouldn't live in those places now, I don't hate them.
Yet another student block is going up in my expensive and popular London area. I'd much rather we had flats for people to live in less transiently, but money talks.
When the bubble bursts (and it will, probably due to immigration politics) we will have a load of empty, badly-built SROs unfit for normal habitation.
> They're building yet another student block in my expensive and popular London area. I'd much rather they build flats for people to live in less transiently, but they can make a lot more money from short term letting to foreign students.
That’s a better option than people buying flats in residential buildings and letting them out to students, which is what’s happening around White City with the new Imperial campus.
