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I've lived in and around London for over 15 years and jumped ship two years ago.
London, for me, is the best city to live and work in. If I'd move back to Europe it'd be Palma or Amsterdam as London is getting close to being unaffordable to live in if your household income is <£70k pa (wanting to buy somewhere).
Next step will be further out east, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam.
In England I've lived for 9 months in Bristol back in 2005 which I really enjoyed and also for a while just outside Brighton which isn't that much cheaper than London.
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I recently moved to Bristol after living in London for my entire life. Was slightly worried about how it would all go but has been smooth, apart from a few lonely moments in first couple of months.
Cost of living is nearly half that of the big smoke, people are just so more friendly, actually a community, and the cycling's great - what's not to love?
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Awesome that someone finally started this thread. London has always been a city where people come and go, but recentley the zeitgeist seem to have shifted to a lot more talk about going rather than coming.
This or this for example.These discussions can quickly get a bit English dinner party with housing prices being the main focus. But for me personally that is not the major concern, I've had awesome luck with my one bedroom in zone 1/2 so cost of living should be manageable in the short to medium term.
But the London I came to in the 1990s has slipped away from me by the time I finally have the time and resources to properly enjoy it.
From back in the day I remember casual barbecues in back gardens in Islington and Brixton, where I'd bump into regular folks like nurses, shop assistants, civil servants and waitresses who managed perfectly ordinary lives with a spouse and kids in zone two and three. Now those people seem to be mostly gone, these days I only meet people who have just arrived and are working their ass off, or banker types who live in a different stratosphere anyhow. -
Despite really loving London (and having lived here the whole of my adult life) I moved out three years ago & think it was a great decision. I still work in London so am one of the many commuters coming in by train - again, my job is very London focussed so it would be difficult (but not impossible) to fully break away.
I think commuting in offers quite a decent compromise as I get to live in a nice house that I own (well have a mortgage on), loads of nice local pubs & rarely have to stand in them, minutes away from quiet country lanes for cycling yet still have everything London has to offer on my doorstep.
The down sides are of course that the commuter towns can often be a bit grimey (though not really any worse than London) & I have to commute by train for the first 25 minutes of my journey (at a cost of £400pcm). So swings & roundabouts I guess.
In terms of places to move; I first moved out to Marlborough which is a really lovely/posh small town in Wiltshire. It was perfect in almost every way except it didn't have a train station so I had to drive to a nearby village then get a 2 hour train each way - that length of commute turned me into a zombie so we had to move.
Now I leave in Reading which generally has a reputation as being a complete sh!thole but actually isn't that bad and I think is quite fun to live in. It's the cultural & economic hub of Berkshire so there's lots going on. I know Reading, High Wycombe (previously lived here too) & Hemel (there quite often seeing friends) quite so would say that those three commuter towns are generally quite similar - often a bit grotty in the town center but become really nice 10/15mins out.
When I lived in Marlborough we visited Bath, Bristol & Swindon quite a bit. Don't go to Swindon. If you were fully moving West I'd pick Bath over Bristol every time - people often go on a fair bit about Bristol (probably due to some London-eque industries being based there now) but I've honestly never found it that great, it's ok though I suppose. Bath is substantially nicer & has most of the same stuff happening.
If I were moving elsewhere in the country I'd probably go for another city (the towns really are just a completely different lifestyle) - I've liked Manchester every time I've been there so that would probably be my first choice (and also probably the only other option for my job). I used to live a few different towns in the midlands so went to Birmingham/Wolves quite a lot, I most definitely would not move to either of them.
Other than that, I think I'd look at moving country (especially given the way things are going here).
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I've pondered this every so often. I'm from up North but lived in London for 15 years or so. I still enjoy what London has to offer and most of my mates are so I can't see myself moving anytime soon but I do look back up North and think about how much better off I could be.
I could sell my average two bed flat down here and buy a 4 bed house mortgage free. However, it seems a bit of an irreversible decision. Property prices aren't going up the same everywhere and it seems easily possible to get left behind the London market.
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About to find out - moving just south of Cambridge when the solicitors get their asses in gear...
I love London, and whilst I do agree with those upthread that the city is changing for the worse (shite government/ big business/ foreign money / steel 'n' glass etc) it still has an amazing amount to offer if - and it's a big if - you can afford to live here. I also feel it's a better place to be when you're younger; now I have young kids and a reasonably demanding job I don't regularly use the great pubs/ restaurants/ culture on my doorstep, let alone wider London... We have swapped a 2/3 bedroom flat for a 4/5 bedroom house with a garden in a village with a few pubs and a shop, a good primary school (with certainty of getting a place), and a seven-mile ride through countryside to work. So on paper it looks good. Ask me again in a few months!
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In the medium term I want to move somewhere we can afford a real house with acres of countryside on the doorstep. The dream is to open a cycling / triathlon centre in the Yorkshire Dales. Otherwise, I'd like to move to Portland or Seattle. There is proper wilderness to explore in the PNW. Same problem as everyone else - there are no jobs where I want to move.
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Have lived in South East London all my life, the wife's from Manchester and moved down nearly 16 years ago, last 5 or so years we talked about moving up to Manchester but with one thing and another this didn't go to plan. So last January we decide to take a year out and go travelling and then consider where to move to next. Pretty sure it will be back in the UK but somewhere on the coast. Huge leap of faith for me and I'm bricking it if I'm honest. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger and all that.
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loved london for a long time, ended up moving to holland a few years ago as my girlfriend was dutch. took me a while to adjust, but ended up loving it, my quality of life was so much better. Anyway, relationship went pop, and due to unusual circumstances have ended up back in london again. Have been finding it really hard to settle back in (despite all of my mates being here). The weekend cycling has been the biggest loss, but really miss the beach, slower pace of life, moving around the country, living in my own place (now rent a bedroom again) and obvs the cost of living. Can see why you want to leave. When you've been away from london for a while, you forget how mental it is.
London is amazing, and it is easy to overlook the things you take for granted but i know i'll eventually leave. Don't know where else in the UK i'd go though. I'm from birmingham - don't think i'll ever move back. Went to Manchester for Uni - had a great time, but wouldn't move back there either. Honestly have no idea why people think it's so much better than birmingham, they're pretty similar.
Anyway, longer post than i anticipated - in short, move to holland.>
Lived in Birmingham for my formative years, lived in London for 10 odd years and now back in Brum (it's shit). Want to move to Amsterdam- it reminds me of London from 10 years ago, but a lot, lot cheaper.
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MASSIVE prawns..>
EMIGRANT!
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Naaahh.. I don’t think so. Of course, any argument containing the word zeitgeist is inevitably going to be vague and generalising, but it’s my impression that this concept always reflected whatever the middle class are into.
While the Tory war on the poor has intensified in recent years, London’s working class has always had a tough time. And since their voices are all but drowned out, they don’t have the same impact on the ever elusive zeitgeist. What seems to be happening now is the lower middle class realising they are no longer able to float above such hardship. You hear Londoners with academic backgrounds starting to complain about basic living standard issues, people who would’t immediately be affected by your examples of welfare cuts and changes to social housing policies. -
Clive Martin is the pop cultural critic who best dissects the zeitgeist and its discontents:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/author/clive-martin
Long story short, he sums up contemporary London as Geneva on Thames.
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Moving out of London
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@lemonade
At least one? :o