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As I say, there are clearly loads of benefits of not-London; trying to weigh them up against what's been lost (identity, culture etc) is the hard bit.
I've posited to Mrs2wheels that we're perhaps just in the wrong bit of not-London. Thing is, once you have kids and they are at a school (which they love and can't bear the idea of leaving) it becomes much harder to test the waters elsewhere until you find your place.
Timmy2wheels-
Yes I’m glad we moved before children complicate things!
There’s quite a lot of not-London, I liked the idea of proper countryside but we settled on the edge of a town centre, so as not to be too far from some buzz (even if it’s not 24/7) but with space and still within touching distance of greenery. Also avoiding suburbia.
I’m actually pretty impressed with the amount of community and culture going on now, definitely more than when I grew up here - seems to be a big event on almost every weekend this summer!
Dramatic_Hammer
Nope.
As other people have articulated, the buzz of walking down an over-stimulating congested high street is hard to replicate (however other cities are available) and there is a definite ‘small’ mentality from the people who’ve never left a place but the quality of space/air/countryside/etc make up for that. After a year here we are also now starting to make new friends, admittedly mostly DFLs.