Buying/Renting property in London: Where would you live?

South of the river is significantly better- far fewer crack-heads per capita, and the houses are both larger and more affordable.

As a North Londoner I agree with this, but South is where you live when your life has got reasonably settled. It's such a ball ache to get anywhere else. It's great when you have a settled job with a predictable commute and you can pick the right train line (trains are nicer than tubes but not as good for journeys with interchanges), and you've got your group of friends at roughly the same stage in life who are all fairly local so you can go to each others nice houses and play in the parks with each other's kids and meet in your nice local pubs and coffee shops. But if you're still at the finding your feet stage and want to accept random invitations to new places it can feel a long way out.

It's also going to add at least an hour to any car journeys north, which is worth considerig if you have a lot of family and friends in the north.

There are well connected areas in the South as well of course, but they are either just as expensive as the North or equally crack-heady.