Longer Commute - Lower House Prices

daveb975

Bf109 wrote: »

As mentioned above, Glasgow has a bigger problem with knife crime than London.

Most of the victims of knife and gun crime are also criminals and gangsters. The vast majority of serious violence in London occurs between two criminal entities.

If you arent in a gang, the chances of being stabbed in London are almost negligible.


The chances of actually being murdered by a stranger are almost non existant.

I agree, but I can understand why someone unfamiliar with London would be intimidated by all of the headlines - to them Mitcham is just as much a part of London as anywhere else, but most people who actually live in other parts of London would not go there unless absolutely necessary.

I haven't seen statistics on this, but I would be surprised if the amount of gun/knife crime in most London boroughs is not much LOWER than the average UK city. Places like Mitcham and Croydon in SE London and Neasden and Willesden in NW London more than compensate for the fact that this type of crime is quite low in a lot of areas of London.

whathavewedone

I've lived in some pretty rough areas in my time - Brixton and Plaistow in London - Moss Side and Rusholme in Manchester.

I have to admit that I would rather shoot myself than have to live in Moss Side again, particularly with children. I did get burgled when I lived there and was in the house on my own. It was a very scary night.

However, I lived in Brixton for 3 years, I bought a flat there, used to walk home from the tube station most nights at around 8pm and never had a problem. I used to go into work in jeans and trainers and change into a suit in the office, then do the same thing on the way home. Never got mugged or anything like that. If you live in a city and especially in an area where you have relatively well off professionals living cheek by jowl with people who are deprived (and possibly on drugs) then you need to have your wits about you which means not walking around in a suit carrying a laptop.

I am female btw.

I wouldn't want to live in London now that I have children, mainly because of schools but partly because of the increased amount of nutters/addicts - you do get more of them in cities it's true. Never bothered me when I didn't have kids though.

There's no way that I would have wanted to commute to London from out of town before I had them though. I liked to be able to go out for a drink/to the gym/work late whenever I wanted or needed to without worrying about getting home.

olly300

daveb975 wrote: »

I agree, but I can understand why someone unfamiliar with London would be intimidated by all of the headlines - to them Mitcham is just as much a part of London as anywhere else, but most people who actually live in other parts of London would not go there unless absolutely necessary.

I haven't seen statistics on this, but I would be surprised if the amount of gun/knife crime in most London boroughs is not much LOWER than the average UK city. Places like Mitcham and Croydon in SE London and Neasden and Willesden in NW London more than compensate for the fact that this type of crime is quite low in a lot of areas of London.

Mitcham is in SW London.

And Croydon is just regarded as "Saff" London simply because if you go any further you end up in Surrey.

Cornball

whathavewedone wrote: »

Well Cornball you should buy that house then, it's bound to be worth double in 10 years time.

Might need to put some bars up on those windows in the meantime though.

Didn't allude to that, just that it has fantastic transport links. But since you brought it up, I felt less safe in the insanely overpriced and overrated Clapham than I ever have in Woolwich.

Don't walk around at midnight waving your £200 mobile around and you'll be fine.

confused31_2

Bf109 wrote: »

Some 45% of all robberies in London are on people between the ages of 10 and 19.

The actual chances of a 30ish year old proffesional who doesnt frequent the sink estates of south and east london becoming a robbery victim are actually very small indeed.

so its okay for you then, just send your kids to school to get robbed then ??

Im just glad i havent got to live or work there

daveb975

olly300 wrote: »

Mitcham is in SW London.

And Croydon is just regarded as "Saff" London simply because if you go any further you end up in Surrey.

You are right of course, but I prefer to think of those areas as 'South Central London' as I live in the outer SW part myself!

A lot of outer-London is 'ex-Surrey' or 'ex-Kent' etc. Where I am in Kingston/Surbiton, a lot of people still include Surrey in their address even though it hasn't actually been a part of the county for almost 40 years.

daveb975

confused31 wrote: »

so its okay for you then, just send your kids to school to get robbed then ??

Im just glad i havent got to live or work there

London is a massive place, though. Send your kids to school in Mitcham and they will probably get robbed a lot, but send them to school in Chiswick and it is less likely to happen than most other places in the country.

Surely London can't be the only city that has good and bad parts?

Bf109

daveb975 wrote: »

Surely London can't be the only city that has good and bad parts?

No.

All of london is a crack-infested hive of knives and guns and drugs absolutely all of the time.

Everywhere else is the garden of eden.

s4aRainyDay

We've just done this, swapped a tiny one bed flat and for the same price got a 3 bed house, £1,000 more each year in commuting but it quicker into London. Best of all we have lots of room to grow into, a separate study, and a veg patch, the ex-council house is much better than the victorian tiny flat!
rd

chewmylegoff

confused31 wrote: »

Id hate finshing work and has soon has you come out of work you become a target for criminals, you can keep that and you can keep the capital.

there may be more crime in london than other parts of the country, but it's not as if society has completely broken down, and existing here is like some kind of grown up version of trying to evade the school bully, running the risk of having your lunch money nicked every day.

as long as you're not stupid you can easily avoid crime in london. if you wander around the wrong bits looking out of place then there's a chance you'll get mugged - that applies to any city or large/medium sized town.

no-one says you have to like london, but there's little point claiming that we're all getting mugged on the way to and from work to try to justify yourself.