Bit shocked

wymondham

Generali wrote: »

I think London is one of the great cities of the world and many, many people agree with me because they choose to visit, live or work there.

I love it also ... to visit. Wouldn't dream of living there though as there are more important things than work in life (if you live in London then work must play a big part of your life to pay for it?)

cells

Generali wrote: »

I think London is one of the great cities of the world and many, many people agree with me because they choose to visit, live or work there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPm2Ia_Y_zk

Drp8713

missyrichards wrote: »

Some parts of London are nice! I know South London the most and I used to socialise in Blackheath and Greenwich. Crystal Palace and Dulwich are both good places.

I live in Dulwich and it is very nice.

I cant imagine ever owning a property here though. To buy a two bedroom flat like ours would cost from £450-600k.

When I do manage to save £50k up (which will be about 5 years) it wont be going down on a deposit here, id rather buy a whole two bedroom house, with land in the Normandy countryside as a holiday home / place to retire.

Pobby

cells wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPm2Ia_Y_zk[/QUOTNow that was a bit of a video. Thanking you for posting. Seems to me to be a snap shot of the ongoing disregard for sensible housing policies.

A great believer in the revolutionary concept of council housing. Often built with a decent amount of garden and a decent standard and, affordable rent. Sold off at under the true value with, what i can only consider, was an insane scheme that none of the council proceeds were allowed for further DECENT housing.

We have a rapidly growing population. A upward demand for housing. Clearly less people are home owners with more and more being tenants in the private sector. Again Thatcherism changed the rights of tenants.

So a decent number of tenants are unable to afford the rent so the tax payer is supporting private landlords. I would not mind so much if the tax payer subsidy was going into council coffers to support more affordable homes.

So far there seems to be little debate.

padington

A recent survey found that sixth of the worlds population would ideally like to move to London if they could more than anywhere else in the world.

Feel free to blow against the wind and hate London, just be assured, you're a little tiny insignificant minority on that ticket.

cells

Pobby wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPm2Ia_Y_zk

Now that was a bit of a video. Thanking you for posting. Seems to me to be a snap shot of the ongoing disregard for sensible housing policies.

A great believer in the revolutionary concept of council housing. Often built with a decent amount of garden and a decent standard and, affordable rent. Sold off at under the true value with, what i can only consider, was an insane scheme that none of the council proceeds were allowed for further DECENT housing.

We have a rapidly growing population. A upward demand for housing. Clearly less people are home owners with more and more being tenants in the private sector. Again Thatcherism changed the rights of tenants.

So a decent number of tenants are unable to afford the rent so the tax payer is supporting private landlords. I would not mind so much if the tax payer subsidy was going into council coffers to support more affordable homes.

So far there seems to be little debate.

That video is about 5 year before thatcher.

I used to live near that estate, the park you see the kid/s interviewed in I used to play there as a kid myself although not during the same decade as that video

Council housing had its good and its bad. One of the worst was the high concentration of council homes in certain areas. Hackney was nearly 60% council homes at one point (and there were still waiting lists which goes to show you there can never be enough social housing even if it was 100%). That was a very stupid mistake.

The nation and the councils were quite poor so a lot of the council stock was very badly maintained. There is another set of videos of a council estate in hackney in the 1990s. It has the residents of the estate shouting and screaming at the council representatives and councillors that were they renting privately their landlord would be in jail for the conditions they had to put up with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zhw3uzfhuw

In it you can see what life was like for council tenants and hackney in general (as over 50% of all of hackneys residents were council tenants in the 90s)

Interestingly that kingsmead estate in the first video is now more expensive than the England average. 3 bed flats go for ~£300k. Crime is i'm told much lower due to cameras literally everywhere on that estate

Generali

A perennial news story of my childhood was a family living in severely damp council housing that was literally rotting around them and the various diseases that these squalid conditions gave them.

Those that view council housing as some sort of panacea should look at what happens when councils actually house people.

It's the same in France and in Aus too: state provided housing is of poor quality, badly maintained and handed out to a client group.

If you go to the Corporation of London website you can see for yourself that working in the housing department gives you membership of a group that is prioritised for council housing.

Then there was Roman Point of course.

It's like how people hark back to the'good old days' of British Rail and state run monopoly utilities providers. They were terrible: expensive and incompetent.

lisyloo

Some of you talk as if everyone has completely free choice.
Real life is never that simple.
DH was offered a great job in London when he was long term unemployed and nearly 50.
We are greatly enjoying living in London. There are some very stark downsides. Our accommodation is tiny and expensive. Transport is slow but on the other hand our office is bath has massive parking problems so no one should pretend it's ideal everywhere else. Most places have traffic and transport issues unless you work on a farm.
There are many fantastic things to do and we are making the most of it.

Yes, making a living and putting a roof over our head is kinda high on the priority list for most people but I question the ideal that we all have free choice.
Yeah DH could work in a bar for a fraction of the income or sell ice creams on the beach or go on the dole, but it's not that simple when you have a career especially one that you quite enjoy.
If some of you have free choice to pick where you live without making massive sacrifices in your career then good on you, I'm not the type to resent others, but don't assume life is so black and white for everyone.
We don't chose to be in London, but we're gonna make the most of it whilst life/ career has taken us there.
I'm just saying that life is a compromise for most people.

I could work in the country but my husband is in London, so I compromise and leave my5 bed home and go to live in shoe box to be with him. A compromise worth making in my eyes but still a compromise.

padington

lisyloo wrote: »

Some of you talk as if everyone has completely free choice.
Real life is never that simple.
DH was offered a great job in London when he was long term unemployed and nearly 50.
We are greatly enjoying living in London. There are some very stark downsides. Our accommodation is tiny and expensive. Transport is slow but on the other hand our office is bath has massive parking problems so no one should pretend it's ideal everywhere else. Most places have traffic and transport issues unless you work on a farm.
There are many fantastic things to do and we are making the most of it.

Yes, making a living and putting a roof over our head is kinda high on the priority list for most people but I question the ideal that we all have free choice.
Yeah DH could work in a bar for a fraction of the income or sell ice creams on the beach or go on the dole, but it's not that simple when you have a career especially one that you quite enjoy.
If some of you have free choice to pick where you live without making massive sacrifices in your career then good on you, I'm not the type to resent others, but don't assume life is so black and white for everyone.
We don't chose to be in London, but we're gonna make the most of it whilst life/ career has taken us there.
I'm just saying that life is a compromise for most people.

I could work in the country but my husband is in London, so I compromise and leave my5 bed home and go to live in shoe box to be with him. A compromise worth making in my eyes but still a compromise.

Transport slow ? The tube is the fastest transportation system I've ever come across. Victoria line will be a tube a minute by the end of the year, not just at peak times but most of the time. Can't really get much better than that.

ViolaLass

padington wrote: »

A recent survey found that sixth of the worlds population would ideally like to move to London if they could more than anywhere else in the world.

So five sixths wouldn't.

Feel free to blow against the wind and hate London, just be assured, you're a little tiny insignificant minority on that ticket.

Five sixths is a fairly huge majority.

(I'd move to New Orleans, personally. Fabulous city.)