Cities (London is a bit shit)

[SockPuppet]

Some Talking Heads to establish my 'hipster' credentials.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB9W8St1pDc

Right....Every year the 'Best city for Economic Gangsters' (aka The Economist Intelligence Unit ) list the best cities to live in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19265903

It's always the same. Australia and Canada sweep the boards. The UK doesn't make the top 50.

Here's the top 10....

Melbourne, Australia — 97.5
Vienna, Austria — 97.4
Vancouver, B.C. — 97.3
Toronto, Ont. — 97.2
Calgary, Alta. — 96.6
Adelaide, Australia — 96.6
Sydney, Australia — 96.1
Helsinki, Finland — 96.0
Perth, Australia — 95.9
Auckland, N.Z. — 95.7

FUCKING MELBOURNE....ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH???

Anyway, London came 55th (because it is shit) but my personal fave (Wellington) failed to make the top ten.....

Discuss.

[kngen]

I much preferred Sydney to Melbourne when I lived in Australia, but I've heard that it has become stupidly expensive in comparison. And presumably they don't factor 'being surrounded by hipster twats' in their liveability index - in fact, they might even regard it as a positive (in the same manner that unbearably hot summers are apparently something people clamour to experience).

[SockPuppet]

I much preferred Sydney to Melbourne when I lived in Australia,

Yes. Melbourne is a bit shit. How did it make the No1 spot????

[23 Daves]

I was born in London and I've lived in Melbourne. 

Melbourne always sweeps the boards in these things, because it's supposedly got it all.  It's got a strong community atmosphere, almost absurdly strong for a city (I've found this to be true), has plenty of nightclubs, theatres and arts venues, is - or at least was - a cheap place to live, has beaches, large parks and open spaces, and on and on the list goes.  "Ah, you've come to live and work in Melbourne!" people used to say to me. "You won't want to ever leave".

But I did.  I did want to leave after about nine months, actually.  The reason I wanted to leave is that I found it all so tepid and generally boring.  As a Londoner who was used to being spoilt for choice in such things, I couldn't believe that this supposedly "cultural" city had so little going on.  Listings magazines in Melbourne tend to provide a modest amount of choice when it comes to local pub rock bands, run-of-the-mill theatre shows or small exhibitions in art galleries, but ultimately it's akin to Birmingham if we're using UK cities as a benchmark.  Don't be fooled.  A cultural city in Australia is just one where a modest amount of culture is allowed to exist.

People kept on telling me about Melbourne's left-wing credentials too, but I met so many casual bigots and bullies while I was there that I was left unimpressed in that respect as well.  In fact, I was shocked[nb]But not as shocked as I was when I visited Queensland, where a leading politician referred to lesbians as "witches".[/nb].  Colleagues told me that they voted for right wing parties with racist policies because they couldn't see what the alternatives were, because the Labour party had a leader who swore once in Parliament (and bear in mind that this was at a time when it was decided that Aboriginal people should be given food stamps rather than unemployment benefit, a piece of apartheid that attracted surprisingly little attention elsewhere around the world).  I've also been abused for being gay in Melbourne more times than I've received the same abuse in London by far.  Interesting as I'm not actually gay, but you know, I don't look like a "proper bloke".

But I will concede.  If you want to start a family, take up sport, get yourself a nice car and a large house, provide a reasonably good (if slightly illiberal) education for your children, and have pleasant neighbours, Melbourne is great.  There are days when I do wish I was back there, but they don't tend to out-number the days where I'm glad I'm not.  It has a lot London really can't provide, and the parks and open spaces totally piss on Hyde Park and Regents Park and whatever passes for the countryside on London's fringes - but ultimately I find the people in London more eccentric, entertaining, varied, cosmopolitan and likeable, even if they're harder to get to know.

And as any fool knows, New Zealand is one of the greatest countries in the world and embarrasses Australia with its landscapes, cost of living, people and places.  Looking at some of the Kiwi landscapes is like being on drugs.  If I had to move down under, NZ would be my first choice easily. 

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

New Zealand is a trade-off as well I guess. Culture-wise, outside of Dunedin, not much of a music scene. That's reached over here, anyway. Seems notorious for having little night-life and quite closeted in some respects. And lots of the scenery you have to be prepared to live quite a backpackery/solitary existence to make the most of, which may or may not suit.

The way people describe it makes me think of Ireland and Scotland.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Culturally London is great. If you have the time and money you pretty much just dip your fingers into anything going. Even though it's criticised for being unfriendly and with no sense of community, that's to ignore that all the boroughs and mini-towns within towns have their own anyway.

The worst thing I can say about it is that even though there is on paper, so much to do, all those I know who have gone to live there, my sister aside, have fallen into drudgery in the shitter areas, never do anything interesting culturally, so may as well have lived somewhere else doing the same thing, but for much cheaper.

I'm happy popping down and sampling new bits here and there. It's never struck me as a place to live in. Funny given they're both so massive but New York, especially Manhattan really did.

[23 Daves]

The way people describe it makes me think of Ireland and Scotland.

The scenery there is way more breath-taking than either Ireland or Scotland.  It's jaw-dropping, a real extreme of colours and mountainous heights.  There are no comparisons, I'm afraid.

But yes, it is a bit lacking in the nightlife and culture department, and most Kiwis with artistic ambitions usually end up moving to Melbourne or Sydney to fulfil them. 

[shiftwork2]

These terrible surveys purport to show 'liveability' and that is an entirely subjective idea.  Australia and Canada always do well and their practical, modern cities do have their charms - lots of space and easy to drive around (although public transport is a joke compared to the old world).  But cities are really defined by things you can't quantify - do the pubs / bars have atmosphere?  Is there a rich culture that makes you feel alive?  Does it have a buzz?  Or is there just a stifling suburban culture of sprawl and barbecues that pervades everything...a place where you never really feel like you have a pulse.  A place where an hour's drive from the centre takes you past 7 or 8 identical strip malls.  They never account for 'shit boring' on Economist surveys.

[23 Daves]

Culturally London is great. If you have the time and money you pretty much just dip your fingers into anything going. Even though it's criticised for being unfriendly and with no sense of community, that's to ignore that all the boroughs and mini-towns within towns have their own anyway.

The worst thing I can say about it is that even though there is on paper, so much to do, all those I know who have gone to live there, my sister aside, have fallen into drudgery in the shitter areas, never do anything interesting culturally, so may as well have lived somewhere else doing the same thing, but for much cheaper.

That tends to be up to the individual, I find.  Some people lose interest in the arts and nightlife but never quite get around to leaving.  My parents moved out to Essex when I was quite young, but in the twelve years since I've returned here I've always engaged with what the city has to offer, and more to the point got involved as well.  London does have a bit of a reputation for being filled with pseuds and fame-seekers, and that's depressingly true to an extent, but it is possible to dabble and have fun as well - I fell into DJ'ing in an amateurish way in pubs and bars totally by accident, and the open mics have also led into other opportunities or been a nice fallback for moments of boredom.

By far the worst thing about London is the sheer expense.  I'm completely in a financial hole at the moment, and I do acknowledge that there are a lot of other towns or cities I'd be scraping by in rather than struggling. 

The crime is another negative, but it's not as bad as it's made out to be.  If you're sensible and dodge certain places at certain times, you're no more likely to get caught up in a serious incident in London than you are beaten up in some dodgy provincial town just for looking a bit funny, like. 

[23 Daves]

Ha ha!  And I've just noted that Toronto is high on that list!  Jesus Christ, that's a smog-covered shithole with apartment blocks called things like Success Towers ("Homes for successful people!"), hipsters everywhere you walk, more homeless people than even London, some of whom freeze to death on people's doorsteps in the biting winters, and locals who are even ruder than Londoners.

If I had to compile a list of depressingly shit Western cities, Toronto would be somewhere near the top.

Victor Lewis Smith goes a tiny bit too far whilst slagging Canada off here, but still, it's not a million miles from the truth:  http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Victor+Lewis-Smith's+column%3A+OASIS+OF+CALM+WON'T+LAST+IN+CANADA.-a0105269577

[El Unicornio, mang]

I'm not overly keen on London. I can't think of much there that you can't get elsewhere in the UK, or that you could go to on a day/weekend trip and save the expense. Actually living day to day there, I found it miserable. Even just visiting, after about half an hour of being jostled and scowled at and pretty much opening my wallet to let all my money fall out, I feel myself getting angry and irritated. I guess that jobwise it's a good place to go though.

I'm in Boston at the moment and I like it a lot so far, it's like England mixed with America and a sprinkling of other European and East Asian flavours, with a public transport system that's easily as good as London. It's also pretty expensive though so I'll probably go to a town on the outskirts. Unless you're going out all the time it's kind of a waste of money to pay for a place "where all the action is". It would even be cheaper for me to live further out and pay $100 for a taxi home on the one night a week I go to a night club.

[23 Daves]

I've said too much on this thread already, but I think London's suitability for any individual can be fairly simply determined in the following way - you really have got to be someone who is prepared to work at it.  You can't just come here for a few months and expect everything to fall into place, or even everything to immediately make sense.  It has a culture of its own which isn't like a lot of other cities in Britain, and you just have to be patient and work through the initially maddening differences.  If you're being jostled, for example, it normally means you're just being a bit too much of a slowcoach for our liking (or are standing in a silly place) and need to start moving at a similar speed.  I almost never get jostled on my walks or travels here, but I have friends who get barged almost every time they visit, and it's usually because they're idling through the place like it's a scenic village.  You'd get the same (or far worse) treatment in any city of a similar size, such as Toronto or Istanbul. 

London definitely seems shit for the first six months you live here, after that - once a social circle starts to fall into place and you discover a lot of hidden treasures in the city you like - it only gets better and better. 

Or, as a Buddhist monk once told me at a very peculiar party: "London is like a very hot bath.  You have to slowly lower your way into it". 

[Johnny Townmouse]

I am very likely going to be living in Vienna within the next 6months and whilst looking around ex-pat forums and blogs I have noticed much mention of its high placing on the two main polls of 'Quality of Living' by the EIU and Mercer. Vienna is now, apparently the top place to live in Europe, and the second best in the world. It's such an incredibly subjective notion that I don't even know where to start. I was born and brought-up in London and love the place with a passion - but I'll be fucked if I could ever live there again. I HATE living there.

One blog from an ex-pat living in Vienna had this say about the Mercer Quality of Living poll:

"I've always found these rankings slightly puzzling. OK, so Baghdad is at the bottom of the table; that's understandable. However, some of the other placings always seem off. Barcelona at 40? London at 38? Come on!

So, let's investigate this city-livability malarkey and see what's really going on here...The annual ranking is done by Mercer, a private consultancy firm. According to their website, "Mercer conducts the survey to help governments and multi-national companies compensate employees fairly when placing them on international assignments. Mercer's Quality of Living reports provide valuable information and hardship premium recommendations for major cities throughout the world."

So, first off, the purpose of the list is to tell companies how much to pay their employees. It isn't intended as a guide of where in the world you'll be happiest. In fact, calling the list a 'survey' is misleading. That makes it sound like they've actually bothered to ask city residents how they rate their quality of life. What really happens is that Mercer draws up the list by analysing living conditions according to 39 factors, grouped into 10 categories:

1. Political and social environment (political stability, crime, law enforcement, etc)
2. Economic environment (currency exchange regulations, banking services, etc)
3. Socio-cultural environment (censorship, limitations on personal freedom, etc)
4. Health and sanitation (medical supplies and services, infectious diseases, sewage, waste disposal, air pollution, etc)
5. Schools and education (standard and availability of international schools, etc)
6. Public services and transportation (electricity, water, public transport, traffic congestion, etc)
7. Recreation (restaurants, theatres, cinemas, sports and leisure, etc)
8. Consumer goods (availability of food/daily consumption items, cars, etc)
9. Housing (housing, household appliances, furniture, maintenance services, etc)
10. Natural environment (climate, record of natural disasters)

So, Vienna has high-quality international schools and banking services that are attractive to internationally mobile business executives. Fine, but that has nothing to do with the quality of life of your average Vienna resident, who may well envy the Catalans sipping beer on the terraces of Barcelona in November, or the Londoners enjoying world-class curries in the East-end.

'Vienna is the best place to live in the world', actually means 'Vienna is the most cost-effective place to send your employees'! I'll give the final word to Mercer themselves. How confident are they in their city ranking report?
"In no event will Mercer be liable for any decision made or action taken in reliance of the results obtained through the use of, or the information and/or data contained in or provided by, the Reports."

Yup."

[rudi]

Barcelona > Hamburg > Everywhere else

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

Barcelona is the BEST city in the world.  Where's Belfast in all of this?

[dr_christian_troy]

Where's Belfast in all of this?

Northern Ireland?





_sorry

[Still Not George]

Out of the German cities I've been to (for some reason my current career path keeps sending me over there), Munich and Hamburg were both beautiful but weirdly shallow, and my favourite by a long, long way is definitely Cologne. Although I suspect I might eventually get bored of it.

[yesitis]

In about a week I'm going to be moving to that London place. Plaistow to be precise. I know nothing at all of that area. I like going in blind. Will I be coming out stabbed?

[monkfromhavana]

Where did Coventry come in the list[nb]Probably 4 places below the Tora Bora caves in Afghanistan[/nb]??

I've lived in Melbourne, nice city but i'm not too keen on Australians so i found it a bit shit. Before that i was in Tokyo for 4 years, and that was a brilliant place to live. Loads to do, amazing public transport, clean, and always something odd around the corner. I'm not sure i could live in London, i feel like these days i need to be not too far from some countryside - parks just don't cut it.

By far the worst place i've ever lived is Sudnerland where i found it so appalling that after my first year at uni there i switched to Stoke-On-Trent and actually found it a better place to live. Stoke FFS.

[mook]

In about a week I'm going to be moving to that London place. Plaistow to be precise. I know nothing at all of that area. I like going in blind. Will I be coming out stabbed?

it used to be terribly noisy with all the sirens screaming 24 hours per day. much quieter now, the old bill are too scared to go there.

[SetToStun]

Interesting fact: the District Lines trains stop for less time at Plaistow than at any other station on that route. This is because TfL are sure that a) no-one already on the train will want to get off there and b) no-one already on the train wants any of those Plaistow fuckers getting on. Even the milkmen go round Plaistow in Marauders and still want danger money. Enjoy.

[monkfromhavana]

I hear that the Plaistow Tourist Board are actively touting the place to filmmakers due to it's startling resemblance to the lawless areas on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[23 Daves]

I think my personal top 3 cities are London, Berlin and Barcelona (in that order).

The worst 3 would be Brisbane, Ottawa and Toronto.  All utterly soul-less places largely filled with people I find disagreeable. 

[kngen]

In about a week I'm going to be moving to that London place. Plaistow to be precise. I know nothing at all of that area. I like going in blind. Will I be coming out stabbed?

all you need to know: http://youtu.be/MtuVBPwzstM

[SteveDave]

I moved to that London 3 years ago & I love it. I do come from Wales though. I also had several readymade sets of friends to hang around with thanks to being in a band & a month after I moved I met the current Mrs Steve-Dave. It's got everything you need including a massive HMV & several CEX shops.   

[kngen]

I think my Top 3 would be:

Sydney, San Francisco, Richmond (Virginia)

Bottom 3:

Dundee, Middlesbrough, Lodz (Poland) - Baltimore would be in there too, but I'm going there in October again (FFS!) and I don't want to jinx myself, plus The Wire tour might ease the pain.

After a second stint in London, this time for eight years, I'm pretty much done with the place. I'm pretty sure, like Glasgow before it, living here has made me a worse, more intolerant person - and it seems like I can barely leave the house without getting in some kind of row with someone.

[Beagle 2]

Sick of London after five years, although in general I've loved my time here. Stuff like this is starting to get me down - walking next to Regents Park just now I came across some incongruous little semi-detached houses looking out onto the park and thought "Wooow... people actually LIVE in these. Imagine, they must be like... MILLIONAIRES..."

And then I realised that in any other part of the country I could quite easily have a fucking semi detached house near a park as standard.

Of cities I've been recently, I absolutely loved Edinburgh. Thought it just seemed to have it all.

[Dead kate moss]

Barcelona is the BEST city in the world. 

Spain has the best cities to live in. Spanish people are ace. Everyone I know who lived in Australia said it was very boring. Australians have the most annoying accent in the world, is that not a factor? Would be for me.

[Artemis]

It's all much of a muchness, isn't it? Depends what stage you are in life and what you want out of it. 'This is the best city to live in' strikes me as being a bit of an empty and pointless thing to say. I'll decide that for myself, cheers. [nb]I don't mean to direct that at anybody here specifically, by the way. More rallying against the original article.[/nb]

When I leave London early next year, I'll have been here for about five years, nearly all of which I'll have been living in the SW6 area (Fulham). I've really enjoyed my time here, and really love London. If it was cheaper, and I could shake off the sense of wanting to do more than just stay put for the rest of my life, I'd gladly stay.

That said, unless you're earning a lot of money or are willing to slum it, London's not really a place I find I can settle in for life. Five years is a good healthy chunk of time during which I've enjoyed what this city has to offer.

Moving forward, I'm actually looking at trying it out on a more permanent basis down under, probably Adelaide or Melbourne. I don't rate Sydney outside of the harbour area. I'm aware that both cities will be different to London, and have visited both before so I have a good idea what they're like.

I thing one of the issues is that we get comfortable with what we know and like and it's easier to stay doing that until we die than to go somewhere new and appreciate it for its contrast. I'm absolutely certain that there will be days I'll miss London, but if I was to remain in London, there'd be more days I'd be frustrated with myself for staying somewhere it's impossible to save and get what I could get out of life elsewhere.

Ultimately, there's no 'right place to be', is there. I've given up trying to work out where I 'should' be, because it's a never ending dillema I'll never resolve. All I know for now is that despite how lovely London is, or can be, its probably served its purpose and I'll move somewhere I have a little bit more money, more sun and better landscapes. But I'll always love it here and wouldn't write off ever coming back.

[ProbablyAverage]

I grew up in the north and moved to London 20 years ago to get a job. What a shit hole.

I moved even further south to the wonderful Sussex coast 5 years ago to escape the endless congestion, the stinking tube, the psycho drivers and the sense that I was suffocating. Great memories.