If you haven’t checked out our video on Epping Forest, you’re missing out. It’s a veritable oasis of calm in the distracting, dirt-filled desert of London. If you’re like me, one watch will be enough to have you wondering why you’re not spinning and singing in the long grasses like Julie Andrews. Then I remember sex, coffee and conversation, and why I love living in a city. However, I’m not the first, nor last, to be seduced by the call of the wild.
There seems to be a cycle to these things. Now I love London, but that’s in my bones. I accept the grime that earns sneers from others, the atrocious transport that has people vowing to never come again, and the higher crime rates because I simply have to. I look at them the same way I do my untameable fringe and knock-knees: not ideal, but a part of me I’ve grown up with that I can’t change.
As I grew up here, it was only when I went to university outside that I realised the number of people longing to make it to the capital. That number sounds pretty big: around 200,000 people move to London from other areas of the UK every year. That’s a lot of annual immigration into the same-size city. Many of those are moving closer to shorten their commute. After all, London is the business hub and people need to get here without losing four hours of family time.
The London Life Plan
Many aren’t forced here by circumstance: it’s a goal. The phrase ‘I plan to get a job and move to London’ may as well have been on my university crest. A lot of young people see London as a nirvana – a melting pot of culture, people and ideas that they long to be in. I don’t think they’re wrong, but now I’ve seen those same newcomers make the move, I know they were bloody naive.
If you haven’t grown up with a London doorstep, this place is huge. I mean super huge, and it takes a toll on your social life. One friend has recently moved to Sydney and is now marvelling at how little time it takes to casually meet up. “I just didn’t go on dates in London because it would sometimes take 40 minutes to get one-way across the city. If that date turned out terribly, I’d have wasted a whole evening. Here, I can travel, date and be back home by 9.”
She also happens to be one of those university friends, and watching her life in London has been one hell of a learning curve. She’s the only one of my uni lot that came here and conquered – and she will argue the city certainly conquered her.
All the others either gave up when they saw housing prices, or made it all the way down just to hate it. All of them felt lost and alone in a big city that didn’t give a shit.
Get out while you still can
It doesn’t stop people coming though, which brings up another question. When so many people are desperate to get in, how come there are so many people trying to get out?
There are many reasons of course, though the desire to leave London usually hits at a certain age – perhaps marriage, family or retirement is starting to loom on the horizon. It’s simply too expensive to upsize or too busy to keep up with. Naturally, health comes into it too. City living can be stressful, full of pollution and life expectancy is longer in rural areas. Beauty is hardly less of an impetus: the countryside holds growing sway over many tired of London. Whatever the reason, there are plenty of Londoners looking out to much greener pastures.
It’s not the countryside I dread but the transition. Going from the land of opportunity to one of fields, farmers and a social circle of four fills me with dread. I love the countryside, don’t get me wrong. Having spent a lot of my life in Dartmoor, I consider myself lucky to have experienced the best of both worlds. I wouldn’t want to lose either. But I see far more people from the city taking trips to the country than I do locals from small Devon hamlets tripping in. From that far away, the city suddenly becomes a big and scary place to step foot in.
Still people leave, and in bigger numbers than they come in. Those 200,000 domestic moves are balanced by some 250,000 leaving London each year. Something about it must be worth it. So how long will it be before you start to wonder about what lies beyond the M25?
City or Country?
Who do you think holds the crown and why? We’d love to hear your views about moving in or out of our city here: http://www.felixmagazine.com/discussion/
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