Trendy real estate/places to live.

[GivenToFly]

What is the London commuter belt? What, like the tube map?

A commuter belt is a group of towns around but not part of a larger urban area where a lot of people live who commute into the city. The London commuter belt is pretty far spread out because of the green belt that limited development of the metro proper and because of easy access to rail travel. It's pretty difficult to define it. Towns like Guildford in the SW, Maidenhead in the West, St Albans in the North, Chelmsford in the East are definitely part of it, along with many other towns and villages. You can see the packed trains going into central London every morning. But past few years the commuter belt has been expanding a lot. There are lots of people commuting from as far Poole and such, it gets pretty insane. With HS2 they say Birmingham could essentially become a London commuter town, but that's pretty exaggerated and in any case by the time that's done society and the economy will have changed a lot.

Some of these are actually dormitory towns for the most part, but it's getting murkier. Some are established urban centres, with their own social and economic identity like Reading or Guildford but still produce an enormous amount of commuters. And there is a lot of business development in these suburbs as firms set up shop because they can still be reasonably close to London but not pay London rents. The town I work in (and lived in until a week ago) called Woking is getting lots of companies for this reason; Slough is already one giant business park.

And of course many of these also double (triple?) as typical suburbia. It's where families go to live safe lives. Human factories I call them. Until I moved to Woking I never imagined I would see such a density of pregnant women on a daily basis.

[DieselDaisy]

I don't know? You live in the place! I think it basically means you get the tube or the bus often inter London - poncy oversized coffee and laptop/tablet mandatory.

All because you can't afford £1.65 for coffee doesn't mean you should look down on those of us who go to Starbucks.

I can buy a pint for just under £2. Look on it this way. I can buy two pints to your one, and you are still drunker you southern fairy you.

By the way about people walking around with gigantic cups of coffee, It keeps reminding me of that Tony Blair sketch (I think it was that impressionist, Culshaw?) where Blair's spin doctor hands Blair an empty tea cup before going out to greet the press outside Number 10. I can just imagine some of these poncy effeminate business types walking around with empty cups.

[GivenToFly]

I have heard from loads of people recently who have cleared off from London because they cannot afford to live there anymore. You rent a shitty one bedroomed flat for £600 per month minimum which would get you are three-four bed roomed house oop north.

This post would be funny if it wasn't so sad...

£600/month gets you A ROOM in London. Maybe a studio if it's incredibly tiny, in a really shitty location or way out in the eastern- north-eastern periphery.

And as strange as it may seem, Surrey is actually more expensive than London. It's both because the supply is much much MUCH more limited than in London, and also because demand comes from mainly rich people who commute into London or already older and established in their career. I would never recommend Surrey to a young person.

I'm leaving too. I'm actually currently in Clapham, commuting from Clapham Junction into Woking every day because I couldn't find anything decent and in my price range with very short notice for the month (my tenancy ended at the end of July and I'm transferring at the start of September). I'm moving to Edinburgh, which is still expensive by northern standards but way cheaper than the south. I'm planning to finally get my own flat, and from my recent research it seems that what I can get for £650-700/month there would cost my £1000-1200 in London or Surrey.

[Len Cnut]

I don't know? You live in the place! I think it basically means you get the tube or the bus often inter London - poncy oversized coffee and laptop/tablet mandatory.

All because you can't afford £1.65 for coffee doesn't mean you should look down on those of us who go to Starbucks.

Yes you should, anyone who goes to Starbucks should be looked down upon.

[Axls Rocket Queen]

I have heard from loads of people recently who have cleared off from London because they cannot afford to live there anymore. You rent a shitty one bedroomed flat for £600 per month minimum which would get you are three-four bed roomed house oop north.

This post would be funny if it wasn't so sad...

£600/month gets you A ROOM in London. Maybe a studio if it's incredibly tiny, in a really shitty location or way out in the eastern- north-eastern periphery.

And as strange as it may seem, Surrey is actually more expensive than London. It's both because the supply is much much MUCH more limited than in London, and also because demand comes from mainly rich people who commute into London or already older and established in their career. I would never recommend Surrey to a young person.

I'm leaving too. I'm actually currently in Clapham, commuting from Clapham Junction into Woking every day because I couldn't find anything decent and in my price range with very short notice for the month (my tenancy ended at the end of July and I'm transferring at the start of September). I'm moving to Edinburgh, which is still expensive by northern standards but way cheaper than the south. I'm planning to finally get my own flat, and from my recent research it seems that what I can get for £650-700/month there would cost my £1000-1200 in London or Surrey.

Surrey rent is insane Of course we decided we wanted to live in the middle of Guildford Edited August 10, 2015 by Axls Rocket Queen

[DieselDaisy]

Surrey? Are you near The Oval? I've never actually been to The Oval. I've been to Lords which is in the same area as Abbey Rd studio.

[Snake-Pit]

I don't know? You live in the place! I think it basically means you get the tube or the bus often inter London - poncy oversized coffee and laptop/tablet mandatory.

All because you can't afford £1.65 for coffee doesn't mean you should look down on those of us who go to Starbucks.

I can buy a pint for just under £2. Look on it this way. I can buy two pints to your one, and you are still drunker you southern fairy you.

Leave it to the you northern wankers with your unhealthy ways to strain our NHS that much more...

If you're gonna drink, drink something like Courvoisier V.S.O.P or Jim Beam or Smirnoff Red... Budweiser's okay, Hooch too.

Isle of Jura's nice too...

Even a £5.00 pitcher from G-A-Y, you guys in Manchester have one too.

(A whole pitcher cocktail for £5.00).. - as seen in my avatar!

Edited August 10, 2015 by Snake-Pit

[Snake-Pit]

There's this really cool bar & grill in Texas where the patrons hang out and it never closes and you can theoretically live there, this one lady who drinks there got her driver's license registered there.

Trendy place or what.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Snake-Pit

[Apollo]

I mean people are fighting to live in Harlem now. No one wanted to live in Harlem when I was a kid. and I grew up in Bushwick in Brooklyn, which was very bad and we had to move out, now it's one of the places that's being built up again and charging tons of money to live there.

Why didn't people want to live in Harlem when you were a kid?

And what was wrong with living in Bushwich? Are you referring to this:

"The U.S. Census records show that the neighborhood's population was almost 90% white in 1960, but dropped to less than 40% white by 1970.^[39] As white families moved out of Bushwick, working-class African American and Puerto Rican and other Caribbean American families moved into homes."

[Snake-Pit]

Brixton's getting posh, gentrification.

[Johnny Drama]

I mean people are fighting to live in Harlem now. No one wanted to live in Harlem when I was a kid. and I grew up in Bushwick in Brooklyn, which was very bad and we had to move out, now it's one of the places that's being built up again and charging tons of money to live there.

Why didn't people want to live in Harlem when you were a kid?

And what was wrong with living in Bushwich? Are you referring to this:

"The U.S. Census records show that the neighborhood's population was almost 90% white in 1960, but dropped to less than 40% white by 1970.^[39] As white families moved out of Bushwick, working-class African American and Puerto Rican and other Caribbean American families moved into homes."

Coons and crime. What are we gon' do, eh?

[Apollo]

I mean people are fighting to live in Harlem now. No one wanted to live in Harlem when I was a kid. and I grew up in Bushwick in Brooklyn, which was very bad and we had to move out, now it's one of the places that's being built up again and charging tons of money to live there.

Why didn't people want to live in Harlem when you were a kid?

And what was wrong with living in Bushwich? Are you referring to this:

"The U.S. Census records show that the neighborhood's population was almost 90% white in 1960, but dropped to less than 40% white by 1970.^[39] As white families moved out of Bushwick, working-class African American and Puerto Rican and other Caribbean American families moved into homes."

Coons and crime. What are we gon' do, eh?

All we can do us hope and pray they don't invade our neighborhood.