A flat in London?

[ciphergoth]

As I mentioned in an earlier LJ entry, it looks like bootpunk is going to need the room I'm now living in before the end of the year, so I'm looking for somewhere new in London to live before then.

• I want to share a flat, is anyone else looking for a flat share?
• Where in London should I live?
• How much rent should I expect to pay? Update I think the £100pw cost of that Tooting flat is about the limit of what I'd want to try and pay.

I want to live near Lisa and Lili, who live very near Streatham station. But I'd also prefer to live somewhere that was on the Tube so I can get into London more easily. One possibility is this flat as mentioned in Howard's journal. It has the huge advantage of being about fifteen minutes walk from Lisa and Lili. But from what he says I'd have to move out again in a year. Alternatively, Brixton has been suggested as a good place to live, handy for the bus to Streatham but also for the Victoria line which takes me rapidly into London and on to the burgeoning bisexual ghetto in Walthamstow. julietk has told me I should live in Bermondsey, which is apparently cheap and handy for London Bridge which has frequent trains to Streatham. Thoughts, ideas?

Comments

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think a lot of the hype about South London has a racist subtext - of course parts of North London are heavily multi - ethnic, but you dont often hear the North London Pisses On South of the River crowd raving about Tottenham or Hackney....

[babysimon]

People have other reasons for not liking South London you know - for example I could never somewhere that didn't have a tube. Oh, and Newham is the least-white area of London, so ner.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Where is Newham? And I did not say anyone who dislikes South London is racist, as I think you will realise if you read my comment again. Personally I think the whole South London rocks, North London sucks/vice versa thing is pathetic - Islington is cool, Tottenham is, er, not - Brixton rocks, Stockwell no thanks etc -and of course you could live in Camden (officially The Coolest Place To Live in London :))and still be poor, manic, suicidal whatever. It tends to be saddos who want to come off as knowing London inside out when they have lived here for six months and still think Stringfellows is the height of clubbing cool who bang on about it anyway.

I live in Streatham because at the time we could finally afford to buy something we were living with my mother, the nearest OK school was in Streatham and the kids were already established there. I wish all my problems were lifestyle choices ....

xxx

[babysimon]

> Where is Newham?

It's where I live.

The rest, yeah, I agree with that.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

Newham is the borough that Canary Wharf is close to, near Tower Hamlets. That sort of area of the city. Pretty deprived in places, but they're doing a lot of yuppie flat building because of the Docklands Boom effect, and the Big Businesses are being pressured into doing Community Outreach last time I had any involvement with that sort of thing, so that's obviously regenerating the area.

On the North/South divide and area issue, I do think that the South suffers from lack of decent transport the further you go, so being near a Tube is of paramount importance. I also think London is a hugely checkered city in terms of safety - you can walk from middle-class utterly safe suburbs to practically slum-standard council flats in a matter of minutes in some places, with the subsequent change in safety perception - but the best way to see how that affects you is to visit the place and make your own judgement. I do know from experience that there are some places south of the river that are exceptionally unfriendly to white faces, but they are very small and localised. You're likely to notice when you walk into one, but it's normally easy to walk out again if you feel uncomfortable.

[booklectica]

so being near a Tube is of paramount importance.

While tubes are obviously very useful, I think the train network is very underrated. I live near a couple of train stations and a bit further away from a tube station, and I'll almost always get the train into town. It's nicer, less crowded and you can look at the landscape.

Buses are also underrated.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Buses are incredibly underrated, trains less so. I think it's a question of frequency and predictability of service. Trains are fine if you regularly travel along the same route at roughly the same time of day. Otherwise you have to put up with a myriad of constantly shifting service patterns and routes, at least if you're trying to go anywhere in the S or SE London maze.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

When we used to take the Thameslink home from Kings Cross on a Friday evening, it ran every half hour until shortly after 11. No tube line is anything like that infrequent or closes that early.

The TfL website has me using buses a *lot* more than I used to.

[booklectica]

Don't take Thameslink as indicative. Both train line near me run to Central London every 5-10 minutes, more in peaktime. And Victoria to Clapham Junction runs all night, which is more than can be said for any tube line.

[juliet]

Me too - I have developed a great fondness for buses recently. Slower than the tube, but usually more comfortable, & you get to see things. *And* cheaper.

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I think the tube is over rated - I always found it more stressful than the train, myself. Streatham has 3 train stations and a lot of bus routes.

I realise a lot of it is personal preference and where you end up living when you first move to London, but I could never understand why people made such a production about needing to get on the train to visit us. I used to live on the Isle of Dogs (Mudchute DLR station) and *that* was really difficult to get to, but people were far more willing to try.

I forgot to mention the best thing about Tooting - all the great southern indian veggie restaurants. Totally different from the Bengali foos which is what most 'Indian' food in the UK is. And the food shops that are really cheap. And the Indian sweet shops. Damn, I'm missing Tooting now. Shame it can't move to Edinburgh.