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Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

This basically amounts to advising them not to live in a city (which is fine). But some people do like living in cities, and London is really the only option in the UK if you want to do that. No other city in the UK is anywhere close to London in terms of culture and economic opportunity.

Yes, rents in Manchester and Birmingham are lower. But you're going to get paid less, you have to live in a second tier city, and in the long run you have fewer career opportunities.

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You can get a far better quality of life in most other cities on the standard developer salary than you can in London. I know multiple colleagues who have moved out of London, taken a large salary cut but ended up with a far higher quality of life and more disposable income despite it.

Also the idea that other cities are second-tier is incredibly biased. Sure London has some things that the RUK doesn't but there are also plenty of things you can't get in London (fresh air for one). It's a different lifestyle, not a 'second tier' lifestyle. Also other cities are cities, they might not be mega cities but that's not the definition of the word.

Lastly the career opportunities part depends. Yes there are less opportunities but there are also far less people vying for them. Smaller pond but bigger fish. If you're a careerist looking to become the top 1%, London is probably your best bet in the UK, but it's perfectly possible to work in the top 10% outside of London.

Talking about quality of life is usually a coded way of talking about not really living in a city. Yes, London is relatively noisy, dirty, cramped, etc. The only way you can get less of that in the UK is to also have less of the benefits of living in a city. I mean, there's no other city in the UK that even has a proper public transit system. Not liking cities is, as I said, a personal preference, and perfectly fine.

You really need to use a term other than city to describe what you're describing. I live in a city, Edinburgh, as do the various folk who have mentioned living in Manchester etc. Their not mega sprawling metropolises like London but their still cities. You're confusing the discussion by using the term improperly.

Edinburgh has a population of 489,000. You can call it a city if you like, but it's not comparable to London in any way.

It is a city. You're inaccurately redefining the term city to meet a very narrow definition, which is confusing the discussion.

Please provide your definition of what a city is.

You can define the word how you like. London and Edinburgh aren't on the same scale.

> This basically amounts to advising them not to live in a city (which is fine). But some people do like living in cities, and London is really the only option in the UK if you want to do that.

I'm gonna call bollocks on that :)

I agree with the rest to an extent. You're going to be paid higher (well not everybody, but most HN readers would be) and have all the other advantages of London. Fine. But you need to take the downsides with that and stop moaning.

When I was emigrating to the UK I considered everywhere. London was one of the first places I crossed off my list.

>But you need to take the downsides with that and stop moaning.

This is the whole problem with the UK. Many of the current problems with London are fixable. People need to keep moaning about them in order to get them fixed.

Tbh I think the "easiest" single thing which would improve the UK immensely would be to ditch FPTP and bring in some type of PR voting.

That or turn London into a city state :)

As long as the City of London is independent of that!

What I will give your argument of moving is that once you have something to fix it usually already have become a feature for someone else. It is usually not realistic to fix much of anything so much as moving in another direction from a different position. I just don't see any places really doing that. Not that it would necessarily be visible, but people are looking. While certainly having slightly different criteria Nomad List for example doesn't feature much in the UK. https://nomadlist.com/

If we had a PR voting system and the PM resigned. What would happen?

Would a general election be called?

It's a bit farcical that the country will have a PM that was not the leader of the governing party at the last election.

Granted with the Brexit mess they could arguably have some legitimate reasons for not calling it straight away but it seems that they've all ruled out calling it at all, AFAIK.

> If we had a PR voting system and the PM resigned. What would happen?

Ireland has a form of PR (single transferable vote), they've had plenty of instances of the Taoiseach (PM) being replaced and not going to a general election straight away.

Not sure I understand... you're gonna call bollocks on the idea that someone can have different likes and dislikes from you?

London is not the only city in the UK. That's what I'm calling bollocks on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_economies...

Ah my bad, somehow I omitted the fact they said London is the only city! Yeah that is a little weird, plenty more to the UK than just London :)

My anecdotal evidence suggests that the London premium in salaries does not, anywhere near, compensate for the increased housing costs and/or commute time. Obviously, YMMV

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