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London: where to live?

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yawn - thing's buddy

10:55 / 30.05.06

I've taken an editorial job with a publishing firm - in the centre of london. It's located right next to Tate Modern . . . s'pretty cool.

Thing is: I'm such a glasgow boy it hurts - and therefore am clueless about where to live in london.

I can't really afford to go above £600 a month - £150 a week. But I'd like it to be less than that. I'd be happy to score a place that was £500 rent and in or near zone 2.

OR . . . if I was to live in trendy shoreditch type area I could probably walk to work . . .

i start my london life on 28 June - any advice greatly appreciated!

Can't wait man!

I should mention - I could take a room myself with strangers but also, currently, a girl I know through friends is looking to share a flat in the Balham/clapham area - but the prices are around 1400 quid a month!!!!

Is Balham/clapham worth it?

Is north london not more fun?

should I search for a room myself?

help . . .

11:03 / 30.05.06

Balham/Clapham is not worth that, for sure.

To stay within your price range, you're better off sharing, if that's OK with you - you can then find lots of nice places around £400pm. You can also then live in some "nicer" areas - you'll possibly have a job looking for somewhere in Shoretditch, though.

Consider the south, especially places with links to London Bridge; Peckham might suit you and be affordable, similarly Brockley/New Cross - they're affordable and about ten minutes from London Bridge, then you could walk to work. Just because it's not on the tube doesn't mean it's nowhere!

How well do you know London? And how do you envisage transport being? It might help to know what you'd like out of living here, and then we can advise on reality. Best of luck, though!

Tryphena Absent

11:04 / 30.05.06

Is that for you or you and the girl? If it's just for you then I'd say that's bloody over the top for Clapham.

11:07 / 30.05.06

gumtree is a good place to look for flats and flatshares...

Tryphena Absent

11:10 / 30.05.06

Paleface, you just recommended PECKHAM to someone who wants to live in Shoreditch. PEC-K-HAM.

If you want to live close to Shoreditch then take a look around the Highbury/Bethnal Green areas. They're a bit cheaper but within walking distance. They're also good for bus routes. For instance look ye here.

11:32 / 30.05.06

No, I recommended Peckham to someone who wants to pay £500-£600 a month for a flat

Of course it's miles from Shoreditch.

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:35 / 30.05.06

How about New Cross? East London line will take you to Whitechapel in about ten minutes, and you get plenty of local colourby which I mean a really big Currys.

11:37 / 30.05.06

I used to live in Clapham and it’s quite good if you want to go out a lot and be very sociable - It will be full of the people you used to go University with (or people just like them) as it’s basically where the graduates go when they’ve got their first jobs.

I would guess the flat you’re talking about is £700 per month each? (Unless she gets the bigger room of course). As flats there tend to be aimed at young professionals, it’;; probably be a really nice two bed place, with a decent kitchen and facilities etc thus the hellish expense - you get what you pay for. I’d go further South if I was you, Brockly/New Cross/Dulwich/Forest hill are all nice (ish) in parts.

11:46 / 30.05.06

in my experience, north and east rules south, both in terms of transport connections and local amenities. in my opinion, i wouldn't go south east or south of the river either.

but it mostly depends on what you're into and what kind of nightlife you're after.

11:50 / 30.05.06

I think a lot of that 'south of the river' stuff is bollocks - but then, I've tended to live not that far south and within easy distance of good transport links (Vauxhall, Kennington). Rent in Vauxhall was pretty high, though: we paid around £1000 per month for an admittedly fairly cavernous one-bedroom flat 2 minutes from the station.

Tryphena Absent

11:54 / 30.05.06

You're all whack. You haven't even checked if yawnnui understands buses when wasted and you're already suggesting Forest Hill???

15 minutes home on a night bus from Oxford Street or you may as well be living in Wiltshire. That's my rule.

Tryphena Absent

11:56 / 30.05.06

camofleur is my natural ally.

11:57 / 30.05.06

yawn of the south?

about time too, fucking brilliant news.

12:00 / 30.05.06

The peasants of South London are still living in the Dark Ages, yawnnui, dressing in tree bark and eating their young. Or so you would think, to read the views of some Lithers.

Clapham would be a good location, IMHO, for a young professional chap in London. Local amenities are excellent and it's a short hop on the Northern Line to London Bridge from there. You also have really good overground rail services.

Big determinant for me is walking distance from the pubs and clubs you'll be frequenting most. If you're likely to be socialising and clubbing up around Hoxton / Shoreditch mostly, you'll have some hefty cab fares home at 4 a.m. if you're living in Clapham. Could be £30-£40, depending. Mayor Ken is talking about keeping the tube open till 3 a.m. or so, though.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:00 / 30.05.06

Oh, forgot to mention:

OR . . . if I was to live in trendy shoreditch type area I could probably walk to work . . .

Depends massiveley on how dedicated you are to walking. Shoreditch to Southwark is probably about 45 minutes' brisk walk, perhaps a little more, depending on the foot traffic. It's doable, but it's not easy, especially not if you're intending to have North London Fun (what people in North London have all the time). If you're prepared to pay Shoreditch-type rents, possibly better to look for something in Borough, which is a much easier walk... if not, south-east London has the advantage of having lots of connections to London Bridge, from which your office would be a fairly easy walk. If you want North London, get on the Northern Line (which carries a price premium, which the mooted flat in Clapham is probably feeling) or the Jubilee Line (covers locations either hopelessly pricey or decidedly distant).

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:05 / 30.05.06

I lived in Whitechapel for two years, on the border of zones 1 & 2, and paid about £500 a month. This was 15 minutes walk or so from Brick Lane, and since then the bars of Shoreditch have spread to the bottom of Brick Lane and Commercial Street and started creeping East down Whitechapel High Street. Which means that rent has probably gone up round there, but I still think it's worth a shot - handy for buses and tubes to the very centre (Oxford Street etc.) too. The same applies to Bethnal Green, and maybe even Bow...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:05 / 30.05.06

I'd say northeast- various parts of Hackney are reasonably cheap, and walkable to Shoreditch. Also forget all this Tube nonsense- buses are cheaper and nicer.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:13 / 30.05.06

Yes - what people are forgetting is that Shoreditch is being cited as "random cool place from which it is possible to save money by walking to and from work", when that work is at Bankside.

Whitechapel sounds credible, although I suspect £600 will struggle to get a studio. Maybe as a share... that will still need a travelcard, though. To be honest, if you're going to be wide-eyed and Carnaby Street about living in London, you need a travelcard unless you have a flat in Soho.

12:27 / 30.05.06

i would personally recommend stoke newington. good bus links into central and well located for access to shoreditch and the rest of north london.

yawn - thing's buddy

12:28 / 30.05.06

thanks for comments so far - very interestink...

haus - should I wear my gorblimey trousers on my first day of work?

Also - I'd been recommended hackney (where my editor lives)stoke newington and bethnal green by others too . . . any comments on thereabouts?

12:33 / 30.05.06

I live in Bethnal Green and I like it, walkable to Shoreditch and Old Street, can bus into the centre of town very easily, near to Spitialfields, Brick Lane, Liverpool Street. The massive, yet always strangly empty Victoria Park is not to far away either. No idea what the commercial rents are like though. I'd guess £500?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:34 / 30.05.06

Stokey's cool in its own right- lots of nice pubs, pretty cool nightlife, handy bus and overland access (though no tube, but the tube's shit anyway).

12:37 / 30.05.06

Also, are you musical or artistic - tends to be musicians in Stokey (I also lived in Stokey for a couple of years and it's very nice) and artists in Hakcney.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:37 / 30.05.06

haus - should I wear my gorblimey trousers on my first day of work?

Inadvisable. Not intending to suggest starry-eyed is a bad thing - when I first came to London I lived in Islington, and have moved further out as I've become more jaded and less likely to find myself having to walk home at 4am. Young hearts running free will have different priorities - like Anna's need for a handy nightbus. Only that it's hard to balance getting to work, experiencing London and livng somewhere wiith reasonable rents without a travelcard becoming a cost saving.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:38 / 30.05.06

Hackney and Stokey aren't really on the tube, but to compensate for that (leaving aside the "buses are better" debate - buses are nicer, but slower, and can be a nightmare in rush hour, but then so can the tube, etc.) they do have their own thriving areas and 'scenes' - if you like having a nice local area rather than ranging far and wide across London, they're a good bet - that's my impression but I'm sure you can have a nice local area elsewhere and range far and wide from pretty much any base if you're inclined.

Stoke Newington definitely seems to be on the up and up - Barbelith's own Morning Bride hail from and play lots of gigs there, its where It Came From The Sea will be when it launches in London in July, etc.

13:47 / 30.05.06

I live in Bethnal Green and, if I worked near the Tate, would definitely walk rather than getting the bus (Haus is correct, it would take around 40-45 mins from Shoreditch church - you would spend longer than that on the buses, and you'd have to walk 10 mins either side for the tube journey also). I walk to work in Bloomsbury, takes about 50 mins. Room rents around Brick Lane itself seem to be high - £400-450 pcm for a room in a shared place, no idea whether bills included or not, that's probably for the cheapest and scuzziest places. Stepney Green and areas round Whitechapel (as Flyboy suggests) might be a bit cheaper, and not too far from the bars etc.

Depends how much time you imagine you'll spend in your manor really, as others have said. I hear Deptford is the new Hoxton.

15:17 / 30.05.06

Funnily enough, someone was telling me that about Deptford over the weekend, KCC. What is it, about zone 25?

If you've got any friends already living in London, yawnui, I'd think about living within striking distance (three or four tube stops say,) of wherever they are, if possible. Moving to London's the thing to do, but it can be a bit daunting to begin with, so it's handy, if you find yourself feeling a bit low of a Sunday evening, to have people around you can nip off the local with without having to spend half the night on public transport to get there.

18:14 / 30.05.06

They've been saying that about Deptford for years. I've yet to see it really take off, but there is a bit of an art/music scene. It's zone 2 by the way, Alex's Grandma. The epicentre of Resonance FM's Calling All Pensioners, as you'd surely know...

London's a big place, Yawn (a man could lose himself...) and, yeah, it just depends what will suit you best, really. Will you get much of a chance to come down and look around before you move? A weekend spent travelling around a few choice locations ought to give you more of an idea as to how all the bits of the city fit together and how easy (or not) it is to reach them, as well as an inkling of the vibes. As it were.

The Return Of Rothkoid

00:57 / 31.05.06

The Return Of Rothkoid heartily endorses Stoke Newington, though accepts other posters' caveats.

Big cemetary action.

01:03 / 31.05.06

Big cemetary action.

For those Joe Orton moments.

Not in the Face

06:31 / 31.05.06

Have you thought of Kennington and there abouts? Its a bit of a mix of north and south london (in that its South London but feels a lot like north london lapped over the Thames). I had a shared house there for £400 a month (although this was 5 years ago)- its very well connected for public transport so helping alleviate the initial shock people have of coming to London and the time it takes to go anywhere and you can easily walk to work on a daily basis - and so save yourself money on transport costs to boot.

Mon Oncle Ignatius

07:47 / 31.05.06

I'd add my vote for Stoke Newington - there's a bus which goes right to Bankside from the High Street and there's a local landlord who can sort you out relatively(1) cheapish rents if you know who to ask (such as Stoatie or me - we've both rented from him in the past).

Stoke Newington definitely seems to be on the up and up - Barbelith's own Morning Bride hail from and play lots of gigs there,

You can't walk down the street here without bumping into those pesky N16 muso types.

its where It Came From The Sea will be when it launches in London in July, etc.

[Rotting slightly: Oooh, is it indeed? They'll be hard pressed to find the sound of breaking waves ion the ponds in Clissold Park, but that's good to know. Where's it going to be, by the way?]

The cemetary is wonderful too, even with just dog walking action.

[Rotting again: So did Orton hang out there? Or was there much Papal excreting going on in the woods?]

(1) though perhaps a bit over the budget.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:16 / 31.05.06

ICFTS London venue = Barden's Boudoir.

08:41 / 31.05.06

You know that just a stop or two further than Clapham is Brighton, don't you? The nightbus can take longer than the train to the seaside... join usss....

yawn - thing's buddy

10:29 / 31.05.06

thanks everyone for your comments and advice.

having spoken to my potential flatmate it looks like we'll try for a flat in balham/clapham - for the first six months anyway.

Fuck it - it'll be interesting to cut through the city everyday, working my way up to, and back from,the south bank.

Stoke Newington is a grower . . . if I'm not mistaken its home to a lot of turkish restaurtants too . . . that could swing it long term for me!

oh, and . . .

enemies of yawn: prepare to convert

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