Not much has changed since Dickensian times. As for the culture well maybe their language known as English has had some influence globally and perhaps the industrial revolution , both of which can be a tad shady
London has loads of great parks and splendid architecture in the center . World class museums. Some very decent commuter towns and villages … each village having it’s own identity especially in the old days.
It’s very very diverse , if somebody can equate a different hair or clothes style to dirtiness…That’s their problem.
I worked there for a short period and have visited sporadically over the years.
The two issues I have with London are
people are very busy , they can be cold and lack of locals to talk to (big city eh)
With regards to point 1, most people in London tourists meet during weekdays are commuters. They come in on massively over-priced privatized trains, which are unreliable, slow, and over-crowded. They only want to work and then go home. So, unsurprisingly, they are seriously pissed-off individuals.
It’s a great city in many ways, but you need to be rich to enjoy it.
I think I have told of my first encounter with one of the species you mention . First day in London, standing on the wrong side of one of those massive escalators that descend to the depths in the Tube, …Hear a shout 'I’m coming through ’ and feel a hot breeze on my neck.
Turn around and a very red faced and angry London commuter guy is fuming at me. Welcome to London :).
I lived in London for ten years, so I have many stories about grumpy commuters. It’s always that weird British low-level grumpiness. The locals are generally quite relaxed (bar the stabbings).
Tourists need to be aware that if they stare at map while blocking the pavement - there’s a strong possibility that some commuter is going to say something.
The first time I went to London as a high school kid, English learning thing.
On the second day one local threw up on on of our teachers outside a supermarket and his friend emptied a bottle of beer over the head of the other teacher, then they proceeded to threaten to beat them into a pulp. Us kids were proper scared, I still remember it quite clearly. Police showed up, the guys left and that was that.
The second time in London I remember a guy on the tube during rush hour, he was on crutches, was bandaged from head to toe and had pus leaking from his head. He said he was an Afghan war veteran and needed money. When I didn’t immediately reach for my wallet he tried to hit me with one of his crutches. More sad than scary.
You not wanting to live there is subjective. An objective analysis would be: if London were to be at the bottom of some quality of life list then why do so many people want to live there?
EDIT: Why are Edinburgh and Barcelona so low? I’ve never been to Kobe. Birmingham really isn’t as bad as people think. It’s a bit like Taichung only with worse weather.
When I say foreigners I mean the obvious ones, like different race and language. Asians, Latin American, Central/South Europe but you’ve got a point.
London was the only foreign city I’ve visited where if I closed my eyes in certain places I could only hear Portuguese (BRA) beig spoken in certain places, others only Spanish (SA). But sill I prefer that then the local ‘fragance’