London/UK versus Los Angeles/Southern California (sales, insurance)

[LINCOLNSHIRE]

Originally Posted by geeoro

If you are walking anywhere in London, make sure you keep all personal possessions out of sight. If your wife or girlfriend is carrying a purse or hanbag, keep it in front of her and hold it against her. this stops the snatch thieves or the "dippers" who dip into your bag to steal. There are good points to London but safety is not one of them. nearly everyone who lives in London is suspicious of other people. This is not being paranoid, it is brought about for good reason. Just remember to keep your eyes open and take precautions, you should be ok.

And that also applies to anywhere in the world kids...Let`s be careful out there..!!

[geeoro]

I must admit that i have not felt as unsafe in the USA as in most of London. There is a underbelly of nastiness here. My wife is forever shocked at the pure violence that can occur here. Not just shooting but going mad with a chain saw or watching a yob hit his girlfriend full in the face in the street for no reason except that he was drunk. My wife never took precautions as far as handbags etc. until she had her pocket picked in a local market. Yes it happens al over the world but the UK is now becoming a haven for immigrants who are from the eastern block and other places who feel they are above the Law

[swim73088]

Originally Posted by geeoro

I must admit that i have not felt as unsafe in the USA as in most of London. There is a underbelly of nastiness here. My wife is forever shocked at the pure violence that can occur here. Not just shooting but going mad with a chain saw or watching a yob hit his girlfriend full in the face in the street for no reason except that he was drunk. My wife never took precautions as far as handbags etc. until she had her pocket picked in a local market. Yes it happens al over the world but the UK is now becoming a haven for immigrants who are from the eastern block and other places who feel they are above the Law

its not the eastern bloc it is mostly the Caribbean, the african, and the native brits that are the problem and no i am not racist, it is a statistic

[vaga bond]

Originally Posted by swim73088

the positives far away the negatives in my opinion but there are a few things you will (at least i did) come to discover.

you have to have money. if you work in the city (financial district) then London is great as you can afford everything the city has to offer. other than that...it is not a very nice place to live as the income/quality of life gap is ENORMOUS, it might be the worst i have ever seen in the developed world and i have traveled extensively. the nice areas to live are extremely nice, but the "affordable" areas are for all intensive purposes complete dumps unless you have really low standards. this is why the prime real estate is so prime because the standards go from excellent to cr*p very quickly.

i was surprised that there is council housing (public housing) EVERYWHERE. Because the UK is more socialist than the U.S. allot of areas have mixed housing which i though originally I would get used to and be fine with, but oh how wrong i was. i know it is not good to isolate the poor and create ghettos (though to be fair London already has them) but sometimes the stuff i have put up with makes me think otherwise.

i am from NYC originally so I though i had seen it all but even i was surprised by how out in the open some of the UK's social ills are. i have seen group of drunk tramps (homeless people) drinking lager at 8:00 am outside a NHS run rehab clinic...what!? I have seen groups of chavs (kind of like a cross between a wigger and white trash) assault a man for no reason. I have seen hooded teen gangs yell at a mother and her daughter as they walk past for no reason. I have seen someone get stabbed (seriously). The list goes on and on. This isn't even in bad areas by any means...it is just allot of the time normal people and those who cause crime are forced to mix.

Allot of these problems do stem from Labour's generous welfare state and lax punishment for crime but they won't be around for too much longer!

btw...I actually used to be quite liberal and championed the welfare state of the UK until I saw how poorly it really operates

sorry...rant over!

now the positives!

the food is excellent both by supermarket and restaurant standards. the supermarkets are priced opposite as to how the states does it. the crap processed food is actually expensive (it is imported from the states haha) and the fresh food is great and in my opinion very reasonably priced.

Londoners b*itch about the tube but it is excellent in my opinion. the normal buses are fine but the nightbuses are a joke...they just don't come. i have given up on them completely...just take a cab, they are expensive but if you are with a few people and split it, it ends up being fine.

museums are free and there are a plethora of incredible parks (much more than in any american city).

i never got the stereotype about the bad service. maybe i forgot how good it was in the states but i really see no marked difference at all.

I think the problem is the Labour Party is not really socialist. Perhaps some members are, but all they can agree upon are band-aids. So instead of good income redistribution, they end up letting the rich get filthy rich while giving hand outs to the poor. The poor struggle to earn enough to live decent, and many realize they can live all right (at the bottom) doing the bare minimum. The same with taxes. They don't tax the wealthy as harshly as other European countries, instead the middle class and working class feel it the most, except the middle class also loses the benefit of the hand outs, so they just barely scrape by.

Better income distribution would mean less hand outs, which would lessen the people who live such a bleak lifestyle. Less noticeable class divides, which is a source of tension for those in the lower class (and they act out with aggression and crime). Less "council estates".

The Tories will not solve the problem. They'll likely make the income inequality worse and just react more violently/harshly against the poor. If you want to see where that leads, look at the US. If you want to see where better income equality leads to, look at northern Europe and Japan.

[nath27554]

my opinion would be that londons cold weather and busy traffic let it down and after going to california for three weeks belief you should stay in california, me and a friend wish to move there one day, cant wait! trust me, stay there it isnt worth it!

[NeilKenes]

Many people may say weather is a big difference.

From what I can tell there are a lot o British in LA, so they must like it for some reason or another !!

I love hearing all the accents i hear while living in LA, I think LA is really a hub to the world on some levels.

[mxcolin]

I have been to both numerous time so here are how I see one over the other

London

Better restaurants
Much better supermarkets/food
Close to Europe
Much more ethnically diverse (I guess that depends on your point of view, positive in my eyes :-)
People are friendlier in general (Although London is probably the least friendly part of the UK)
More important on a World stage (if you don't count the movie/tv industry)
Much better public transport
Very expensive (although California is about as expensive as the rest of the UK outside of the South East)
Terrible traffic
Definite undercurrent of nastiness in the population (just like LA)
Safer
Weather not as bad as portrayed

Los Angeles

Much much much better weather
More natural beauty
Cleaner (just, although both are dirty)
Much better road network
Close to beaches
Close to mountains
Less Tax
Cheaper Gas/Petrol

[ian6479]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

I have been to both numerous time so here are how I see one over the other

London

Better restaurants
Much better supermarkets/food
Close to Europe
Much more ethnically diverse (I guess that depends on your point of view, positive in my eyes :-)
People are friendlier in general (Although London is probably the least friendly part of the UK)
More important on a World stage (if you don't count the movie/tv industry)
Much better public transport
Very expensive (although California is about as expensive as the rest of the UK outside of the South East)
Terrible traffic
Definite undercurrent of nastiness in the population (just like LA)
Safer
Weather not as bad as portrayed

Los Angeles

Much much much better weather
More natural beauty
Cleaner (just, although both are dirty)
Much better road network
Close to beaches
Close to mountains
Less Tax
Cheaper Gas/Petrol

And California is probably the most taxed state in the union!! People where I live shudder at the cost of living in California.

[mxcolin]

Try living in the UK and you will see what it is to shudder at tax. Whenever I go to the gas station I still feel like I'm stealing it's so cheap compared with home :-)

[ian6479]

Originally Posted by mxcolin

Try living in the UK and you will see what it is to shudder at tax. Whenever I go to the gas station I still feel like I'm stealing it's so cheap compared with home :-)

I know, I'm from the UK. I fill my car twice monthly for $32 and people here whine about gas prices!! But compared to Nevada's zero income tax rate, California's 10 or 11% seems like a lot!