Comment by killingtime74 4 days ago
Where else have you lived though? The cost of living is high, healthcare is problematic, crowded, bad weather, low economic growth prospects.
It's not even top 10 on most lists. Europe, Australia has way better cities.
Example Sydney, life expectancy is at least 5 years more.
The poverty rate in London, 26%, is double of Sydney at 13%.
E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/06/18/the...
> People from Sydney who move to London come to hate it, once the novelty wears off, just as they would with New York
Just sharing a different perspective, I'm from Sydney and have lived in all 3 and don't agree with this generalisation. I know plenty of Sydney-raised people who've lived in London or New York for decades, love those places, and don't plan to move back to Sydney any time soon if at all.
The best part about London weather is that it’s rarely life threatening. No big storms, cyclones, floods or extreme temperatures.
To say it’s pleasant year round is probably a bit of a stretch for most.
> London has a special microclimate and pleasant weather
It is hard to reconcile this with having actually lived there. The only benefit to the weather in London is it rarely gets very cold. Other than that, it gets very dark winters, it’s rarely sunny, when it gets too hot it’s unbearable because nowhere has aircon, and it’s usually drizzling.
The weather is appalling.
I'm fairly well travelled. Lived in Tokyo for a bit. There's no perfect city. London has the best combination of all attributes, for me.
Have you lived in London and Sydney both, or are you just reading numbers off of Google and "best city" lists? Sydney is boring and in the middle of nowhere.
I'm from Sydney and yes lived in London, Melb, Auckland and Hong Kong. My main recollection of London was narrow streets. I think we like being in the middle of nowhere (geography, nuke missile target, conflict), surrounded by ocean. It is true, it's the one downside, it takes a long time to fly anywhere else.
Fair enough. I think if you like to travel, go away for the weekend etc then Sydney is not on the list. London has cheap euro flights, hub airports etc. I'm sure the QOL is good in all of those places of course, nice place to raise a family etc.
You could not possibly compare Sydney and London, they are very different. London is a bustling diverse city, Sydney is a nice (big) town. Sydney is a great place, and London is far from perfect but they are not in the same conversation. They are different.
The Global Liveability Index is, essentially, highlighting the most middle of the road cities. London (as with New York) has huge disparities and that guarantees it will never rank well on the Global Liveability Index. The people who choose to live in London and love London (as with the people who choose to live in New York and love New York) do not choose it because it is average.
I have lived in London and Sydney and many other cities. I have fallen out of love with London. I would rather live in Sydney than London. I still cannot imagine ever describing Sydney as a better city than London. Just as I can't imagine describing Copenhagen better than London.
Healthcare in London is world class. A city is crowded. The weather is very average for Europe.
People from Sydney who move to London come to hate it, once the novelty wears off, just as they would with New York, because the Australian way of life is very different. Sydney is closer to island life than city life.
Even with London's ongoing decline due to the U.K's inexplicable self sabotage, it still has something to offer.