Sure, London has recently been named the top travel destination in Europe and the best city in the entire freakin’ world – but not all of the city’s residents would agree. While some boroughs are particularly happy places to live, that isn’t the case for others.
That huge difference in attitudes is shown by scathing reviews website iLiveHere.com, where people can vote on the UK’s ‘most depressing’ towns. Last year, 105,598 people voted in iLiveHere.com’s poll and Luton was named the worst of the worst places to live in Britain.
For 2024’s edition of the vote, residents from all over the UK nominated 153 towns and areas in a shortlist of the ‘most depressing’ places – and four places across London made the cut.
iLiveHere released a statement saying: ‘Bland, boring, soul destroying mediocrity with a gaping cultural void. This is what our new poll is about. This year we are ditching the usual suspects to focus on… the towns where you just exist rather than live.’
Croydon was the first London neighbourhood named in the shortlist (the list is alphabetical), followed by Orpington and Hounslow. The final inclusion is a somewhat surprising one: Shoreditch. A ridiculous concentration of overpriced vintage clothes stores can be irritating, but ‘depressing’ seems a bit of a stretch.
You can read the full list and even vote for the ‘most depressing’ places to live in the UK right here.
Did you see that the DLR is getting steering wheels so you can finally ‘drive’ the train?
Plus: these iconic women are getting blue plaques in London this year.
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