Escape The City: The London Mass Exodus And The New Post-Covid-Crisis Era
“Covid-19 is accelerating migration away from the capital, as 1.6m Londoners (26%) have been working outside of the city during lockdown and want to continue doing so, according to new research from TotalJobs”. As a writer and contributor on topics of ‘Diversity and Disability Inclusion in the Workforce’ the release of this research by TotalJobs both astounded me and intrigued me; but is this mass migration surprising at all and will post-pandemic people continue this trend? With the increased movements in ‘flexible working’ and ‘diversity and inclusion’ initiatives, as well as the impact of Covid19, there has been a drive for work-from-home patterns facilitated by the necessity for virtual technology. This is a new era of people seeking work-life balance and wanting to move away from the stressful life of the Big City – the packed train commutes, the rush-hour, the traffic jams. What is there to miss anymore?
Being a Londoner my whole life, I have known this global power-house of a City to be the Financial Capital of the world – the U.K being the world’s highest exporter of financial services. I have always been proud of living in ‘the’ city where so many flock to for a better life, better economic prospects and to make clever investments. Today, 6.2 million (9% of the total population) people in the UK are immigrants from around the world, 3.7 million of which are from EU states, and 200,000 of which immigrated to London adding to the 3 million immigrants residing in London. In terms of foreign direct investment, the UK saw inflows of 59 million (measured in US dollars) in 2019 and, as UNCTAD recorded, has seen an inwards investment stock of $2.1 trillion; according to City of London Corporation statistics, London accounts for over a third (36%) of the estimated capital investment in the UK in terms of inward financial services FDI, attracting around £4.23 billion.
A power-house indeed. However, there seems to be an air of pessimism with regards to London’s attractiveness – and I do not just mean in terms of the decline in foreign investments due to Brexit, with 15% of investors pausing one or more UK projects in 2018 and a reported 4% fall in FDI projects – as London’s residents are looking to escape to the suburbs and the countryside.
Sadly, the pandemic has impacted the longevity of the capital’s appeal, and from a personal perspective I can see why. Speaking with regards to my own experiences, someone who is an ‘I Love London’ advocate, I have slowly become a convert to the ‘Escape the City’ Vibe, and there are several reasons that are bringing me to the brink.
The London Commute
For many years I have felt the impact of the morning rush hour on my mental and physical health, standing dangerously on the edge of an underground tube platform with 4 rows of commuters tightly packed behind me as I await the next train to work, then piling onto a train amidst the sweaty armpits, the heat and soot of the train, standing face-to-face within a two inch proximity to another person. With the global pandemic we wouldn’t dream of doing that now! And I feel overwhelmingly relieved. What happens when we have to return to work? Will we go back to that stressful commute? I cannot even fathom it.
I am one of 46% of London residents who do not own a car, and why would I? The rush hour commute is a head-ache with traffic jams and road blocks, the streets of London are also a maze to navigate as the Mayor of London has put new road signs making half of the city a one-way street mechanism. And with the raise in the congestion charge to a staggering £15 per day, drivers are bottle-necking the streets of London in an effort to divert away from the congestion zone. And don’t get me started with the ridiculous road planning signed off by the Mayor – who came up with these idiotic ‘solutions’ anyway? Places like Old Street with it’s new 3-way as opposed to the original fully-functional 4-way exit roundabout, has gone from what was dubbed ‘Silicone Roundabout’ to what I would call the ‘Silicone Gridlock’! You don’t have to go too far up the road to find a similar tragedy where in Southwark a roundabout was built with an exit into the Rotherhithe tunnel, notoriously creating a bottle-neck and with recent closures to the tunnel has created a commuter’s hell.
Then there are the extremes: as the ONS figures state, over 930,000 of us working in London travel for over two hours every weekday, which has got to take its toll on us both financially and mentally. It is stress overload when you think about it; the worry of the over £5000 per year commuting costs into and out of London, the stress of the delays in trains, the stress of parking tolls at train stations, the list is endless. And though there is what is called the ‘London Weighting’ currently averaging at under £4000 which hardly puts a dent on transport costs. There is damning evidence from surveys proving the extreme lengths workers are taking to figure out the best way to deal with the stressful commuting experience, which brings us to the burning question: do you live in London and pay the extortionate inner city rental rates in order to reduce your commute to work? Unless you take a bicycle to work you still have to pay the expensive tube fairs and be packed like a sardine every work-day. Or, do you brave the suburban/country life and commute over two hours each way into and out of London, finding yourself out of pocket by at least £5000 for the pleasure of doing so and still endure the stressful train delays? It’s a lose-lose situation and firms in the UK are not making it any easier on their human capital – the people that essentially make their firms tick! Over 60% of employers have been reported not making efforts to make the commuting lives of their workers any easier.
Skyscrapers and Skyrocketing Property Prices
In every corner of London skyscrapers are mushrooming into existence and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it. Though the pandemic has caused a slowdown in most industries including manufacturing, there is no stopping this trend. I grew up in Islington, and coming out of my home I would seldom see high-rises, and the few that exist are council-houses which were built in the late 60s due to urban growth and the drive to build upwards rather than outwards in cities like London and Manchester. However, huge influxes in foreign property investment within London and lax regulations on doing so has meant giant property developers are cashing in, and now I walk up City Road in EC1 and see what I call uber-modern galactic skyscrapers – so tall that they reach the stars!
Many a time I have walked past these buildings thinking to myself ‘who on earth can afford to live there’? Because along with the shimmering and shiny new apartments comes a price-tag that makes your eyes water. To purchase a studio-flat at 250 City Road you need a jaw-dropping £880,000, and City of London rentals are a minimum of £2500 per calendar month with a monthly top up of extortionate service charges averaging £400 per month due to the existence of private concierge, in-house gym facilities and other city-dweller ‘perks’. What’s more, my father is a Civil Engineer with 45 years’ experience and has explained to me that the modern materials used to build millennial infrastructure are lightweight and low cost. Modern high-rises are made of steel or concrete structures with gypsum plasterboard, which in layman’s terms means the use of cheap materials that can cost £100,000 per apartment for the property developer to build, that’s nearly a 9-fold profit and the filthy riches these developers make are because the government allows it – however, the law of supply and demand plays on the desperation of Londoners needing properties to rent in order to work in London. They are basically milking it.
You only need to read an article by the Guardian to understand how the antics of modern property developers are nothing short of ‘legalised bribery’ where the notorious ‘section 106’ agreement allows for local authorities to sanction ‘levies’ for every new development built in order to offset the effects on the local area. If you ask me, London used to be owned by the big banks and since the global economic crisis of 2007 happened which meant banks tightened their bootstraps and stopped releasing funds for loans, developers are turning to new multibillionaires of the global economy replacing banks with foreign investors from Russia, China and the Middle East; as the Guardian article so eloquently put it “we’ve gone from being ruled by Barclay’s bank to being controlled by Berkeley homes”. The promise of affordable homes quotas being met have been brushed under the carpet as the housing crisis still soars, the improvements to local communities in terms of green space, health and leisure facilities, local schools and infrastructure have been completely sidelines; every promise to the citizens of London has been broken, and beyond that London has become a monstrous concrete and glass jungle, laden with ugly sky-rising facades which are playing against natural elements. I left my home in Old Street because I stopped being able to find the sun, my skin would freeze over even in the heat of summer due to being a tiny speck on the street while someone towered over me in their penthouse, and on a windy day gusts would sweep through side-streets of purely planned infrastructure and the dynamics of the forces would have me blown over like a leaf. These developments have become a danger to society and only those living at the bottom have experienced it. And what’s worse is that they are sitting empty like ‘investor luxury safety-boxes’, which in layman’s terms means they are a hub for money-laundering practices. The powers that be have been dazzled by their wealth, so much so they don’t care that London has been sold piece by piece, given away to the highest bidder with no remorse.
The cost of living in London is soaring, while salaries are not rising enough in relation to inflation, so there is no wonder everyday we hear young millennials saying they can not get on the property ladder – hell even if you are in your 30 plus you still can’t afford it! The next generation is paying for these atrocities and there doesn’t seem an end in sight – or is there?
Changing Perceptions and Priorities
For a long while I have seen a shift in society’s values and ethics where people are measuring life in terms of principles like happiness, work-life balance, health, family, nature, and experiences, while concepts like consumerism, a high-flying city job, and prestige are taking the back-burner. As a TV-binger I love watching Escape to the Country where the beauty of nature is rightfully glamorised. I only have to see my friends on Facebook to see how many are increasingly searching for a London Allotments to quench their thirst for self-sufficiency, and for those who want healthy organic produce with no effort, there is a surge in buying ‘vegetable’ boxes from farms in the UK. However, some have gone one step further and decided to leave the London life behind for pastures new (excuse the pun!), either moving to hotter climates like the Mediterranean or to the quintessential English countryside, or to seaside towns.
As I said, I am a proud Londoner and even I have started hearing a calling away from London. During a time when I was seeking something new, when my perceptions of London’s job-market reached heart-wrenching levels of disappointment due to lack of sufficient disability diversity and inclusive opportunities, I sought out new ideals and ground-breaking solutions. I came across the ‘Escape the City’, a community of over 500,000 career changers who are looking for more fulfilling careers that make a difference, can sometimes be unconventional – I went to one of their London events and experienced a presentation by a man who gave up his cozy high-flyer city dwelling career to join the Extinction Rebellion Movement, so know that they are not all ‘unambitious, jobless, ignorant, alienating tree-huggers!’ as I once heard from a ‘professional’ speaking his mind and not quite getting the point of the movement – and explore a life-balance of doing work that matters that doesn’t mean being a 9 to 5 job. The founders came up with a 2-fold solution to the future of the work-market; one, to teach you career change tactics in order to follow a more meaningful work-life, pairing you up with roles advertised on their jobsite platform that are distinguished as forward-thinking, modern start-ups and SMEs with a social impact vision, and two, to teach you how to launch your own business that has social and environmental impact in order to build a better future, while earning your own money and not having to work in traditional firms that don’t ‘fit’ around you and your lifestyle. This drive towards better communities, supporting social enterprise, doing business that is good for the environment, making a difference to people and the planet, it has gone to a mind-blowing lever and has thankfully changed the way we live and work.
The Impact of Covid Crisis
It would be crazy not to take into account the aforementioned reasons for which Londoners have become disillusioned with their City and are looking to move away from ‘all the crazy’. However, I believe the pandemic is the straw that broke the camel’s back, as for too long many of us have been stuck in the rat race and timidly dipped our toe into considering a better life but never too the plunge. It has never been made easy for anybody, if you think about it firms have not offered their employees options beyond full-time opportunities, the government hasn’t set regulations to support the rights of employees. We work our lives away because we have to pay the rent and feed our children. What about firms and the government putting value on the concept of work-life balance? Ideas like flexible working hours for parents with children, part-time work for people who are carers or have disabilities and need time for hospital appointments, respecting people who want to enjoy a career beyond 60, providing job-share opportunities, making use of technological innovation to promote home-working, appreciating the requirement for highly skilled contractors and freelancers. ‘But these options exist!’ I hear you say? No, we talk about them, we believe in a utopian world that they exists but in actual fact, in realistic terms firms are keeping a tight control over our lives, our future and our happiness, because it doesn’t suit them to ‘change things’.
Then the global pandemic toppled the world into confusion and disarray, but if we open our eyes and our minds, we have all seen the hugely positive impact of the global pandemic. Those firms and the government finally understand the value of the population mass that holds the economy together, we are told that ‘we are now forced to adapt our working-patterns due to Covid’ yet in fact this adaptation is evolution in progress and workers are now demanding to work from home and never return to the old. Finally, we are in a position to demand new working patterns, to establish our grounds for working for firms who are willing to adapt their ways around us.
Mass Migration
Workers are seeking to completely ‘remove’ problems surrounding their working patterns which have been problematic for many decades in the workforce. We are seeking to remove the stressful commute by demanding more work-from-home roles since the global pandemic has proven to firms and government controlling our lives for too long, that ‘it can be done!’. We are seeking to remove financial stress by living in affordable locations outside London, allowing many to climb on the property ladder who previously were not able to dream about, which is facilitated by working-from-home.
The most essential impact that has arisen from the pandemic has been the sense of community, where people have missed human interaction, have made a difference to the vulnerable, have come together to support each other, and understood how life is too short.
Essentially, we have all stopped taking life for granted and have re-evaluated our priorities in life. I for one have had the time during the pandemic to think about what I want from life and so left my job that was not fulfilling to me in order to pursue my writing, the rise in virtual interaction and the virtual bonding has built virtual communities which I have had time to search out and be apart of, one of which is The Everyday Magazine which has allowed me to explore my love for the creative word, I have refocused my attention towards volunteering in the arts in order to fulfil my lifelong aspiration to be part of the arts and to enjoy it to the fullest, I have made plans to move closer to nature by paying more attention to my gardening, learning the skills of growing organic vegetables and herbs, and I have even gone as far as to research the closest seaside town I could move to in order to have the easy access to London I require due to my regular hospital visits and my husband’s job requirements, while seeking out nature and a happier, healthier life by the coast. I am one of those proud Londoners looking to move away from the city and this tendency has been accelerated by the pandemic and I am not surprised.
Though I have personally chosen Folkstone as my new living destination and have visited a couple of times during the easing of lockdown to explore the possibility of moving there, according to a research in actual fact Brighton and Hove have been voted the top destinations with a majority vote of 30% choosing to migrate there. The findings are staggering as ‘43 per cent are craving cheaper living costs, while 42 per cent said they wanted to be by the seaside’, however, are unsurprising as the attractiveness of London Living is deteriorating over time.
Standard of Living Matters
London maybe the financial hub of the world, however, standard of living is measured in the quality of life people have and as Mercer puts it:
“London remains the city with the highest quality of living in the UK and the preferred centre for international business. However, it continues to be held back by perennial problems with traffic and air pollution, and having the lowest scores in the UK for safety owing to its crime levels”
Both Mercer and The Economist agree that top of the ranks for ‘standard of living’ or ‘the most liveable city in the world’ is Vienna. Though, what attracts me to my home-town London is the abundance of arts and culture, the ability to live the high-life if you secure a high-flying career, and the existence of high standard transport links and infrastructure, it is hard to ignore the lacking in the wellbeing of the population of London, the increased stress levels, the high levels of pollution, the crime levels, the soaring rents, the expensive transport (London tube fairs are the most expensive in the world!), the long commuting times and unreliable trains to name a few. Until London is able to put more value in standards of life, it really needs to take a leaf out of ‘The Book of Vienna’.
To Conclude
I don’t mean to scare anyone away from London, I still am an advocate of ‘I Love London’ and when you are in Love with anything in life, you love it unconditionally with all it’s flaws. But, just like any relationship, I have my boundaries and I feel that I have come to breaking point and these boundaries have been crossed and trampled on beyond repair. I have lost trust and confidence in my beloved City of London, and though it will always remain in my heart, holding a special piece of me that will always remain there for it, I have to look at the future, like many planning their exodus out of London as we speak, I need to plan for my family, for my wellbeing, for my health and my happiness, and with the stress, traffic, financial pressures and uncertainty that comes along with London Living, I see myself taking action sooner rather than later. I married myself to London, but sadly my ‘love’ it wasn’t meant to be and it is my time to move on. So, Folkstone, here we come!
If you are planning to migrate out of London due to the impact of the global pandemic take a look at this research by Totaljobs, a company close to my heart as my husband is an employee there, and is a company in the Top 40 ranking within the category for ‘jobs and career sites’. Get in touch with me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to share your experiences with me!
Are you currently looking to move away from London? Escape the City have just launched a FREE event," “Escape Inspires: Leaving London" where you can get a feel for it by experiencing a panel of professionals who have done it and succeeded! Get inspired and get in touch to let me know how it goes. See you there.
Written by Maria Nicolette
Maria is Writer/Contributor for the Everyday Magazine, and is finding her ‘place’ in the world as an Ambitious Disabled Woman.
She is passionate about, is an advocate of, and writes on the topics of: Female Empowerment, Disability Awareness, Diversity and Inclusion, Flexible Working, and Work-Life Balance.
She is of Cypriot origin and is proud of her Greek Cypriot heritage, she is married to a Greek husband and grew up in a matriarchal Greek Cypriot family with a very glamorous mum and a highly academic father. She gets her looks and passion for life from her mum and her brains for academia from her dad.
Raised in the City of London, she achieved an MSc Management degree from the prestigious Cass Business school, hence she is an Ambassador for Leadership, and has an entrepreneurial passion.
Her hobbies are writing, gardening, luxury fashion and shopping cooking Mediterranean food, clubbing in goth joints, singing gothic cover songs, attending events and networking, cosplaying, MMO gaming, doing feature film extras work, reading graphic novels, and exploring arts and culture.
She is a passionate writer, an adoring daughter, a caring wife, a supportive friend, a fun-loving woman, a multi-talented individual, and an undying feminist and disability activist.
She loves the colour ‘fuchsia’ and her dream would be is to be on TV!