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Comment by enlyth | Hacker News Reader

I work in central London and feel the same way. Coworkers are often surprised that when I moved to London, I chose to go quite a bit north and have to take the tube for 45 minutes to get to work.

But I live on a one way street with no traffic, and when I look outside my window, there is a giant field of grass with lots of huge trees.

I can go outside, lie down in the grass, enjoy the peace and quiet. I will watch the squirrels outside on my days working from home, trying to fight the crows for food. The crows outsmart them every time, without hesitation. It's part of what keeps me sane in this big city.

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London people are funny. They thing if you are outside of Zone 2 that you are "out in the sticks" (an idiom for "living in the countryside"), make fun of you and desperately want you to want to live in London.

It's not funny, it makes sense. Imagine what would happen if you are living in zone 3+, and your friend/partner lives in zone 3+ on the _opposite_ side of London. You could easily have a 90 minute travel time between those two points. In most places a travel time that long would count as being in another city.

Well you could’ve move in with your partner, and meet your friend somewhere. I get what you are saying but London is damn expensive so living out a bit makes sense for many people.

Most people go through a period of time where they are 'dating' someone but not ready to move in.

Yep this is the stay over for the weekend (and some weeknights stage). Totally doable up to a 2hr commute.

But it reduces the conversion of initial dating to something more permanent. Living nearby and being able to meet up at the last minute with little effort makes it so much easier, I think it’s why socialising at university is so much easier.

Living further away requires a greater activation energy to lead to stable bonding.

That's not a reason to live in central London just in case it happens, unless you're that myopic you can't imagine meeting some from Reading, or further afield.

That happens in Berlin too.. if you're out of Kreuzberg/Mitte/Prenzlauer Berg, you're too far away

In the same time it takes to get across London one can easily be in Lincolnshire via the East Coast Main Line, though the £8k annual season ticket to King's Cross is a bit of a whack.

London has a lot of trees for a city. More trees than people, apparently. 8 million trees covering 21% of the land area, according to London.gov.uk.

It's interesting to look at it on Google Maps, it's greener than many people expect.

Why do people say London density is so bad when there are homes with trees only 45min away?

Suburbs around Central London don't have a super high population density, and are quite green. Many houses have a garden, and there are lots of parks.

Because 1.5 hours is a lot of time out if only 24? Unless you live to work.

Hahahahahahaha.

(Hello from the Bay Area)

For a while my commute was 1.5 hours each way. I found it intolerable and moved, but I have coworkers who commute as long or longer. London is starting to sound good.

Eh - I see diminishing returns around smaller public-ish transit (!) commutes. The difference between a 15 minute commute and a 45 minute commute wasn't significant for me. I can still pay bills, answer personal mail, read a book, and talk to friends on my way to work. I imagine folks at the end of the tube line in London feel the same way.

Driving that commute though? Never.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say London density is bad. London _sprawl_ is bad, and one problem is how low density London actually is. More density would mean more housing available near the centre.

Idk. London has amazing parks. Hampstead Heath being my favorite.

London has a lot of trees actually. It's Europe's most tree covered capital city. It has more trees than people.

Johannesburg is said to have the second most amount of trees after Berlin, and all of the trees (in contrast to Berlin) were planted. It's a pity that politics take precedence over an unassuming fact like this.

I think you made the right tradeoff there.

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