First of all -- I will be moving to London with my family (wife and 1 yr. old daughter) in September this year and I have been regularly reading posts on this forum. Very helpful, to the point advice... I really like it. Thank you for all who have contributed with special thank you to pallega and gah26.
Now, I have repeatedly seen question about where to live and how to pick a borough to live. Although I agree with the response that has been provided to this question so far, I think there is a need for centralized information (I am still trying to decide). So here is my suggestion.
Mostly people will look for few different (common) attributes to make this decision and I would like to put some data (in a spreadsheet) behind those common attributes. For example, I did little search on google and found crime statistics, demographic information, # of pub licenses in a boroughs etc. (see website references below). I need your input to add to the list of common attributes below (this is what I started with so far) and if you know of a good source for that information please specify that too. Please only put major decision drivers and don't include a long laundry list of "nice to have" things.
I agree that its a very personal choice and each borough has its own personality that can only be experienced but this will give people something to base their decision off of.
What I envision is a spreadsheet with all 32 (33 including Heathrow) borough in first column and then each column after that will have attribute number in one sheet, all subsequent sheet will have detailed data for each attribute. 1st sheet will be summary pulling from other sheet. This data shouldn't change drastically very quickly. So once a year or so update should be enough. (BTW, is there a location to post a spreadsheet on this webiste.... if not I know other locations to put spreadsheet and I can provide link to that).
I can try to categorize people in: single vs. family, short-term vs. long-term and then consolidate/summarize data in first sheet accordingly.
1. Crime -- mugging, theft, rape, sexual assault, murder, vehicle robery etc. ect. from MET website.
http://www.met.police.uk/crimestatistics/index.htm#2007
2. Demographic -- population, age distribution, council tax, household value, concil tax band properties, # of foreigners etc. from London Mayor's website.
http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsandfigures/factsfigures/population.jsp
3. School information -- number, some ratios on student to school etc. from London Mayor website.
4. Party Information (litlte harder to find information): # of valid pub licenses, # of movie halls, # of malls etc. No source yet.
5. Average commute chart (in terms of public transport time). Ofcourse this will depend on time of day. I haven't looked for an excel sheet output but I think I should be able to put something together. A maxtrix with same row and columns so that diagnal is 0 minutes.
6. ???
So somebody could pick boroughs that are top 10 on low crime and then start looking at housing cost information and then try to figure out party information (need more metrics for that please).
This is very preliminary and only one person's input. So please reply with your thoughts and I will consolidate in one excel spreadsheet that is very user friendly.
Thank you again for your help so far.
England
Living in UK Guide
UK Forum
Contribute
Best Places to Live in UK
Healthcare in UK
Pros & Cons of Living in UK
