EDITOR'S TAKE: London is cheap, if you live in the right places
A study by ECA International, an expat consultancy, confirms this week what British-born City workers have probably suspected for some time: it's not really that expensive to live in London, providing you don't insist upon living in Kensington and Chelsea.
ECA ranks Central London as the 78th most expensive city in Europe; suburban London ranks 107th; Southampton (slightly more than 1 hour outside London) ranks 131st.
The most expensive cities in Europe are instead: Oslo, Stavanger (in Norway), Copenhagen, Geneva, and Zurich.
London's bargain status will probably sound suspect if you happen to be living among the French expat community in Kensington, where a two bedroom flat can cost more than 2k a week. However, it may seem more plausible if you're living in Peckham, where you can rent an entire six bedroom house for only slightly more than that a month.
The question is obviously whether an ambitious international financier will want to live in Peckham. The answer here is probably not. As a Swiss commentator on this site noted last year, most expats stick with their own communities. And the communities in the cheaper areas of South East London are not comprised of foreign City workers.
Equally, while London can be cheap, cheap London is not necessarily pleasant. Some people moving to the City nurture unreasonably high expectations of the standard of living on offer here. It's not unheard of for bankers from continental Europe to email us asking where they can live that's a) within walking distance of work, b) next to the river, c) near a park, d) has good local schools for children and e) costs less than 3k a month.
The answer is generally f) nowhere. If you work in Canary Wharf, you could possibly live in Greenwich and use the foot tunnel. However, this is a slightly scary prospect at 5am in the morning.
Most expats undoubtedly reach the same conclusion. Hence they live in Kensington and Chelsea, or possibly Clapham and Balham, or maybe even Notting Hill. And there, the impression of London's cheapness may seem as ephemeral as ECA's study.
