Places to live in London

Hi, i am relocating to London, England from Toronto, Canada. I was wondering about the different areas of London. I was looking for something that was close to a tube, professional people with some neat restaurants/pubs. any tips?
How does one find a place to rent? any tips?

Looking for any guidance:)))

thanks,
Sapna

WE lived in Battersea near Clapham Junction in 2003. We loved it's proximity to most things and found it cheaper than many other popular areas out-of-towners tend to live. in.

I live in Angel, very safe, clean, lots of young professionals and alot alot alot of bars pubs resturant, shops, excellent transportation link etc.
I don't have to leave Angel for anything.
It's expensive but if you live in a househare you prob can get away with £400-£500 on the cheapest end (if you are lucky)

You can look at gumtree for descriptions of the towns. Personally I would live in West or North London. I wouldn't live South or East London bec it doesn't feel safe for me. But that's just opinion, i am sure many others who agree and disagree!

Depends a bit on where you work as commuting across London isn't something you'd really want to do every day (brother lives in East Acton and works somewhere near a DLR station - there's no way I'd do that).

I like it out west though - around Ealing is nice, Chiswick is pretty good too but expensive.

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<hr>I was looking for something that was close to a tube, professional people with some neat restaurants/pubs.<hr></blockquote>

Seriously, there are parts all over London that fit that description. I would find out what tube station you need to commute to and then look at areas convenient for that. Changing tube lines adds significantly to a commute, so if you can find a place on one direct line, or with a convenient bus route, or even walkable then that would be great. Personally I think overland train is the best commute as they're always less crowded and hot than tubes.

Where you can live, will depend on what your profession/household income is. North and West London are typically more expensive places to rent and live, whereas East and parts of South London are cheaper. All places have professional workers, they don't congregate in on borough!

The cheapest, nice, furnished 1 bedroom apartment in London will cost you at least £180 per week, plus council tax and bills on top of that.

Same applies for pubs and restaurants although more expensive type places will be found in North and West London, which further increases your cost of living on weekends and nights out. In my opinion many of the coolest bars, pubs, clubs and restaurants are to be found in the more gritty areas of London like Shortditch, Old Street and Whitechapel. But many people who aren't accustomed to big city life feel like they are unsafe in these areas because they're not full of leafy trees and wealthy people living in white terrace houses driving BMW's. The truth is, nowhere is really safe and nowhere is really dangerous in London - you need to use common sense and street smarts wherever you go or live.

Not surprisingly the Tube system runs all over London so you should not find it difficult to live near a Tube station. : )

But it's more important to live near two modes of transportation rather than focus just one. Tube/Train, Tube/Bus, Train/Bus, etc. Because you'll often find one or the other unreliable and most people will attest (as I will) that the Tube can be very unreliable, more so on certain lines - the busiest and most notorious is the Northern Line, but Central Line is just as bad. In fact I think it's probably going to go through some difficult times now that the company responsible for maintaining many of the Tube lines has gone into administration - London ground to a halt this week because the union imposed a 3 day walk-out and you can almost be sure of more waves to come in future.

The degree to which you can chose where you live will depned on your income. And where you'll be travelling to for work.

#1 - I've just moved to Battersea and would not remotely suggest it is cheaper than other areas.