I work in London but couldn't imagine living there - not because of the cost but because it feels so claustrophobic. I live in the Suffolk countryside, and am grateful every evening when on the train that I can escape. Cambridge is close enough to provide most of the amenities of London but on a human scale.

I'm glad you can afford it. We'd like to move to Cambridge but the house prices are even more than where we are in the South of England. We're having to think of somewhere further north or less sexy...

I'm pretty sure timthorn means he's living (not in Cambridge, but) somewhere in Suffolk, and can go to Cambridge for shopping, cultural events, etc., in the same sort of way as someone nearer London might go to London.

Cambridge itself has really expensive housing, not as bad as London but still very bad; think San Francisco as opposed to New York. But there are plenty of places within reasonable reach of Cambridge that are much more affordable. I live in a nice village about 7 miles from the centre of Cambridge, and prices there are 2-3 times cheaper than in the centre; move further out to somewhere that's not so much "one of the villages around Cambridge" and prices go down by another 1.5-2x.

That's exactly it. I'm in not-so-much-one-of-the-villages-around-Cambridge.

>I'm about to give up on London and move to San Francisco

It seems to me, having lived in both, that they have very similar problems. Both London and SF have a significant wealth gap.

Property is even worse in SF: prices are generally speaking more expensive (mainly due to far less supply than London), and average rent is higher.

What I'm getting at is if you agree with the op-ed and want to give up on London why would you choose a city which has a very similar set of problems?

I can't speak for the OP, but check the salary differences between the two cities. The higher prices in SF may be offset.

Cities have been "in" since the industrial revolution. What's different this time?

Look back 30-40 years: * Places like the Lower East Side of Manhattan were magnets for broke artists because they were dirt cheap places to live. * San Francisco neighborhoods like SOMA were similarly inexpensive. A few people with meager incomes could go in together and rent a warehouse to live in. * London had numerous squats: housing stock so unvalued that it wasn't worth stopping people just moving in for free. Think about property values in those places today.

In the past 60 years we've witnessed a remarkable cycle. First you had the "white flight" to the suburbs starting in the late 1950s or so. By 1980 the general consensus seemed to be that central cities were doomed forever to poverty. Now the trend is reversed and people want to pour back in. However, the regional population is much larger than when this cycle started so central housing has become a scarce resource.

The article is mostly about forces particular to the London market though. It is amazing how high property values have gone there. I live in San Francisco so I think I'm fairly accustomed to high prices, but visiting London and seeing mews houses going for £3m still blew my mind. Another peculiarity of the UK market is that a lot of property trading are just leaseholds, so you don't even really own the house after you "buy" it. (There are "freeholds" for sale as well, but that's even more expensive) Lovely city, but it does make you poor.

Actually it totally cycles. Availability of cars as well as a government policy encouraging home ownership (cheap loans) created a shift of people moving out to suburbs. If you're really familiar with the biggest cities, you can see this shift over time and it happens with subways and commuter rail lines too. Certain areas of New York's outer-boroughs have seen large shifts in class/demographic over the past 200 years. Coney Island used to be a resort/hotel town for the mega rich. With cars and the completion of major highways, the rich moved out to Westchester and Long Island. The subway eventually reached Coney Island and it became a poor neighborhood. It is now starting the swing back the other way because of new construction and the convenience of the Q line. The biggest shift happened right around when the subway lines were first connected at Times Square and the companies merged.