4 ms·

> stay the hell away from London Will somewhat agree living in London, but I'd also throw Oxford into the mix as somewhere to avoid. I found the relative cost

> stay the hell away from London Will somewhat agree living in London, but I'd also throw Oxford into the mix as somewhere to avoid. I found the relative cost of living noticeably worse in Oxford (salary vs living costs) than compared to London. Essentially the main point being: really evaluate the cost of living, salary, lifestyle matrix before committing. Lots of other places in the UK offering much better options right now.

tialaramex 7y ago
Oxford is different because of geography. In most places where housing is too expensive the core problem is politics. That's not easy to solve, but it's universal. But in Oxford the biggest obstacle is that the obvious place to put more houses is in fact a swamp. For students it works out OK (so long as numbers don't grow too much) because the very wealthy people who paid for Oxford's university to exist built somewhere for students to live right inside the university too, in effect their housing costs are subsidised - until they graduate. Then though, either they need to move far away ASAP or they're going to be spending most of their income on rent.
- wastedhours 7y ago
  > Oxford's university to exist built somewhere for students to live right inside the university too For those it's true, but also forgetting there's more than one university in Oxford. There are plenty of places on the East and North sides of the city where denser housing could have been placed, but it comes down more to politics around NIMBYism and preservation, more than geography.
  - tialaramex 7y ago
    Serious question: How many other real universities (not places with one office above a coffee shop offering correspondence courses to the gullible) are there in Oxford? I spent some of my teens playing pinball in the student bar at one of the Oxford Brookes halls (Harcourt Hill maybe?) -- and already by the point you're counting Brookes you're stretching the point, it wouldn't be named that if Oxford wasn't famous. It's not quite "London" Stansted Airport, but it's barely in Oxford.
    - wastedhours 7y ago
      I worked at Brookes for several years, I can definitely attest their campus is in Oxford (Harcourt Hill is miles out, as is Wheatley, but their main campus for the last decade or so is right next to South Park in Headington). It's not a stretch to say they're properly in the city and now have a claim to having "Oxford" in the name - and large swathes of the student body now live in the city proper. If you want to take the naming thing, then consider Kidlington Aerodrome is called "London Oxford Airport"...

tialaramex 7y ago

Oxford is different because of geography. In most places where housing is too expensive the core problem is politics. That's not easy to solve, but it's universal. But in Oxford the biggest obstacle is that the obvious place to put more houses is in fact a swamp. For students it works out OK (so long as numbers don't grow too much) because the very wealthy people who paid for Oxford's university to exist built somewhere for students to live right inside the university too, in effect their housing costs are subsidised - until they graduate. Then though, either they need to move far away ASAP or they're going to be spending most of their income on rent.

wastedhours 7y ago
> Oxford's university to exist built somewhere for students to live right inside the university too For those it's true, but also forgetting there's more than one university in Oxford. There are plenty of places on the East and North sides of the city where denser housing could have been placed, but it comes down more to politics around NIMBYism and preservation, more than geography.
- tialaramex 7y ago
  Serious question: How many other real universities (not places with one office above a coffee shop offering correspondence courses to the gullible) are there in Oxford? I spent some of my teens playing pinball in the student bar at one of the Oxford Brookes halls (Harcourt Hill maybe?) -- and already by the point you're counting Brookes you're stretching the point, it wouldn't be named that if Oxford wasn't famous. It's not quite "London" Stansted Airport, but it's barely in Oxford.
  - wastedhours 7y ago
    I worked at Brookes for several years, I can definitely attest their campus is in Oxford (Harcourt Hill is miles out, as is Wheatley, but their main campus for the last decade or so is right next to South Park in Headington). It's not a stretch to say they're properly in the city and now have a claim to having "Oxford" in the name - and large swathes of the student body now live in the city proper. If you want to take the naming thing, then consider Kidlington Aerodrome is called "London Oxford Airport"...