West Lothian is different to the extent that it lacks the affluent and pretty towns. It has plenty of the deprivation. It shares with Fife almost total deindustrialisation: Bathgate no more, Methil no more, etc. And now Broxburn. But there's no St Andrews, Elie, Anstruther, Crail, North Queensferry (even bits of Kirkcaldy) equivalents in West Lothian.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Cheaper to commute to Edinburgh than live there, new study shows"
(40 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
-
I kid myself on that I moved to Fife specifically to increase my cycle commute.
Realistically I just got fed up of the living costs in town.
The allure of city life diminishes quickly when no longer chasing the scene.
Also, the advent of internet means there's no more essential routine trawling round book shops or music shops for cultural nourishment.
I wouldn't move back now.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Instography Linlithgow?
Cue some generalisations, but it is vey notable at my work that the only people who seem to actually live in Edinburgh "proper" (towards city rather than on outskirts / suburbs) are either younger tenement dwellers like myself or the directors with their New Town pied-a-terres.
Vast majority of people dwell in West Lothian and Fife. As you move up the managerial or down the clerical pay grade then you could probably get a map out and do some crude socio-economic generalisations.
I've never got the Livingston thing myself, in the nicest possible way it's one of the most horrible, soul-less towns I've ever had the displeasure of visiting. But if you want a detached pad with ample parking and you like driving to work and driving to shopping barns and designer outlets, I guess it's for you! Then again I've also never got the people of my socio-economic banding who want to live in towns in a tenement and expect to be able to park their car at the front door, along with the other 24 people who live in their stair!
I like being in town and having a big park on my front door, a nice back green that catches the (odd bit of) evening sunshine, a pub on the corner and some reasonably good shops on mine or the next street. And I like that in Edinburgh that the countryside or the seaside is only 20 minutes cycle away.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I lived in rural Ayrshire through primary and early secondary school. I wouldn't take my kids that far out of town. Anytime we wanted to join a club or learn how to play the accordion we had to get a lift into Ayr as the busses were far and few and we weren't old enough to use them on our own anyway.
Airdrie suffers from being close to Glasgow so if you want to do things you go to the city. There are Cubs and other stuff for boys but Glasgow has more activities. That's why there was a Pashley sitting near the Theatre Royal on Wednesday. Nice covered bike racks outside the RSAMD.
The memsahib already had a house and primary school son when we got hitched so there hasn't been much option to move. I don't mind being the only gay in the village. It makes me very identifiable but I don't do anything naughty like RLJ so it's ok. People I don't know wave to me and I appear on the Facebooks.
Posted 12 years ago # -
West Lothian is different to the extent that it lacks the affluent and pretty towns.
Linlithgow?
West or Mid Calder?
Winchburgh has its moments too, except for the shale bings.Admittedly none of these are St Andrews or the East Neuk, but still.
Posted 12 years ago # -
K - 'a pub on the corner' - until last week !!
As to the rest of your points, spot on - Some of the reasons I love living in the (south side of) edinburgh is the local shops/pubs/cinemas/cafes/bike shops to name a few - all of which, incidentally I have utilised in the last 24 hours - by bike/walk.
I could have bought the new windproof gloves on t'interweb but I wouldnt have had the pleasure of a 2-3 hour pootle round the southside today, via a few bike shops, stopping to have a coffee/panini, browse charity shops for books etc, all within 2-3 miles radius of my house including a wee trip up to the castle just for fun.
That freedom to do whatever I want without having to worry about the travel aspect is why I love living here. It is also, as crowriver said, a great place to bring up kids. I can walk to the meadows in 3 minutes, princes street in 15 (and I walk home from nights out).
It may cost a few quid more, but IMO its worth it.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Torphicen is nice too, when I was going through my "I'm going to do a self build rather than buy a box" phase, I seriously considered buying a plot in Torphicen.
Must admit the 'Livingston' thing never occurred to me as I grew up there, remember when the 'posh' houses started appearing at Deer Park, we used to refer to Deer Park as 'Ramsey Street'.
One thing I weirdly miss about Livingston is the ability to cycle in any direction, and find countryside, can't do that in Burntisland.
Posted 12 years ago # -
These things are fraught with over-generalisations so, yeah, there's bound to be nice bits of West Lothian. I guess overall, in the scheme of things, you make a lifestyle choice about what it is you like, you work out what your priorities are and you make the best of what's left.
I suppose because I work in Edinburgh I feel like I can take advantage of all the things it offers during the day and in the evening when I want it but I get to leave it behind when I'm done with it. The only time I'd say I miss it is the occasional weekend but we've been known to dump kids and book into a hotel in Edinburgh (or Glasgow) and be townies. We do that in the way that city-dwellers might escape to the country for a weekend.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Location, location, location... ;-)
I've never been a fan on the concept of the commute, so I've always lived within 20 mins walk of work in the city centre. This is obviously helped by being office-based, and working for the same employer for 15 years, but it's been manageable from earning a trainee's salary to what I'm on now.
Depends what you want though. I cannot begin to imagine living in a land-hungry housing estate now, but living in flats we've never had a garden. Swings and roundabouts. Never had room for them either. I'm a fan of densely populated cities, places where people live above the shop, so I should really walk the walk, yes?
Posted 12 years ago # -
We lived in centre of town in flat with quite groovy internal kitchen with double doors onto the front room and double doors onto the back room (there was also a side room that was our bedroom) and a cellar for all our junk. You could open the doors of a summer evening all tres chic until second child who is a boy called Buster (not real name) came along. Now this lad could slam a door and we spent a very long time trying to find a flat with more space in various areas of north east and south east edinburgh. All to no avail. This was eleven years ago so might be different now but a larger, old crumbling property on the main road was cheaper in balerno than the flats we looked at nearer the town centre (eg Porty). Sorry to bore with these details but we kind of drifted to the suburbs without a real plan. The main road is an issue. The point is that it is not as simple as living in Edinburgh / commuting. Clearly property in for example Bingham is quite cheap? Property in the rather chi-chi villagey part of Livingston known as Bellsquarry is quite dear?
i was less fit ten years ago than I am now and planned to go down WoL path on a brompton as the main road is an issue. And come back on the bus. But ended up commuting both ways, initially on path, then road, canal, path if dry. Lucky breaks for me.
Alas, we have even more junk now than ever before. I also have big amount of junk at work and I am being hassled to learn of the advantage of "work style" as my office moving back into town centre which means bigger commute which I am happy about. Time for one of my regular calls to Colinton Skip Hire.
With Ratho when children are secondary school age there is a free school bus to Balerno. But if staying at school for clubs etc you are stuck. There is now also a proper bus service to Ratho and the bridge inn is well posh now plus climbing centre cafe is groovy.
Posted 12 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
