If you had to compare a london borough to a british city, what would you pick? and why?

by nshnjs

27 comments
  1. Croydon – Birmingham cos its shit and crime ridden

  2. Westminster and York for obvious reasons. History. Cathedrals. Cobbles. Tourist just everywhere gawping at BigBen/Minster or Downing street/Shambles

  3. Kingston upon Thames to Kingston upon Hull. The reasons should be obvious.

    Is this just a way to get people to call a London borough and another UK city shit at the same time? That’s greedy, surely?

  4. Hillingdon=Plymouth

    Out west, don’t really know what goes on there

  5. Islington is a microcosm of London itself imo. London squared

  6. Camden – Brighton

    Croydon – Leicester

    Islington – Bristol

    Lambeth – Manchester/Liverpool (mainly due to Brixton!)

  7. Westminster is Edinburgh? Full of historic buildings, tourists and shops selling overpriced souvenirs.

  8. Hammersmith and Fulham feels like Manchester, to me. There’s a mix of modern and historic buildings, lots of jobs in digital services, great transport links, loads of bars, and Westfield reminds me of the Trafford Centre.

  9. Barking amd Dagenham = Mad Max without cool cars.

  10. Croydon and Cardiff.

    Both begin with a C, both about 400k people.

  11. Greenwich- but kinda just the centre rather than the borough – Falmouth. And Woolwich, same again, with Chatham. I think the marine connotations are implicit.

  12. Barking & Dagenham – Birmingham. Town centre full of multiple decades of half realised regen dreams, periphery haunted by the ghost of the British motor industry. Car centric, you never know when you’re going to stumble across an urban motorway or dual carriageway. Often dismissed by outsiders and even by people who live there yet full of history and contemporary creativity. Barking & Dagenham’s canal system slightly less developed but it does have the Thames and Barking Creek etc.

  13. Having lived in both, Lewisham-Greenwich remind me a lot of Bristol.

    Maritime legacy – lots of buildings, museums and old maritime infra knocking about. Clifton reminds me a lot West Greenwich as a wealthy neighbourhood on a hill built for the mercantile class.

    Both have strong Afro-Caribbean communities.

    Left wing politics – Both are obvs Labour heartlands, but Goldsmiths is a big hub for left/radical politics, and that’s always spilled out into the area, there’s a strong tradition of radicalism, punk, squatting etc in the Deptford/New Cross which parallels with Bristol.

    Not sure how true the comparison is in 2025, I think it’s more that living in Bristol reminded me of the Lewisham-Greenwich that I grew up in.

  14. Lambeth – Liverpool. Because people slag it off but actually it’s got some great architecture and sights, the river/sea, diversity, and salt of the earth people.

  15. While technically not a city, Bromley is similar to Reading; It’s a commuter town with a strong blend of urban and green spaces, offering a good mix of amenities in both.

  16. Barnet might be Milton Keynes. Leafy and good for parks, but still quite driver-friendly. And all pretty much built at the same time to the same aesthetic standards, even if it’s the 1930s for Barnet and the 1970s for MK.

  17. Croydon is like Birmingham. Super multicultural, some parts are a dive and some parts are lovely.

  18. Bexley = Basildon. Farms around and the same voting preferences.

  19. Hounslow is Wolverhampton. Large Sikh populations, good food but still pretty depressing places

  20. Haringey is Sheffield. Both known as centres of left wing activism, and both have a distinct east/west divide in terms of deprivation/affluence.

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