Posted 27 March 2007, by Aaron
I’ve been working in London for a couple of days this week, and this city is an amazing place to be. I have been to many of the big European cities and without a doubt, London has an absolutely unique energy to it not seen in other cities.
Just walking through the streets of London and being amongst the diverse and multicultural London life is inspirational. Yet every visit I make to London leaves me with one overwhelming feeling: I’m glad I don’t live here!
By comparison I live in a medium sized town, unique in no way other than its blander-than-average averageness (anyone who’s been to Swindon will know what I mean). There’s nothing particularly wrong with where I live, it’s just like a thousand other towns in this country. But that’s precisely what is wrong with it.
As someone who will be looking to get into the creative industry soon, moving to a bigger city is not only a wise option, it’s probably my only option. There are a few complications, but I’m not opposed to upping sticks and moving on. In fact, I think the challenge would be a positive experience and living somewhere more alive can only help get the creative juices flowing. Although there are cities I’d rather be than London.
So this evening, as I sat in a restaurant dwelling on these thoughts, I got thinking – surely many creative people in the world has gone through this?
Have you been drawn by the bright lights?
Have you gone through similar experiences to find work? Have you moved from the country to the city? Has it been a positive experience? Does being in a large city energise and inspire you? Or is it just somewhere to work? How important is open space and the countryside to you? Is living in the city the only option for a creative professional?
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Tags:Creative Industry, Inspiration
Hi Aaron,
I thought to reply directly to your message you left on my profile, but I ended up reading your post and wanted to comment on it instead… since it is the theme of my blog and my business.
Have you been drawn by the bright lights?
Yes of course… but do you mean being drawn to a place where your ambitions can be answered or just by pure curiosity and entertainment needs? In my case, since ambition was big in my priority list, it was certainly the engine that made me start to go, work and live in different places (big cities)… but the fact that much more things and much more interesting people seems to gather in big cities… and it seems to have been invented for that reason, I would say that pure entertainment and networking became the priority at some point. But because you pointed specifically creative professional, one more thing has to be taken into account and that is a “cross-cultural” approach that feeds creativity. At the end it is what personally is the most important in working in several big cities… jogging my creativity with a different environment.
I am working on a post about how to live and work in Tokyo… I hope to finish in the middle of next month, that should answer most of your questions.
… but on your last question… obviously with internet, living in a big city is not the only option… I have worked 9 months, 6 block from a beach and it was fine… it just appear like very long working holidays you suddenly want to cut by diving back into big cities excitement and problems.
My work with PodShow usually takes me into the London office a couple of times a week and although the minimum 90 minute journey from home can be cattle-herding hell at 7am in the morning, I am being hesitant to actually move closer, into London itself.
I have a number of friends and colleagues who live in the city and getting them out of London is a nightmare. Big cities seem to create a narrow focus for geography – in London’s case, they don’t go anywhere outside the tube network!
I love London, providing it’s not a full-on 24/7 relationship with it. I still need to reach the rest of the country easily.
Gregory – Thanks for posting such an interesting comment. Big cities and the creative industry certainly do seem to complement each other for lots of reasons. I like your point about a cross-cultural approach feeding creativity. I look forward to your post on working in Tokyo.
neil – I completely share your opinion of London – a fantastic city but nice to be able to come home from it. A couple of times a week is probably as much commuting as I could cope with though (not to mention the £100 a go train ticket!)
Aaron, about the cross-cultural aspect of it… the master in that approach is Henry Steiner, director of Steiner & Co. in Hong Kong and co-author of “cross-cultural design” … google it.
I love Edinburgh. Simple as that.
I moved here from my home town of Bangor, Northern Ireland, and have stayed pretty much ever since. I do love to travel though.
David – I’ve only been to Edinburgh once but I can see why you love it. It’s a beautiful city and has a nice size to it. It doesn’t suffer what London does of being sometimes too busy and hectic.
One of my favourite aspects of Edinburgh is how if you live centrally, everything is within walking distance.
The public transport is great, but rarely needed for me.
Hi Aaron… I finally placed my post on living/traveling in Japan. Please pardon my English 
Gregory – WOW that’s a monster article! I’m doing some travelling this week so I’m printing it off to read on the plane. I’ll let you know what I think when I return.
Many thanks.
Yeah… I write by theme… I find myself incapable to write short interesting post on a regular basis.
As a Londoner who now lives in Toronto, I’m very proud of London, but I like it even more now I don’t have to live there and can visit it. Before I moved here six years ago, I actually lived outside London in a beautiful little village and commuted in by train to London for work – actually in a web design consultancy shop. Even that was hectic and expensive. I have to agree it was always nice to go home – i.e. leave the City at the end of the day.
However, big cities are generally where the jobs are. London for one is almost too expensive for the average person on an average salary to even consider living there.
Now take Toronto. Smaller, but just as cosmopolitan. I live downtown and I work downtown. I work in the financial sector and find that most of the headquarters of most types of companies and agencies are downtown.
Everywhere is within walking distance, short transit or cab ride from where I live. It takes me 25 mins to walk to work, 10 minutes by streetcar. I find not having to travel long distances helps me in my creative endeavours – no stressful commute. I love living right in the heart of this city – it energises me.
It’s probably the equivalent of living somewhere like South Bank right on the Thames in zone one in London, only a lot less expensive (which isn’t to say it’s cheap). I find Toronto is also a very creative and inspirational city – the sheer multicultural aspect of it is pretty inspirational.And it has a buzz of its own. But then, some who prefer the ‘burbs hate it.
On a slightly different note, the Internet makes it such that it’s not always necessary to do a daily travel to a big city for work…or even move there. A lot can now be done over the phone and the web. But IMO it’s still important to be able to get together with like minds on occasion – that needs people interaction.
Britgirl, thanks for a really interesting read. It sounds like you’ve found a city which is lively enough for you, but not too lively, big enough for you, but not too big, just about right for you really?
I guess all places have their pros and cons… but some places have more pros than others.
You’re right.And if I need my London fix, I can hop on a plane and be immersed in a few hours And I should add, since you are willing to move and try new things moving to a big city is worth doing simply for the experience, particularly if you are working on getting into an industry. At least that way you make it uniquely yours and make new contacts… every experience is different – as is every city.
London and Paris are best cities for me.
And my girlfriend likes Paris more 
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Gregory Moulinet (nomadesigner)
29 March 2007, 11:12 am