I love London - how interesting it is, how diverse and pluralistic from people to architecture to history, how pretty and regal the centre has become, yet still so cutting edge, how great the food is now, how atmospheric it is even on moody days, how beautiful and numerous the parks are, how culture is free (museums, galleries, events, art, community), how the kids these days are so much nicer than when I was their age, how education is the best in the country (and one of the best in the world) no matter the income levels, how easy it is to mix with others and how frequently people do, how anything goes in fashions to lifestyles to (lack of) public decency, how the ugly affront of postwar tat and decay has been wiped clean, how great the safety net is if ever you'd need it, from free healthcare to mental support to jobseekers allowance to free accom for the homeless, how convenient public transport reaches all corners, how it's the world centre of cheap flights, how 100 foreign cutures are on its doorstep across the Channel. How swearing is just another form of expression, often artistic and finely nuanced, how irony is celebrated, how tradition is celebrated, how change is celebrated.
I loathe London - how expensive it is to sleep and travel, how far one has to live from the centre, how badly run and ransomed the transport system (and pretty much everything) has become by big business, how crap the weather is for 9 months, how you can't just chat to strangers, how the vast majority of people live in substandard accommodation to what they pay for (cold, small, ugly, shared), how polluted it is (world's highest NO2 levels), how subconscious bias is endemic, how expensive it is to just daytrip or staycation (cheaper to fly abroad), how so many billionaires push up the costs, how hierarchical the society is, how public money is ransacked by private contractors, and how elongated every process becomes in order for them to charge us more, how badly the world's biggest nightlife has been killed off by big rents, how badly run and nepotistic almost every management tier is, how corrupt the system is but noone calls it, how even the upper middle classes are being priced out, how you need to be a millionaire to have a house, a garden, a car, a dog, or walk to work. How damn squeezed in space everything is, how one problem on the line takes out the entire network, how entitled people are, how lazy people are.