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It’s a dispute that will never truly be settled. North versus south, east versus west – Londoners are steadfast in their opinion of what part of the city is the best to live in. We’ll unashamedly spend hours over a pint fighting about where has the best pubs, the coolest vibes, the nicest green spaces and the best value for money.
Now, the Sunday Times has weighed in on the debate. In its list of the 72 best places to live across the UK for 2024, the newspaper included seven London neighbourhoods and chose an overall winner for the region. And the victor for 2024 was... Clerkenwell, home to the likes of Exmouth Market and Sadler’s Wells theatre.
The Times said of the area: ‘From a rich past of riot and ribaldry to its present status at the heart of the capital’s culinary and creative scenes, Clerkenwell embodies all that’s best about life in London.’
To make sure that they really were picking the best of the best, judges travelled to each and every location on this year's round-up and spoke to locals themselves. Areas were ranked based on stuff like schools, transport, access to nature, the health of their high street and their community feel.
Tim Palmer, one of the judges, said: ‘Different people may be looking for different things, but what all our best places have in common is that people love living in them and are proud to call them home.’
Clerkenwell took the title from last year’s winner Crouch End, which still managed to claim a spot this year for cramming ‘an astonishing number of shops, cafés and restaurants into its compact centre enclosed by handsome Victorian and Edwardian houses’.
London Fields was another neighbourhood to feature, referred to as ‘haute Hackney’, and Little Venice made the cut for calm strolls along the canal, colourful narrowboats and attractive (supremely expensive) mansions. Let's look at the full list of the Sunday Times best places to live in London for 2024:
- Crouch End (Winner)
- Forest Hill
- Highams Park
- Little Venice
- London Fields
- Wimbledon Village
You can read about the best place to live in the entire UK here and check out the Sunday Times’ full list here.
Find the right postcode for you
We all want different things when it comes to where we live. Time Out has all the stuff you need to know about London’s property market over in our dedicated hub. To help you pick, we’ve also reported on which area has the highest salaries, which have seen the fastest rising rents, which neighbourhood is one of the coolest in the world and which has been declared the most depressing.
Did you see that the next two sculptures for Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth have just been announced?
Plus: a massive ‘urban theme park’ is coming to east London.
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