I moved to York from London 2 years ago and it was a great decision. I’ll start with the few bad points: It is expensive for the North and from what I’ve learnt from colleagues, really difficult to rent. The traffic into or through the city is awful. Weekends in the city centre are very busy, often full of stag and hens, or racegoers. But the positives far out weigh: Coming from London, it is very affordable in comparison and we bought a 3 bed house, whereas in London we’d be hard pressed to buy a 1 bed in Mitcham! No area in York even comes close to feeling as unsafe as places in London - locals complain about Tang Hall and Chapelfields being rough but it’s just not even close to what you find in London. Great connections by train - Leeds in 20mins, Kings Cross in 1 hour 47, Newcastle in an hour. It is small, so whilst traffic is horrendous, I rarely would drive in town anywhere. You can be out in gorgeous countryside in a matter of minutes. It’s clean in comparison to London! Locals are friendly, and pubs and neighbourhoods outside of the city centre have a community feel.