Living in Milton Keynes, UK ?

[Raesene]

The company I'm working for has a job offer for Milton Keynes on its website that would interest me.
But before jumping into the process and afterwards finding out the hard way that the town is one best avoided I'd thought about asking my fellow members here for their opinion and information.
Maybe I'm lucky and someone here knows it and can provide some info on housing situation (prices for flats), cost of living, public transportation systems, climate, entertainments available, other things to do and see, etc.

[madd0ct0r]

Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city
approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be
modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live.
Many Britons find this amusing." -- T.Pratchett and N.Gaiman, Good Omens

[madd0ct0r]

and since that may not be very useful - it's a new city, so focus on the car, lots of underpasses, lots of green space. Less artificial then it used to feel now it's had 40+ years to mellow and for the trees to grow. It's nice, which is as much an insult as a compliment.

[Hillary]

Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city
approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be
modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live.
Many Britons find this amusing." -- T.Pratchett and N.Gaiman, Good Omens

It is the most Un-English part of England I've ever been to. The city centre is built from scratch so has no history or anything culturally interesting about it from what I could see.

The outlying areas are better - the greater MK area has incorporated some fairly old villages into it. However most of these are again dominated by bland new build homes. Transport links into London are good though. Ready access to mainline into Euston and on the doorstep of the M1 motorway.

Entertainments seem to be mostly on dedicated sites away from the centre (unlike other towns/cities where the pubs clubs are in the middle). Admittedly we're talking 15 years ago, but there were simply no pubs at all in MK Centre. The old villages I mentioned do have pubs though - some nice old ones too.

They now have a football team which was stolen from Wimbledon in south London (the only example of a franchise move in domestic football in England and it still rankles). They are in the third tier of the league so are an OK standard.

Check out sites like 'Find a Property' for accommodation.

It's not a city I particularly like, but I have friends who are very happy living there. Horses for courses I guess.

[Starglider]

The city centre is built from scratch so has no history or anything culturally interesting about it from what I could see.

The grade II listed shopping centre is an icon of mid 20th century design, one of the last and most successful new urbanist planned town centres; the New Towns movement was an significant part of 20th century British history and cultural evolution. You may have some arbitrary snobbish aging period before you can consider anything 'culture', but the fact is that every single 'culturally significant' building was at some point a contraversial new build decried by nay-sayers muttering 'they don't build them like they used to'.

* Personally I always found the Metro Centre Gateshead interesting to visit as a kind of pinnacle of 1980s consumerism; the heavily themed spaces (originally with strong and somewhat fanciful shared design cues) targetted a total albeit retail-focused experience. Later malls backed away from that, cost-reducing themselves into power centers and then starting to die off entirely as retail moved online.

[Darth Tanner]

I worked there for 4 years... its a pretty pleasant place, much nicer than many similar towns - quite affluent with good infrastructure, leisure facilities and job opportunities - I never really liked the nightlife, the dominance of the car means you lack that pedestrianised strips of bars you usually get - but that might be because I was in the wrong areas... I only worked there, not lived. The shopping good as well. Obviously because its new it lacks the culture/history of most English towns but thats not exactly a bad thing, it means the streets are all well laid out and buildings all neat and fit for purpose.

There are a few rough areas as with most places, the apartments nearest to the town centre are to be avoided but no where near as bad as similar sink estates.

[Hillary]

The city centre is built from scratch so has no history or anything culturally interesting about it from what I could see.

The grade II listed shopping centre is an icon of mid 20th century design, one of the last and most successful new urbanist planned town centres; the New Towns movement was an significant part of 20th century British history and cultural evolution. You may have some arbitrary snobbish aging period before you can consider anything 'culture', but the fact is that every single 'culturally significant' building was at some point a contraversial new build decried by nay-sayers muttering 'they don't build them like they used to'.

Had I actually put forward this opinion, you would have been right to take issue with it.

I like modern architecture but I don't happen to like MK's shopping centre at all - I think it's very uninspiring. Yes the concept of the New Towns movement may be interesting - the execution of it, however, leaves much to be desired in my opinion.

[Zaune]

It does have a Krispy Kreme, though, so it's got that going for it.

And if you do end up there, take a look at The Point, if it hasn't been bulldozed yet. It's the first true multiplex cinema in the UK, and its architecture is... Well, it's striking and memorable even if it's a bit on the tacky side.

[Raesene]

Sounds like it's not a bad place but also not a very good place to live.

I'm still thinking about applying for the job, but I'm not really ready to give up Vienna completely... difficult decision ahead...

[Dartzap]

A general rule of thumb is that if you get a chance to live in a different country, do so!

Not a Red Bull job is it? Biggest bunch Of Austrian's in the area

[Raesene]

Thank you to all who answered - someone else got that position. But as a consolation price from fate I might get a dog sooner than planned

[General Zod]

It doesn't look all that different from the typical American suburb, after checking it out on Google Maps.