Suburbs
...are bloody ghastly. Huge, soulless, lifeless enclaves of smug middle-class puffery. You have to get in your SUV and drive for about ten minutes to find a single shop. Good luck getting back, since all the streets are endless identical racks of tedium in the form of detached or semi-detached houses. Or is that just Ealing?
Then again, I live in the actual city, not a suburb, so what do I know?
Billy - That'd be a different Ealing to the one where I live, which has local shops on small high streets, with a main town centre in the middle of the area (as centre would imply). Finding places to buy food in central London that weren't Harts/Cullens or an Express supermarket of some kind was always a problem when I lived around. Also the HUGE cost (which is probably weighed out by my HUGE travel costs...). I do miss living in "the actual city" though...but not when I'm sitting in the park that's just down the road from my house or breathing the marginally cleaner air or looking at the sky that isn't blocked by buildings over 3 stories tall...
Surbitonian - I'd have to say you don't know much. If the The City isn't lifeless and soulless in the evenings and at weekends, I don't know what is. So, there's the West End, but if you like it there you're a newbie to London, a tourist or just plain bonkers. The last time I was in Upper Street I almost got mowed down by an SUV.