Are there any town centres out there now which are actually nice?

I think it's because London is so big with such a diverse culture and variety of areas. It might mean that if a person visits an area of London they dislike it, they apply it to the whole city. That might work in a small city, but it doesn't work on something on the scale of London. For example, a person might hate congested, busy areas, and then travels to London spending their time around Oxford Street in rush hour. Or they hate shopping centres and new-build architecture but visit their aunt in Stratford. Folks need to live in London for a fairly decent amount of time before becoming familiar with it. I've been here for years and feel like I still haven't scratched the surface. There are still so many areas I need to visit and haven't. There are basically all extremes and everything in between. There are grotty run-down areas, spotless places, congested, peaceful, beautiful parks, modern, old. Then there's the general attitude on Reddit that people are rude. For example, not chatting on the underground. Like, no shit. The underground is not a good place for a conversation. People are travelling and connecting between places, constantly on the move, and it can be loud. The people sitting next to you might not even speak English, or are just in London making a connection between airports or whatever. On top of that, there are so many cultures here, it can be considered rude in what could be seen as invading somebodies personal space. If you actually live in London, eventually you find an area you like, and that's where you settle. And those areas tend to function like small-ish towns like any other part of the country. Where I live we have community groups, lots of families, nice local businesses, neighbours are friendly and chat/say hello to eat other. Anyway, I don't mention the above to downplay other parts of the country. I love and have lived in cities across the UK which are fantastic in their own right, it just so happens that I settled here as it works out better.