I agree familiarity has a lot to do with it. After London, Leicester along with Birmingham are probably the cities that I know best. I`d certainly choose Leicester to live in than say either Coventry or Southampton but that could just be down to familiarity as I`m very familiar with the upmarket parts of Leicester, even though Earlsdon in Coventry is quite nice.

Seeing as everybody else doesn't know Leicester terribly well but is prepared to slag it off as some sort of hellhole ( obviously he lives in some sort of crime free paradise ) I'll give you my view as somebody who has lived here all my life, except my 10 month Oz mistake.
Leicester city itself is not the most attractive place in the world, but it is by no means the worst city in the country. I have never had a problem going into the city centre at night although you can get trouble sometimes just like any other city.
As Jules says, you are probably best avoiding the North and West sides of the city. The best areas to live are about 7 - 8 miles from the city centre. Rothley, Oadby, Evington, Newtown Linford and Great Glen are probably the most expensive places to live. If you have around 200 - 300k to spend on a house you would get more for your money around the Blaby or Lutterworth area.
As for racism, LindyLoo obviously doesn't know Leicester very well at all. It is probably the most multi cultural city in the country except for London and in 36 years I have never heard of any racist violence. A lot of the families of Indian or Pakistani descent have been in Leicester for 2-3 generations so white and black have grown up with each other. There will always be racist people wherever you go but I would say in Leicester they are the minority.

If you need any more info, let me know

I realised how bad it looked so googled good things about Leicester too

I think the thread has at last got some semblance of reality from somebody that actually lives there, most of what you say is actually in line with what my ex-wife says about the city. I personally think the city gets a bad rap that is largely undeserved. In many ways the city stands as a multi-cultural model.

If you live there, you know it better than any of us, obviously. Some of your points are very valid, but I think we're back to familiarity again here. As I said in an earlier post, my home city ranks with Hell and Halifax in all the jokes now, but it's still my home and I'll defend it to the last. But I don't wear rose tinted spectacles about it - other people would call it a hell hole I'm sure.

I'm not prepared to get into "in depth" racist discussions or arguments with anybody on this forum, but there will always be racists throughout the world, and just being 3 generations along will not necessarily solve the problem.

But we can live in hope

I guess this thread has almost come to an end, and we all seem to broadly agree!

Hallef****inglujah!

There are more replies here than i was expecting. Luckily there are some positive replies as well from both Jules and Ree so thanks for that.

I'm sure you'll make the right decision anyway, so good luck!

I think I am qualified to talk on this one! First, where is your new job, ie what part of the city, how much do you have to spend on housing, do you you like rural or city living. Do you you have children, how old etc.

Leicester does have its problems, it is blighted with more social housing than most major cities and that brings its own problems, large parts of the city are to be honest as ugly as sin, but we do sit in some very nice countryside, I live in the southeast as mentioned in some previous posts and yes it is quite pleasant, there are large parts of Leicester that I wouldn't put my dog in, but you can also spend 4m on a house in my area.
Ask some questions, pm if you like.

That whole website could put someone of for life. Yikes. Just look at anywhere. It's all so sad and depressing.

I`ve looked on the web and the same type of article appears for a lot of cities in the UK.

I've lived in Leicester and am not a great fan of the city, for example I think Nottingham is far better (and many people criticise Nottingham)! However it's not all bad, and perhaps I can list some of the good things about Leicester:
Belgrave Road area. I'm assuming you won't be interested in Asian fashion and jewellery, but if you like Indian food this is the place to be...plus Diwali is special here
New Walk. If you live near Victoria Park or London Road, this is a fantastic walk into the centre.
Parks and riverside walks
Good sporting venues. If you like football or (especially) rugby, this is a good city to attend sporting events.
As mentioned above there are nice places to live away from the centre, and not just to the south of the city. To the north you have Cropston and Thurcaston (you'll need mega money though); there are also other possibilities like Rothley, Birstall and Quorn. The new waterside apartments near the centre and de Montfort Uni may also be worth looking at.
The Phoenix Arts Centre
Plenty of shopping centres and streets.
A decent train connection to London (if memory serves me right it's just over a hour to St Pancras).
Plenty of beautiful countryside outside of the city.
Leicester market - the largest outdoor covered marketplace in Europe.

I agree with those who say it's a dangerous place to go out at night at the weekend in the city centre. For some reason the pubs in central Leicester have always attracted a grim crowd, but there are better alternatives along the Welford Road.

Hi Steve, this is just the type of feedback I`m looking for. Something that lists the positives as well. It seems that most people are recommeding that I live further out of the center so I`m really going to investigate this. You mention Birstall and recommend it. Birstall is in the north of the city but others have told me its close to a lot of bad areas! Do you know Loughborough as i`ve seen this is a sizeable town and not too far away?

Be interesting to know what people think of both Derby and Nottingham as places to live as i`ve noticed they are not too far away from Leicester.

Hi - I think in any city, you're always going to be close to a bad area even if you live in a good area. Birstall's fine, but you'll probably need to have a look around to see if it's ok for you. Loughborough - I think it suffers from the fact it's too big to have the advantages of a village or small town, and has a lot of problems you'd associate with a city (beggars, centre violence etc). I grew up in Loughborough and thought it was a grim place (it was a big event when McDonalds opened there!), but to be fair it's improved in recent years and now has shops like Sainsburys and Marks and Spencers. I'd still recommend places like Rothley, Quorn or even Syston if you're north of Leicester.
As for Nottingham - I rate the place but many don't. I think you'd need a separate thread on it to be honest. It's one of those places you either love or hate - as I mentioned I love the place. Derby? There are some great towns and villages in Derbyshire, but I don't know enough about Derby to give a balanced picture.

I`ve spent something in the region of several days now researching houses in Leicester on right move/find a property and as mentioned above there is some nice stuff in south knighton and oadby but its quite expensive in comparison to places like birstall and syston and in these places i can get more house for my bucks if you like. I`ll probably end up looking at all these locations and areas recommended outside the city in the next month or so.