That article is misleading in some ways.
London's one of the most expensive cities in the world and accommodation's hideously compact unless you're paying absolutely insane money.
I don't really think comparing London and some random place in the US is very reasonable. You'd have to compare it with New York City or something like that. I know from experience, a large part of NYC has very similarly low standards of overpriced accommodation to London. But, if being there's what you want, you compromise.
There are bigger homes, with tumble dryers, dishwashers and 'all mod cons' in England, Scotland, Wales and over here in Ireland (not all part of the UK, but rather similar) but they're not available in London at anything approaching affordable price levels.
Tumble dryers are most certainly widely available and if the writer wanted one, I'm sure it could be quite easily fitted in. Large capacity machines are also widely available and heat pump machines are becoming quite affordable so energy costs are kind of negated.
London's a fantastic city to visit, and a fantastic city to spend a few years in while you're young. However, unless you've inherited something fancy or are on seriously huge income, it's an awful place to live long term as the accommodation's just so expensive and the salaries for most non-financial sector high end jobs are too low. Even compared to Ireland, the salaries for many jobs are significantly lower. I was quite surprised at how low some were when I've browsed various jobs sites.
That being said, London has a lot of extremely wealthy people as it's one of the world's big financial industry hubs rivalling New York and Hong Kong.
I can access London, Paris and several other big European cities within 1:30mins from where I am. So, the compromise is living in a smaller city in Ireland, being able to run two cars, and having much more space and much better lifestyle in many respects is one that I am very willing to make. I just having to budget-in the odd flight to a major metropolis once in a while
Flights are cheap and our local airport's quite well served with European routes, so it's actually quite nice to be able to pop over to London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam, Rome, etc etc without having to think too much about it.
I can quite reasonably get up in the morning, go to Paris, London, Brussels etc and be home for dinner time (and have done that a few times for meetings etc)
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I've an Electrolux EWF 1698HEW washer - 9kg capacity - 1600RPM - steam etc and the matching EDH3498RDL dryer which is heat-pump based.
Capacity wise, they compare quite well to a typical US top loader, although perhaps not so well compared to some of the monster-front loaders but they're more than able to handle pretty much anything I could possibly need to launder!
I can certainly dump in a huge laundry basket load of towels or anything else and they've more than adequate space.
So, if someone has enough space for 2 standard machines in a European house, they should not have any issue getting a clothes dryer!
My folks had a dryer, my granny had a dryer, most of my friends' homes as a kid had a dryer so I don't think they were some kind of highly unusual object. They were usually found in the garage or utility room next to the washer.
Lots of exaggeration going on using extreme examples in that article.[this post was last edited: 11/7/2013-17:56]
.. For the most part, we're completely car dependent.
