Where to live in Leeds and West Yorkshire

LeedsCentral

Holbeck Urban Village turned a set of derelict flax mills into the city's tech and creative quarter, and the South Bank regeneration behind it is the largest of its kind in Europe. It is a construction site that happens to be ten minutes' walk from the station.

LeedsCentral

Leeds built more city-centre flats in the last twenty years than anywhere in England outside London, and the result is a dense, walkable core with the third-busiest station in the country at its heart. The Victorian arcades and the glass towers coexist better than they have any right to.

LeedsInner

Two miles from the centre and among the cheapest places in the region to rent, with the Industrial Museum in Armley Mills and Gotts Park behind it. It has long-standing problems and it also has the shortest commute of anywhere at this price.

LeedsInner

South Leeds, up the hill from the station, with Elland Road at the bottom of it and Cross Flatts Park in the middle. Cheap, close in, and the part of the city most likely to be transformed by the South Bank development happening just below it.

LeedsInner

The strip between Kirkstall Road and Headingley, with a station, the river and a rapidly growing set of converted mills. Less studenty than Hyde Park, cheaper than Headingley, and the closest thing inner north-west Leeds has to a compromise.

LeedsInner

Leeds's most convincing village-in-a-city: a short high street with more independent restaurants per metre than anywhere else in the region, a green at one end and Victorian villas behind. It has been the fashionable answer for fifteen years and the rents show it.

LeedsInner

The most diverse part of Leeds and the best place in the region to buy food you cannot get anywhere else. It is also among the most deprived neighbourhoods in England, and any honest description has to hold both of those facts at once.

LeedsInner

The best-known student suburb in Britain, and a place that is slowly becoming something else as the purpose-built blocks in the city centre pull undergraduates away. The cricket ground, the Arndale and a genuinely good run of pubs give it a centre most Leeds suburbs lack.

LeedsInner

Between the two universities and the Headingley terraces, with Hyde Park itself, the Hyde Park Picture House and a density of back-to-back housing that exists almost nowhere else in England. Cheap, central and rough around the edges.

LeedsInner

A twelfth-century Cistercian abbey, a large park along the Aire and a retail park, which is a combination you would struggle to find anywhere else. Kirkstall is where the student belt gives out and ordinary Leeds begins.

LeedsInner

A wooded valley running north from the city, with the Meanwood Valley Trail following it out to the countryside. The greenest inner suburb in Leeds and the one most likely to make people forget they are three miles from a major city centre.

BradfordOuter

A city of half a million people with a Victorian centre built on wool money, the National Science and Media Museum, and the best South Asian food in Britain by a margin nobody seriously disputes. It is also the cheapest large city centre in England to rent in.

LeedsOuter

Interwar semis, a shopping centre and a station that puts Leeds nine minutes away — which is the whole argument, and a strong one. East Leeds is the least glamorous quarter of the city and the best value for anyone who commutes by train.

LeedsOuter

A former mining town on the eastern edge of Leeds, with a station, a decent high street and open country immediately beyond. Twelve minutes from Leeds by train and considerably cheaper than anywhere at a comparable journey time to the north or west.

LeedsOuter

The Aireborough towns at the edge of Leeds, where the city runs out and Wharfedale begins. Guiseley has the station and the original Harry Ramsden's; Yeadon has the airport and the tarn. Both are quiet, well-kept and a long way from the centre.

LeedsOuter

A township rather than a suburb — it has its own town council, its own high street and a station on the Harrogate line. Close enough to the airport to be convenient and far enough from the flightpath to be quiet.

LeedsOuter

A textile town that Leeds absorbed in 1974 and that has never quite accepted the fact — it still has its own town council, town hall and strong local identity. The rebuilt station puts Leeds ten minutes away and Huddersfield twenty.

LeedsOuter

Seven hundred acres of park, a lake, two golf courses and Tropical World, with large Edwardian houses arranged around all of it. Roundhay is the address Leeds families aim for and it is priced accordingly, though less steeply than an equivalent in most cities.

BradfordFringe

An Aire valley town with the Five Rise Locks at one end and St Ives estate at the other, and a station on the Airedale line that reaches Leeds in half an hour. Quiet, green and considerably cheaper than the equivalent in the Leeds direction.

CalderdaleFringe

A canal town at the junction of everything: five minutes from the M62, twenty from Huddersfield, half an hour from both Leeds and Bradford. Brighouse does not have a strong identity of its own, and its usefulness is precisely that.

WakefieldFringe

A former mining and glassmaking town at the confluence of the Aire and Calder, best known now for rugby league and the Xscape complex on its edge. Among the lowest rents in the region, twenty-five minutes from Leeds by train.

KirkleesFringe

A heavy woollen town between Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield, on the TransPennine main line with direct trains to Leeds in fifteen minutes and Manchester in fifty. Rents are among the lowest in the region and the town centre is in the middle of a long regeneration.

CalderdaleFringe

The Piece Hall is the only surviving Georgian cloth hall in the world and its restoration turned Halifax from a town people left into one they visit. The rents are the lowest of any town covered here, and Leeds is forty minutes away.

CalderdaleFringe

A Calder valley mill town that reinvented itself completely — independent everything, one of the highest concentrations of artists and writers in the country, and a station with direct trains to both Leeds and Manchester. The valley floor floods, and everyone who lives there knows it.

KirkleesFringe

A Holme valley town of stone terraces stacked up the hillside, with the Peak District National Park beginning immediately south of it. The Last of the Summer Wine tourism has faded and left behind a genuinely good independent food and drink scene.

WakefieldFringe

The comfortable side of Wakefield: a Georgian church at the centre of Horbury, Sandal Castle above the valley and the best schools in the district. It is where Wakefield's professionals live, and it is still cheaper than outer Leeds.

KirkleesFringe

The railway station is one of the finest in Britain and John Betjeman called the town centre a splendid example of Victorian confidence. Huddersfield has a large university, cheap rents and a direct TransPennine line to both Leeds and Manchester.

BradfordFringe

A Victorian spa town under the moor that gave Yorkshire its anthem, with a branch line to both Leeds and Bradford and the highest rents in the Bradford district by a wide margin. It is in West Yorkshire administratively and belongs to the Dales in every other sense.

BradfordFringe

A working Airedale mill town at the head of the valley, with Haworth and the Worth Valley behind it and some of the lowest rents in England. Forty minutes from Leeds on a line that runs every half hour.

KirkleesFringe

The comfortable west side of Huddersfield, with the university on one side and the Royal Infirmary on the other. Marsh has a short parade of good independents and Lindley has the clock tower and the better houses.

LeedsFringe

A Wharfedale market town with a genuine Friday market, an unusual number of good pubs for its size and the Chevin rising straight out of the back of it. The station closed in 1965 and the X84 has been carrying the load ever since.

BradfordFringe

A UNESCO World Heritage model village built by a Victorian mill owner for his workers, now with Salts Mill, a Hockney collection and the Leeds–Liverpool canal running through it. Shipley next door supplies the station junction and the shops.

CalderdaleFringe

Where the Rochdale and Calder and Hebble canals meet, three miles down the valley from Hebden Bridge and roughly a hundred pounds a month cheaper. A good station, a decent run of pubs and a growing set of mill conversions.

WakefieldFringe

A cathedral city of eighty thousand with the Hepworth gallery on the river, a direct London train from Westgate and Leeds fourteen minutes up the line. It has more connectivity than any comparable town in the north and rents well below what that suggests.

LeedsFringe

A Georgian coaching town on the Wharfe, equidistant from Leeds, York and Harrogate and connected properly to none of them. The racecourse, the riverside and a well-kept high street make it pleasant; the absence of a railway makes it car-dependent.