As then, its proximity to both countryside and city is appealing. As the rolling hills of Tuscany were to E.M. Forster's Florence in A Room with a View, so the Surrey Hills are to London. 

And that must be why so many Londoners are quick to write it off. Few can face travelling from one side of the city to the other. Londoners have always enjoyed debating who has it better, those who live north or south of the river. South Londoners are slightly more capable of seeing Surrey as an extension of their city. North Londoners find it hard to accept that there is a more picturesque, exclusive place than Hampstead, let alone one that is near enough to central London to make the journey times from each almost equal. 

Now that the Mayor of London has seen that there's more to Surrey than he thought, I hope he'll also see that there is something geographically inconsistent about the fact that you can use your Oyster card in Watford, but not in Epsom.