Your London bigotry exposed
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kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Camden, Most of the West (l don't feel right there generally), from Catford going out along the A205 toward the A2, Woolwich, Clapham (well I quite like Clapham itself, just not the peeps)...ermmm...Croydon and whatnot...
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I don't "hate" any physical part of London, what I hate is the way that the social environment has changed in some parts, compared to when I was growing up in the late 60s and 70s.
Although there was never, IMHO, a "Golden Age" of social integration, class cleavages are a lot stronger now, compared to then, and that's mostly to do with property ownership. Thatcher (to paraphrase) said "only losers take the bus", whereas nowadays the trope seems to be "only losers live in social housing", and areas that were reasonably socially integrated 30-40 years ago now have dividing lines marked out starkly by tenure type.
I had mates whose parents lived in the old "2 up 2 down" terraces around Latchmere Rd in Battersea, working class council renters all. Now most of those homes and others of similar type are privately-owned, leaving only the low rises and high rises as "social housing stock" and those who were "Battersea born and bred" are gone, out to the suburbs or beyond, priced out. This appears to have been a pattern that has repeated almost everywhere in London, anywhere the "gentrification" virus has touched.
It's utterly depressing to me that if I walk along any of the streets in SW London that I grew up around, what were fairly integrated working-class/lower middle class neighbourhoods are now predominantly the domain of the "professional" classes. That, to me, is why parts of places like Clapham, Balham and Battersea seem so alien and so full of people whose ideals and ideas I want no part of, and not because something has happened to the places in and of themselves.
Rant over.
Although there was never, IMHO, a "Golden Age" of social integration, class cleavages are a lot stronger now, compared to then, and that's mostly to do with property ownership. Thatcher (to paraphrase) said "only losers take the bus", whereas nowadays the trope seems to be "only losers live in social housing", and areas that were reasonably socially integrated 30-40 years ago now have dividing lines marked out starkly by tenure type.
I had mates whose parents lived in the old "2 up 2 down" terraces around Latchmere Rd in Battersea, working class council renters all. Now most of those homes and others of similar type are privately-owned, leaving only the low rises and high rises as "social housing stock" and those who were "Battersea born and bred" are gone, out to the suburbs or beyond, priced out. This appears to have been a pattern that has repeated almost everywhere in London, anywhere the "gentrification" virus has touched.
It's utterly depressing to me that if I walk along any of the streets in SW London that I grew up around, what were fairly integrated working-class/lower middle class neighbourhoods are now predominantly the domain of the "professional" classes. That, to me, is why parts of places like Clapham, Balham and Battersea seem so alien and so full of people whose ideals and ideas I want no part of, and not because something has happened to the places in and of themselves.
Rant over.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
For me that's the main thing, the people. I can just about put up with Croydon's ugliness and it's depressant effect, or the sheer air of decay that seems to hang over Woolwich some days, but the peope in the area, that's what makes or breaks whether a place is worth being, and IMHO there are fewer places worth being than there used to be.
Stobart Stopper
Well-Known Member
Not keen on anywhere in south London except for Brixton, I feel ok when I go there.
It's a territorial thing, I have to get back north (and preferably east) of the river to feel right about everything.
It's a territorial thing, I have to get back north (and preferably east) of the river to feel right about everything.
chico enrico
No hair shows you care.
I love camden: "the happy hunting ground" 
19sixtysix
Bring me sunshine
The city especially on the weekend when all those lazy sponging bastards (i mean bankers) aren't working and all the pubs are shut. Mind you when the pubs are open there full of lazy sponging bastards (i mean bankers).
19sixtysix
Bring me sunshine
Oh and Shephards Bush. Its a shit hole.
clandestino
no llevar papel
I don't really hate anywhere in London, but I find myself feeling totally out of place when I'm in some parts of north London. I'm always saying stuff like, "It's like being on holiday!" It amazes me that, say, Walthamstow, which I went to the other month, and which was perfectly pleasant, is in the same city that I live in. But then I don't really think of myself as living in London. I live in Brixton, a small village on the outskirts of London.
harpo
Listening to Radio Jackie
Totally agree. The furthest west I ever go is Pimlico. Any further and I feel lost in an alien world.
Anywhere north of the Thames
I also defy anyone to stand up and say a good word about Thamesmead. Infact there is a whole pocket of South-East London that is full of brain-dead hillbillies (or Charlton supporters as they are more commonly known as)
I also defy anyone to stand up and say a good word about Thamesmead. Infact there is a whole pocket of South-East London that is full of brain-dead hillbillies (or Charlton supporters as they are more commonly known as)
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
I'm an ex-Thamesmead resident and I can say lots of good words about it
'Thamesmead' is a very pretty name, for example (unlike Hammersmith - that's not a pretty name). And it has a lovely lake with herons and other water birds. Don't diss the 'mead, man.Everyone hates Charlton supporters, that's a given. But I reckon they're mostly bussed in.
I'm an ex-Thamesmead resident and I can say lots of good words about it
Everyone hates Charlton supporters, that's a given. But I reckon they're mostly bussed in.
PMSL LOL
Too fuckin true !!!
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Don't like Hackney. It's just a drain on Britain's GDP. Everyone there either has problems or is in on some helping-people-with-their-problems dependency racket. No one seems to produce anything.
Don't like Knightsbridge, Queensway, Gloucester Road areas. Cold, snobby, transient. If you fell over in the street, people would just step over you. At least in Hackney they'd go through your pockets.
Neasden: more a vacuum than a place.
Don't like Knightsbridge, Queensway, Gloucester Road areas. Cold, snobby, transient. If you fell over in the street, people would just step over you. At least in Hackney they'd go through your pockets.
Neasden: more a vacuum than a place.
Why apart from Gipsy Hill? It's pretty unremarkable.
I'd rather die on my feet than live in Neasden
I'd agree on the former and the latter, but Peckham is wicked. Granted, it has some rough areas, but the Rye area is really nice and if you like poncey (which I bet you do
) then you have 'Bellenden Village' which is as poncy as it gets.I can't think of Ikea without hearing 'for Ikea' afterwards.
Pingu
Credo
complete with zombies and empty buildings etc etc etc.
i often felt like I should have been skulking round with a shotgun listening out for sounds of shuffling and low moans
chico enrico
No hair shows you care.
Yea, I don't like Hackney either. Got a few friends who moved there a couple of years ago as they said you can get big flats there. They just seem to spend all their time getting mugged. despite having a few good restaurants, Dalston's a dump too. i reckon most folk who move there now do so cos they think it's got some 'edgy' image, which IMO only really reflects on the sort of life they have led, and environment they have led it in, before.
Hackney's just depressing. Shitty transport late at night means that you're always fighting for a taxi, feeling stranded in the barren centre.
I don't give a shit if it's a bit 'edgy' - I live in Brixton after all - but it's the unlovable combination of lifeless desolation and threat which makes it so unenticing. I'm sure that there are better bits of Hackney to visit during the day, but the middle of the town sucks.
I don't give a shit if it's a bit 'edgy' - I live in Brixton after all - but it's the unlovable combination of lifeless desolation and threat which makes it so unenticing. I'm sure that there are better bits of Hackney to visit during the day, but the middle of the town sucks.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
I find with London that it's really hard to write an entire area off, since there's usually good and bad bits, certainly in the 8 central boroughs at least. for example, Peckham High street and immediate area is a bit shoddy, walk 5 mins up the road to the rye and it's lovely - decent houses, lots of space and trees etc. Same goes for Hackney around Vicky park.
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