to want to move house in London just because the area where I live has become extremely poncey?

[Mintyy]

Yes, yes, of course we have been unbelievably lucky that we chose to live somewhere that became gentrified and therefore have made a lot of money on our house.

However.

We now feel like we have less and less in common with the people who live here. We are 49 and 51 and have good but not outstanding incomes.

I have just discovered that my new neighbours (who paid an extraordinary amount for their extremely average terraced house) are newlyweds in their early 30s. They are going to be doing building works, so I am imagine an extension and a loft conversion.

We are going to have nothing whatsoever in common with them are we?

I sincerely yearn for more authentic London living. Either inner city or further out and less pretentious and overpriced than where we are now.

Such a pita to have to move though! And nothing on the market .

you know that if I, as a priviliaged, middle-class, white educated woman feels pushed out of my neighbourhood, how do all the other residents feel?

Stoke Newington now seems like an apartheid state. tea shops and nonsense galore, uprisings about new supermarkets and a nandos because they aren't pretty. And then muted rumblings about the gangs on the estates they live cheek by jowl with.

Oh its all love and diversity and inclusion until the cut throat business of secondary school. Then its media mummy handbags at dawn, facing down the city folk.

But why the ?

Why is it so difficult to understand?

''My area was interesting. There were a lot of creatives, photographers, musicians, artists, teachers, journalists, academics, nursers, social workers, small business people, entrepreneurs - those kind of people.''

These are exactly the kind of people who gentrify an area! We all play our part in it. Creatives move to cheap areas. They like that they are 'real' (and cheap) They make it feel more interesting and attract others. Then this slight increase makes it 'ok' to live in a previously 'undesirable' area. Then the creatives can't afford it any more and find the next gritty cheap area. And so it goes on.

It's not your new neighbours fault. Not your fault, or mine. Whatever our income we use most of the same criteria when choosing somewhere to live. We have our ideals of type of accommodation and area then compromise on one or both to a greater or lesser degree.

oh, and I moved from Stokey to get away from the depressing feeling of not being rich enough or married enough, or property rich enough..what decent parent would let their kids go and play at the home of a child which was a flat??? Gasp!...

I have no issue with genuine improvement of a lot of these areas. But gentrification is not the same as social and economic regeneration that improves things for everyone.

And diversity in London does matter because overall it is a highly cosmopolitan diverse city, so homogenisation or colonisation by any one group is a sign that a community is being excluded in some way, or the area is out of whack with the city as a whole. And in a city where people live cheek by jowl ghettoes and enclaves are not good for social cohesion - or a real sense of community.

BillyBanter, I think there are ways in which people are actually at fault in affecting an area.

The mc hysteria about schools and needing to be in the exact school that 'people like us' go to polarises the housing, creates hot spots around the charmed favoured school and makes the area increasingly inaccessible to anyone on anything like a mid-range ordinary income for ever more.

Nothing odd about it perlona. I've always lived in mixed areas.

Some parts of Ruislip make me uncomfortable because they're so white. I only go there to buy nick nacks and shop at Bang and Olufsen (not).

I used to go there for the antiques and second hand bookshops, but they got priced out.

Actual Tulse Hill, not W Norwood, or W Dulwich, or Streatham Hill? Or the Southern side of Brixton?

Wow!

I have wondered whether ofsted, and that ofsted outstanding, is more of a boon for estate agents and house prices than anything else.

London is unique though Anjou, you put up with the difficult bits to live among interesting and diverse people, each area would have it's particular atmosphere. Now, it's just becoming rich for rich people, and quite uniform.
Blu does put it better - there are massive social changes happening to areas where people have lived happily for years.

Tulse Hill, Lancaster Avenue for eg? -big houses at £1m.

''The mc hysteria about schools and needing to be in the exact school that 'people like us' go to polarises the housing, creates hot spots around the charmed favoured school and makes the area increasingly inaccessible to anyone on anything like a mid-range ordinary income for ever more.''

Well that could be seen as a systemic problem too...

christ, you should have see what happened round here when Mossbourne became favoured school of the decade...

Lancaster Ave is W Norwood or W Dulwich!

Good location, I reckon.

Bessemer - how systemic? people avoid really good schools not because of the education or the results but because of the demography. And I do mean demography, I do not mean behaviour.

MmeDefarge - I thought you had moved? You had a c a f e didn't you?

That said, I get what you mean. I'm not mc as such but I'm a country girl who had an easy time through school and if I had children I don't think I'd know where to start on bringing them up here. The impression I get is it's pretty tough going being a school in London. I do realise that my impression of schooling may be somewhat askew.

Sorry, BillyBanter. I was actually thinking of hoe Bessemer as a school now an excellent school, has a huge catchment compared with the 'dinner party' schools.

Ah yes it is. Traffic around Tulse Hill is bad it's true.

I totally get you Mintyy. Where I live is similar (although not being London the house prices aren't comparable). I grew up here and it was normal and working class. Slowly over time and with the addition of a new school which while is state funded acts like an Independant the whole place has turned very beige yet expensive.

The "pubs" have turned into tapas bars that sell wine at more for a glass than you should pay for a bottle. My little car is dwarfed by the Range Rover Evoque and the BMW X5 owned by my neighbours either side. My accent is 'rougher' than everyone else in the school yard and I sometimes feel like I don't belong here, even though I've had the same Postcode since I was 4.

I keep getting tempted to rent my house out to someone desperate to be in the catchment area for the school. I could live quite happily in a house twice the size as mine 2 mile up the road and be better off! Have you considered that?

I don't have children yet, but the fact that there are more children than school places in some areas sounds incredibly stressfull I thank my lucky stars I'm Catholic!

Are there any areas in London that have actually regenerated as oppossed to gentrified? The place where my parents live definitely has since I was a child - but it's not in London.

yes I had a c a f e. Amazingly enough, my landlord decided to give my lease to someone else when I was two weeks behind with the rent. Yup. Lost over £60K. Changed the locks. The works.

Because the street had started to be up and coming and he knew he could get triple the amount he was charging me.

Bitter? Moi?

Oh yes and lost home (Above cafe) and ds and I had to go into emergency hostel accomodation for a year (now in temporary, another year). So while I might have been a tiny part of the gentrification, I think I got my comeuppance pretty comprehensively.

I wonder, does the ofsted grading pretty much correlate to how mc a school is..