AIBU or has East London changed for the worse?

[Splodgetastic]

Okay, so I wasn’t expecting pearly kings and queens when I went out for drinks with my new colleagues in Docklands but my goodness things have changed round here. I was regaling my colleagues with stories of the pub we used to go to (which apparently had a strip club upstairs and colleagues were shocked) but this bar was something else. No gangsters but a bunch of really dodgy customers staring at the under thirties in a really menacing way. I had to guard a colleague’s drink! I mentioned it on the way out and they said I could have said something to security, but it wasn’t really myself I was worried about. Simply awful. Is that what young women have to put up with nowadays?

Surely East London is bigger than one pub?

If someone says East London , I don't immediately think Docklands either.

Don't know what you're getting at OP?

You mean middle-aged men were eyeing up younger women? Rightly or wrongly, that happens in pretty much every pub that contains middle-aged men and younger women! YABU

If anything East London is far better now than it used to be years ago! Much more gentrified.

Sorry you had a bad experience, but I think it’s a bit of a sweeping generalisation to write off the entirety of east London because you had a bad night in a dodgy pub! Like the rest of London there are good bits and bad bits.

I’m more surprised you found an actual pub in east london that hadn’t been closed down

East London, I thought you would mean Whitechapel, not Docklands! And yeah, it's changed...

I used to know Poplar and Stratford quite well. I went there recently and it felt very different. It felt quite scary to be honest and everyone seemed stressed.

I think I’m maybe a bit of an old fart! No, it wasn’t a pub (the pub no longer exists, but I was reminiscing), but a supposedly trendy bar. I guess I just didn’t like the vibe. The whole place is a bit soulless.

You clearly didn't go in any pubs in Poplar or the isle of dogs (As it was called then) in the 1990's. Definitely not for the faint hearted!

East London has been gentrified. I'm no longer scared of going out somewhere there. I wouldn't have gone out there 20 years or more ago.

I see East London and the Docklands as being very different places so I can't picture this at all.

I'm wondering if you stumbled on one of those pubs that's really still only for a very particular group of people....

I thought you were going to complain about the gentrification!

I grew up in a lovely part of East London but it’s definitely going downhill.
All my friends I grew up with there are of the same opinion and have moved elsewhere.
None of us wanted to bring our children up in the area.

I went into loads of pubs on the Isle of Dogs in the 90s. It just feels different now. I can’t really put my finger on why. Perhaps it’s me who has changed.

If anything East London is far better now than it used to be years ago! Much more gentrified.

Well it depends on whose point of view you’re looking from. I’m sure that the indigenous population who have been forced out by ‘gentrification’ wouldn’t necessarily agree with you.

I wouldn't have gone out there 20 years or more ago.

Ridiculous. It was safer then than it is now. The Royal London Hospital is inundated with stabbings. In the 1980s we saw roughly one episode a fortnight.

We were forced out. Or priced out if you will. You either have to be very high earners or on full benefits to afford to live in east London now. I was born and bred in Canning Town, the ‘shitty’ side of the excel building, but still couldn’t afford to live there!

No, I’m not a Londoner and I was brought up very far away from London. I couldn’t afford to live in London now, although I’ve worked in London all my adult life! But I have lived in London previously (well, Deptford). Gentrification may be a good thing (I don’t think we want to go back to the slums), but it’s a very strange place now. I think I want to say overdeveloped. At the same time there is clearly also a lot of deprivation right next door and no sense of community. Developers just don’t think about building decent schools, libraries and boozers!

@AlexaAmbidextra I'm the wrong age group, mostly the wrong sex and not involved in any criminal activity. Plus I know not to fight for my phone/handbag if it's snatched.

Btw what do you mean by the "indigenous population"? East London was the part of London where new immigrants traditionally turned up.

pretty much everywhere has changed for the worse. There is a cheapening and coarsening of society. General lack of respect. The old fart drones on ……….

@Gth1234, you are so right! In fact I have another example from last night from my journey home. There was a lady with a stick at the station and a few people went past her, but only one (me) said “excuse me” and “thank you”. She must have said something to her other half as I heard him say that he thought “that young lady” had said “thank you” (he was obviously blind or blind drunk as I am not young). Regularly people take up the whole pavement in groups or ten people will let one person wait to get past into or out of a shop and a thank you is a rarity. I’ve also noticed basic personal hygiene seems to be on the decline. A bar of soap seems to be an alien concept to some of my fellow commuters. People don’t say good morning to the security guards or their colleagues at work. People still don’t use litter bins, although that was ever thus. I could go on.

Btw what do you mean by the "indigenous population"? East London was the part of London where new immigrants traditionally turned up.

I mean people of whatever nationality who were born and lived in the east end when it was deprived, scruffy and run down. When those who are now inhabiting expensive houses wouldn’t have touched it with a barge-pole. I have highlighted the above words as I know what you were implying and I wasn’t talking about immigrants at all.