Where in London will be gentrified next?

[Willow1086]

Where in London do you think will be gentrified next?

@MarshaBradyo

We’re on a street where people have lived here for decades but now some are moving.

It’s quite interesting to see the jobs / professions change as younger buy

Same here Marsha, every white working class homeowner that sells up to move to the coast is being replaced by young, middle class couples. I will fight them if they come for the Robert Dyas though.

The funny thing is that the E&C shopping centre was once an attempt at a kind of gentrification... I love this archive footage from the BBC in 1969 showing the shopping centre after it was opened, and the locals snubbing it for East Street market:

twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1314105750692794369

But it also shows how radically the demographics of E&C/Walworth have changed. In 1969, everyone on the market ('East Lane') is white with a cockney accent and the market stalls were passed down from father to son.

Now Lendlease are marketing three-bedroom flats at the Elephant to rent at £4500 a month:
twitter.com/35percent_EAN/status/1385866761476710401

Come on Enfield, I need the money!

I think there will be shift in the desire from Victorian terraces to more spacious housing stock like 1920's semis. We live in one now and they are wonderful. Nice wide gardens, off street parking (and some garages), large spacious rooms. They aren't all out on in zone 4 either.
I've noticed lots of episodes of George Clarke focusing on this age of house and they seem to be cheaper than their Victorian counterparts.

@Smurfsarethefuture

But the London they came from has gone, too. I see a lot of young grads coming to London, commuting and working in admin level posts and teh quality of life they have is worse than we had years ago. Th ecommuting stress is off the scale now - much worse than it was, there is no sense of localisation, everything is homegenous and quite sterile and most people are having to do voluntary work, etc to add to their CVs to progress. The Ondon where you could find your niche is gone and instead it all seems quite bland to me. And expensive.

The localisation still exists and is planned online and delivered by enthusiastic volunteers. It's there if you look for it. I will take Penge as an example:

Penge Day
Pengemas
Penge Halloween Trail
Penge Food Hub
Alexandra and Cator Parks Group
Penge Easter Trail
Penge Beer Festival
Penge Cycling Club
Tour de Penge
Pengefest
Penge Heritage Trail
Penge Tourist Board
SE20 Art Club

These were just off the top of my head and all exist. There are more. They are also all financed and run by locals.

And the street art in SE20 is now known globally and all performed for free by top artists from all over the world and organised for free by a local.

That's just little old Penge. Others will have similar, though being the London end of a leafy borough, Penge does often look after itself very well.

I also agree with the poster who said we will see gentrification in parts of London with larger housing stock that are already 'nice enough'.

No area will go from grotty to nice, as people would rather just leave London and go elsewhere. Can't see anyone sticking out the 'up and coming years' when they don't have to with WFH etc.

So in summary;

• established areas will stay desirable
• nice enough areas in zone 3/4 and onwards with large housing stock will improve
• no more gentrification on the inner London zones that are still a bit underdeveloped (thinking parts of NW London as an example)

As PP said - I also think that gentrification will slow down and change. In particular, I think there will be even fewer families willing to live in flat or less gentrified areas and just move out of London with WFH. I can see young people sticking around but why would you bother living in zone 2 with kids in a flat if you dont need to or why would you buy a family home in a less gentrified area if you can move move out.

Londoners have put up with a lot for ease of commute. Cant see many families making the same equation if commuting is less of a thing. So I think that London will get even younger i.e. 20s/30s sticking around for the nightlife/social life etc and those on average not 6figure sums even more likely to get out once they have kids.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

The point about gentrified areas is often they started off as very affluent middle class enclaves. You've only got to watch A House Through Time to see that. So a lot of the Brixton and SW London properties now worth several million £, started off that way, then were subdivided into cheap bedsits between the wars and thereafter, only to be bought up and converted back to single occupancy homes by young professionals in the late 70s/early 80s who are now retirement age and sitting on housing stock goldmines!

Yes this is true of Brixton...large houses with rooms at top for the staff to live in etc...my friends from Barbados bought there cheaply as it was all they could afford and lots of other people from the islands moved there also...I dont blame them for making a fortune after working here for years and years...they were able to give children a hefty deposit from the sale funds and enough to build a nice place back home !

The thing I (still) love about London is the sense of local community. I think areas do retain a sense of local identity, and people work (in a fun and positive way) to retain that. I love the sense of humour in the Penge Tourist Board. The West Norwood Feast. The street parties in Brixton and Streatham, and the way that communities in areas which are the ones which have lived with disadvantage or struggle stand together and fight. There is great solidarity.

Walworth. Elephant & Castle outskirts.

Debden?

Rayners Lane?

Acton?

Belmont? (Harrow)

Mottingham?

Well @Smurfsarethefuture I can assure you that Catford town centre is not homogeonised, no Oliver Bonas or Gail's bakery here!
It's actually really nice where we are, but if lots of people think it's a 'shit hole' at least that means our house prices should stay vaguely affordable.

Debden is quite far out, isn't it (and not particularly nice from my very limited recall)? Zone 5? That will stop it from gentrifying unless the #wfh trend does become long-term. Commuting prices are high once you get that far out.

I don't think Debden will gentrify because of the housing stock - lots of sprawling modern estates. Gentrification seems to happen more in areas with lots of period housing.

indeed @pinksnowball and in fact the surrounding areas (Epping, Chigwell, Abridge and Loughton) are gentrified to an extent). You'd think the gentrification 'creep' would have already reached Debden if it was going to happen but somehow it's been bypassed - for a reason in my opinion!

As a newcomer (only been here 20 years) not born on London, I've moved to a couple of different areas to find somewhere to live that I could afford.

I do work in a professional services type job, but don't earn the bugs bucks, around the 30k mark. I appreciate this is more than a lot of people earn.

By moving TO an area I'm sure I'm a contributing factor to gentrification. But I'm not sure what is the answer as I moved to London to get a job, and need somewhere I can afford to live?

I would far rather no one was priced out. Diverse areas is every way are better for everyone.

But as a person who wasn't born here I sometimes feel unwelcome in conversations such as this.

I don't mean to offend anyone, just not sure of what the answer is.

@newmodelarmymayhem18 yes, all of those areas are quite nice, I like all of them! But not so much poor old Debden. Although it does now have an outstanding secondary school (two if you count Davenant which is close) and the tube, so I guess anything is possible.

@ladycarlotta

I find Catford to be pretty gentrified. There was a point about 5 years ago where trendy types stopped laughing about it and started buying houses there.

I wish Lewisham didn't gentrify, the whole Ladywell/Brockley/St John/Telegraph Hill area is naice af, then you've got Blackheath and Hither Green on the other side, but I love Lewisham's high street and veg market, love it all just as it is. Lewisham is this oasis of grimy functionality with gentrification all around.

@ladycarlotta

This is exactly how I feel!

@1990s I feel exactly the same as you - I’m from a roughish bit of the NW, and I’ve ended up in Leytonstone - according to the locals I’m a gentrifier! It does make me feel sad and a bit othered to be described like that though.

However, I was looking at the 1911 census, and in the house two doors down from me the man came from about 2 miles away from where I’m from, and most of the street were born in other more central bits of London. I think it’s always been the case in London that people move around.

[quote MittensForKittens123]@1990s I feel exactly the same as you - I’m from a roughish bit of the NW, and I’ve ended up in Leytonstone - according to the locals I’m a gentrifier! It does make me feel sad and a bit othered to be described like that though.

However, I was looking at the 1911 census, and in the house two doors down from me the man came from about 2 miles away from where I’m from, and most of the street were born in other more central bits of London. I think it’s always been the case in London that people move around.[/quote]

I agree, just makes me feel sad!

Interesting census info. I wonder if then people who were already in an area felt the same as people are now.

I’d love Rayners Lane to be gentrified. I grew up there. It used to be a lovely place but feels neglected now and boring. If a bit of life was brought back to it I’d go back there happily.

North West London could so easily gentrify but I think most of the money is made in Canary Warf and the City and places like Rayners Lane are just too far for those. BIL commutrs to Stratford every day and it takes him ages. So not sure whether it will be next.Maybe places of the Elizabeth line?

Debden was on Location Location Location in stealth mode last night.

Phil took a couple there who couldn't afford Woodford or Loughton to Debden. They bought what looked like an ex-council maisonette for £325k which is cheap for that end of the Central Line.

So there could be life in the Debden property market.

Debden and Hainault have missed out...huge sprawls of 1950 council estates, poor shops...teens smoking weed everywhere etc....they will never change...plus being zone 5 or 6....
I was in forest gate yesterday with and an elderly ex neighbour..she lived there from 1950 to 1970...said it was quite posh then and a big jewish community who all moved to redbridge when she did in the early 70's...
anyway houses cost 750k to 900k....but it has few nice roads and pockets with deli and cafes but high st is all chicken shops and bookies and lots roaming around drinking cans of lager etc....i wouldnt pay those prices to live there.

[quote MittensForKittens123]@1990s I feel exactly the same as you - I’m from a roughish bit of the NW, and I’ve ended up in Leytonstone - according to the locals I’m a gentrifier! It does make me feel sad and a bit othered to be described like that though.

However, I was looking at the 1911 census, and in the house two doors down from me the man came from about 2 miles away from where I’m from, and most of the street were born in other more central bits of London. I think it’s always been the case in London that people move around.[/quote]
I've lived in Leytonstone for about 25 years. It's vastly more pleasant now than it was back then. The tipping point was the opening of the Olympic park, which made a lot of people from nearer central London realise that Leyton and Leytonstone aren't in the arse-end of nowhere. I don't consider myself a 'gentrifier' (E11 was considered immune to gentrification back then) but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy a lot of things that gentrification is bringing - it's much easier to find nice beer and wine, rather than offys selling barely anything but blue cider and super strength lager, and some pubs have been brought back from the dead.

However, a lot of our neighbours have been displaced over the years as rental and purchase prices have shot up. Since my kids started at the local primary, quite a number of pupils have left because their families have been priced out of the area. 8 from my son's class alone.

For what it's worth - Leytonstone seems to be undergoing a sort of 'gentrification lite'. We're a long way from becoming Stoke Newington. But I do wonder how a young couple in their mid to late 20s can afford a 550k-650k house. How do they do it?