sara from the block
just realised its been a month since posting…all i can say is offcuts plus the day job have been eradicating any sense of free time or free headspace. so much so that i’ve been blindsided by the flu recently.
i know i must be feeling better finally because
a. i had my first ciggarette in 4 days
b. i’m writing.
i’ve been reading alot in my three days quarantined from the rest of the world and thus came across this article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6163070,00.html
if you don’t have the time or inclination to check out the link, i’ll give you the short version. a recent channel 4 survey has rated hackney, my borough the worst place to live in the UK. let me highlight that again, not in london but in all of the UK.
having been a hackney dweller for the better part of my ten years in london, and now being a homeowner in the area, this is a little hard to take. apparently the survey was generated by analyzing statistics of crime, education, pollution and employment. its probably worth mentioning that no london neighborhoods made the top ten BEST places to live, knocked out by places like kent (were i lived the toddler years of my life) and cambridge. which i’m sure have better schools, lower crime levels etc. being obsessively urbanite its safe to say that any of the areas that will make the top ten (to be revealed on thursday) are likely to be areas i find outright boring and would not want to live in.
my neighborhood in hackney is safe, quiet, clean and well served by a visible and friendly police force. every nearby building recycles. most of my neighbors cycle. we are not connected to the city by the underground but the bus network is quick, comprehensive and often more reliable than the underground. most of my friends live nearby and everyone i know who lives here loves it. there is even a certain level of snobbery that comes with it, a feeling that all of those we know should live here. we have great local pubs, parks, galleries, canals. apparently we also have the highest concentrations of artists in all of europe. for a culturaly diverse community there are fairly good race relations. for those that choose not to integrate there is definitely a polite sense of keeping to ones own community and not interfering with others. this is unlike the tension i sometimes felt in the late hours in brick lane, when drunken white british men would sometimes clash with drunken asian men and vice versa.
its difficult to quantify a neighborhood with statistics. its amazing how even without being born and raised here, i do carry a firece loyalty for my neighborhood. i chose to set my roots here. i have history here. from the first time i rode a bus out of the center to visit my first girlfriend’s house in dalston, to my first house share in clapton, to the 2? 3 years i spent above the “wrestling den” (half joking there…) in dalston, to buying my first place near london fields. in between were flirtations with neasden, camden, holloway, walthamstow, islington and brick lane. but somehow i keep coming back here. and i see my friends being pulled here as well. setting their roots down, buying places, cars, dogs. many of my friends will refuse to socialize outside of the area on the weekends (which i’m discovering to be quite wise). and love it or hate it, shoreditch is still part of the borough too and it is arguably the hippest neighborhood in london. it has an edge that notting hill couldn’t compete with and less of the edge that can make brixton a little bit frightening. but i don’t want to play neighorhood politics.
i would just rather a channel 4 producer not project to the nation a one sided view of my neighborhood to a public who may have no information otherwise. its a little unfair don’t you think? maybe there needs to be a survey broadcast about the best and worst channels in british terrestial televison… i think i know where i’d rank channel 4.
