The Secret History of our Streets

[Tim Lund]

Just copied this to follow Lee's posting on the same in the Town Pub- suggest anyone makes comments there

The first in a series on BB2 this Tuesday was on Deptford High Street, enthusiastically reviewed in the Guardian by Sydenham's own Lucy Mangan, with a former "chair of the Lewisham planning council" - I assume this should be 'committee' - set up as villain in chief.

Did anyone see this? There's a good discussion of it on Brockley Central, which feels more balanced. Lucy Mangan's review kicks off, and continues, which what feels to me like unreflecting sentimentality

Deptford thought it was a tight-knit working-class community with friends and family jostling happily for space amid the market stalls passed down through generations, in the houses that were handed down likewise and using the dozen pubs nearby as homes from home. The council and its environmental health officers of the passionately modernist 1960s thought it was a motley collection of slums and undesirables – the perfect place, therefore, to begin living their dream of re-organising chaotic London into a sleekly efficient city fit for the shining future

while the comments on Brockley Central show some appreciation of the current liveliness of the area, in which immigrants, both from overseas and Brits drawn to the big city, students and other young people now play a part, as well as people whose families have stayed.

Any 'passionately' * adhered to project for social engineering is almost bound to end badly, because passions get in the way of admitting mistakes - see the distinction between 'piecemeal' and 'utopian' in this earlier thread - but Lucy Mangan's rose-tinted romanticism would seem to undermine official concepts of 'decent houses' - in today's planners' language - and endorse quasi-property rights for original residents of an area - although to preserve traditional 'communities', you would also need to prevent too many individual members of them moving out. How would you do that? Once you start thinking through the policy implications of this sort of emotional communitarianism, its inadequacies become obvious. For a more analytic critique of appealing to 'community consensus' see this blog post from Matt Bruenig.

The program doesn't seem to have been so much about the retail liveliness of the area, which so many of here in Sydenham are concerned about, but the two are inextricably linked - see this thread

* Why I worry when people try to tell me how they are passionate about something ...

[Eagle]

Tim
I saw programe and really enjoyed it. Shame on Lewisham Council and the old LCC for destroying a community and depositing many of the people in greenfield sites further south in the Borough.

It was especially upsetting to see the inspectors has passed a street but were overruled by LBC and was pulled down anyway.

I note you also refer to working class. up to 40 years ago a term one could understand. Nowadays often refers to the non working class

[bag lady]

I too enjoyed it, this may be the one if not the only time i have agreed with you Eagle.

I work very near the high street and feel the potrayal as a downcast non cohesive community was not quite what i see day to day.

The area has a buzz about it, i like it.

[mikej]

I agree, I thought it was a fascinating programme, this week's is on Camberwell Grove, I wonder if any other local streets will be featured in the future?
I loved the way they used Booth's Victorian maps of the area!
Seems sad how the community was broken up - I thought the comment by one of the interviewees that it wouldn't have been done like that in Fulham or Chelsea was right on the button.

[marymck]

My Mum was born and spent her early childhood in Deptford and I have many ancestors (on several family tree branches) who've called Deptford home at some point in the last 300 years. (In fact, I've yet to meet a serious genealogist who hasn't found an ancestor at some point passing through Deptford.)

Recently I went looking for some of our ancestral houses. I think they've all gone. I have one address still to check, but found the whole process so depressing that I gave up.

Having watched Secret Streets last night, I think I'm going to give it another bash.

I must admit to having been skeptical when Mum talked about what a great, safe community it was to grow up in and how nice everyone's homes were.

I've got copies of the Abercrombie Reports and I know they were working on them at the height of the Blitz. How obliging of Lewisham Council to finish what Hitler started. Shame on them both.

I found the programme heart-breaking and owe my Mum an apology.

[14BradfordRoad]

Just watched the amazing episode all about Portland Street, Notting hill:

Very topical episode that shockingly reveals how investment Bankers have bought up
many of the most expensive properties in London with Taxpayers hard earned cash!
A truly shocking insight into reality!