Chelsea and South
Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham remain the territory of the Sloane, that upper-middle-class horsey type identified in the 1980s and named after one of their favourite haunts, Sloane Square. Extending from Sloane Square is the King's Road where the Swinging Sixties – and Mick Jagger, Twiggy and Mary Quant – once swung, and where punks roamed in the 1970s, lured by Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's emporium called (for controversy's sake) SEX. These days, the youthquake has passed and the scene is rather more Chelsea Pensioners (those scarlet-uniformed war veterans who retire to the Chelsea Royal Hospital) and Sloanes (not dissimilar to their 1980s counterparts, if now more posh-chav in appearance – stripey blonde hair and lots of slap) who can afford to live in the area's beautiful townhouses.
Some of Britain's most expensive real estate is in nearby Belgravia – grand, stuccoed houses all painted cream gloss, many inhabited by international embassies. Next door, Knightsbridge – certainly no knockdown neighbourhood, having at the time of going to press claimed the world record at £6,000 per square foot – is home to Harrods, the designer boutiques of Sloane Street, and affluent Arabs. Just west is South Kensington, also posh and pricey but with the added gravitas of 'Albertopolis', a loose campus of national museums and colleges commissioned by Prince Albert in the 1850s.
Most of South London lies south of the river (beyond the map). Known as 'Saarf London' because of its working-class majority, it's arguably the underdog in terms of wealth and status. Fans maintain that inhabitants are salt-of-the-earth, hard-working types and not the bourgeois snobs of the north (NB: petty north–south rivalry endures). Critics – usually North Londoners – say it's an ugly, unsafe suburban sprawl with terrible transport links. In reality, it's this and more – its lag stems from pre-bridge medieval times when North London was developed and South London languished – few historic monuments were built here. However, the South Bank is London's most important contemporary culture centre, and is lined with galleries, concert halls and theatres.
Just beyond the riverbank, Waterloo, Southwark, Borough and Bermondsey have all seen recent gentrification of old industrial-age factories. Further south, Elephant and Castle, Vauxhall and New Cross (an area that includes Old Kent Road, Monopoly's cheapest street) are more 'earthy', with gloomy tower blocks and grim shopping centres. Some delight in these last bastions of pre-gentrification – New Cross, the scene of the latest youthquake, is being hailed as South London's Shoreditch; non-believers call it all plain inner-city decay. Upstream are Battersea and Clapham, residential neighbourhoods with plenty of lively hangouts to service its young (and conventional) graduate community. With Battersea Park (and its boating lake, zoo and river views) and Clapham Common (with its summer concerts), the quality of life is good and the reason why many good-time South Africans and Australians settle here.
Brixton, Camberwell and Peckham are the antidote to the safe, squeaky grad scene. Here you will find Jamaican communities in Brixton, West Africans in Peckham, and a mixture in Camberwell; these areas are also popular with the liberal, middle-class and politically correct social-worker cliche who wants to unite with their brothers and sisters, preferably in a communal squat over a Camberwell Carrot (a fat spliff). Music is instrumental to the area, especially Brixton, whose black- and dance-music scenes attract both diehard and try-hard clubbers. Brixton is not all so mellow, however – the area is charged with attitude, and an increasing Yardie presence, a high incidence of gun, drug and street crime, and a history of race riots lend a tough edge. Camberwell and Peckham, with the nearby Camberwell College of Arts, share a more easy-going, artistic feel, though all – run-down and rough yet dynamic and diverse – provoke extreme reactions either way. Rather like the north–south divide in fact.
The City and East
All eyes have gazed on the dynamic east in the last few years, with the self-consciously cool, arty camp gravitating towards Shoreditch, Hoxton and Hackney, and ever more stratospheric skyscrapers being built in Canary Wharf.
London's eastern promise begins in Clerkenwell, where abandoned warehouses, old French Huguenot residences and ex-watchmakers' workshops have been converted into loft accommodation, photographic studios, media offices, style bars, gastropubs and night clubs. Just south is Fleet Street, forever the namesake of British journalism, and although all the papers have now dispersed, some of the original buildings and legendary pubs frequented by legendary hacks still remain. Just east, the City of London contains the 'square mile' of London's financial quarter. During the week, it's eyes down, full throttle in hive-like endeavour where the Stock Exchange is the queen bee; by the weekend, it's a ghost town. Alongside the City's contemporary architecture (famously, the Gherkin and Lloyds of London, pictured right) are some of the oldest parts of London – scores of 17th-century Wren-designed churches (including St Paul's Cathedral), the medieval Tower of London and relics of Roman walls.
Hoxton and its neighbours Shoreditch and Hackney are collectively London's HQ of cool (at least its residents smugly claim as much, with their experimental haircuts and clashing thrift chic). In the early 1990s, it was a wasteland of disused industrial structures and rundown council estates. Impoverished artists moved in, bringing with them cachet and counterculture, and other creatives soon followed (notably the dot-com entrepreneurs). Cheap rents also lured an influx of immigrants – Bangladeshis populate Brick Lane (now famed for its curry houses); the Vietnamese settled around Kingsland Road and Afro-Caribbeans in Hackney. Then came gentrification and the chains, yet more chains, and the bridge and tunnellers – on a Saturday night it can feel more like Leicester Square. As money continues to pour into East End night culture, with private members' clubs and glossy, over-designed bars, the avant garde marches on to ever more remote sites of graffiti-ed, gritty urbanity – Dalston, Stoke Newington and Hackney Marshes. Meanwhile, the artistic community has come of age, attracting bankers with bonuses to blow at the burgeoning commercial art gallery scene of Hackney's Vyner Street and Herald Street. The East's crown of cool endures, albeit now ripe for parody with all those tragic try-hards. But the real tragedy is that the original working-class East Enders – or Cockneys, born within earshot of Bow Bells – have been displaced by soaring property prices paid for by middle-class 'Mockneys'. To that, they probably retort, 'What a load of pony and trap.'
Further east is the City's younger brother, Canary Wharf (beyond this map) – a recent financial development built on old docklands that includes three of London's tallest buildings: the totemic office blocks of One Canada Square, and HSBC and Citigroup Towers. The entire area is designed with one thing in mind – maximizing profits, minimizing distraction – so there's not much to see. Just next door is the infamous Millennium Dome, the Labour Party's colossal white elephant, which is now a concert venue, The O2 Arena, while further east is Greenwich and the chance to walk the line of longitude that marks GMT (evidence that London really is centre of the universe). Greenwich is also London's maritime zone and home to the Old Royal Naval College and the famous 19th-century tea clipper, the Cutty Sark. And with the preparations for the London Olympics to be held in Stratford (just east of Hackney) in 2012, there's yet more urban regeneration, human traffic and focus to come to East London.
Notting Hill and West
There's a particular breed of West Londoners – posh, conservative (and Conservative) and English – whose reputation prevails over the entire area, so much so that the expression 'that's so West London' (often used by the more hip, possibly chippy, Hoxtonites) has come to describe a look that is pretty, safe and moneyed. The heartbeat of this bourgeoisie radiates from Notting Hill, where stuccoed mansions provide the kind of comfort to which these Londoners are accustomed. In truth there are other power tribes in Notting Hill: in the 1950s, West Indian immigrants took root here and local Caribbean culture continues to be a proud part of street life. The annual Notting Hill Carnival in August – started in the 1960s to promote harmony between the immigrant communities and the English majority – is still Caribbean in flavour, with steel drum bands and exotically dressed dancers on floats. The privileged throw parties on their decked terraces overlooking the riffraff – rather less integrationist but, frankly, London's biggest street party needs all the space it can get.
In the 1960s Notting Hill was a haven for bohemians and many still live here, now with their grown-up posh-hippy offspring. Other settlers – from Morocco, Spain, Portugal and Greece – have added a welcome Mediterranean flavour with vibrant bistros and colourful food markets, but in many ways Notting Hill remains awfully English – hence a good location for a Hollywood romcom about a Hollywood star who falls in love with an archetypal bumbling British chap (Hugh Grant, who else?). And the film? Notting Hill, of course. That location manager had a gift of a job – Notting Hill's middle-class bohemia makes for a perfectly picturesque set thanks to the romance of Portobello Road, a cute, characterful lane lined with candy-coloured cottages, and buzzing with antiques shops and its famous street market. Just west (beyond this map), Holland Park is a grown-up, more affluent version of Notting Hill, minus the ethnic diversity. The steady encroachment of bland-tasted bankers into both areas has seen the high-end global brands move in, and individuality increasingly driven out.
Further west, the BBC's TV studios take out a large proportion of Shepherd's Bush; the rest a home for Polish, East African and West Indian communities (and lots of Brits). Its neighbour, Hammersmith, is right on the river with historic pubs aplenty; both are a mix of expensive townhouses and sorry social housing.
Plenty of other ethnic enclaves characterize West London – Bayswater's hookah cafés and shwarma shops service a lively Lebanese, Egyptian and Algerian community; St John's Wood is a wealthy Jewish district (also home to EMI's Abbey Road recording studio and that famous zebra crossing, hence a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans), while Earl's Court has become a refuge for backpacking antipodeans, and Kilburn for the Irish.
West London also has a rich royal legacy – Britain's kings and queens have historically looked west for their parks and palaces. Hyde Park, acquired by Henry VIII as a hunting ground, spreads westwards from Marble Arch to Kensington. At the west end of Hyde Park is Kensington Palace, once home to the Prince and Princess of Wales (Charles moved to St James's after his divorce from Diana); further out is Hampton Court, Henry VIII's Tudor palace on the Thames, and Richmond Park, London's largest open space with 2,350 acres, and a royal park since the 13th century. Windsor Castle, the Queen's weekend retreat, is 20 miles west in the Berkshire countryside. No wonder the posh chose this royal corridor to take up residence.
Mayfair and North
Flanking the south of the West End is the political powerhouse of Westminster, the royal seat in Victoria, and Mayfair. Monopoly's premier property zone, Mayfair remains a des res for old money and new (particularly Russians and Arabs), understandably charmed by its palatial properties, the quaint bistros and bars of Shepherd Market, and its proximity to London's best auction houses, commercial art galleries and Bond Street boutiques. It's only fitting that such privilege is cushioned by a generous buffer of royal parkland – St James's Park, Green Park and Hyde Park.
North of Mayfair is Marylebone, at once a villagey residential area, a destination for medical excellence with Harley Street's numerous private dental and cosmetic clinics, and a stronghold of independent endeavour with boutiques, coffee shops and eateries.
North London proper starts at King's Cross (beyond this map). In Victorian times it was an industrial area serviced by Euston, King's Cross and St Pancras stations, but its redbrick warehouses were eventually abandoned by all but prowling prostitutes and junkies. King's Cross is now undergoing a major urban regeneration spearheaded by the arrival of uber-architect Norman Foster's Eurostar rail link at St Pancras Station, opened late 2007.
To its north-west is Camden, a training-ground for London teenagers riding out their angry goth phase, and a stomping-ground for subversives of all ages (punks, emos, crusties; Doc Martens remain the boots of choice); shopping for bootleg CDs and vintage clothes at Camden market is a rite of passage for any young Londoner. Tapping into the glamour of rebellion, a hedonistic clique of indie rock stars – the Camden Caners – recently made Camden cool again, and big investments in hip hangouts followed. Just west is the vastly prettier and posher Primrose Hill – a picturesque hilltop park with views over London, sandwiched between London Zoo and its own village. Its cosy gastropubs, expensive Victorian townhouses and celebrity scene have made it a fashionable destination, though now loaded bankers have bought into it, forcing up property prices and, some say, pushing out its soul. On Camden's east is Islington, a buzzy, young area lined with independent boutiques, bars and restaurants – like its neighbour Hoxton, its fine Georgian houses are largely populated by trendy-leftie professionals, but its nightlife has become such a mecca that at weekends, it can seem like one big stag party.
The neighbourhoods of Holloway, Archway, Highbury, Stoke Newington and Kentish Town sit just north of Islington and Camden and are largely residential – rent is cheaper, horizons are rugged with industrial wastelands, and there are plentiful pockets of ethnicity – just the edge to attract a cool, creative crowd.
But it is the venerable villages of Highgate and Hampstead, on either side of Hampstead Heath's rolling hills, that lend North London its intellectual and artistic associations. Famous Hampstead inhabitants have included Sigmund Freud, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Constable and George Orwell. Highgate – the highest point in London – has been home to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, JB Priestley and Yehudi Menuhin, while in Highgate Cemetery are buried Karl Marx, Douglas Adams and George Eliot. One of the area's biggest communities is Jewish, most concentrated around Golders Green. Its cemetery is the final resting-place of famous Jewish people including Marc Bolan, Peter Sellers and Sigmund Freud. Many live in North London's most expensive areas including 'Millionaires' Row' – The Bishops Avenue near Highgate. Increasingly also a lair also for London Arabs, it's rather like Hollywood's Bel-Air, with faux Grecian temples here, mock Tudor mansions there and one-upmanship all around.
Central London
Where is the centre of London? What exactly comprises central London? Frankly, there are several versions of the truth, not least thanks to estate agents' licence ('an exceptionally well-appointed property in the heart of central London' is often none of the above). Central London essentially constitutes the City of Westminster, and is hemmed in by the river (south), the City (London's financial centre; east), Regent's Park (north) and Park Lane (west). If you were to follow a road sign that read, 'Central London, 20 miles' for precisely 20 miles, you'd eventually find yourself at Charing Cross Station: it is from here that all mileages to London are measured (it's not the geographical centre, simply fuzzy British logic).
London's dark heart is known as the West End – an imprecise zone that is neither west nor an end, but that buzzes with pleasure-seekers (note though that the pace of life is fast and tourists are often on the receiving end of pavement rage for walking too slowly). It includes the consumer frenzy of high-streety Oxford Street and Regent Street, the rather more exclusive Bond Street, Covent Garden's theatreland and seedy Soho. Covent Garden (once 'Convent's Garden' where monks grew vegetables and which until recently had a huge fruit and veg market), right, is now an entertainment and shopping destination with theatres and street performers galore, hip clothes shops, and lots of dawdling tourists unfeasibly fascinated by those silver-frosted living statues.
Soho, a historic network of narrow streets, harbours numerous wanton scenes (gay, sex, nightlife – sometimes all at once), the creative industries (advertising, TV and film) and an extended family of colourful characters that exist outside convention and inside its pubs. Also in the West End are Leicester Square (aka Cinema Central and Tourist Hell – a pedestrianized square full of naff nightclubs, rip-off restaurants, cut-price ticket booths and preying pickpockets) and Piccadilly Circus (London's Time Square, with vast neon advertising hoardings, a statue of Anteros, the Greek god of requited love, often mistaken for his – possibly more appropriate – brother Eros, god of love and lust, and lots of traffic; people even say 'Oooh, it was just like Piccadilly Circus' to mean extremely busy). Avoid both. Just north of Leicester Square is London's compact but authentic Chinatown – the main drag is Gerrard Street with ersatz oriental gates, phone box pagodas, and ornamental lions, dragons and lanterns.
Beyond the West End, the capital is back to business. The legal quarter lies just east in Holborn, and has done since medieval times when barristers worked and lodged in public houses, so-called the Four Inns of Court (Lincoln's Inn, Gray's Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple – the latter two were owned by the Knights Templar and are now the haunt of Da Vinci code-crackers; all now mark geographical areas).
To the north are Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia. Bloomsbury is considered London's intellectual land, home to the University of London, The British Museum and, in the early 20th century, the Bloomsbury Group, an elite circle of artists and writers, including Virginia Woolf, EM Forster and John Maynard Keynes. Blue plaques punctuate Bloomsbury's elegant Georgian terraces to commemorate other brainy residents – Dickens, WB Yeats and Edgar Allen Poe. Just west of Bloomsbury, to the west of Tottenham Court Road (the golden mile of electrical bargains), is Fitzrovia (aka Noho, as in North of Soho), which has become a zone for TV and post-production companies, and also includes a little-known Spanish quarter.
London
Virgin visitors to London might expect to find it teeming with red buses, black cabs and bobbies on the beat, variously dotted around the Monopoly board, where trips to Buckingham Palace and Big Ben are followed by fish and chips and a nice cup of tea. In fact, these tourist icons live on in London, remaining as rare constants in a city that embraces progress. Though, yes, Old Kent Road really is still on the lowest rung of the property ladder, and Mayfair the highest.
Most Londoners are quietly proud of their Britishness, and, provided it continues to generate tabloid headlines while holding no real power, the monarchy remains popular. While London's historical VIPs – Shakespeare, Dickens, Newton, Darwin, etc – lend the city wisdom and influence, it is the people on the ground past and present that afford London its individuality – the Dickensian waifs and strays, the East End gangsters and pearly kings and queens, those naughty punks, goths, mods and rockers, and a multi-ethnic influx of immigrants – Polish and other Eastern Europeans, Afro-Caribbeans, Africans, Asians etc. In fact, as many as one-third of Londoners are now not British-born, largely due to the government's pro-immigration policy, and out of a total of 12 million in Greater London (some 609 square miles), its non-white population is the largest of any European city (it's also the most populous). And thanks to a tidy little tax set-up for non-domiciles, London's super-rich scene is now characterized by international bankers, Russian oligarchs, and Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs. Some Londoners complain these 'non-doms' are pushing up property and art prices (admittedly dizzying) while not contributing to the public purse; others happily welcome some of the world's best brains and biggest bank accounts.
Like New York, London is less of a melting pot, more a mosaic of cultures free to retain their own identity, mostly as a result of the (albeit controversial) policy for multiculturalism (the criticism being that it has created a cultural apartheid). But while London can seem unfriendly, insular and competitive, all over are village communities, from the quaint Englishness of Primrose Hill to the curry-pushing enclave of Brick Lane. Where Christianity once dominated, London is now a pluralist society with huge communities of Hindus (the largest outside India), Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and a seemingly endless supply of Hare Krishna converts recruiting up and down Oxford Street.
London is a global city – ie, along with New York, Tokyo and Paris (so go the textbooks), it has a direct effect on global affairs, culturally, politically and socio-economically; it's also the world's leading financial centre. As you'd expect from a country with the world's sixth largest GDP, money is king in its capital. London consistently hits the top five in The Most Expensive City charts.
But world-class status brings world-class quality: a new breed of superchefs means London is no longer burning its food, its art and fashion are coveted world-over (London is one of the world's four fashion capitals), its music scene continues to rock the world with ever-evolving sounds from glitch to grime, while contemporary architecture maintains an iconic skyline. Building booms for the Millennium and the 2012 Olympics brings yet more attractions. Creativity sits easy within this corporate powerhouse as London thrives on the clash of opposites – the Establishment versus the underground, tradition versus experiment, the homegrown versus the imported. London's liberal, progressive outlook makes for a modern, dynamic metropolis happy to adopt a new set of icons – namely, the London Eye, 'Chelski' Football Club and chicken tikka masala (though perhaps that was more to do with our own erstwhile cooking talents).
