Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Why is Crouch End high street so much cleaner than Green Lanes?
I recently noted that people queue for buses in Crouch End but not Green Lanes and wondered why.
On my most recent excursion I noticed how markedly cleaner Crouch End is on a Saturday morning compared to Green Lanes and again wondered why?
Both are very busy on a Saturday morning (Crouch End arguably more so). Both have lots of cafes and restaurants. Both have bus stops.
But Green Lanes is littered with rubbish.
Why is it so?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by adamvietnam
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The people in a much richer area and presumably has more resource allocated to it.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mahoney
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I doubt that the Council allocates more resources to Crouch End than other areas. Do they get more frequent street sweeping or Violia visits? Why would a Labour controlled council provide more resources to an area that generally votes for other parties (at least at a local government level)?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton
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"... a Labour controlled council provide more resources to an area that generally votes for other parties (at least at a local government level)?
C'mon Brian You seem a well informed intelligent man. So skip the assumptions. Just try again with a few facts. Have a look at which political parties has been winning wards in Crouch End and Muswell Hill. Then assess the class of the councillors. It's a bit more complicated ain' it? Listening to the accents might be fun, as well. I know someone who proudly claims that you can't take the Stamford Hill out of the girl. Though the opposite is possible.
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Adam, an intresting speculation/hypothesis. Have you tried testing it with some sctual facts?
Please take your lead from Clive Carter. He's done some brilliant work using Freedom of Information to squeeze some embarrassing facts out of our once reluctant Council. Though I suspect that litter data might be a bit less embarrassing and therefore quicker and easier to obtain, then info on a few thousand and then few million wasted on dodgy property deals at one time. Not under Peray Ahmet but a couple of blokes who came before.
Facts are often very hard and crunchy.
Lots of opinions can be like the chocolates called Maltesers. Do they still exist? Smooth and oversweet on the outside. You can taste some honeycomb crunch but they quickly melt away.
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Crouch End is a shopping destination. People travel there from other parts of the borough to shop and spend free time. It's still clean, safe and has a range of decent book shops, clothes shops, quality supermarkets and nice pubs.
So it's not that the local residents are better off per capita that explains it.
Maybe its just that the people who do live and shop there are the sort who appreciate a decent environment and don't want to ruin it.
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Despite being lovely - two Waitrose who could complain about that - one thing that always strikes me when I go to Crouch End is the number of empty shops. The retail environment feels very tenuous especially on Park Rd where the change of ownership of shops and restaurants feels almost weekly.
Topsfield Parade feels a bit more buzzy, but you can't help but think the only thing keeping the street alive is the preponderance of charity shops. I always get the impression that it's a couple of bad quarters away from becoming tumbleweed.
I've often wondered whether the cost of the renting or owning the beautiful housing of Crouch End is so high that its fine citizens can't actually afford to go out there.
For me, Crouch End is great for a visit but I'd much rather live "the wrong side of the tracks" on Green Lanes. The amenities, transport links and sense of community far outweigh its undeniable rough edges.
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Adam, it seems to me that you maybe very interestingly mix-up several factors. Some are perhaps unstated. Perhaps because of not wanting to be impolite to someone? Maybe the richer, better dressed, better haircut, posher accents of Crouch Enders? Or vice-versa?
I'm sure you do realise how quickly this thread has pepper-potted across a hundred factors and places.
I'm loving this wonderful example of how London lets us - on the whole - get on with with one another. While at the same time pretending excitingly that we live in somewhere "decent" or not. Where nobody does or doesn't queue up for a bus. The first time I remember having a complaint about that was when I used to get a bus to my junior school. The paper ticket cost me tuppence, I think. And it was the conductor who told us off.
I have to confess that I've never known which were the appropriate clothes to wear. Or what my secondary teachers meant when they told us we had Middlesex accents. And probably it was about class snobbery and perhaps nothing to do with the Middle Saxons who once lived there.
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Alan, I was always brought up to be polite, but in this particular case I bear no ill will towards residents of either area. Rather, it’s just my personal preference.
Before moving to Green Lanes 20 years ago, I lived in Highbury. It was all clean, polite, and generally middle-class - people keeping themselves to themselves in a typically English way. Very nice, if that’s your thing.
For me, however, I much prefer the hustle and bustle of Green Lanes. The diversity in people’s backgrounds and social mobility seems to generate a far greater sense of community than in other parts of London I’ve lived in, and I value that immensely.
Yes, it’s often grotty and occasionally even depressing, but even if I could afford to, I wouldn’t swap living on The Ladder for anywhere else in London.
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Adam we seem to agree on a lot.
I lived once in Highbury on the top floor of a house temporarily three flatlets. It must have been gentrified long since ! One blowy snowy winter a window frame fell on the toilet floor and snow blew in and froze pipes.There were missing tiles in the roof so I stopped the drips by climbing up and sliding-in plastic sheets from a lego catalogue.
Some of my friends joked about my pent-hovel. It was a great time. Highbury Fields and a tube station a short walk one way with Clissold Park the other. Even nearer, a wonderful Turkish bakery with an unmoving queue. Why? Everyone waited patiently for hot olive bread from the oven. Equally impressive was the Italian family delicatessen where just breathing scents from the street through the open door was magical.
Among points I'm making are that the wonder of London can depend on how old you are. And also whether you enjoy all the other humans ; peoples, who live here, with mutual respect. Their foods and their musics and customs and views, classes, regions, accents. voices. languages and so on. And are not worried about or frightened by them. I took the train from Highbury to Harlesden where I worked in a multicultural community and office to match.Was my flatlet grotty?
Didn't bother my anarchist friend from Aberdeen.
I also stayed once in a flat in Crouch End with a German friend I'd met in Israel. The landlady used our rent to fund her trip to Japan. An elderly widow, she wasn't fearful of crossing the globe.There's a model for people to follow.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest
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I expect appropriate infrastructure has something to do with it.
That and some pride, or ability to be responsible for your own rubbish. I see shop keepers brushing rubbish out of their shops, and off the pavements- but rather than use a dustpan and brush to sweep it up, it goes into the gutter as though that solves the problem.
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Permalink Reply by Dominic Hinshelwood
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Next to an incredibly badly designed bin
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That was my point about infrastructure Dom!
How do the flats on Crouch End deal with their waste? They do not have these ridiculous things cluttering up the street.
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