Monday, April 30, 2012

east London life history

There actually are kids in Zone 1, but their parents are so stunning you overlook them in your temporary blindness.  If you don't believe me, every time I go to Whitechapel Gallery there is an unapproachably elegant women there with her children.

East Londoners exist in all ages, although there is a certain life-cycle and an eastward migration, which I will explain. Here I just said I was not going to talk about kids and here I go. Of course there are kids in east London, and the Primary Times East London and Families East are helpful guides for any parents seeking activities.

Within east London, kids-focused venues are concentrated in Zones 2-3, for example Discovery, Centre of the Cell, Museum of Childhood, and Ragged School Museum.

In Zones 2 and greater, east Londoners count bikes, scooters, cars and Zipcars as primary forms of transportation.  Therefore, children spend their out-of-school hours in their local playing fields, forests, and England - that place with beaches, theme parks, shopping malls, and English Heritage sites. It is usual for families to drive to zoos and activities in Essex and Kent, or further.  Even school-hired coaches from the East End are more likely to be headed to zoos in Hertfordshire and Essex than the aggressively advertised London Zoo.  East London kids do not know the West End well, because their parents leave them with a nan or a nanny when they take the tube to work or see a musical.

Getting back to the eastward migration, you will notice that the further out from the center, the bigger the kids.  The average test scores of high school children are higher in the suburbs (throughout London) so many families relocate as their children grow as an attempt to offer them better educational opportunities.  I am not sure that there is an actual difference in the level of education offered, and many locals admit they don't know either, but this seems to be the primary force of the migration.

It is a "cycle" because once they leave home, the children, when teenagers, will often live at home while working in the West End, then for their first employment move to central London, e.g., City of London, Hackney or Islington, then Bow to buy a house ... until they are in the outer zones near the nan who does the babysitting.  Or, if the nan lives in Zone 2, they may stay put and send the kids out to Essex for school.

This "life-cycle" seems much more solid than in other parts of London.  In West London (the prestigious ones) the focus is on self-success over family, and families may move even further until they left London for at least as far as Watford or Uxbridge.  When they retire they desire isolation and end up in Bath or even colonize Wales.  North Londoners can migrate limitless until the reach Scotland -- or likely, because they are the clever ones, Cambridge and Oxford.  South Londoners (the charming ones) are continuous with France, and are sensible enough to move abroad when it suits them.  So it is east Londoners (the good-looking ones) who are most committed to their sub-region. 

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