London Town: Difference between revisions

=== Where The Streets Are Paved With Gold ===

=== Where The Streets Are Paved With Excrement ===

=== Where The Streets Are Paved With Both ===

In real life, London is very much a combination of the two and there's very much a sliding scale. London does have a rather notoriously high cost of living, so it tend to be like a lot of cities, full of both people who can comfortably afford it, and people who can't but have to live where the jobs are. On one end, you've got ludicrously posh places in the west central part of the city. In places like Holland Park, Belgravia, and Mayfair, the richest people in the world conspicuously consume like it's going out of style. At the other end, you'll find some of the most deprived places in the nation, known as "sink estates", in areas like Peckham, Hackney, and Harlesden. (The ''really'' poor places -- as seen in ''[[Oliver Twist]]'' -- went with slum clearance<ref>and/or [[World War Two|The Blitz]] as it is more commonly known</ref>.) The important thing to note however is that most neighbourhoods are very mixed income. Council estates can be found in the wealthiest boroughs and million pound properties in the poorest.

* The East End: The precise boundaries of this area vary depending on whom you ask. We'll be using the largest definition, the entirety of the "E" postcode area. Was ''heavily'' bombed during [[The Blitz]] -- the most hard-hit area of London in fact. The amount of fiction set here is massive. You've got a lot of Music Hall, [[Opium Den|opium dens]], many a British-set gangster film is set here. The place being the home of the [[London Gangster]]: the locale has a long history of poverty-driven working class crime and is associated with the famous Kray twins. A number of works involving the UK's South Asian community are also set here.

* East of the East End: The areas of Greater London that were formerly part of Essex before 1965 and still identify with the latter. There's Barking ("One stop after East Ham" and its variants are a British way of saying "crazy", referencing Barking station, on the [[The London Underground|District]] and c2c railway lines), but most notably Romford. The setting of ''[[Garth Marenghi's Darkplace]]'', it's become a UK synonym for "chav" -- the UK equivalent of "white trash".

* Harley Street -- Home of many private medical facilities, but not on the board.

* Old Kent Road -- the first spot past GO on the board, this road starts in Walworth and heads South East.

* Baker Street -- Home of [[Sherlock Holmes]] (also [[Basil of Baker Street]] and [[Danger Mouse]]),and the title of Gerry Rafferty's [[Ear Worm|infuriatingly catchy song]].

* Strand -- commonly "The Strand", although officially the article is omitted. A cultural hub of 19th century London, which retains several West End attractions today.

* Fleet Street -- a metonym for the [[British Newspapers|British press]], who were historically headquartered there. The Fleet used to be a dreadful open sewer, full of a stinking slurry of the most vile rubbish imaginable; any similarity to real persons living or dead is, of course, strictly unintentional.

* Oxford Street -- the main shopping district, home to the flagship stores of many retail chains.

* Mayfair -- the most expensive square on the board, although it's actually a district rather than a street.

* Bond Street -- Technically two streets and a green square on there.

British opposition politicians refer to "a postcode lottery" in terms of public services provision -- with different areas having different levels. This is due to day-to-day running of schools and hospitals being devolved to special local authorities, such as an LEA (Local Education Authority).