Exactly, let's be good neighbours! Back to the original point of the thread... I guess it depends what the original question means. Nowhere is the same as anywhere else, and everywhere has got something going for it, but is the point that Penge is now "coming up in the world"? I can remember not so very long ago when East Dulwich was a pretty nondescript area, with ordinary old-fashioned shops and pubs, but a good stock of housing. Presumably, as people found they couldn't afford Dulwich village, and then West Dulwich, they discovered East Dulwich. That brought new life to the area (though presumably driving out the old life in the process). And it seems a similar process is happening in Penge - as is inevitable. As people are priced out of East Dulwich, they look for other areas nearby...Peckham, Forest Hill, Sydenham, and, yes, maybe even Penge. Anecdotal evidence, at least, suggests that this is happening in Penge. Some traders are ahead of the game - whether groups such as Antic or individuals such as Alexandra Nurseries - but the big boys are always slow to follow. As they no doubt will. I've got nothing against East Dulwich. Funnily enough, my brother used to live there after I had moved to Leeds, and I reckoned I could always afford to return to London to live in East Dulwich as my former area Notting Hill was by then out of my league... that has changed now. When I did return to London, we moved to Penge because it has great transport links, decent schools and was affordable. We thought we'd give it a year or two and see how it went. That was 13 years ago, and I'm happy now to count myself a Penge person. Like many, I struggled at first with its apparently-comical name (actually an ancient Anglo-Saxon name) but I soon got over that. It's a good, safe - if unremarkable - area. But I like it, and it's getting better. Let's celebrate that.
