Blow in's

[harperama]

The subject of 'blow in's' seems to crop up regularly in this forum. What constitutes a 'blow in'?

[Otta]

I think this is one for Louisa.

[Louisa]

Right. A 'blow-in' is usually defined as a professional usually middle class person who was brought up from a more than likely wealthy and often Home Counties (but not exclusively) background, who follows a trend for cultural or economic reasons to move closer into London and in so doing helps contribute towards the displacement of the resident working class population whatever ethnic background they may come from. Notably, these people appear to be more often than not ethnically white but not exclusively British and this has changed the nature and feel to various diverse inner London suburbs over a short period of time (ED, Brixton and now even Peckham good case studies). They have also contributed to rising house prices and helped price the resident population out of buying in the area they were brought up in.

This is all of course a generalisation and there are other aspects to this but in a nutshell, the above isn't far from the truth.

Louisa.

[MrBen]

Not a bad definition for a 12:24am posting and this is the device Lou will deploy most on the forum for wind up purposes.

However,as she knows,it's a lazy generalisation because:

1.It fails to recognise that socio-demographic change is a constant. The fortunes of these areas have risen and fallen several times already in the past 100-130 years. Peckham was well posh back in the day.

2. Never enough on here about the "blow outs" i.e mostly but not exclusively white working class who have actively chosen to sell up to middle class incomers, trousering the half mil of equity to buy a big semi in Orpington. Often but not exclusively with a hot tub in the garden.

[MrBen]

And gold taps.

[FJDGoose]

Good response mr ben - you're up early

[miga]

.

[Otta]

Re: Peckham Rye Station

Posted by harperama 26 February, 2014 22:28

Poor little kids - they are just playing and pretty happily I might add! I doubt they have grown up with massive back gardens unlike all these Home Counties blow ins!

Lou, is that you in disguise?

[Jeremy]

But MrBen, the blow-outs are salt-of-the-earth and culturally diverse, who are simply making the best of their lot! The hot tub is a necessary requirement to soothe their aching bones after years of hard graft.

Not like those nasty blow-ins who intentionally displace the true Londoners, take over neighbourhoods, and have the bare-faced cheek to work in an office, have families, and decorate their houses!

[Help-Ma-Boab]

Once The Blow-outs have, er Blown-out. Do they become Blow-ins?

I'm confused.

[Louisa]

MrBen dear heart, it is a generalisation as I stated, but equally not s million miles from the truth. Yes socio-demographic change is a constant but not an irrelevant Darwin style natural selection process either. It involves real people and it's happening at a ridiculously and ever faster pace, and IMO for the wrong reasons. Looking back at previous waves of social change brought about by immigration and the industrial revolution, we see cities like London taking many decades to gradually change and for reasons primarily associated with work (initially at least). The more recent changes are often characterised by sharp house price rises which have allowed the natural process of the resident population to reach retirement age and sell up for a pile in the sticks (this is not uncommon historically), to become a savage opportunity for transient cash buyers from wealthier places to move in and make a bomb on run down property stock, turning these into million pound homes and forcing people out into the poorer suburbs and new towns to find anything resembling a half affordable property.

Louisa.

[Earl Aelfheah]

If you look on the Orpington Forum, there is a thread about all the 'inner London blow ins' forcing up house prices with with their 'hot tubs' and 'core blimey trousers'.

[fonread]

You're overcomplicating things.

As I've stated on a previous thread, the definition in EDF terms is really very simple. It's basically anyone who's had the cheek to do something with their lives. Someone who's moved around a bit, experienced stuff and gained a bit of an outlook. Lived a little, in a nutshell. In a bigger nutshell, anyone who wasn't born in either London SE15 or SE22.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Louisa Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> MrBen dear heart, it is a generalisation as I

> stated, but equally not s million miles from the

> truth. Yes socio-demographic change is a constant

> but not an irrelevant Darwin style natural

> selection process either. It involves real people

> and it's happening at a ridiculously and ever

> faster pace, and IMO for the wrong reasons.

> Looking back at previous waves of social change

> brought about by immigration and the industrial

> revolution, we see cities like London taking many

> decades to gradually change and for reasons

> primarily associated with work (initially at

> least). The more recent changes are often

> characterised by sharp house price rises which

> have allowed the natural process of the resident

> population to reach retirement age and sell up for

> a pile in the sticks (this is not uncommon

> historically), to become a savage opportunity for

> transient cash buyers from wealthier places to

> move in and make a bomb on run down property

> stock, turning these into million pound homes and

> forcing people out into the poorer suburbs and new

> towns to find anything resembling a half

> affordable property.

>

> Louisa.

The changes taking place now are also to do with work - not least the tech and finance industries. The demographic changes in London that took place in the 50s and 60s were just as rapid. The current changes in the fortunes of SE London have been gathering pace since the 80s and are comparable in terms of speed and scale to those of the preceding decades.

[KidKruger]

Is there any demographic that has moved into ED over the last decade or two that would not be regarded as 'blow-ins' ?

i.e. working class folks moving from deptford or hackney, east european or vietnamese immigrants, people working in London for a couple of years who've chosen to live in ED during that period.

Just wanna be sure I get the generalisation fully.

[Earl Aelfheah]

The other thing about 'home counties blow-ins' is that many of their parents actually 'blew out' of inner London back in the 60s / 70s. It would be more accurate to call their children 'blow backs', or 'inner London returners'. Or better still, not to label and judge them at all, but accept that London is a dynamic city with constantly shifting populations.

[Louisa]

KK no there is not. Statistically guesstimating, I would take a stab in the dark and suggest the majority if not 80% plus post 2000 blow in folk would be university educated professionals employed in tech/finance as rah suggests, predominantly white and middle class.

Louisa.

[FJDGoose]

rahrahrah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The other thing about 'home counties blow-ins' is

> that many of their parents actually 'blew out' of

> inner London back in the 60s / 70s. It would be

> more accurate to call their children 'blow backs',

> or 'inner London returners'. Or better still, not

> to label and judge them at all, but accept that

> London is a dynamic city with constantly shifting

> populations.

spot on !

[Jeremy]

Get that chip off your shoulder, Louisa! The reality is that all your working class salt-of-the-earth buddies sold out and moved to Kent, leaving you behind!

[Otta]

All of my home counties blow in mates have moved to Kent.

[miga]

.

[Dopamine1979]

What do you call the act of blowing in to an area for a job?

[miga]

.

[maxxi]

There are clearly defined communities/areas/vibrant-neighbourhoods in London like (as Louisa says) Peckham and Brixton and even (for the well heeled blower) Dulwich V. The areas in-between are featureless, bland places like ED. Suburbs that fill in the gaps.

People blow in to these gaps, like motes caught on the wind, for proximity to 'proper' areas - like timid flies landing on the ankle of a carcass rather than on its split and bloated gut.

ED is a 'gap'for the urban timid or the aspirationally challenged. Most people in ED, therefore, will tell friends/family who don't know London that they live in the Peckham or Brixton 'area' (under 35) or Dulwich (over 35 or still pretending to be under 35).

Most (if not all) of the above is bollocks.

[hpsaucey]

rahrahrah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The other thing about 'home counties blow-ins' is

> that many of their parents actually 'blew out' of

> inner London back in the 60s / 70s. It would be

> more accurate to call their children 'blow backs',

> or 'inner London returners'. Or better still, not

> to label and judge them at all, but accept that

> London is a dynamic city with constantly shifting

> populations.

That's me then - a Palmer's Green blow out when my parents could't afford to live there any more in the 1970s and a 2001 blow in south of the river.. MY kids will I suppose have to be blow outs for the same reason in years to come!