Bow is changing

Bow (E3) in East London is changing, and changing rapidly. Spurred on by the convergence of the post-Olympic development frenzy from Stratford and the adoption of new "hip" areas (popular with an ever growing young wealthy generation....think smart phones and coffee with pretty frothy designs) surrounding Shoreditch and Islington, and combining with excellent access to London's ever growing financial districts (the city square mile, and Canary Wharf), and London's general expansion into a mega-city, the East End of London is changing. In Bow itself, the estate agents (realtors) are moving in, quirky independent coffee shops are popping up, and new housing developments are springing up faster than you can say "gentrification".

Using updated imagery available in Google Maps Street View, I've put together a series of before and after views to show this change occurring.

The main high street for Bow is Roman Road, which, while it still has some way to go to become any future East End Chelsea which some suggest, it's clearly changing. New coffee shops and funky arts cafes, such as Muxima and the Roman Road Art Cafe are opening, along with the more established chains such as Costa Coffee and Tesco.


View Larger Map


View Larger Map


View Larger Map


View Larger Map


View Larger Map


View Larger Map

Here's a good map, created by the ever-interesting ""Diamondgeezer" blogger."


View E3 coffee map in a larger map

The most noticeable change is the sheer number of new housing developments, mainly apartments. Just in 2014 alone, there are three medium - large new developments ready, or soon to be ready for occupation within a quarter of a mile of Roman Road, and many others, throughout the E3 postcode boundary. Most of these developments have a significant number of privately owned flats for sale, bringing a renewed energy and wealth into an area that has been in much need of investment. Here is a selection of the changes seen in the Street View imagery.

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

And there are many more coming. This is just one example...

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

I've put together this Google Map with markers for any developments I'm aware of that have been completed within the last ~5 years or are under construction at the moment. Quite a lot!



Gentrification is happening in Bow, and the next few decades are going to be very interesting and exciting for the area! 

Are we really doomed?

Turning on the TV to see the news usually shows us a world of horrible things. It's been like that for as long as I can remember (well apart from when Trevor McDonald had his "And finally..." section on the News at Ten). Recently though, the stories being reported feel even more horrific than usual. Wars seem more intense. Human behaviour seems to be more cruel. We're seeing horrific killing taking place in Israel and Gaza. Children being killed, homes destroyed by Israeli bombs, and then on the other side, Palestinian militants calling for the destruction of a nation and firing rockets with the hope of killing anyone they can. In Iraq, we're seeing ISIS/IS committing unbelievably cruel acts on, well anyone really. Actual genuine thoughtless cruelty. In the Ukraine, innocent business travelers and holiday makers shot out of the sky, and then their remains not being treated with dignity. Young innocent girls in Nigeria are being kidnapped, probably raped and sold into slavery.

And then comes the realisation that all these acts are being committed by humans. That's us. I'm a human. My friends and family are human. Even those who confuse your and you're are human. And we ask ourselves if we as a species are just cruel? Are we doomed? Should we lose hope? I feel that the answer is no. A very clear no. Please allow me to explain why. It's kind of in two parts.

I cannot for one moment pretend that these horrible acts are not happening. They are. Humans are killing humans. Right now. But I think it is a huge mistake to see the minority of acts being perceived and presented as what the majority do. The outrage at all of the horrors I listed above has been far greater than the praise. One thing I really don't like about news coverage (and I would like to suggest that collectively, as humans we make more of an effort to say we want a wider variety of good/bad stories), is that all the news is bad news. News as a definition is a story that is new (the clue is in the first three letters!), but I don't see why it needs to be bad news. I suppose that's for another day where psychologists could discuss our desire to learn of suffering so as to avoid pain or something. But we must, I feel, bear in mind that we are seeing horrible acts, committed by a minority. The vast vast vast majority of people around the world don't get up and kill someone. I'm in my early 30's, and I've never killed anyone. I've not found it difficult either to not kill anyone. I know so many people who also haven't killed anyone. Not just in my own country, but around the world. 

I also see a world, where, despite often going unreported, so many kind acts are done every single day. They might not be big acts, but they are kind, thoughtful, and show absolutely NO harmful intent towards any other human. It might just be holding a door open for someone, it might be donating £5 to someone who's doing a sponsored run, it might be texting a friend who you know has had a difficult day to see if they're OK and let them know you're there for them, or it could even just be smiling at someone. Then there are the bigger acts of kindness, that are even so huge, they make the news. The main one that stands out to me is that of Stephen Sutton. 

Basically, most people are good, and we should make sure that we give ourselves some time not to lose sight of that.

The second part of this is that I actually think this current world situation of fighting and cruelty (a lot of which is taking place in the Middle East) is just part of the world, and the mindset of humans evolving. More continents than ever before are stable. That's not to say there isn't discrimination and other issues that need to be resolved, but I'm talking about full scale war where countries are bombing one another, mass killing is taking place. Those areas are reducing all of the time. 

In historical terms, humans tend to take quite a long time to catch up to the notion that we basically need to get on and work together, and well, essentially not go round killing others. Sometimes, hundreds of years. For much of the 20th century, Europe was engaged in war, with many other countries from other continents joining it. World Wars one and two were truly horrible and disgraceful. Millions died. Many millions more suffered. I don't think we'll ever really be able to mentally realise the magnitude of what happened there. Europe, as a whole though (yes I know there are still conflicts, especially in Eastern Europe) is stable. A person traveling to most parts of Europe doesn't even need to think too hard about accidentally stepping into a war zone where they might be butchered to death. Sure, there's crime, and certain sections of society that are discriminated against, but as a general rule, we can travel about in Europe. The same applies to North America, quite a lot of South America (I know there are drug/gang problems in some places), Australasia, and even a fair bit of Asia. All of these places previously have had significant wars, where unfathomable horror occurred. So, I put it to you that as a whole, this process of humans realising slowly that it's better just to be civil is continuing to evolve and improve. 

Now until there are no wars, we're still not doing something right, clearly, but we do seem to be fighting less, as a whole. Charitable donations seem to be higher than ever, events where people are just really overtly kind towards strangers seem to becoming popular (like flashmobs for kindness etc), programs that promote awareness and compassion and increasingly making their way into schools, and big companies, and the collective sentiment in the majority of the world (where wars were once much more common and cost many lives) is still one of outrage when a heinous act is witnessed. So, in a way, I think the more people who question "if we should lose hope?" and "are we really cruel?" is probably a good thing, because it's a clear awareness and rejection of cruelty.

Now as I said near the top of this post, I cannot pretend bad things aren't happening. They are, and I think as a global society we need to keep pressing bad people to stop, pause and get talking. But we're not doomed. We're just continuing to evolve, unfortunately slower than probably we should given our apparent neurological capacities. We are together, learning to be good. So let's keep pushing on that, because if you look around you (maybe we need to look a bit harder at the moment), goodness is out there in huge huge volumes.

Thank you for your time, and I wish you well.