Status anxiety

I was so good at talking up Shepherd’s Bush that I can’t afford to live there now

15 September 2007

Well, I’m happy to report that it’s finally happened. Prices in the area are now increasing at a faster rate than almost anywhere else in the capital. I don’t suppose I can claim all the credit, but my relentless campaign to re-brand Shepherd’s Bush as a fashionable, metropolitan ‘hub’ has clearly paid off. My initial investment of £20,000 in 1991 has — after a series of moves — matured into a decent-sized nest egg. I can now afford to move to another neighbourhood.

Unfortunately, that neighbourhood is Acton. The flaw in my otherwise perfect plan is that in the intervening 16 years I’ve got married and started a family. When our third child was born in June, my wife and I realised that our two-storey terrace house simply wasn’t big enough. We thought about moving to Boscombe Road — one of the few streets in Shepherd’s Bush with decent-sized houses — but then discovered that the cheapest property for sale on that street is £1.5 million. My one-man crusade has been so successful that I’ve priced myself out of the area. Far from being able to relocate to Notting Hill, I can no longer afford to live in Shepherd’s Bush.

So on 31 January of next year, the day we complete on our new home, I’ll be moving to Acton. For the past 50 years, Shepherd’s Bush has been the bottom rung of the metropolitan property ladder, but not any more. When an estate agent was showing us round houses in the area he uttered a phrase I never thought I’d hear: ‘Acton is the new Shepherd’s Bush.’ That’s like a car salesman describing the latest Eastern European import as ‘the new Skoda’. I was always vaguely aware that one consequence of my efforts to gentrify the area would be that another neighbourhood would take on its status as the cesspool of west London. I just never thought I’d end up living there.

I suppose I should be grateful that at least Acton is on the radar. Until recently I’d thought of it as uncharted territory, one of those places at the end of the map where nobody goes: here be monsters. I remember laughing when a friend who worked on World in Action told me that, following swingeing budget cuts, the staff had renamed the programme ‘World in Acton’.

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jules

October 10th, 2007 4:06pm Report this comment

Toby, never fear! The coffee shop is only temporarily closed, and is, in fact, opening to larger premises down the road. All the better to fit in you and your growing family.

thalie

October 10th, 2007 9:52pm Report this comment

well Toby i live in acton from 1999 to 2001, then in shepherd's bush from 2002 to 2004 and back in acton since 2004 and loving it. Acton has a community of people who think community matters. It is as multiethnic as the bush and as middle class as the bush can get...I think you would be very happy here and you would recognise a few of your old neighbours how had to make the move and don't regret it. See you in Acton Carnival (this is not a joke, it happens in July). thalie

thalie

October 10th, 2007 9:57pm Report this comment

I had not realised there was a second page. the coffee shop you are talking about closed to reopen in a bigger place on the same road (nearer to the centre). It just reopened. go and enjoy your organic latte and meet the middle class of Acton ,you will be surprised, there are a few famous people in the old acton.

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