Map reveals the most gentrified London neighbourhoods of the last 15 years

It’s no secret that Londoners have long grappled with the impact of gentrification.

Those who have lived in the Big Smoke for decades – or even grew up here – are finding that their communities are being profoundly shaped, and not always for the better, as rents skyrocket and local businesses struggle to cope.

Now, new research has revealed the 53 London areas that have been impacted the most by gentrification over the last 15 years.

Demonstrating the true impact of London’s housing crisis, pockets of gentrification described as ‘particularly intense’ by research body Trust For London include Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Brent.

These neighbourhoods have seen their average incomes increase by 11% between 2012 and 2020, while during the same time period, income for Londoners in other areas barely changed at all.

The research further identifies a ‘significant decline’ both in Black communities and the number of families with children living in these neighbourhoods, and, conversely, a rise in couples without children and adults in their 30s and 40s.

In the borough of Southwark specifically, which spans areas including Bermondsey, Camberwell, Dulwich, Peckham, and Walworth, there’s been a 32% drop in primary school applications over the last decade.

At the same time, house prices in the 53 identified neighbourhoods skyrocketed by 250% between 2010 and 2023, while the rest of the capital saw increases of 200%.

Concerningly, Trust For London believes that the scale of gentrification and the number of London neighbourhoods experiencing it could be much worse, as the analysis only focuses on the areas with the lowest 20% of incomes in 2012 – and so neighbourhoods that were already undergoing gentrification before this date aren’t reflected in the figures.

Alongside pricing out longstanding residents, the research body believes that the housing crisis is actually impeding the growth of London’s economy.

Just last year, analysis from NERA, G15, Trust For London and the Mayor of London demonstrated that increasing housing affordability by just 1% would bring in £7,300,000,000 in benefits across a 10-year period.

‘This research points to something that many Londoners have suspected for years—the city is becoming increasingly unaffordable for low-income families. We’re witnessing families and long-standing communities being priced out on a scale we haven’t seen before,’ chief executive of Trust for London Manny Hothi said of the figures.

‘London’s diverse blend of communities is what makes it one of the best cities in the world. But the current trend shows the city is at a tipping point, at risk of being a homogenous place where only people above a certain income bracket can afford to be.

‘If we want London to be a city where people from all backgrounds, of all ages, can live and thrive, urgent action is needed to address the affordability crisis.’

Elsewhere, having lived in Brixton for 13 years, one mum previously told Metro that she felt that SW9 has changed drastically over the last few years and is now ‘completely different’ to what it used to be.

‘Brixton has turned into a commuter space – it used to feel like a community, but it no longer feels like it’s designed for families,’ she shared.

Brixton has long been known for its large Afro-Caribbean population, which developed after much of the Windrush generation settled there from the late 1940s onwards, and has even been named Little Jamaica.

Official figures show Brixton’s borough, Lambeth, saw its Afro-Caribbean community decrease by more than a third between 1991 and 2011.

And, as one activist further told Metro: ‘The more Brixton gets gentrified, the less space Black people and people from ethnic communities are going to have.

‘It’s very simple: The rent goes up, marginalised people are pushed out. In the last 25 years that I’ve been here, I’ve seen it happening all the time.’

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