South of the river, being a "northerner" I rarely ventured into bandit country, worked in Croydon a few times, and survived, but I take your point, as I watched through the late 60's and early 70's the bomb sites on my manor slowly evolve into new flats and houses. That ever changing building is still going on, in the city, and odd spots in and around the old homestead, where mum still lives, it is constantly changing, getting more and more congested. More and more outsiders and foreigners taking over what were once the indigenous populations ancestral turf, now a morass of tongues , smells and strange religions, and all the individuality that set it apart that made it unique, from all the other individual little community's that formed the whole, now one big bubbling pot of crap.