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The magic of Croydon: is London's punchline having the last laugh? | Musique Non Stop

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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The magic of Croydon: is London's punchline having the last laugh?

When the capital banned skyscrapers in the 1960s, Croydon stepped in with concrete towers and flyovers that made it a byword for urban devastation. Fifty years later, this most unloved suburb may finally be ready to love itself

When David Bowie wanted to summarise all he found dreary, drab and stifling, there was only place he could turn. “It represented everything I didn’t want in my life, everything I wanted to get away from,” he told Q magazine in 1999. “I think it’s the most derogatory thing I can say about something: ‘God, it’s so fucking Croydon.’”

Bowie, whose personality was shaped in the electrifying cultural climate of Bromley, is not alone. Croydon has such a poor reputation that its name has become a neologism for the self-destruction of a town centre – Croydonisation. The town’s inhabitants can exhibit a lowliness bordering on self-loathing. “It could have been worse,” says Bob Stanley, whose band Saint Etienne was formed in Croydon. “In the Domesday Book it was called Crogdene. Imagine if it was still called that.”

'In the Domesday Book it was called Crogdene. Imagine if it was still called that?'

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by Peter Watts via Electronic music | The Guardian

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