MySpace a place for friends

Until 1965, what you now know as the London Borough of Hackney was three separate metropolitan s**tholes - Shoreditch, Stoke Newington and Hackney. Each had distinct histories stretching back to the Middle Ages, but common themes link the three dives: urbanisation (nasty arse Estates), industrial innovation (bare slave labour), and ethnic diversity (dumping ground for the poor bastards fresh off the boat).

Man's first knew about me from 1198, Shoreditch in 1148, and Stoke Newington in 1274. For 400 years after these dates all of us were farming communities in the Middlesex countryside. Each was a parish, centred on a parish church. Somehow they survived them Nazi pricks givin it during the war today as Old St Mary's, Stoke Newington; St Leonard's, Shoreditch (rebuilt in 1740); and St Augustine's Tower in Mare Street, which is the only remains of my medieval church. I also contained several other hamlets, such as Homerton, Clapton, Dalston and Shacklewell which are still parts of me today.

My community has always been made up of peeps with diverse ethnic origins and different political and religious beliefs. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Stoke Newington and I were centres of nonconformist worship and radical politics. People from many parts of Europe came to work in the furniture industry in Shoreditch in the 19th century. Jewish people have been living in me since 1684. The Afro-Caribbean community developed fully from the 1950s, but there has been a Black presence in me since at least 1630 (slaves obviously). Similarly, people from the Indian subcontinent came to me in numbers only after the Second World War, but Asian nurses of British children, visiting Britain with their employers, had been staying in me from 1900 (that oriental fetish white brehs have produced nuff youts). Today my peeps come from Africa and the West Indies, Turkey, Cyprus and the Indian subcontinent and just about every other country in the world, but hey, its all good.

The 2001 census shows the following statistics of the my resident population:

132,931 (66%) of the resident population were born in the UK. A further 10,095 (5%) were born in other parts of Europe, and the remaining 59,798 (29%) born elsewhere in the world.

The 2001 census also shows:

Religous Groups
94,431		(47%)		Christian;
27,908		(14%)		Muslim;
10,732		(5%)		Jewish;
6,831		(3%)		belong to other religions.
38,607		(19%)		stated no religion;
24,315		(12%)		did not state a religion;

Out of all them I have a FEW criminals that give me a bad rep:

The below crime statistics are per 1,000 of the population within the local authority area.

London Borough of Hackney
Population		208,370
Robbery offences		9
Theft of a motor vehicle offences		9
Violence against the person		35
Households		92,000
Burglary dwelling offences		13
Theft from a vehicle offences		17

English average
Population		-
Robbery offences		1.4
Theft of a motor vehicle offences		4.5
Violence against the person		16.5
Households		-
Burglary dwelling offences		6.4
Theft from a vehicle offences		10.0

The figures are for crimes recorded during the financial year 2004/5. Source: www.upmystreet.com

I know that not ALL criminals a complete arseholes (very few people are COMPLETE arseholes). I know that a lot of my peeps feel they have to thieve and shot to eat because they know no other way of life. I also know that our society hasn't help their upbringing and the world has served them up a shit start in life. This is why I can not hate on them. However, contrary to what they might believe, they CAN choose to take another path. I understand it might be harder to change for some compared to others but there is still a choice! So if you're reading this my young Hackney Man remember; you have a choice AND you'll be respected for having the balls to choose the right path, trust me. (Plus you don't wanna be going jail, it's shit, trust me).

And if that wasn't depressing enough, I'm proper hated on as well.
I was on TV not long ago. The Best and Worst Places to Live in the UK (Channel 4).

Foolish property hunters Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer travelled around the country to find the most and least desirable places to live in the UK.

This is what those fools said about me and my family:
"It was inevitable that London would appear somewhere on our list of postcodes, and of the 33 boroughs that make up London, Hackney came out by far the worst (F*** YOU!).

London also has some of the poorest performing schools, a ramshackle, criminally under-funded transport system that struggles to cope with the 11 million people who use it every day, and HALF the children in inner London officially live below the poverty line – a national disgrace.
There’s a lack of affordable housing in Hackney and an appalling pollution record. Crime is rife. Burglary figures are almost three times the national average, while robbery levels are an astonishing eight times higher. It even has a street that’s known locally as Murder Mile.

The one positive note is that London’s successful Olympic bid promised to regenerate the East End of London, and Hackney will hope to benefit from it. Property prices in the area are expected to boom as a result, and there may be jobs created. Source: www.channel4.com

OK, they might have a point but I have even more nice sides, honest. I like the last bit about the Olympics - Gives me hope! but I'm worried for them foreign tourists getting robbed.