Stratford is somewhat lower middle class, down to earth, fairly nice residentially with excellent transport links.

Another victim of sixties gyratory madness, the town is dominated by the usual kill all pedestrians, let's-back-up-the-traffic-for-miles, roundabout full of weatherspoons pubs and KFC. The centre of town is rubbish.

Stratford's lot is changing though, in dramatic fashion. It is the centre of all things Olympic and money is pouring into the area in the billions. One day I tried to drive from Stratford to Hackney and was surprised to find that you just plain can't. Several hundred acres of the area has been closed to the public and is, as we speak, a massive building site.

There are lots of new swanky new apartment buildings in the area although they seem to have been sold more to buy-to-let investors than to actual residents by a ratio of about ten to one. The buildings are gorgeous, brand spanking new avec concierge, etc. and... They're completely empty. It's a bit creepy to be honest. You're in these massive new developments and there are absolutely no people around. Still, the same was true of the docklands four years ago.

There are some new developments on the border with Hackney Wick although personally I'd tread carefully here as the area has a Mad Max level of roughness.

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