King's Cross

King's Cross spent decades as the part of London people went to for things they wouldn't mention at Sunday lunch, then got scrubbed so hard that tourists now queue to photograph a luggage trolley stuck in a wall. Most of the scrubbing happened behind the station, where the old coal yards turned into shops selling candles at prices that would once have got someone arrested. South of the tracks, along Gray's Inn Road, the council blocks and student halls stayed as they were, so the famous comeback is something most residents cross the road to visit. You get to live next door to London's best-known makeover and pay its prices without ever being invited in.