Palmers Green

Palmers Green is north London with the ambition carefully removed, and most of the people who live here count that as the selling point. The railway built its station half a mile from the nearest house, then the local landowners refused to sell for another thirty years, so the suburb arrived late and has seen no reason to hurry since. Its big brush with stardom was David Bowie in a mime production at a church-hall theatre, so even the fame kept the noise down. The old town hall gave up being important and turned into flats, which is the most Palmers Green thing a building could do.