Streatham is a dense slice of south London with a lot of grass in it. A park is a couple of minutes' walk from most front doors. There are two big commons on the doorstep. The high street runs on shops more than pubs. Countryside designations stop well short of the district, and the green space makes up for it.
The average Streatham home is about 160 metres from a park or green space, with around 23 of them within a kilometre. Streatham Common anchors the south of the district, with The Rookery's formal gardens on its edge, and Streatham Park in the west runs up to a second common on its northern boundary, so the hard part for a dog owner is choosing which common to walk.
Water is close too. The nearest pond, lake or stream is about 560 metres away on average, with around 18 bits of water within a kilometre.
The National Cycle Network is further off, about 3.5 kilometres from the average home, and no postcode in the district is close to it. There is no ancient woodland here.
The rating list shows what the district runs on: 774 shop premises, 111 offices, 38 restaurants and 18 pubs, out of 1,436 business premises in total. These are properties on the Valuation Office Agency's list, which includes empty units as well as trading ones. Even so, it is a high street built for errands, with the pubs rationed.
Lambeth's fine-particle pollution level was about 9 micrograms per cubic metre in 2024, a figure for the whole borough.
The character is Edwardian and suburban, broken up by commons and conservation areas such as Norwood Grove, Streatham Lodge Estate and Streatham Common itself. The small parade of shops by Streatham Common station has picked up the local nickname Streatham Village, and it is a village by nickname only. Norbury, which shares the postcode to the south, carries the same pattern of terraces and parades.
Private gardens are a reasonable size for inner London. Across Streatham's neighbourhoods there are about 38,000 square metres of garden for every 1,000 residents, which is real outdoor space, though spread across a district where most homes are flats.
Of the 463 food businesses with a hygiene rating, about 59% hold the top score and about 6% sit at the low end of the scale.
No area of outstanding natural beauty, site of special scientific interest or ancient woodland overlaps Streatham. Its protection comes from conservation areas and common land, which suits a district whose best open spaces were saved from building, not designated for scenery.
For a district this crowded, Streatham is generous with open space, and the green space on the doorstep is one of its real strengths.