Islington
Islington is a district in
London, England. The area usually referred to as Islington is only part of the
London Borough of Islington. Because of its proximity to the
City of London, Islington developed as a fashionable area in the
nineteenth century, with large well-built houses. However changes in residential patterns led to a decline in its popularity, and by the mid-twentieth century it was largely run down. From about the
1980s the district was rediscovered, and experienced a rapid process of
gentrification, becoming very popular among fashionable people, particularly of a younger generation. A number of the central figures in the
New Labour movement lived there, including
Tony Blair before his victory in the
1997 General Election, and the district has become synonymous with a new class of left-leaning fashionable professionals, dismissed by some as "trendies".
Knife and Packer's cartoon "It's grim up North London", published in Private Eye, satirises the stereotypical Islingtonite.