The Null Device

Some corner of a foreign field that is forever W11

The Londonist reveals a list of places equivalent to Notting Hill around the world. (That's Notting Hill as in the part of West London, not as in the Working Title romcom.) These places include The Marais in Paris, Paddington in Sydney (though wouldn't Glebe be more Notting Hill?) and Christianshavn in Copenhagen; Manchester and Glasgow get two Notting Hill equivalents each: The Cliff and West Didsbury and Strathbungo and Garnethill respectively.

This research was carried out by the simple expedient of doing a Google search for "answer to notting hill". This technique can, of course, be extended to finding equivalents for other iconic districts: for example, Camden Town apparently has equivalents in Tokyo's Harajuku, San Francisco's Haight Ashbury (so that's full of brightly-coloured teenagers and mohician punks with "PUNK" in big letters on their clothing?), Stockholm's Hornstull and Buenos Aires' San Telmo. Running it for Melbourne locales was less fruitful; there are apparently no Brunswick Street equivalents anywhere, though there is one Chapel Street equivalent (Geelong's Packington Street).

Incidentally, there is no Melbourne equivalent of Notting Hill listed. Melbourne does have a locale named Notting Hill, but it is a rather desolate stretch of urban sprawl north of Monash University, where there are enough industrial estates to keep the student-infested 1970s bungalows spread out. Perhaps Carlton or Williamstown would be a more accurate equivalent?

There are 2 comments on "Some corner of a foreign field that is forever W11":

Posted by: El Bizarro http://bizarro.typepad.com Fri Jan 27 19:10:26 2006

San Telmo in Buenos Aires is a lot cooler and grittier than Camden Town and there is a conspicous absence of wankers wearing leather jackets with PUNK written on the back. Argentinian punks don't need to advertise, it's pretty obvious what they are and PorteƱos, as they call themselves, don't buy into that retro bullshit that seems to afflict so many post wannabes in Pommielandia.

The only comparison I would make between San Telmo and Camden Town is the markets, with the San Telmo ones being infinitely more interesting and the grass cheaper.

Posted by: Simon Kirby http://bourneout.blogspot.com/ Tue Jan 31 01:07:39 2006

Geelong's Pakington Street is nothing like Chapel Street. The Geelong West end has more in common with Lygon Street in Carlton while the other end of it in Newtown is closed to say High Street, Armadale.

Searching for such a phrase surely subjects you to the pufferies of Real Estate Agents and chintzy lifestyle/PR reports from local rags, er, community newspapers...