The Metropolis

You can never get away from the sprawl

Mike Pollitt | Friday 18 November, 2011 11:57

●

Reeds, Hackney Marshes - geograph.org.uk - 1764443

My theory is that these edgelands are a place where people come to act out their rituals, live their dreamlife. I was once struck by one of the football pitch line painters reading Think and Grow Rich on a tree stump.

Gareth Rees keeps a really interesting blog. Today’s musing: where do you escape to when there is no wilderness left? He focuses on Hackney marshes, one of the few remaining pockets of green space dotted round the city. But out of the green ground mighty pylons grow, and grafitti screams from concrete walls. You can’t escape the city there. The sprawl is spreading everywhere…

The Hackney Marshman – The Occult & Hackney Marshes
Photo of Hackney marsh reeds: Wikipedia

Filed in:

Snipe Highlights

Some popular articles from past years

  1. Random Interview: Eileen Conn, co-ordinator of Peckham Vision
  2. Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
  3. Punk brewery just as sexist and homophobic as the industry they rail against
  4. Could red kites be London's next big nature success story?
  5. The best church names in London, and where they come from
  6. Diary of the shy Londoner
  7. Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
  8. London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
  9. Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
  10. The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals