Flying into Okecie from London today, I snapped from the air the shot above of creeping housing development at Mysiadlo, just south of Jeziorki. The pic puts me in mind of the 1963 song 'Little Boxes' by Malvina Reynolds. Serried ranks of newly-built terraced houses; this is what West London suburbs like Greenford would have looked like in the 1930s. Except that car ownership in 1930s Greenford was not 1.5 per house.
The view is bisected by the railway line; beyond the tracks lies a patchwork of arable fields. How long will they be able to stave of pressure for development land?
[Update, 2010: much of the land beyond the tracks is now indeed filled with new housing.]
[Update, 2010: much of the land beyond the tracks is now indeed filled with new housing.]
I have the same feeling that I tend to find in your posts - that our neighbourhood will soon loose it's rural atmosphere. You moved in 1997, I moved in 1991, but every year came to spent my holidays and my grandmas' since early seventies. I remember myself walking past "rampa na kruszywo" to look for cow dung (krowiak) to fertilize tomatos planted in her garden :-)
ReplyDeleteAll the best,