Chiswick, Notting Hill and Greenwich may strike many as some of the loveliest parts of London – but not Saul Sadka.
The scholar has sparked a huge debate with a viral post highlighting the ‘London banana’ of the best areas to live, while simultaneously decrying swathes of the city outside of the zone as ‘horrible’.
Mr Sadka took to social media last week to post a map of the city with a hand drawn banana shape on top, writing: ‘This is the London Banana. As long as you stay within the Banana, you’ll have a great time in London.
‘Almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days, best avoid. Not clear why, or when this happened. But it is what it is.’
The post has caused furious conversation online as famously proud Londoners defend their local area, while banana dwellers smugly send the map to friends, family and colleagues.
The fruit already has its own set of memes and is even being blamed for coffee price increases.
But despite the banana being something scholar and security analyst Mr Sadka ‘randomly made up’ – his words, not ours – according to the latest data, it holds a surprising amount of truth.
House prices are typically higher inside the banana, an indication areas are more desirable to homeowners, while crime rates outside of the very centre of London tend to be lower.
The banana includes swathes of Kingston, Richmond, Merton, Wandsworth, Kensington, the City of London, Westminster, Camden, Barnet and Islington – with some parts of Haringey, Southwark and Lambeth making the cut too.
Saul Sadka took to social media last week to post a map of the city with a hand drawn banana shape on top
Leafy areas typically associated with the upper echelons of London dwellers such as Richmond, Wimbledon and Chelsea all sit inside the treasured yellow zone.
Tourist attractions such as Camden Market and Westminster are also honoured by Mr Sadka’s accolade.
But other popular areas, including Notting Hill, Maida Vale, Greenwich, Chiswick and Ealing fall foul of the banana’s boundaries.
The map is reminiscent of Europe’s own ‘blue banana’ – a curved area of the continent stretching across the UK, Germany and Italy, including London.
The zone represents a corridor of urban areas containing approximately 100 million people, and is coined for the region’s high concentration of people and innovation.
Inside London’s potassium-rich appendage, house price data speaks for itself.
From Maida Vale to Clapham or Blackheath, Londoners outside of the banana have decried the map and fiercely defended their local areas.
‘The London Banana thing is BS because Ealing isn’t included in it. It’s literally known as ‘The Queen of the Suburbs’. Not having it!’ wrote one forsaken resident.
After the now-infamous post went viral, scholar Saul Sadka (pictured) said he had ‘accidentally perfected minimal-effort tongue-in-cheek rage bait’
The borough of Westminster sits firmly inside the ‘London banana’, including tourist attractions such as Parliament and Big Ben
Richmond-upon-Thames (pictured) has some of the highest house prices and the lowest crime rate in London
Wimbledon Village, in Merton, also makes the cut as one of the loveliest places to live in London
Another said: ‘What nonsense is this? I live in Maida Vale, outside the ‘banana’, and it’s lovely, as are plenty of other areas in London.’]
And one angry X user even offered up a new moniker for the map: ‘The best areas of London (apart from the centre) are outside your banana.
‘It should be called the boring banana… Devoid of culture and character, safe but boring.’
Elsewhere, the banana is already jokingly being blamed for extortionate coffee price hikes… amounting to as much as 10p per drink.
One young woman wrote: ‘My vanilla matcha iced latte was 10p more expensive in Muswell Hill Starbucks than it usually is at White City.
‘Either the prices have gone up or this is an effect of the London banana.’
According to the ONS’s latest figures, the top three most expensive areas to buy a house in the UK are all inside the yellow zone – Kensington and Chelsea at £1.4 million, Westminster at £1 million, and Camden at £876,000.
Richmond-upon-Thames sits fifth at £825,000, with the City of London also breaking into the top five – although housing is limited in the City.
Kensington and Chelsea is at the heart of the banana and is home to the highest house prices in the UK
Meanwhile in Bexley, far away from the heady heights of Chelsea and definitively not included in Mr Sadka’s map, house prices are on average just £403,000.
Croydon sits just above on £405,000, and is just the 71st most expensive area of England to purchase a property.
Other boroughs such as Hounslow, Harrow, Lewisham and Redbridge are similarly cheaper, with homeowners needing less than half of the cash to get on the property ladder as in Kensington.
Crime rates follow a similar pattern outside of central London. Westminster had by far the highest number of offences over the past year, according to the latest data from the Met Police, but is also home to much of the city centre.
Outside Westminster, banana areas have largely low crime rates. Richmond saw 237.7 offences per 1,000 people, the lowest in all of London. Meanwhile Kingston had 260.7, Merton 264.7 and Barnet 281.1.
Outside the banana, crime rates were almost all over 300 offences per 1,000 people, with many higher still.
Southwark had a crime rate of 457.4, Hackney 459.5 and Croydon 347.9.
The exception is Camden which, at the heart of the golden swathe of London, had a very high crime rate of 621.1 per 1,000 people. Of course fans of the banana may well conclude it is the exception which proves the rule.
Regardless of the data which appears to back up Mr Sadka’s claims, the map has sparked fierce debate.
After the now-infamous post went viral, Mr Sadka said he had ‘accidentally perfected minimal-effort tongue-in-cheek rage bait’.
He added: ‘I’m particularly delighted with the 20,000 who bookmarked it – presumably intending to use it as a tourist map. Hilarious.’
