It really has got bad in the last 16 years – In 1990-1992 I briefly moved back to South East London (my birthplace and childhood home).
I always used to go on every bus and be on the streets on my own and hardly got any trouble. There were some “gangs” there but they only had about two or three people in them and if you stood up to them and didn’t let them bully you they did not bother you.
The dustbins that showed the border between boroughs (they are different colours and logos, “blue” is Lewisham and “green” is either Bromley or Southwark depending what “ends” you are in) were there back then, but the thought of kids actually fighting between boroughs was thought of as a joke rather than reality.
Nowadays when I read the crime reports for London there are so many incidents of this sort of gang fights.
The problem is because it often usually affects only teenagers in the “rougher” estates the rest of Londoners often do not care (and disagree with paying more in council tax to fund youth clubs etc) , until they end up mugging (and sometimes murdering) an older person who dares to stand up to them.
