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I was born in London and lived there until I decided to cross the pond two years ago to start as a freshman at Brown. London is a vast city and can be experienced in hundreds of ways. It is one of the cities around the world that has a lot of iconic elements, and has an identity that revolves around these iconic images- whether is is caused, or encouraged, or intensified by such  images is a matter of debate. 

Whilst there have been some constant elements of 'London-ness' throughout my 18 years of living in the city, I feel that I have lived in 3 distinct Londons, dictated by 3 major episodes of house moving. Perhaps they are less major than they seem to me, but one of them had an especially profound effect on my sense of 'my city'. The move promted by my parents' divorce uprooted me from my childhood at age 12 and disrupted most of what had made up my London experience. Although the area we moved to was near enough to my old neighbourhood, I had to create a new set of relations with the spaces around me. This was exacerbated by the move coinciding with my changing schools- all my old routines and well trodden daily trails ceased to exist. When I occasionally return to this area (now my old old area), although not much may have changed, I feel I have forfieted some right to its places and spaces by moving away.

Having only lived in this area from age 0-12 has given me a unique view of it. Whilst many people associate what I still think of as 'my area' with certain well known events and places, I see it primarily as I saw it as a child.  I pass through it as an adult, and know it in the context of the surrounding city and my subsequent experiences. However much of the thought process I apply to moving through its built environment stems from my knowledge of the place as a child. And I like it that way.

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