A corridor of London popularised on social media as the city’s “banana” generally scores better on house prices, health and school outcomes than areas outside it, according to an analysis of official datasets. The same review, however, found higher crime rates in parts of central London inside the shape and several notable neighbourhoods outside the banana that buck the trend.
Mapping Land Registry figures against the banana shape shows the most expensive neighbourhoods fall within the corridor, with a median house price peaking at about £8.68 million in Hampstead Garden Suburb. By contrast, the ten communities with the lowest median prices were all outside the banana, scattered across boroughs including Ealing, Newham, Hackney, Hillingdon and Croydon. The analysis also noted that while prices inside the banana are typically higher, some outer London areas are seeing rapid rises in values, offering potential investment opportunities for buyers priced out of central districts.
Health indicators mapped by small neighbourhoods known as Lower Super Output Areas (LSOAs) show a clear divide, with many areas inside the banana reporting a high proportion of adults in very good health. The single LSOA with the highest share of residents reporting very good health in the 2021 Census was, unusually, in east London’s Hackney — an area outside the banana — where more than three-quarters of adults recorded very good health. A second top-ranked area was in neighbouring Haringey.
Education outcomes at GCSE level were also concentrated inside the banana. Analysis of 2024 Ofqual results for core subjects found that schools in the Richmond Park constituency recorded the highest combined pass rates, with more than 92% of maths and English grades at least a pass (a 9–4). Hammersmith and Chiswick recorded roughly 90% pass rates and Chipping Barnet about 89%. The lowest results in the capital were reported in Croydon East and Dagenham and Rainham, both outside the banana, with combined pass rates near 69%.
Measures of deprivation produced mixed findings. One of the least deprived LSOAs — measured as the proportion of households not deprived in housing, education or access to services — was Newham 039D in central Stratford, which lies outside the banana and where 78.5% of households were classed as not deprived. Several of the other least deprived pockets did sit inside the banana, including parts of Richmond, Belgravia and the area around Arsenal in north London. The analysis identified Lisson Green in Westminster as one of the most deprived LSOAs by that metric, where only 17.2% of households were not deprived in any dimension.
Transport links are denser inside the banana, reflecting its inclusion of the capital’s major business, political and tourism centres. The concentration of Underground lines and National Rail services gives many banana neighbourhoods shorter journeys into central London, although suburban pockets in south-west boroughs such as Wandsworth continue to report fewer direct connections compared with other south London areas.
Crime rates tell a different story within the corridor. The highest rates were recorded in central neighbourhoods of Westminster, the City of London, Southwark and Camden. Some leafy outer parts of the banana, such as Barnet and Richmond, had lower crime rates than neighbouring non-banana areas. One of the lowest crime rates in the capital was recorded in Kingston’s Berrylands area, where there were fewer than five crimes per 1,000 residents in the year to June.
The corridor has exceptions. Hackney, historically associated with high deprivation and crime, has undergone a significant socioeconomic change over recent decades, exhibiting some of the highest health scores and improved school attainment while also seeing large increases in property values. Several affluent pockets commonly thought of as central to London life are excluded from the banana mapping, including Notting Hill, Maida Vale, Greenwich, Chiswick, Ealing and Dulwich.
The banana concept was popularised on social media last week by Saul Sadka, a Tel Aviv–based religious scholar and author, whose hand-drawn boomerang-shaped outline over a map of London attracted more than 10 million views. “As long as you stay within the Banana, you’ll have a great time in London,” he wrote, adding that “almost everything outside the Banana is horrible these days.” Sadka said he used official house price and crime data by postcode sector to create the post, which drew vigorous responses from Londoners both inside and outside the corridor.
The data-driven review points to a complex picture: many services and amenities — higher average incomes, better health and school results and denser transport links — are concentrated within the banana, but affordability remains a significant barrier for would-be buyers. At the same time, rapid improvements and price growth in some outer and east London neighbourhoods illustrate fluidity in the capital’s socioeconomic geography, with areas outside the banana offering different forms of resilience and opportunity.
Officials, local councils and transport providers did not produce a single authoritative definition of the banana; the shape varies by who draws it and which metrics are prioritised. Analysts say that, while the doodled corridor captures many of central London’s wealthier and better-served neighbourhoods, it does not reliably predict every social outcome and masks important variations within both the banana and areas beyond it.