It’s been a while since I’ve walked through Shoreditch.   What struck me today and when I walked from St John Bread and Wine up to Old Street roundabout last weekend is the extreme rapidity of the process of urban change, the number of large vacant sites occupying spaces of buildings which were not especially memorable, but when gone leave a large hole.   I am not anti-development.   London, and most especially the east end, has benefitted from a process of rapid urban improvement and change, first begun long ago under the LDDC.   But it’s the speed of it which is disarming and the way big new office and apartment buildings damage the ecology of mixed neighbourhoods.   Artists move in.   Then small fashion boutiques.    Now there’s a branch of J. Crew in Redchurch Street.   It happened long ago in Chelsea.   Now it’s happening in Shoreditch:-