The new cultural quarter

Crossing the river from Westminster or the City once meant you were heading for London Bridge or Waterloo stations for the slog home to the suburbs. Now, you could just as easily be going out for the evening to one of the South Bank's new bars, before walking home to your apartment in a converted warehouse near the river.

In just 10 years the South Bank of the Thames, between Westminster Bridge and Tower Bridge, has been dramatically transformed. The cobbled streets, railway arches and blackened warehouses around London Bridge now house bars, restaurants, shops and smart apartments.

The disused Bankside power station has become Tate Modern, one of London's most popular tourist attractions, and apartments in the former County Hall are next door to the London Eye, the most distinctive addition to the capital's skyline.

With a gleaming new Jubilee line through Bermondsey and Southwark picking up throngs of revellers from the West End and Canary Wharf, the idea of a night out in Borough High Street is positively exciting.

Shad Thames

Convenient for: the City, London Bridge station, Tower Bridge.

Change started: 1980s. Why? Shad Thames, a grid of streets east of Tower Bridge, was part of the grand plan for redeveloping the former Docklands in the early 1980s. When Terence Conran opened a clutch of riverside restaurants at Butlers Wharf, the area was put on the map, attracting office workers from Wapping and the City seeking places to have lunch with clients.

The change: derelict river-front warehouses at Butlers Wharf and Shad Thames are now apartments for well-heeled City workers and those wanting a piéd-à-terre during the week. Big attractions are the river, proximity to the City, trendy Borough and a feeling of being tucked away from the Bermondsey council blocks on the other side of the railway tracks.

"Shad Thames feels quite villagey," says Michael Lowdon of Chesterton's Tower Bridge office, who also lives in the area. "It's quite quiet, and there are a couple of pubs where I now meet up with friends." The enclave has its own cobbled street of upmarket shops and restaurants, and building work is nearly finished as the last gaps are filled on both sides of Tower Bridge.

Galliard Homes is marketing the final phase of Tea Trade Wharf, the last Shad Thames riverside warehouse conversion. Buyers include second-home hunters "not afraid to spend £700,000 on a flat", according to Galliard sales director David Galman, who says the area was once "desolate, with a few old warehouses and council blocks".

Borough and Bermondsey Street

Convenient for: the City, London Bridge, Canary Wharf, South Bank and West End (by Jubilee line).

Change started: mid-1990s. Why? Londoners, taken with the idea of Clerkenwell-style warehouse living, crossed the river and discovered that the river front around London Bridge had enough industrial buildings to satisfy their urban-lifestyle demands.

The change: 20 years ago you would have been considered cutting-edge if you lived near London Bridge. Now it is tame, middle-class territory. But there is still a chance to feel ahead of the game. Especially if you live in a converted riverside warehouse - with exposed brickwork and iron beams - shop in Borough Market for fabulous fresh food, and club and pub in Bermondsey Street.