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Kensal Green is a residential area with good transport links to central London, surrounding districts include Willesden to the north, Harlesden to the west, Queens Park to the east and Ladbroke Grove to the south. The area includes College Park, Kensal New Town, Kensal Rise and Queens Park Estate.

The area is known for independent boutiques, cafes and bars as well as Gee Barber, an original Sixties gents' barber. It area has seen significant gentrification over recent years and is earning a reputation as a 'celebrity haunt-meets-Nappy Valley'.

In 2009, Chamberlayne Road in Kensal Rise was named by Vogue as the hippest street in Europe and the area is now home to a number of noteworthy residents including musicians Paloma Faith and Rita Ora, chef Thomasina Miers, film director, DJ and musician Don Letts, actress Thandie Newton, singer Lily Allen, model-turned-author Sophie Dahl, author Zadie Smith, handbag designer Bill Amberg, David Cameron's ex-strategy guru Steve Hilton footballer-turned-media personality Ian Wright and Sienna Miller. The area also now boasts Britain's first independent boutique cinema and social enterprise, The Lexi Cinema. It is staffed by local volunteers and all its profits go to an eco-village in South Africa. In 2014, luxury goods maker Mulberry named its handbag Kensal and launched an advertising campaign with Cara Delevingne.

Time Out described Kensal Green as "a cool, rebellious young upstart with torn jeans and wacky ideas about politics and marijuana and shit" highlighting pubs The Chamberlayne and Paradise by Kensal Green, cocktail bar The Shop, high-end butcher Brooks and authentic Neopolitan pizzas from Sacro Cuore.

It has traditionally been popular with those working in the media and creative industries. According to local estate agents, those buying up properties in the area include developers, those working in the financial district of the city and others moving from nearby Notting Hill. The area also attracts Americans thanks to the American School in neighbouring St John's Wood, as well as being popular with the French, partly due to a Lycée Français opening in Brent's former town hall.

The nearby area of Old Oak Common is one of the capital's biggest regeneration opportunities since the Olympics. Bordered by Wormwood Scrubs to the south and Willesden Junction to the north, it is a semi-industrial, semi-derelict site of 155 hectares that straddles three London boroughs. Plans include a superhub for the Crossrail and HS2 projects, with the mayor's office confirming that two new Overground stations, which will connect the site to Kensal Rise, are also part of the plans. Taken as a whole, the railway hub — which will also potentially link to Great Western services and the Heathrow Express - will be roughly the size of Waterloo, the busiest station in the UK. It will also include 24,000 homes as well as retail property and hotels. It has been described as "a Canary Wharf-type development" by Sir Edward Lister, London's deputy mayor for policy and planning. The project is expected to have a profound impact on London by creating a major commercial district in the West.

Kensal Green Cemetery is one of the 'Magnificent Seven' cemeteries in the borough. It is the resting place of members of the royal family, including HRH Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, and scores of iconic figures in history including celebrated railway engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Babbage, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope and William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 5th Duke of Portland. Architects who are buried at Kensal Green include Decimus Burton and the famous 19th century architectural families of Hardwick and Shaw. Philip Charles Hardwick, Philip Hardwick and John Shaw Junior are buried there, as well as Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter.

Cemetery directors and the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery group have lobbied the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage for funding to help preserve historical monuments at the site. The mammoth project, which involves repairs to the grade one listed Anglican Chapel and the boundary wall, is estimate to cost more than £10m.