London: Metropolis Redux

Abstract

The largest city in the EU, London dominates the UK economy. Europe's principal financial centre, it ranks with New York and Tokyo as one of the three indisputable world cities. After decades of decline, London is now experiencing a revival of population growth, and the current Greater London population of 7.4 million is projected to regain its 1961 level of more than eight million by 2010, due in part to net inward migration and to a high rate of natural growth. London is city of diverse communities reflecting centuries of immigration, a kaleidoscope of cultures, around 300 languages are spoken by children in London's schools today (Baker and Eversley, 2000). More than a third of London's population is from minority ethnic groups, the great majority of these being non-white. For these diverse communities, London provides an ecology of opportunity and choice, manifested in its powerful magnetic pull. The dynamism of London's economy has been one of the capital's persistent features. Although traditional manufacturing jobs have declined steeply since the World War II, and particularly since the 1960s, service sector employment has generally compensated for this high rate of job loss. More recently, London's revived economic growth has provided for new and expanded employment opportunities in the financial and business sectors, and it is estimated that 270,000 additional jobs will be created in the next decade, most of which are either close to the central business district or in the western suburbs. These patterns of growth reflect both the continuing dominance of London in the national economy and its standing as a world city in the international economy. All discussion of London is however bedevilled by the various definitions of its scope and area. The historic City of London, governed by the ancient Corporation, has a daytime population of no more than five thousand and an area of just one square mile. Inner London the area within which people most commonly define themselves as Londoners comprises the thirteen inner London boroughs of the old County of London area. This, together with the outer London boroughs mainly the inter-war suburbs that surrounded the old County of London constitutes Greater London. Beyond the Greater London boundary lies the Outer Metropolitan Area (OMA), functionally connected to London though separate from it in administrative terms. This paper deals with Greater London, the area covered by the arrangements for metropolitan government first introduced in 1964, then abolished in 1986, and reintroduced, in radically amended form, in July 2000. London's governmental instability reflects the priorities of successive governments. The UK is a highly centralised unitary state, in which power flows downward from the Crown in effect, from ministers. A geographically compact area with good communications, Britain lends itself to being governed from Whitehall, while the national news media provide strong incentives for ministers to gain visibility by intervening in local matters. For its part, local government as a creature of statute has enjoyed no more than a subordinate status, and a declining one in the postWorld War II era (Young and Rao, 1997). This subordination is fundamental to understanding the ways in which London's local government has operated. For the first half of the twentieth century governments struggled to find a solution to the burgeoning growth and continuing suburbanisation of London. Already by the mid1930s, as many 'Londoners' lived outside the old county of London, in the new suburbs, as lived within it. The lack of an effective planning framework prior to 1947, however, left governments, central and local, powerless in the face of development pressures. Patrick Abercrombie's comprehensive plan for the London region required the governmental framework to be strengthened and streamlined if it were to be implemented. Not until 1957 was a Royal Commission appointed under Sir Edwin Herbert to examine the working of local government in the Greater London area and to recommend what changes, if any, were needed to secure 'effective and convenient' local government (Herbert, 1960).