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The British capital has let the world in, and become
a model for making a 21st-century metropolis work.
High above the Thames, London’s mayor enjoys a panorama spanning two thousand years of crowded history. Just across the river, the medieval Tower of London recalls the city’s past as a seat of power. To the east, the former Docklands, now home to some of Europe’s grandest companies, conjures up its present as a gateway to the world.
London is the only major European capital that’s actually growing, a favoured destination for work-hungry migrants from all around the globe. Almost a third of today’s Londoners were born outside the country. More than 50 separate national or ethnic communities are scattered across the metropolis. Some 300 languages are spoken, all linked by the global lingua franca, English.
Immigration is a way of life: Jewish, Irish, Asian, Caribbean, East European – each new wave has enhanced London as a global city. Many newcomers choose the city because they can use (or learn) English. A quarter of the world’s population is now fluent or at least competent in the language, and even a shaky command opens up one level of London job market. The city’s middle classes have come to depend on a ready supply of Australian barmen, Hungarian nannies, Polish builders and Nigerian minicab drivers, not to mention the Ukranians or Romanians who clean their offices – or quickly rise to employ those who do. Without the migrants, London would be shrinking, not booming.
Ethnic and cultural diversity has helped to instill a basic tolerance. Londoners do not suffer the racial tensions to be found in Los Angeles, Paris or Berlin. Indeed, cultural diversity is an attraction in itself for those fed up with life in the suburbs, or in blander European cities. Today, urban centres offer what a new generation most prizes: high-end urban amenities, shorter commuting times, more work and more opportunities for play. London’s cosmopolitan feel is crucial to its prosperity.
Past generations of mega cities rose or fell depending on their access to resources or trade – coal mines and rail hubs. What counts today is the new global class of knowledge merchants with new ideas to share or sell. Urban economic success really depends on smart, entrepreneurial people. Like New York, London provides the right environment for these people: a relatively compact layout, a vibrant mix of cultures and a service industry fuelled largely by immigrants.
The city has other advantages. After the famous big bang of 1986, London regained its position as Europe’s financial capital. Although Frankfurt is home to Europe’s central bank it’s London that calls the shots. Mighty Deutsche Bank may be headquartered in Germany, but its big decision makers are in London. With the big players comes the chance to make big money. These days more euros are traded daily in London than in the rest of Europe combined.
Can it last? To be sure, popularity has its price. London motorists stay away from Trafalgar Square and other chokepoints where traffic regularly slows to a Dickensian horse-and-carriage crawl. Commuters endure daily frustration on a subway system starved of investment for decades. Violent crime is on the rise, the public-health system is chronically overloaded and the middle classes shun the low-grade schools. A rising number of families are choosing to flee the city altogether. And then there’s the cost. London is one of the world’s most expensive cities.
What’s emerging, say the critics, is a divided London with almost 19th-century extremes of wealth and poverty. This may be the capital of the world’s fourth largest economy, with thousands of homes worth more than a million pounds, but it has some of the nation’s greatest housing inequality. In East London you can find three generations of a single family crammed into a two-bedroom flat.
And although the national government has lent its weight to the drive to build new homes and to restore the transport system, although police numbers have risen, perhaps the biggest challenge of all involves resisting political pressures that might kill the golden goose – anti-immigration policies that would diminish London’s standing as Europe’s only world city.
(By William Underhill, Newsweek, 2005. Abridged.)
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