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On 10 January1863 the world’s first underground railway opened in London. It was an engineering marvel that became a model for capital cities all over the world.

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High up on a grassy hillock alive with wild flowers, a man wearing a beard and sturdy shoes addresses more than 100 young explorers.

The sun strikes their faces and the surrounding landscape. It would be a scene of bucolic wonder were it not for the bottle tops and fag ends at their feet, the concrete and glass blocks that dominate the skyline, and the rumble of flight paths, railways and the frantic Mile End road.

Yet former geography teacher Daniel Raven-Ellison, who has to shout to be heard, has come to an oasis of green in what feels like East London's grey desert to present a radical vision for the capital. He believes passionately that the eight million people inside the city - and everyone outside it - should change the way they see it. As part of an unlikely but rapidly growing new campaign that is as simple as it is ambitious, he is trying to turn London into Britain's newest national park.

"We have eight million trees in London; the world's largest urban forest," he tells geography students from Queen Mary University, which sits just across the Regent's Canal. They wear lanyards that mark them out as the first Greater London National Park rangers. "A few weeks ago I walked from Croydon to High Barnet, south to north, through as much woodland as I could. I saw foxes, I saw deer, grass snakes and woodpeckers. Guess how many children I saw?"

The first-year students, who are mostly strangers to each other, are quiet. A few suggest low numbers. "Zero!" Raven-Ellison answers.

"It was the Friday of half-term and I did not see a single child." He adds, plaintively: "Did you know that in High Barnet there is a tree that's 2,000 years old?"

As the 34-year-old makes his case for the world's first urban national park, where children would not only play in the woods but also reimagine them, the initially bemused students almost visibly lean towards his argument. They then range out from Mile End Park across the city's 33 boroughs. Their mission: to explore and photograph London's great outdoors, to create an exhibition that will be displayed next month inside City Hall. Statistics that reveal the startling extent of London's greenness feature heavily in Raven-Ellison's campaign, which he started quietly in April with a Greater London National Park website (only a footnote points out that it is, for now, "officially a Notional Park"). The city covers more than 1,500 square kilometres, an area about the size of Surrey or South Yorkshire. More than 13,000 species, including humans, inhabit 3,000 parks, 30,000 allotments, three million gardens and two National Nature Reserves. Overall, 47 per cent of London is green space, and 60 per cent is classified as open space.

That green comes into glorious focus in a new map of the city made for the campaign by Greenspace Information for Greater London, a group that keeps environmental records. It excludes what we expect in a city map - roads, buildings, car parks, railways. The only things marked against a white background, apart from the Thames and its tributaries, are the green spaces. Yet thanks to their great spread, the map looks exactly like the London we think we know.

"Lots of us take the same routes through cities, day-in day-out," Raven-Ellison says as he walks along the busy A11 to Mile End station. After a look around the park with the students assigned to this borough (Tower Hamlets) we are heading west to the City of London with Catherine Nash, professor of human geography at Queen Mary, to document green spaces there. "You're alienated because you are surrounded by concrete, but that's not the experience of the majority of life in the city."

The daily view most of us have, of buildings and ways to get between them, dramatically skews our perceptions of geography. In 2011, the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, the first comprehensive study of its kind, revealed that just 6.8 per cent of the UK's land area is urban, including roads and rural development. But, as the 47 per cent figure shows in London, not all that land is built on. In England, the proportion of land that has been covered by concrete, asphalt or anything that can be classified as "built" is, wait for it... 2.27 per cent.

After an itinerant upbringing (his father was in the Royal Logistic Corps) Raven-Ellison settled in London to study and then teach geography. He is never happier than when exploring the other 97.73 per cent of England, not least inside city limits. His favourite green space? Boston Manor Park, a former country estate near his home in Northfields that is now constrained by offices, housing and the M4 flyover. "You come down the motorway and see treetops but your vision is of concrete and signage," he says. "But just beneath you there is this hive of wilder space, a wilderness where kingfishers and herons hang out. I love that mix."

Raven-Ellison escaped the confines of the classroom three years ago. He is now part of the Geography Collective of "guerrilla geographers" who want us all to reimagine the space around us. Last year, as part of a project for National Geographic, he and his now 11-year-old son visited all 15 national parks in the UK, from the Cairngorms in Scotland to Dartmoor in south-west England. The experience partly inspired his latest big idea.

"A city park or garden can be more ecologically diverse and rich, and provide more pleasure to a community, than a much wider area of land somewhere more remote," he says. "What is it about our prejudice that means we value that space less, despite the fact we know it is even more important because of the benefits to our health and productivity, as well as the economy and business? Why would we deprive a major city of those benefits?"

National parks, which are managed by independent park authorities using central government funds, were a late arrival in Britain. Not long after Wordsworth described the Lake District as "a sort of national property, in which every man has a right and interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy", the US led the way by establishing Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. It was not until 1951 that the Peak District became Britain's first national park, thanks to post-war legislation.

Their popular image has become, perhaps, one of mountains, moors, forest or heath. But Britain's 15 designated national parks already take in towns, villages and houses that are home to almost 450,000 people, about the population of Cardiff. Ever wandered the bustling streets of Lewes in East Sussex? You were in the South Downs, home to 120,000 people and, since 2010, the latest addition to the parks family.

According to National Parks UK, the government's umbrella body, their purpose is "to conserve and enhance the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage; and promote opportunities for the understanding and enjoyment of [their] special qualities". Raven-Ellison sees no reason why this could not apply in a city. "A national park is a social construct," he explains. "It's traditionally applied to remote or rural settings but what if we flipped it and applied it to an urban setting... you can say that nature might be a smaller concern but that raises the question, what is nature, and the boundaries between it and people?"

We emerge from St Paul's underground station to a familiar scene of traffic and stone. In front of the cathedral, London doesn't feel very green. Five plane trees are reaching maturity as part of a new development. An older tree peeks out from down a side road, between branches of Strada and Yo Sushi. But that's it for nature, at least to my eyes. "Look at these pigeons," Raven-Ellison says. "We talk about them being feral but as far as they're concerned they're wild. Their distant relative is the rock dove, which lives on cliffs. Well, look around you. London is a cliff landscape, and that's why these pigeons are really awesome at living here."

These are the kinds of small shifts in focus that Raven-Ellison wants to inspire. And while he can come across as a geographical evangelist - an idealist with a fancy website - he's serious about making the park real. In November, he will take the campaign to Sydney for the once-a-decade World Parks Congress. Official supporters at home include the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the London Wildlife Trust. An online petition is gathering pace, and has already earned a response from the Mayor. Boris Johnson "welcomes the call for more recognition of the importance and value of London's... natural environment" and "commends the campaign organisers for their inventiveness". Sir Terry Farrell, the architect and a key design advisor to Boris, says the park "could be a powerful vision that could spawn a million projects". He adds: "I intend to make the case to the Mayor."

Natural England is the body that designates parks under the law passed after the war. A spokesperson says it is "supportive of the principle" of a London park, adding in a statement: "We note that the proposition would have the ethos, but not the traditional legal designation, of existing national parks." The Mayor added doubt about the law in his response, but Raven-Ellison insists he or his successor could make it work. "We've had a very clear steer that because the idea of a city national park doesn't exist yet, it's something we can just do," he explains. "And if we create a blueprint that works, the legislation could come later."

As we approach Christ Church Greyfriars, a dazzling public garden planted in the ruin of a Sir Christopher Wren church that was destroyed in the Blitz, Raven-Ellison adds: "The point is, we wouldn't want the park city to be the same as a national park anyway. Clearly it wouldn't have the same planning regulations, for example."

So what would it actually do?

"It's about inspiring individuals to do small things, from the top down and the bottom up," he says. "Imagine if Transport for London worked with the Greater London National Park and gave 5 per cent of advertising to a specific campaign each month looking at, say, song birds. Simple, strategic campaigns that could make an enormous difference to wildlife but also people's consciousness of the benefits of green space.

"Forget HS2, let's have HS3, a high-speed network for hedgehogs," he adds. "They need about six gardens as territory. If we all put hedgehog-size holes in our fences, we'd have more in our gardens, and they'd eat the slugs and snails so many people dislike."

Raven-Ellison says the park would be a "no-brainer" for corporations. The benefits to tourism are even clearer. He hopes also to talk to the group, led by Joanna Lumley and the designer Thomas Heatherwick, which is planning a "garden bridge" across the Thames between the South Bank and Temple. "The northern end has been calculated as the new geographic centre of London," he says. "You could cross this urban gateway into the middle of the world's first national park city."

We walk down the aisle of what was the nave at Greyfriars. On either side, beds burst with roses, hydrangeas and purple penstemons. Besuited city workers sit on benches in the sun, juggling their phones and salad boxes. Raven-Ellison turns to his own phone to check the photos he has asked his student rangers to share as they explore his vision of the city. There are parks, canals, woods. Many could be mistaken for scenes of existing national parks.

"What really excites me is to think about children born in London now," he says. "In five years' time when they start school, imagine their teachers know that they're in a Greater London National Park, and teach them differently about green space and nature. Then imagine them in 20 years, as they grow up to become architects or designers or planners. What ideas and solutions might they have to make us even healthier, even happier, and make this city even better?"
"To so support or find out more about the Greater London National Park campaign, go to http://www.greaterlondonnationalpark.org.uk/
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47 per cent of London is green space: time for a national park?

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High up on a grassy hillock alive with wild flowers, a man wearing a beard and sturdy shoes addresses more than 100 young explorers. The sun strikes their faces and the surrounding landscape.

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1. Heathrow is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom, as well as the busiest airport in Europe by passenger traffic, and sixth busiest airport in the world by total passenger traffic. In 2015, it handled a record 75 million passengers, a 2.2 percent increase from 2014.

2. As of May 2014, over 1,400 flights departed and landed at Heathrow airport each day; that is about one flight every 45 seconds. Heathrow handles around 80 percent of the long-haul air traffic for passengers arriving in the UK.

3. Many more people are employed directly on site and indirectly. In July 2013, 114,000 local jobs were supported by Heathrow of which 76,600 were directly employed on the Heathrow site.

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Heathrow airport expansion gets government approval | Environment | The Guardian

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Heathrow airport expansion gets government approval | Environment | The Guardian

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A third runway is to be built at Heathrow, the government has decided, paving the way for hundreds of thousands more flights a year at the airport in west London.

In a long-awaited response, ministers have endorsed the recommendation of the Airports Commission to expand Heathrow rather than Gatwick airport, which had hoped to build a second runway.

The move comes six years after the Conservative-led coalition scrapped previous plans for a third runway at Heathrow.

The Department for Transport said: "In a major boost for the UK economy the government today announced its support for a new runway at Heathrow - the first full-length runway in the south-east since the second world war."

The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, said: "The step that government is taking today is truly momentous. I am proud that after years of discussion and delay this government is taking decisive action to secure the UK's place in the global aviation market - securing jobs and business opportunities for the next decade and beyond."

The government said it would propose a six-and-a-half-hour ban on scheduled night flights, and will make more stringent night noise restrictions a requirement of expansion. It will also propose new legally binding noise targets.

The government confirmed the scheme would be taken forward in the form of a draft national policy statement, which will be consulted on in the new year.

It said it underlined its commitment to keeping the UK open for business and as a hub for tourism and trade, adding that a new runway at Heathrow would bring economic benefits worth up to £61bn, as well as creating up to 77,000 additional local jobs.

The decision to expand Heathrow will be voted on by parliament in 2017 or 2018. Under the airport's proposed scheme, an additional runway and a sixth terminal will be built to the north-west of the existing airport perimeter at a cost of £17.6bn. The nearby village of Harmondsworth will be demolished.

Widespread protests and legal challenges are expected to follow Tuesday's decision, with campaigners expected to focus on air quality, noise and Britain's climate change commitments. The runway, which could be built by 2025, would lead to almost 50% more planes over London, bringing new neighbourhoods under the flightpath.

It is understood Justine Greening, the education secretary, will restate her opposition to Heathrow expansion in a statement for constituents later on Tuesday afternoon. She is not expected to give any broadcast or press interviews.

Under the terms of Theresa May's limited suspension of collective responsibility, Greening will be able to continue expressing her discontent with the decision without actively campaigning against it.

As he left the cabinet meeting, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, said "yes" when reporters in Downing Street asked if he would continue to oppose Heathrow's expansion.

Zac Goldsmith, the Tory MP for Richmond Park, said he would honour his threat to resign and trigger a byelection in his seat, the local Conservative association has confirmed.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat former business secretary who lost his south-west London seat last year, said it was a bad decision with questions still remaining about how the surrounding infrastructure could be paid for.

Cable said he would be "happy to stand again" in Twickenham, which will be affected by a new airport, if May calls an early election. Tania Mathias, the Tory MP who won the seat from Cable, said she would continue to fight on in parliament against Heathrow, saying she believed the case for it would collapse during the public consultation.

"If the decision is Heathrow, I do not think they can get through the public consultation and scrutiny," she said. "I think it will mark the beginning of the end for any expansion to Heathrow."

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, accused the government of "running roughshod over Londoners' views", saying he had been elected on a clear platform of opposing a new runway at Heathrow. He said: "A new runway at Heathrow will be devastating for air quality across London - air pollution around the airport is already above legal levels of NO2.

"Heathrow already exposes more people to aircraft noise than Paris CDG, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Munich and Madrid combined. A third runway would mean an extra 200,000 people impacted, exposing 124 more schools and 43,200 more schoolchildren to an unacceptable level of noise."

John Stewart, one of the leading campaigners against a third runway, said the decision had been made with "legal conditions" that the airport would have to meet.

Stewart, chair of the campaign group Hacan, said: "Countless residents will be dismayed and distraught by this decision. Some will lose their homes. Some face the daunting prospect of living under a noisy flight path for the first time. And many others will get yet more planes over their heads. But real doubts must remain whether this new runway will ever see the light of day. The hurdles it faces remain: costs, noise, air pollution and widespread opposition including an expected legal challenge from the local authorities."

A Heathrow spokesperson said: "We welcome the news that Heathrow is government's preferred site for a new runway and look forward to hearing the full details later from the transport secretary.

"Expansion of Heathrow is the only option that will connect all of the UK to global growth, helping to build a stronger and fairer economy. We await the full details, but Heathrow stands ready to work with government, businesses, airlines and our local communities to deliver an airport that is fair, affordable and secures the benefits of expansion for the whole of the UK."

The government stipulated that the third runway "must be delivered without hitting passengers in the pocket". Although charges to airlines are expected to rise substantially at an expanded Heathrow, the government said that the Airports Commission and CAA were clear that keeping fares steady was achievable.

Airlines said the cost of expansion would be crucial. Airline trade body BATA said: "We will be scrutinising this decision and future, more detailed, plans. Heathrow is the most expensive hub airport in the world - and airports are not funded by the taxpayer but by passengers. Today's passengers must not pay for capacity that will not be operational until the mid-2020s."

British Airways, the airline that operates around half the flights at Heathrow, said it welcomed the recognition from government that passengers should not pay more for a third runway.

Willie Walsh, the chief executive of BA's owning group IAG, said: "The cost of this project will make or break it. The Government's directive to cap customer charges at today's level is fundamental. Heathrow want it, argued for it and now must ensure it's the UK and the travelling public who get the benefits from the runway not the airport's owners.

He added: "We will be vigilant in ensuring that Heathrow does not raise charges to benefit its shareholders to the detriment of the travelling public."

Heathrow's is owned by a range of sovereign investment funds, including Qatar, Singapore and China's, a consortium led by Spanish firm Ferrovial, and Canadian pension funds.

Business leaders welcomed the decision. The president of the CBI, Paul Drechsler, said it was "an enormous relief to firms in every corner of the country". He said: "It will create the air links that will do so much to drive jobs and unlock growth across the UK. With contracts to tender for, apprentices to recruit and supply chains to build, this decision must be taken forward swiftly, giving businesses the confidence to invest."

The chair of the transport select committee, Louise Ellman MP, said: "This decision will boost business, create training opportunities and new jobs and open the UK to new markets.

"We have had to wait a long time for this. We recognise it won't be an easy journey. We urge the government to have the courage of their convictions and press ahead so that the timetable to deliver the additional capacity by 2030 can be delivered."

But Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green party, said: "The decision to expand Heathrow tramples over the concerns of local people and puts a wrecking ball through the government's claim to be concerned about climate change. The truth is that the government went into this process with their eyes shut to the only sensible option: stopping airport expansion."

The Campaign to Protect Rural England said it was "madness". Ralph Smyth of the CPRE said: "The north-south divide has been increasing: by giving the go ahead to yet another runway in the south the Prime Minister has effectively pulled the rug on her own flagship policy of rebalancing our nation's economy.

"It's madness to be promoting domestic flights at the same time as investing in alternatives like high speed rail."

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Heathrow airport expansion gets government approval

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A third runway is to be built at Heathrow, the government has decided, paving the way for hundreds of thousands more flights a year at the airport in west London. In a long-awaited response, ministers have endorsed the recommendation of the Airports Commission to expand Heathrow rather than Gatwick airport, which had hoped to build a second runway.

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Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

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The Olympic Village and sustainable development

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The Olympic Village and sustainable development

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Some of the starkest images from the financial fall of Greece have been of its 2004 Olympic Games buildings: abandoned stadiums and peeling paint telling tales of broken promises and soured dreams. Whatever else might be said about London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park three years after the 2012 Olympics, it is no tumbleweed vista. The broader issue, though, is whether it is helping to provide the kind of legacy the people of east London were promised.

Certainly the Olympic Park itself - all 560 acres of it - is shaping up, filling out and once again inviting the multitudes in. The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) - formed shortly before the Games as the planning authority for the park and its environs - claims that, since it started to reopen two years ago, the park has had more than 4m visits. Neale Coleman, LLDC board chairman and Olympics adviser to London mayor Boris Johnson, says that these include "loads and loads of local people. It really is used by the community and it's going to be even better for them in the future."

The permanent sports venues have led the way. Last March, Zaha Hadid's curvaceous aquatics centre, whose soaring construction costs caused much disquiet when it was being built, became a public facility, with entrance prices pegged to local levels. During the same month, the equally striking velodrome - scene of some of Britain's most memorable medal wins - formally became part of the larger Lee Valley VeloPark, catering for cyclists of all types and abilities.

Compare us with Sydney or Barcelona or Beijing ... They've all struggled, but we're on course to do what we said we would

Neale Coleman

The multi-purpose Copper Box Arena, which hosted handball and other events, had already reopened and is now used by the public and local clubs for an array of indoor sports. Close to it, the former media complex - which for the three weeks of the Games was crammed with journalists and broadcast units - has been renamed as Here East and is to be developed into the digital and creative industry hub always envisaged.

There had been dismay in 2011 when the BBC decided against relocating the EastEnders production operation to Here East from Elstree, and Boris Johnson later came under pressure from within his own ranks to level the site for housing. But BT Sport has become the longed-for glamorous anchor tenant, Loughborough University will set up a postgraduate research centre there, and Hackney Community College will move in to supply apprentices. Commercial tenants are confidently predicted to follow.

Meanwhile, the main Olympic stadium has hosted further leading athletics competitions, with the third-anniversary Games starting tomorrow and featuring 2012 stars Usain Bolt and Mo Farah. The original structure is undergoing a major reconstruction so that it can also become the new home of West Ham United from next August. The conversion costs involved have stirred controversy - £272m, of which the football club will pay just £15m plus annual rent of £2.5m, bringing the final price tag to £702m. But with Rugby World Cup fixtures, community sports days and cultural events to be held there along with Hammers matches, the 54,000-seat bowl seems unlikely to gather dust.

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Not enough people want to go up Anish Kapoor's ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture. Photograph: Paul Thomas/Getty Images

The one fixed feature underperforming so far at the Olympic Park is the ArcelorMittal Orbit, Anish Kapoor's giant coiling red sculpture: not enough people want to go up it. There are plans to lower the entrance fee and attach a giant slide to the side of it.

Depending on your point of view, all this represents grotesque overindulgence or a commendable exception to the usual Olympics rule, which holds that the showcase infrastructure falls into varying degrees of disuse and grand "legacy" pledges go unfulfilled. For Coleman, the positive interpretation clearly applies. "Never mind Athens, compare us with Sydney or Barcelona or Beijing as well. They've all struggled, but we're on course to do what we said we would, and not just with the park and the venues."

Before Johnson became mayor, Coleman worked for his predecessor Ken Livingstone and was involved with the Games bid from its conception in 2003. Livingstone and fellow Labour politicians who argued the case for a London Olympics - primarily the then-culture secretary Tessa Jowell, eventually supported by then-prime minister Tony Blair - argued that an Olympics set in the part of the capital that had historically been its poorest would sharply accelerate an economic rebirth that was desperately required by Londoners who had yet to enjoy much obvious benefit from their city's renewed prosperity since the 1980s.

Livingstone was famously candid. Uninterested in sport and never a big fan of Blair, he characterised the bid as "the only way to get billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End". In 2007, when it was announced that the overall Olympic budget had trebled to £9.3bn, he was moved to reassert that the levy he had been raising on London's council tax-payers to help pay the growing bill represented good value for money - the 38p "bargain" price of a Walnut Whip a week, as he put it, for a Band D household.

[The Olympics bid was] the only way to get billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End

Ken Livingstone

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The Olympic Stadium is undergoing a major reconstruction so that it can become the new home of West Ham United from next August. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

The pros and cons of sinking such substantial public funds into one of Europe's largest regeneration projects can be weighed in many ways but, for Ian Crockford of property developer Lend Lease, it has achieved the legacy goal of drawing investment eastwards. He was project manager of the stadium under the Olympic Delivery Authority, the now defunct body that assembled and cleared the park land and was responsible for the construction of its venues, facilities and infrastructure. Now he is in charge of the creation of a four-million sq ft office area, the International Quarter, beside the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre on the park's south-eastern fringe.

"The location is its winning point," Crockford enthuses, listing its strengths: open space, sports facilities, transport links to central London, lots of restaurants and many shops. The mix of park ingredients has shifted over time, with fewer homes than originally planned for its future five new residential neihgbourhoods but with the addition of a culture and education centre, Olympicopolis. This is expected to begin opening from 2019, and will contain new spac

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London's Olympic legacy three years on: is the city really getting what it needed?

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Some of the starkest images from the financial fall of Greece have been of its 2004 Olympic Games buildings: abandoned stadiums and peeling paint telling tales of broken promises and soured dreams. Whatever else might be said about London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park three years after the 2012 Olympics, it is no tumbleweed vista.

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Inside the London megaport you didn't know existed | Art and design | The Guardian

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Inside the London megaport you didn't know existed | Art and design | The Guardian

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Once the capital's lifeblood, London's docks have long since faded to little more than a garnish of maritime nostalgia on riverside real estate. Where once burly dockers hauled crates of exotic cargo, now bankers engage in international trade of a less visible kind. The physical economy of heaving stuff to and fro has been replaced by the streamlined global flow of finance, conducted in anonymous glass towers.

Or so the story goes.

It might come as a surprise to learn, then, that London's docks are back - on a bigger scale than ever before. Running almost 3km along the Thames estuary is a £1.5bn new megaport that has literally redrawn the coastline of Essex, and wants to make equally radical shifts to the UK's consumer supply chain.

Welcome to DP World London Gateway, the latest international trophy of the oil-rich emirate of Dubai, and one of the biggest privately funded infrastructure projects the UK has ever seen. It is a gargantuan undertaking (on the scale of Crossrail, Terminal 5 or HS2) that's projected to have a bigger economic impact than the Olympics - but you might not even know it was happening. The port has been up and running for almost two years, with two of its six berths now complete and a third well on the way. But, unlike the daily controversy of runways and commuter trains, the cumbersome business of how 90% of our goods reach us from all over the world doesn't tend to impinge on the public psyche.

Satnav certainly hasn't caught up. As we drive out to the sprawling sandy landscape, the blue dot floats out into the Thames, from whose depths this new quayside has been summoned. Over 30 million tonnes of silt was dredged to make this artificial land mass, which extends 400m beyond the original shoreline, a process that saw the largest migration of animals in Europe - with 320,000 newts, water voles and adders relocated to a new nature reserve nearby. The sheer scale is impossible to comprehend from the ground: the facility is twice the size of the City of London.

"You used to be able to see the water from the road," grumbles my taxi driver, as we glide along the pristine tarmac of the privately funded roads from the nearby town of Stanford-le-Hope, past signs for the estuary hamlets of Mucking and Fobbing. "Now they've moved the coast, all we see is sand and cranes."

But what cranes they are. Rising 138m up into the Essex skies, they are the tallest quay cranes in the world - a line of skeletal giants beneath which the London Eye could happily be rolled. Made in China and shipped fully assembled, they are here to lure the world's largest container ships (which are as long as four football pitches end-to-end). Such behemoths, and the 18,000 containers' worth of cargo they can carry, have never stood a chance of making it near the capital, until now. When the port is finished, it will be able to unload six of them at once.

"We're bringing shipping back to where it should be," says Andrew Bowen, the engineering director here since 2004, who oversaw the dredging of a 100km trench along the Thames estuary to make room for these giants of the sea to get closer to the centre of consumption. The location of this vast new enterprise is not simply a question of reviving a lost tradition, but of common-sense logistics. "Currently all cargo comes into Felixstowe or Southampton and is trucked to vast depots in the Midlands, then a lot of it is trucked back to London," says Bowen. "It just doesn't make sense. By being here, we're closer to two-thirds of the UK market, and we have the biggest logistics park in Europe right on our doorstep."

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The Northern Jamboree comes in to dock.

When the port is fully up and running, DP World says it will save 65m HGV miles and take 2,000 trucks off the road per day - a compelling argument for environmental and economic efficiency. The company's business plan addresses a more fundamental change in the supply chain, too. With the rise of inner-city express shops, particularly in south-east England, supermarkets no longer have the onsite storage capacity they once did. London Gateway comes to the rescue with its 230-hectare logistics park (goes the sales pitch), giving the ship-to-warehouse-to-store service in one.

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Enormous tandem-lift cranes load and unload containers.

It's a seductive proposition that lured Marks & Spencer to sign up as one of the first tenants in 2013, with plans for a £200m distribution centre here, until it got cold feet and pulled out a year later, the project taking longer than expected. Undeterred, DP World has built the first showcase shed itself, with another one developed with Prologis about to open, and a "huge deal with a major household name" about to be announced, it says.

The first such shed is already stuffed with aisle upon aisle of children's toys, Sylvanian Families facing off against electric scooters. Last year it was a winter wonderland of Frozen toys. "We unpack these boxes from China and stick on different prices, depending if they're going to Harrods or Argos," the manager tells me candidly, before dashing off to deal with several tonnes of oranges that have just arrived from South Africa.

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Dockers tie up a ship.

We drive further across the Martian landscape, where JCBs are heaving sand to prepare the ground for another chunk of the 100,000 sq m of shed-city that will one day arrive here, and come to an office building that overlooks the docks. Inside, teams of people sit at screens examining what looks like a fiendishly complicated game of Tetris.

Eight hours before each ship arrives, the planning team receives a file that tells them exactly what's on board and where it needs to go. Each file is presented as a series of cross-sectional slices, like a rainbow-coloured CT-scan through the length of the vessel. Thankfully computer algorithms and a handy software programme called Autostow handle the rest, calculating container distribution by various parameters, from weight to port of arrival. The gigantic cranes that get the containers from ship to shore are still manually operated, by a crew that includes the UK's first female quay crane driver, a former beautician from Basildon.

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A distribution shed at DP World London Gateway Port and Logistics Park.

Standing on top of one of the cranes, we look down on spindly-legged shuttle carriers zooming around like creatures from Star Wars, searching for containers to pick up and take back to the stacks that sprawl off into the distance. The stacks are managed by fully automated cranes on rails, which glide around arranging the great piles of containers in the right order for collection, like obsessively tidy robots. Truck collection is automated too: when a vehicle arrives, it is scanned and told which bay to go to, where a robot-crane dutifully loads the correct container, and off it goes - a turnaround which usually happens in less than half an hour. There's a rail line too, which the port hopes will ultimately take 30% of the cargo.

The level of automation allows London Gateway to stay open no matter the weather, when Felixstowe and Southampton are forced to close - another advantage DP World is keen to trumpet, as the new kid on a very established block. "It's a tough time to have opened a brand new facility like this from scratch," says Olaf Merk, ports and shipping expert at the OECD. "There is a lot of extra capacity in Europe, and rates have hit rock bottom, so it's very difficult for a new port to take business away from more established terminals - especially when Felixstowe and Southampton are growing, and Liverpool is opening a deep-sea port too."

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An automated stacking crane and terminal tractor at London Gateway.

He says it will only get harder for London Gateway to attract business, given that the world's major shipping lines are increasingly grouped in a limited number of alliances, which are already committed to existing ports and concentrating on rationalising their services, as their ships grow ever bigger.

Despite the apparent hum of activity, the port isn't yet performing as well as hoped: the main obstacle is that it hasn't yet secured a service from Asia, where the biggest ships come from. (Those toys from China, it turns out, were trucked here from Felixstowe.)

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Another ship arrives at London Gateway.

Still, Neil Davidson, senior analyst at Drewry shipping consultants, is optimistic. "London Gateway is facing the challenges common to any new port," he says. "The big challenge is to convince the supply chain to change its ways. It's facing a lot of inertia and it takes time to build a critical mass, but it's not doing badly. DP World is in it for the long game." He says the port processed 300,000 containers last year, a tiny fraction of the projected 3.5m it hopes to achieve when it is complete, but it's not a bad start for the first full year of operation.

The day I visit, the 330m-long Cap San Antonio has just arrived, laden with meat and wine from South America, soon joined by the Cap Spencer from Australia, carrying more fresh produce and garments from Sri Lanka. So what do we send back in return? Fresh air is Britain's biggest export. Followed by rubbish. Apart from empty containers, paper waste makes up the bulk of what goes the other way. It's shipped, via other ports, to China, where it is turned into boxes that are packed with goods and sent back again. And so the global cycle goes on. Not that you would ever know it was happening, just 20 miles down the river from London.

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Inside the London megaport you didn't know existed

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London Gateway was built by Dubai, is twice the size of the City of London, is run by robots, has the world's largest cranes - and it's where everything you buy will soon come from. London's docks are back in business

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by Benjamin Hennig and Danny Dorling

London has fascinated people for centuries. The city survives by drawing people in. Far too few are born in London to sustain its population. London has always relied on in-migration to survive. Immigration has been essential for London to grow. London has also always needed people to be optimistic to travel to the Capital. It still draws many in with promises for future fortunes to be made.
We tend to only remember life's winners. In the 1350s a boy was born in Pauntly in Gloucestershire and christened Richard. He travelled to London to be an apprentice, he became a master craftsman, then wealthy, and then he became Lord Mayor of London. It was easier then too to become a politician if you had money. In fact he became London Mayor four times over. Only one person can be Mayor at any one time and if someone becomes Mayor more than once that is less opportunity for all the rest, but sadly the rest don't tend to be remembered.
Richard Whittington's story is remembered today by the tale of Dick Whittington, who believed the streets of London to be paved with gold and who went there and did make his fortune. In the past most youngsters travelling to London would never become rich, they simply couldn't. Many would in fact die young from infectious diseases which have always been more prevalent in cities. Those who did not perish young would often live in poverty. However, on average, people moving to London have normally been a little healthier, taller, and had a little more ambition or fantasising about them than those who didn't make that move and this has kept London vibrant and results in a continued influx to the always highly divided city.
How divided is London? A reports released by John Hill's inquiry during 2010 revealed that the richest tenth of Londoners had recourse each to at least 270 times the wealth of the poorest tenth of Londoners. The very worse-off of that richest tenth held at least one million pounds in assets, often this included the value of their property and their future pension rights. Usually these people did not feel very well-off in London because the rest of the best-off tenth of Londoners were mostly so much richer than even they were. London is thought to be the home, and almost certainly contains the second or third of fourth or further homes, of more of the very richest people on the planet than any other city in the world.
We have to say "almost certainly" because the rich tend to be very secretive about their wealth. In contrast, statistics on the poor have usually been easier to obtain, but are still often contentious. London has been known for many years not only as a place of concentration of riches, but also as the home to the single greatest concentration of poverty to be found in Western Europe. This was recognized as long ago as 1987 when it was said that:

"Although the percentage officially unemployed in Greater London is a little smaller than average for Britain the city holds the largest concentration of unemployed in the industrialised world, and the real total is at least 150,000 larger than the total of over 400,000 admitted by the Government."
[Townsend P. with Corrigan P. & Kowarzik U. 1987 p.29]

It is still very much the case today that London contains some of the largest numbers of very poor people in Western Europe, despite being its richest city. In this introduction we'll look at five aspects of inequality in London concerning education, poverty, work, squalor and disease. We'll concentrate on the geographical distributions of these inequality distributions and do this at the ward level, but within each ward there is far more further inequality than is found between wards, so what you see next is just the tip of the iceberg of extremes of life chances to be found today in London. Map 1 shows are the boroughs of London which the wards nest in displayed on an equal population projection in which the map is stretched according to the population distribution. We use this map as a basemap as is gives every Londoner the same amount of space and results in a fairer display of the realities that people live in.

Detailed map views:

If you have ever wondered what the pattern to school exam results looks like by the home location of every child. Map 2 shows this for London. Every ward is coloured by the average capped GCSE score (based on the best 8 results made by each pupil) of children taking those exams who live in that ward. Results tend to be lowest in East London, inner London just south of the river (Lewisham) and up through some particular Haringey and Enfield wards, but there are enclaves of low scores almost everywhere. Areas with high scores being, on average achieved, are harder to come by. They tend to be more common in outer boughs, but also in much Kensington and Chelsea and the southern end of Westminster. Usually there are green and yellow average wards in between these extremes, but not always.

About 1.6 million children live in London who are aged under 16. Almost all those children will take General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams around age 16. Based on recent past performance the average child in London is awarded 337 points for their GCSEs (yellow areas in the map above). These points are for the eight highest marks so could just be better by a child awarded A*, A, B, C, C, C, D and E for the best eight GCSEs as 338=58+52+46+40+40+40+34+28. However, most children do better or worse than that, not many are average.
In London the 160,000 children growing up in the wards where the results are lowest tend to get an average point score of 304, just a fraction over getting 6 C's a D and E. In contrast the same number of children living in the wards where results tend to be highest get an average score of 376, just a little bit better than 4 A's, 2 B's a C and a D.

Figure 1: GCSE scores of school children in London by GCSE decile ward group 2010 (Data source: Greater London Authority 2011)

Figure 1 shows the average scores for each of ten groups of London children. It is worth noting that it is not a straight line relationship. Both the worse and best-off tenth stand out a little. This figure was used to decide how to colour in Map2 (above). Each of the ten groups of wards on that map contains the same number of children, all those with the most similar GCSE results by the area they live in.

How much might the difference between the average GCSE results by London ward be related to the extent of poverty and inequality that school children in London experience? It is harder to do well at school if you family have less, they can buy you fewer or no books and your parents may be less able to help you with your coursework. They might be less likely to have done coursework themselves.
In map 3 we estimate whether children are living in poverty by whether they are either reliant on benefits including child tax credit or are in an out-of-work family. The map below shows where the highest and lowest proportions of children are estimated to be living in poverty and also which areas have average rates of around 20% to 30%. Not that poverty within London is a little more common for children in the Capital than elsewhere in Britain. Housing costs are higher in London and there are many very lowly paid jobs.

The map above and Map 2 do look to show very similar patterns despite one using 10 colour classes and the other just six. On more careful inspect than just eye-balling it does turn out that there is a remarkably smooth relationship between the proportion doing better or worse at the GCSE's by area and poverty. In the worse-off areas by GCSE result (those coloured dark red in Map 2) almost three times as many children (38%) are growing up in poverty than in the best-off areas (13%, in those areas coloured dark blue in Map 2). However, even in the worse-off areas the GCSE results are still remarkably high (see Figure 2). There are entire towns and city in Britain where all children, on average, perform worse than children going to school in the worse-off tenth of London! These include: Norwich (the lowest scoring), Burnley, Portsmouth, King's Lynn in West Norfolk, Northampton, Great Yarmouth, and Ipswich (the highest scoring but still below London's worse-off).

Figure 2: School children in London in poverty % by GCSE decile ward group 2010 (Data source: Greater London Authority 2011)

The map of average pay in London (map 4) helps explain the map of poverty - it is largely low pay that puts households into poverty (see figure 3). Most children living in poverty have a parent living with them who is also earning. There is a campaign in London to spread a "living wage" so that fewer Londoners are only just getting by. It has been successful, but not successful enough yet.

Figure 3: Ward-level child poverty plotted against household income wealth (Data sources: Greater London Authority 2011, Office for National Statistics 2011)

Are a key reason why pay is so high in some areas. Map 5 (below) shows where bankers tend to live within London. These are highly ranked professionals working within the financial sector identified using 2001 census records.
Notice that a minority cluster very near to the towers in Canary Wharf - but not enough to significant alter the average pay of many wads there. Perhaps these are the lower paid bankers living near to work?

Finally - what about life expectancy? It varies too by about 5 years between the extremes. Map 6 (below) shows how this looks on the ground. It is from maps such as this that memorable statements are made about the extent of inequalities in the Capital and what they mean for entire populations who can expect to live much longer or shorter lives.

In recent years life expectancy gaps have been discussed a great deal in London. Figure 4 shows the Jubilee Line gap that illustrates the disparities within central London:

Figure 4: Differences in male life expectancy within a small area in central London (Image source: Kindly provided and printed with permission by the London Health Observatory)

It is well know that London is a very divided city but the spatial divides, even at ward level, are rarely mapped. What is much more common is to hear of the gaps along the tube lines, "a year of life for every stop". It is rarer to look at all places at once. It is even rarer still to consider these inequalities on a map that gives everyone equal space.
A divided London is an unjust London, but London has been divided for many centuries. What is of far greater concern than the divides is ascertaining whether they are growing or shrinking. Determining those changes depends not just on what you measure: exams, poverty, pay, bankers, or death? But also one how you measure it, at what point in time you start and stop, what statistics you use.

This introduction shows you where you need to start - to then begin to see how things are changing.

* Greater London Authority (2011). Ward Profiles 2011. http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/ward-profiles-2011 (last accessed 2011-12-12).
* Humphries, J. and T. Leunig (2007). Was Dick Whittington Taller Than Those He Left Behind? Anthropometric Measures, Migration and the Quality of Life in Early Nineteenth Century London. London, Department of Economic History Working Paper 101, London School of Economics. http://www2.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/workingPapers/economicHistory/2007.aspx (last accessed 2011-12-12).
* Office for National Statistics (2011). Neighbourhood Statistics. http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/Download1.do (last accessed 2011-12-12).
* Townsend, P., Corrigan P. and U. Kowarzik (1987). Poverty and labour in London: interim report of a centenary survey, Survey of Londoners' Living Standards no.1, Low pay Unit, Low Pay Unit and Poverty Research Trust, London.

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by Benjamin Hennig and Danny Dorling London has fascinated people for centuries. The city survives by drawing people in. Far too few are born in London to sustain its population. London has always relied on in-migration to survive. Immigration has been essential for London to grow.

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Are London's skyscrapers good for the city? | FT World

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►Subscribe to the Financial Times on YouTube; http://bit.ly/FTimeSubs The city's skyline has been transformed by startling glass-and-steel structures during the past decade - but are these towers right for London? Edwin Heathcote looks for answers.

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I left London in 2002 more or less by accident. A cousin had casually mentioned that you could get a decent flat in Paris for £60,000, so I crossed the Channel and bought one. I didn't plan to live in it, but it felt like compensation for never having bought in London. A few months later, after my London flat-share hit trouble, I tried Paris for a spring. I'm still here, now accompanied by a wife and three Parisian children.

But thoughts of returning to London do occasionally surface. The place looks better than I can ever remember it, and the Brexit vote has deflated property prices a touch. Warren Buffett says: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." So post-Brexit might be the time to buy a share in London. Yet even if the city becomes cheaper, I still don't see that it makes sense for a family.

London starts out with three strikes against: high costs, bad weather and a sprawling expanse that means getting around can take for ever. High costs have a particularly damaging knock-on effect: for most Londoners, money becomes an obsession. You need lots of it to afford a decent life here, so you spend lots of time thinking about money. That's why so many middle-class London conversations are, famously, about house prices. As John Lanchester, author of the novel Capital, has remarked, the most frightening words in the English language aren't "I had a very interesting dream last night" (Oscar Wilde's candidate) but "Did you hear how much they got for that house down the road?"

Median Londoners don't have much money left after paying for their housing, but they keep bumping into rich people. One evening in my late twenties I went out with an old friend, an investment banker, who let slip over cheap Chinese food that he was on a "seven-figure package". I suddenly felt depressed about my own perfectly decent income.

In Paris I don't meet many millionaires. The real luxury in life is not money, but not having to think about money, and that state of being is more attainable in Paris than in London.

Brexit may have the unintended consequence of reducing the role of money in London life. If some rich people like my banker friend are pushed abroad, there will be more air for people like me. However, even before Brexit happens, it is already tarnishing London's biggest asset: its openness to the world.

London's era of peak openness only began about 20 years ago. In 1993 the EU legally became a single market, making it easier for continental Europeans to live in London. The Eurostar opened a year later, and then easyJet and Ryanair connected the city to places all over Europe. Meanwhile, London's financial industry was becoming more global, and the money sucked in people from everywhere.

How serious is the threat - and might there even be some opportunities?

But in the debate over Brexit - even before the vote for it in June - the British public sent an unmistakable signal to the government that it wanted less openness. I can already see the consequences in my own little working world. As a columnist, I'm always looking for ideas. I often try to find them at conferences.

However, since 2015 the rules governing visiting conference speakers seem to have tightened: in many cases, those from outside the EU now need a work permit to give even one paid talk at one conference. I can't see most speakers bothering. Either they will break the law and pretend they are tourists, or London's many conferences are going to get less varied.

The mayor on the capital's global rivals, self-rule, terrorism and that tricky third runway

Another good place to steal ideas is academia. Since the 1990s, British universities have filled up with excellent academics from everywhere. But imagine a German academic who gets an offer of tenure at a British university now. The department trying to hire her might already be losing its European grants. Then she has to guess: will British employment rules change after Brexit? Can her German spouse make a career in London? Families have to make decisions for the long term, and the Brexit vote has deprived London of another of its biggest assets: predictable long-term stability.

London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, knows that his battle will be to keep the capital open. He may even succeed, especially once the rest of the UK realises how dependent it is on London's tax revenues.

But for now I prefer to be two hours, 15 minutes by train from London. In a few days' time I'll be whizzing over again. I will run around meeting work contacts, then have dinner with a group of friends (none of whom live in London any more, mostly because it's too expensive). The next day I'll attend a festival, then go back to raising a family in Paris.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

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Post-Brexit London may be less open - and less money-obsessed

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I left London in 2002 more or less by accident. A cousin had casually mentioned that you could get a decent flat in Paris for £60,000, so I crossed the Channel and bought one. I didn't plan to live in it, but it felt like compensation for never having bought in London.

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London's population at record high - Feb. 2, 2015

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London's population at record high - Feb. 2, 2015

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It's official: London is bigger than ever.

The population of the city has passed its previous record of 8.6 million, which dates back to 1939.

London went into decline for 50 years following the outbreak of World War II but has bounced back over the past quarter of a century to become what mayor Boris Johnson calls "the best big city in the world."

Here are seven amazing statistics about the fastest growing city in the West:

1. Talent influx: As the financial capital of Europe, London attracts thousands of high-skilled migrants every year. It was named the talent capital of the world in 2013 by Deloitte.

2. Booming economy: Robust growth in the technology and creative industries, a recovery in financial services, and booming housing market are powering London forward. Its economy was recently crowned the fastest growing in the western world.

3. Big money: London has more billionaires than any other city in the world -- 72. It beats Moscow with 48 billionaires, while New York has 43.

4. Pricey homes: The influx of rich has left its mark on London's property market, which is now worth as much as Brazil's annual economic output.

5. Moving around: More Londoners means more pressure on transport. 24 million journeys are made every day across the capital, many in overcrowded subways.

6. Still growing: The UK capital is expected to continue growing -- its population is forecast to reach 9 million by 2021 and 11 million by 2050.

7. Not big enough: In 1939, London was the biggest city in the world. Despite its growth, it doesn't even make the top 10 world cities today.

CNNMoney (London) First published February 2, 2015: 7:18 AM ET

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The population of the city has passed its previous record of 8.6 million, which dates back to 1939. London went into decline for 50 years following the outbreak of World War II but has bounced back over the past quarter of a century to become what mayor Boris Johnson calls "the best big city in the world."

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Is London Europe's cultural capital? - CNN.com

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Is London Europe's cultural capital? - CNN.com

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is london europe's cultural capital? - cnn

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London's Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic tackles the big question on the creative sector's mind.

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Demographic trends in London | Londonmapper

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Demographic trends in London | Londonmapper

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by Benjamin Hennig and Danny Dorling

Summary

1) London is getting younger,
2) the rate of increase is even higher amongst the very youngest (0-2 year olds),
3) Most of them are living out East and the rate of increase has been greatest in the East,
4) Are public bodies able to provide adequate resources to meet the needs of this young population?

Between the last two censuses the largest increase in school-aged children in the UK was in London. Mid year estimate for more recent years present an even greater increase. Between 2002 and 2012 the number of children ages 0 to 15 in the capital rose from around 1.5 million to 1.7 million, an increase of 15%. The largest increases in children living in any particular wards were recorded in Thamesmead Moorings (Greenwich); Woolwich Riverside (Greenwich); East Acton (Ealing); Canning Town South (Newham); Gascoigne (Barking); Kilburn (Camden); and Stratford (Newham). In general the increase in children living in London has been greatest in the East, and it has been greater than for other age groups.
View map details
Proportionately, in both Barking & Dagenham to the East, and Westminster in the centre an extra 1 in every 100 residents of each borough were school-aged children in 2011 as compared to the proportion of that age group in 2001. These were the largest two increases in the country between census years but left those two boroughs with very different shares of their population being of these ages: 23% in Barking & Dagenham but just 13% in Westminster were aged 4 to 18 by 2012 (note that many young people are still at school at age 18). In absolute terms these two boroughs had similar increases of 6,660, and 6,575 respectively - enough extra children in each to require two extra 10 form secondary schools and many more primaries in each borough. But these are not the largest absolute increases that were experienced across all of the capital as the map above makes clear. Across the capital as a whole some 117,000 extra school-aged children had to be catered for (net). The map above also includes children too young to yet go to school. There has been a very large increase in children below school age living in London: a rise of 76,000 in the number of children aged under 3 between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, or 26%.

In the map the actual wards where the extra children of all ages are to be found have been made the size of the extra population of children. In contrast, the map below show those parts of London which have seen a decrease in children. These wards have only seen a reduction of 13,250 children in total between 2002 and 2012 and so you could draw the map quite small here to make it comparable with that above, but it is then harder to see the patterns. It should be noted that the biggest fails have been in some very affluent places such as Lancaster Gate as well as areas rapidly becoming more affluent such as (Hackney Central ward and Kings Cross ward).
View map details
One reason for the general increase in children in London might be that families that would normally have migrated outwards between 2002 and 2012 were not able to due to the housing market crash of 2008. However there is also rapid churn in London as the proportion of children who are renting privately increase and so it is hard to be precise about the mechanisms. If families who might have moved out do stay for longer, their children are more likely to become settled and now they are less likely to move if they can avoid moving. One reason for the fall in the areas shown above is that the power of gentrification in these places was so great that even though many more families with children needed to stay in London during this period because of the housing crisis, and despite their demand for space, they could be squeezed out of these areas due to just having less money than people without children who wanted to buy or rent property here.

When we draw a map of London showing the proportion of children living in each place in 2012, such as that shown below, it becomes clear that children - despite growing greatly in number in the capital - are still very strongly squeezed out of the centre of London and that the greatest concentration of young people is now in the East. The cartogram below uses the overall population of the capital to create the underlying map projection in which each grid square is made proportional to the population of all ages living in that square. After that resizing, the square is coloured in according to whether the ward the square falls in has a high (blue), low (yellow) or average (green) proportion of children living in that area.
View map details
Compare the map above with the map below which shows which areas have the highest and lowest proportion of people of working age in them. It looks just like the mirror image of the map of children, but in fact it overlaps a lot because it is usually working-age people who have and live with children. This map uses exactly the same base map as that directly above.
View map details
To complete this trilogy here is where most older people live - on the edge or in the very centre:
View map details
The population who are older (aged 65 or over) is almost static in the capital, so as a proportion of the population their share is falling. In 2002 some 0.89 million Londoners were aged 65+; by 2012 that figure had increased to just 0.90 million. However this small change disguises a much bigger shift in where older people live in London, with growing numbers of people of retirement age living in areas like Knightsbridge and Belgravia (which had one of the top ten increases in the 65+ population of any ward in the Capital). In those areas where it rose, the elderly population increased by over 51,000 people in total in these areas:
View map details
The working-age population fell in many of these same areas, still concentrated in the West End, but also in a string of wards to be found just south of the river. The map below shows where it fell, but note that it fell by only 14,000, so by less than the influx of older people into these more atypical parts of London. The building of new office space along the Thames have also have displaced people.
View map details
The 65+ population fell by 41,750 in a different set of areas (not shown) - but similar to where the working-age population of London increased the most in this period (shown below), which was towards the centre and the East, but not much in the West. The map below represents areas sized by where the net increase of over half a million working-age people occurred. The largest increase of all was an extra 7,800 adults aged 18-64 squeezing into Millwall ward, taking its population up to 18,600 by 2012. This is a 72% increase in just a decade and all occurring within that U shaped loop of the river Thames made so famous by the opening credits of East Enders.
View map details
London is changing it demographic shape, but not so rapidly that it quickly becomes unrecognisable. Comparing London as shaped by its children, working age, and elderly populations, shows us some striking differences. Those differences have highlighted in the maps above, and the changes that are helping to bring them about has been focussed on; but the 2012 maps are not that very different from those that could be drawn a decade earlier. The working-age population has risen from 5.0 to 5.5 million, a 10% rise in just 10 years. The proportion of children rose even faster, from 1.47 to 1.68 million, or by 15% in those ten years. In contrast the increase amongst older people has been just 1% in over the same decade.

The table below taken from the UK Census shows the boroughs of London sorted by how great the increase in children aged under 3 has been in % terms, followed by the numbers of babies and toddlers in each area in both 2001 and 2011 and the total change in absolute numbers of children who needed midwives, health visitors, social workers, nursery teachers and who will need primary school teachers, space to play, youth centres, youth services and so much more in the very near future. Much of which is being cut due to austerity.

Only in Kensington and Chelsea are the numbers of very young children actually falling. This is in the one London borough that makes the least use of many state services, especially when it comes to schools and hospitals. Demography matters.

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by Benjamin Hennig and Danny Dorling Summary 1) London is getting younger, 2) the rate of increase is even higher amongst the very youngest (0-2 year olds), 3) Most of them are living out East and the rate of increase has been greatest in the East, 4) Are public bodies able to provide adequate resources to meet the needs of this young population?

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[ARCHIVED CONTENT] UK Government Web Archive – The National Archives

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[ARCHIVED CONTENT] UK Government Web Archive – The National Archives

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[ARCHIVED CONTENT] UK Government Web Archive - The National Archives

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IMF Access Framework, easy access to web archives

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Apple to create London home at Battersea Power Station - BBC News

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Apple to create London home at Battersea Power Station - BBC News

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Technology giant Apple is to make Battersea Power Station the home of its new London headquarters.

The famed Grade II listed building, which features four towering chimneys, is currently undergoing a multibillion-pound restoration.

The firm will become the largest office tenant at the former electricity generator, with 1,400 staff across six floors in the central boiler house.

An Apple spokesperson called the move a "great opportunity" for the company.

It said it would mean "its entire team [could] work and collaborate in one location while supporting the renovation of a neighbourhood rich with history".

The former coal-fired power station has stood unoccupied for decades on the banks of the River Thames.

Rob Tincknell, Battersea Power Station Development Company's CEO, said the new headquarters would "undoubtedly help" turn the area into "one of London's most thriving new communities".
For more stories about England's unusual homes and buildings, follow BBC England's Pinterest board
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said Apple's decision was "a further sign that London is open to the biggest brands in the world", while Chancellor Philip Hammond called it "another vote of confidence in the UK economy".

Dato' Johan Ariffin, chairman of Battersea Holding Company Limited, said: "This move by a brand of such calibre will serve to generate even more interest in Battersea."

Apple employees will move from various London offices into the building in 2021, taking up 40% of the space within the power station.

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Apple to open Battersea Power Station HQ

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Technology giant Apple is to make Battersea Power Station the home of its new London headquarters. The famed Grade II listed building, which features four towering chimneys, is currently undergoing a multibillion-pound restoration. The firm will become the largest office tenant at the former electricity generator, with 1,400 staff across six floors in the central boiler house.

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London's population high: Top metropolis facts - BBC News

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London's population high: Top metropolis facts - BBC News

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London's population has hit 8.6m people, according to the Greater London Authority - and the last time it was that big was 76 years ago. The metropolis is already Europe's largest city and the 6th richest place on Earth. Here are some key facts about the capital.

1. Fastest growing borough

Tower Hamlets in east London is expected to see the fastest growth according to the Greater London Authority's (GLA) figures. Between 2015 and 2039 its population is forecast to grow by 101,000. Newham will see predicted growth of 91,000 between 2015 and 2039. Followed by Barnet which expects to see growth of 76,000 between 2015-2039.

2. Largest growth

Hillingdon is the borough projected to see the largest growth. In 1939 there were 159,000 residents. By 2039 there will be 316,000 people living there - a rise of 82%. Havering closely follows with an increase of 80%. In 1939 there were 139,000 residents but by 2039 there will be 291,000 people living there.

3. Water, water everywhere

To cope with 8.6m Londoners, Thames Water has 10,000 miles of pipes under the city and deals with 4.4bn litres of wastewater per day. The company reports that Londoners use 10% more water a day than anywhere else in the UK.

London's sewerage network was built following a series of outbreaks of cholera that killed 40,000 people in the first half of the 19th Century - the Victorians believed the disease was contracted through airborne "miasma" due to sewage in the open air.

The sewers overflow on a weekly basis, flushing 39m tonnes of raw sewage straight into the Thames each year. To cope with the growing population a £4.2bn, 15-mile (25km) long "super sewer" - officially known as the Thames Tideway Tunnel - should be operational by 2023.

4. Buses, trains and automobiles

The capital's masses need to get around and London Underground set new historic records for passenger numbers at the end of last year - a record 4.725m in one day during November, beating the 4.5m recorded during the London 2012 Games. London's red buses are now dealing with 6.25m passenger journeys every day, the highest demand since the late 1950s according to Transport for London.

Meanwhile the London Drivers Association reports there are 24,500 cabbies picking-up and dropping-off across the city.

5. The decline and rise of inner London

The GLA figures show inner London's population dropped between the 1940s and late 1980s. In Westminster, the population stood at 347,000 in 1939 but fell to 172, 000 by 1988. In 2011 it increased again to 219,000. Tower Hamlets, meanwhile, fell from 419,000 in 1939 to 159,000 in 1988. However, by 2011 it had shot up again to 254,000. The overall inner London population was 4.4m in 1939, had declined to 2.5m by 1988 but returned to 3.2m by 2011.

The post-1939 decline in London's population has been attributed in part to the Blitz and evacuations during World War 2, and the construction of new towns that followed.

6. London's packed classrooms

London, unlike anywhere else in the country, is a graduate economy. According to the Office for National Statistics, 60% of the working-age population in inner London has a degree.

In terms of the diversity of the population, more than 80% of children in inner London primary schools are from ethnic minorities and more than half do not speak English as a first language.

7. Slowest growth

The City of London is in line for the slowest growth. Between 2015 and and 2039 its population is forecast to grow by 4,000 people.

Richmond has the second slowest population increase, where the number of people is expected to expand by 15,000 between 2015 and 2039, while Sutton follows with a predicted 19,000 increase.

8. All squeezed in...

The total area of London is 1,572 sq km (607 sq m) with a population density of 5,491 people per sq km.

9. Hatched and dispatched

According to GLA figures there were 131,011 births in 2013 - that's 359 babies born each day.

And during 2013, some 48,078 Londoners died - equivalent to 132 people passing away each day.

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London's population has hit 8.6m people, according to the Greater London Authority - and the last time it was that big was 76 years ago. The metropolis is already Europe's largest city and the 6th richest place on Earth. Here are some key facts about the capital.

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Apple's New £9 Billion HQ To Be Built at Battersea Power Station - YouTube

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Apple's New £9 Billion HQ To Be Built at Battersea Power Station - YouTube

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Battersea Power Station Redevelopment HD

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Battersea Power Station Construction Simulation

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Battersea Power Station ... Nacho O'Leary #dayinalifeatbps

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Apple's New £9 Billion HQ To Be Built at Battersea Power Station

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Apple is set to become the largest tenant at Battersea Power Station after the grade II listed building's multibillion pound restoration.

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The City of London - Money and Power 1 of 2 - BBC Documentary - YouTube

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The City of London - Money and Power 1 of 2 - BBC Documentary - YouTube

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The City of London - Money and Power 1 of 2 - BBC  Documentary

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The City of London - Money and Power 1 of 2 - BBC Documentary , recorded 19.02.2011 Today I watched a Documentary on BBC. Title: The City of London: Money & Power Salient Features Narrated were: 1) London City is Run by and belongs to Bankers and Merchants.

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The City of London - Money and Power 2 of 2 - BBC Documentary - YouTube

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The City of London - Money and Power 2 of 2 - BBC Documentary - YouTube

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The Future of Banking And Finance Careers

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The Phenomenon of Money and Human Psychology

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The City of London - Money and Power 2 of 2 - BBC  Documentary

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The City of London - Money and Power 2 of 2 - BBC Documentary, recorded 19.02.2011 Today I watched a Documentary on BBC. Title: The City of London: Money & Power Salient Features Narrated were: 1) London City is Run by and belongs to Bankers and Merchants.

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A World City is a city that is a major centre for finance, trade, business, politics, culture, science information gathering and mass media. It is one that serves the whole world and can be considered an important multinational city.

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Every race, colour, nation and religion on earth | UK news | The Guardian

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Every race, colour, nation and religion on earth | UK news | The Guardian

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London in 2005 is uncharted territory. Never have so many different kinds of people tried living together in the same place before. What some people see as the great experiment of multiculturalism will triumph or fail here.

New York and Toronto would contest the cosmopolitan crown, but London's case is strong. According to the last census, in 2001, 30% of London residents had been born outside England - that's 2.2 million people, to which we can add the unknown tens of thousands who didn't complete a census form. And even this total takes no account of the contribution of the city's second- and third-generation immigrants, many of whom have inherited the traditions of their parents and grandparents. Throughout the 1990s, Greater London was the fastest growing part of the UK - and yet the white population in that time actually fell.

Altogether, more than 300 languages are spoken by the people of London, and the city has at least 50 non-indigenous communities with populations of 10,000 or more. Virtually every race, nation, culture and religion in the world can claim at least a handful of Londoners.

Yet life in the capital is hardly one great coffee-coloured carnival. Few lofty social ideals can be observed in Victoria station at 8am. Indeed, as Gosia remarked, Londoners are notable for their lack of warmth. Their city is a place of business; they have the fewest public holidays in Europe and work by far the longest hours. But London's decade of prosperity has pulled in hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world and started a great convection current within the UK, sucking youth and energy in from the provinces and leaking spent fortysomethings back out into the countryside. On the whole, people come to London for the money. But money is not why they stay.

Language is one reason; fluency in English is a great gift for one's children. Then there are the many refugees, who arrive expecting to return home, but find, over time, that home has come with them. "People don't treat you as a foreigner, but you feel it yourself," said one Somali man of his first trip back after 15 years in London. "You see things like spiders and snakes that used to be normal, but when you go back you are scared. You become westernised, although you don't realise it."

But there is another, more surprising reason why people make their homes in London: Londoners themselves. Bilsen, a 40-year-old Turkish woman, couldn't understand the frosty atmosphere when she first arrived. "When you're on the underground, people don't talk," she explained with horror. "They don't even make eye contact." Quickly, however, the benefits of being left alone began to become apparent. "Like the English say, 'Mind your own business'," Bilsen remarked with approval.

In fact, London's haughty denizens have been waiting for their new neighbours for centuries. This is because of one traditional feature of English life: not something it offers, but something it lacks. It is the great need which has left every Londoner stickyfingered for life. It is food. New immigrants often find that food is the first thing they miss from back home. Thus a parade of good restaurants - usually on high streets, usually with patriotic signage - is the focus around which most new communities begin to express themselves. This is true all over the world, but the British seem to have a unique affinity for foreign food of every kind - so much so that, like tea, they quickly adopt it as their own. The ersatz exoticism of a chicken tikka masala is unmistakably English, and the ubiquitous doner column, a respectable dinner in Istanbul reduced to little more than binge fuel in London, now scarcely registers as foreign.

Londoners' enthusiasm for foreign food creates thousands of jobs for immigrants and makes the establishment of new communities that much easier. Every big city in the world has its Chinatown, but in London, one can dine on food from more than 70 different countries - and then buy the ingredients to make it all again at home. (There are many north Africans in France, but have you ever tried finding coriander in a Carrefour?) There is a good reason for all this. Other European nations have their own strong culinary traditions; the British don't. We have our own simple recipes, of course, but few people these days care to make them. Even our words for places to eat - restaurant and cafe - had to be borrowed from French in the 19th century.

In fact, the mongrel English, fissured with post-imperial self-doubt, neither American nor fully European - nor even Welsh, Irish or Scots - have a rather thin national identity all round. We are proud of our country, but we can't remember why. In Londoners - who seldom have a word of praise for the great city of their birth - this is especially pronounced. The private English also seem less susceptible to big ideas. Our national religion is perhaps the weakest in the world, and in the 2001 census almost 16% of Londoners said they had "no religion" at all - more than all the Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists put together. Londoners resent immigrants less than they might, in short, because they have so few values left to be threatened.

Some, like the Queen in her Christmas message, call this tolerance. I'm not so sure. Having asked everyone I met in the course of this investigation how they got along with their "English" neighbours, I have few problems to report. The picture that emerges is of a broadly tolerant city, but toleration is about as far as it goes. Indifference might be a better description. The days when a man in a turban could stop traffic are behind us, but the days when the average Londoner knows why he wears it are yet to come.

And we will not get there if we forget that thousands of Londoners persecuted immigrants enthusiastically throughout the 20th century. Jews and Germans were early targets, followed by Afro-Caribbeans, whose homes were besieged and petrol-bombed by white mobs throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s. And then we come to the skinheads and paki-bashers, many of whom now call themselves the BNP - a party that is still represented on Barking and Dagenham council today.

So when hostility is the usual alternative, perhaps indifference is not such a bad thing. Taxi-drivers do not become multiculturalists overnight, just as migrants do not magically turn into Englishmen at baggage reclaim. Indeed, almost every naturalised immigrant I met referred quite comfortably to native Londoners of all races as "English people". White liberals would throw up their hands at this; white nationalists would heartily approve.

This reveals the insidiousness of the Tebbit test, which insinuates that a person's sporting allegiance betrays their national allegiance. Every person I asked, when forced to choose, said they would prefer their country of birth to win against England in the World Cup final, but only just. One Portuguese man I spoke to said he was very upset when England and Portugal were drawn against each other in Euro 2004 because then he knew one of his teams would be knocked out.

The real lesson here is that you cannot erase a person's attachment to their country of birth, but nor should you try. This, combined with the availability of work, is the source of London's great appeal. People do not come here to become English, in the way that they go to New York to become Americans. People come to London to be themselves - their children and grandchildren can be English if they want.

Londoners don't tolerate our city's diversity so much as ignore it. And where there is ignorance, intolerance can quickly be fomented. In fact, this happens all the time. One of the most unpleasant facts that arose from this investigation was that every community had a story of media misrepresentation to tell. Lurid falsehoods, it seems, are still the best way of getting Londoners to take any interest in the qat-chewing, dog-eating, drug-running family of terrorists next door. Somehow, it is only when foreigners are problematic that we want to read about them.

The following articles are based on brief visits and should not form the basis of any new generalisations; instead, it is hoped that they will help to undermine some of the old ones. One principle, however, was confirmed and reconfirmed by every encounter. Vietnamese, Somalis, Congolese, Koreans, Portuguese, Nigerians, Turks and Poles are really just the same as everybody else - they work hard, love their kids and move to the suburbs when they can afford it.
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Every race, colour, nation and religion on earth

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London in 2005 can lay claim to being the most diverse city ever. Leo Benedictus has spent months travelling across the capital, locating and visiting the immigrant communities that give the city its vibrancy and, more importantly, its food. Here he profiles some of the more unexpected of them.

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Non-white British population reaches 9.1 million | Society | The Guardian

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Non-white British population reaches 9.1 million | Society | The Guardian

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The non-white British population of England and Wales has grown from 6.6 million in 2001 to 9.1 million in 2009 - nearly one in six of the population.

Figures giving a detailed ethnic breakdown for each of the 423 local authorities were published on Wednesday in an "experimental" data release from the Office for National Statistics. They also show there are now almost a million mixed-race people in the two countries.

The white British population has stayed the same since 2001; there has been an increase in births, but there has also been a similar number of people migrating.

The non-white British population has grown by 4.1% a year, adding up to 37.4% growth - 2.5 million - over the whole period. The only group to shrink is the white Irish population - down from 646,600 in 2001 to 574,200, due to falling birthrates and migration.

A rise in the "other white" population from 1.4 million to 1.9 million is not simply due to eastern Europeans arriving, said the ONS statistician responsible for the report, but also because of the arrival of people from Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand.

The mixed-race population is up nearly 50% to almost a million for the first time - up from 672,000 in 2001 to 986,600 in 2009. A third are mixed African-Caribbean and white, followed by Asian/white. The ONS said this was not a result of increasing birthrates but because "the population is mixing up more". Haringey, north London, has the highest proportion, at 4.4%.

In 225 local authority areas, more than 90% of the local population is white. That figure is highest in Wales and north-east England. The whitest borough is Blaenau Gwent in Wales, where 96.5% of the population is white British, followed by Copeland in Cumbria, where 96.3% of the population is white.

Brent, in north London, is the most ethnically diverse borough. Just over a third of its population counts as white British, with large mixed-race, Asian, black and Irish communities making up the rest. "Community cohesion is a priority," said Brent council leader Ann John, "As a result, Brent is a vibrant place to live and work, a beacon to the rest of the world."

But some groups expressed fears about the "changing face of Britain". Sir Andrew Green, of MigrationWatch UK, said: "If immigration continues at this rate, our population will hit 70 million within 20 years and immigrants will account for half of new households. We are already feeling the pressures on maternity units and schools. This rise is part of Labour's legacy. Whether they meant to or not, they changed the face of Britain forever."

The figures, published for the third year running, are based by the ONS on fertility rates and death rates, and migration around the country and abroad.

The ONS does not compile figures for Scotland or Northern Ireland, which have their own statistics bodies.
Topics

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Non-white British population reaches 9.1 million

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The non-white British population of England and Wales has grown from 6.6 million in 2001 to 9.1 million in 2009 - nearly one in six of the population. Figures giving a detailed ethnic breakdown for each of the 423 local authorities were published on Wednesday in an "experimental" data release from the Office for National Statistics.

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Why Multicultural Communities Are What Makes London (and Britain) Great - and Why We Must Protect Them | The Huffington Post

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Why Multicultural Communities Are What Makes London (and Britain) Great - and Why We Must Protect Them | The Huffington Post

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Whilst competing on The Voice, Tom Jones gave me the nickname 'The Singing Politician', which is due in no small part to growing up in one of the most multicultural communities on the planet.

I spent my childhood in Hackney: an amazing smorgasbord of ethnicities that includes Irish travellers, West Indian, African, Indian, Chinese and White British communities (and that's just the tip of the iceberg). Although pitted as a fairly 'edgy' area by some; I can't imagine a more enriching place in which to learn how to become an adult.

Just popping for a casual shopping trip in the area is like going around the world and back again: from the incredible fusion of West Indian and Western food and delicious world spices at Ridley Road Market, to the fascinating Jewish communities at Stamford Hill.

It's a veritable melting pot of trends, music and culture. The area has produced a diverse array of talent who are widely celebrated today; from esteemed writer (Edgar Allen Poe), to top businessmen (Alan Sugar) and even man-of-the-moment Idris Elba. Local institutions like the 115 year old Hackney Empire has helped provide platforms for this multicultural talent over the years, and the Industrial and Jungle electronic music genres even originated from the area.

My family are of Guyanese descent, so naturally I've adopted many cultural traditions from the country. But my family's customs are by no means the only ones that I embraced whilst growing up in the area. For example there's a large Turkish community in the borough, and one of my fondest childhood memories is learning how to speak the language at school.

There are several studies suggesting that multiculturalism makes us smarter and more creative; and I can attest that being part of such a varied community provided me with some amazing opportunities whilst growing up - such as being elected in to the Diversity Office for the Hackney Youth Parliament, or learning the ropes at the Artist Development Program at the Hackney Empire. The experience I gained from meeting and talking to such a varied group of people has made me the person I am today: much more than anything that could be gleaned from a text book.

This sense of sharing and learning from the world's cultures applies to the whole of London: from the curry houses of Tooting to the canals of Little Venice. But London (and the country, for that matter), is rapidly changing. And not for the better.

All around the capital, high rise council flats that have been home so many for so long are now seen as eyesores; whilst new million pound flat developments are being built just around the corner. Whole communities are losing this very sense of multiculturalism that is essential to their identity, as they are priced further and further out of London.

Whilst it's fantastic that there's been so much investment in more disadvantaged boroughs of London, it's hard to deny that this is for the benefit of a privileged few - not the people who have lived there for years and made the area what it is today. Put simply: if an area is going to be developed, it needs to be for the benefit of the whole community, not just those with money to spend.

And there are similar concerns brewing with self-expression too. France's headline grabbing ban on the burqa is prompting debates about whether we should adopt the same policy, for example - so where do we draw the line? When will it become unacceptable to watch a certain film, or like a particular band? We should be embracing these cultural differences (as we have been for years), not shying away from them.

What makes Britain (and London) 'Great' is that it houses such a tolerant culture that accepts and embraces people from all walks of life. It also isn't afraid to adopt traditions and lessons learned from these cultures, and then transform them into something that is inherently 'British'. This very sense of tolerance and diversity is on the line, and as a nation I fear we risk losing ourselves.
Jermain Jackman will speak at the upcoming TEDxEastEnd 'Society Beyond Borders' on 30th January 2016 at Hackney Empire. Please visit http://www.tedxeastend.com/event2016/ for more information and to buy tickets.

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Why Multicultural Communities Are What Makes London (and Britain) Great - and Why We Must Protect Them

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Whilst competing on The Voice, Tom Jones gave me the nickname 'The Singing Politician', which is due in no small part to growing up in one of the most multicultural communities on the planet. I spent my childhood in Hackney: an amazing smorgasbord of ethnicities that includes Irish travellers, West Indian, African, Indian, Chinese and White British communities (and that's just the tip of the iceberg).

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Getting to know multicultural London | The Times

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Getting to know multicultural London | The Times

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Embracing London is about much more than getting to grips with Britishness: the UK's capital is one the world's most multicultural cities. Roman soldiers, Huguenot silkweavers, Jamaican airmen, Bangladeshi sailors and a whole host of other people from around the world have helped to shape its history and its future.

"London is a city that has been going for so long that multiculturalism has become a habit," said Georgina Young, a senior curator of contemporary history at the Museum of London. "There are communities here from pretty much everywhere in the world. During the London Olympics we discovered that there were people from every competing country already living here."

The best way to learn about London is to get out and experience it by talking...

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Embracing London is about much more than getting to grips with Britishness: the UK's capital is one the world's most multicultural cities. Roman soldiers, Huguenot silkweavers, Jamaican airmen, Bangladeshi sailors and a whole host of other people from around the world have helped to shape its history and its future.

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For the first time since A.T. Kearney’s first Global Cities Index in 2008, London has overtaken New York to claim this year’s top spot.  This year, London performed better in two of the five dimensions: cultural exchange and business activity. Even though New York maintained its top position in human capital, London closed the gap. London has also seen noticeable improvement in information exchange, while New York’s political engagement has dropped 10 percent as London’s has increased 33 percent.

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Rule Britannia: London overtakes New York as the world's best financial centre - Telegraph

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Rule Britannia: London overtakes New York as the world's best financial centre - Telegraph

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London received a substantial boost from the Conservative victory in May's general election, the Global Financial Centres Index report said. Labour, led at the time by Ed Miliband, was notably more hostile to business in the run-up to the vote.

The rejection of independence by Scottish voters was also a positive, with foreigners assessing the stability of London and Britain as a place to do business.

The depth and breadth of business activity also helped, with the strength of the professional services and insurance industries alongside banking giving London a boost in the rankings.

All the finance professionals surveyed ranked London very highly, indicating that it is a stable place to work.

Meanwhile, the biggest climber in the top 10 is Toronto, which moved up three spaces to be ranked eight in the table.

But the fastest mover in the top 20 is Dubai, which rocketed up seven spaces in the annual rankings to claim the 16th slot globally.

The plunging oil price caused major stock price falls in late 2014, but the emirate is still the Middle East's premier financial centre and appears to be bouncing back after tumbling down the rankings last year.

The study found that respondents from Eastern Europe, North America and the Middle East were particularly favourable towards London, while those in Asia-Pacific, Western Europe and Latin America are less keen on the City's dominance.

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Rule Britannia: London overtakes New York as the world's best financial centre

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London received a substantial boost from the Conservative victory in May's general election, the Global Financial Centres Index report said. Labour, led at the time by Ed Miliband, was notably more hostile to business in the run-up to the vote.

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The City of London faces up to the future beyond Brexit

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The City of London faces up to the future beyond Brexit

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Up until June 23, London was pretty sure of its place in the world. Building on its centuries-old position as a trading hub, it had become increasingly confident as a cultural centre as well as, in recent years, a hotbed of technological innovation.

The referendum vote in favour of Britain's exit from the EU pulled the rug from beneath the feet of the city - one of the few parts of the UK that had voted definitively (in its case, 60 per cent to 40 per cent) in favour of remaining part of the bloc.

Though it will take years to discover and negotiate exactly what Brexit means in practice, many Londoners felt an instant instability, both personally and professionally - and on two fronts: the uncertain outlook for Britain's ability to sell unrestricted into the EU-wide single market; and the even bleaker prognosis for so-called freedom of movement.

Perhaps the most tangible short-term impact relates to the right of EU nationals to live and work anywhere in the bloc. Foreigners of almost all nationalities working in the city seem to have been rattled, uncertain whether London's multicultural atmosphere will be undermined by the protectionist sentiment pervading the Brexit campaign. The issue is a practical one: EU nationals have received no guarantee of their continued right to remain in the UK after Brexit. But the malaise is more profound than that, says Karen Briggs, head of Brexit at professional services firm KPMG, which is working with clients that employ large numbers of non-UK nationals.

"All international workers are worried, not just EU nationals," she says. "They are questioning whether, without the ability to move freely around the bloc, they want to be based in London."

The practicalities of employment rules aside, there appears to have been a more general shift in attitudes towards foreigners, too. Within days of the Brexit vote, there was a 57 per cent surge in reports of racist hate crime across the country. While the number of such incidents is still small, the shift in the atmosphere perturbs cosmopolitan Britons and immigrant workers alike. "I'm worried that the UK is turning into a country I don't want to live in any more," says one senior British financier in the City of London.

For businesses, though, the bigger concern is about market access and the extent to which exporters will be able to retain anything of the seamless single-market access they currently enjoy. Nowhere is that more crucial than in London, where the dominant financial services industry and the ancillary sectors of law, accountancy and other professional services have ballooned over the past 30 years - in large part because of the capital's status as Europe's dominant financial hub.

Why would we continue to devote resources to a continent whose costs and capital requirements will increase when we could invest instead in the US or Asia?

Half of the UK's trade surplus in financial services - worth some £18.5bn in 2014 - comes from exports to the EU. London dominates across multiple niche areas of finance. It does 78 per cent of the EU's foreign exchange business and 74 per cent of over-the-counter interest rate derivatives; 59 per cent of international insurance premiums are written in London; and 85 per cent of the EU's hedge fund assets and 64 per cent of private equity assets are managed in the city.

"Our industry is a national asset - one that employs nearly 2.2m people across the UK," says John McFarlane, chairman of Barclays bank and also of TheCityUK, the financial services lobby group. "A robust and globally competitive industry helps to build a strong and thriving economy."

The majority of leading financiers are convinced that Brexit will be a negative for the City of London - shorthand for the capital's sprawling financial districts. The question is, how negative?

Related article

London's ability to retain its role as a hub for pan-EU financial services will depend in large part on the political deal that is struck in a complex web of bilateral and multilateral negotiations between the UK, the European Commission and the more powerful EU members such as Germany and France.

"Our changing relationship with the EU is critical," says McFarlane. "The new terms of trade will be of fundamental importance to our industry and to the long-term attractiveness of the UK."

The early signs were not encouraging. The City was quietly dismayed when the UK's new prime minister, Theresa May, selected David Davis, a hardline europhobe who has also shown little love for the financial services industry, as her Brexit minister. Brussels quickly responded with what was seen as a provocative tit-for-tat appointment, with former financial services commissioner Michel Barnier made the EU's man on Brexit. Barnier had led a regulatory charge at the EU, cracking down on banks in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

If the two men can bear to look each other in the eye, one of their key challenges will be to establish the degree to which UK-based companies will be allowed to sell their products to the single market, even if the UK pulls up the drawbridge on EU immigrants, as May has suggested she will.

For the City, whose big banks, asset managers and insurers all rely on being able to "passport" their services from London right across the EU, the outcome of those negotiations is all important. If Davis comes away with little or nothing in the way of access, big employers are expected to move those parts of their operations that relate to European sales to alternative EU bases. Dublin, Paris, Frankfurt and Luxembourg have all made early pitches.

No one expects the City to be decimated overnight. But there will almost certainly be an erosion of activity and staff - and not only to rival European centres. "We will be looking at our global resource allocation," says one senior US investment banker based in London. "Why would we continue to devote resources to a continent whose costs and capital requirements will increase and whose economy is weak, when we could invest instead in the US or Asia?"

Nonetheless, there are plenty of voices arguing that London's role as one of the world's main financial hubs will not be threatened fundamentally. That is partly because rival European centres have their drawbacks - being too small, with restrictive labour laws or lacking the stability of English law - but also because of an underlying confidence that London will adapt even if it does lose some business.

Some early hopes for alternative growth priorities have been called into question. The idea, for example, of doing more to promote the nascent partnership with China in financial services may be undermined by the cooler Sino-British relationship that May seems to have signalled. Whether that hurts London's fast-growing status as the biggest offshore renminbi trading centre remains to be seen.

Related article

But other areas of growth - in start-up financial technology, for example - should be relatively unaffected by Brexit. Some already see London as the world's most vibrant fintech hub. TheCityUK has highlighted the sector as a priority for expansion.

The mood in the City, as across the UK business environment, has undeniably been knocked by Brexit and the pervasive uncertainty on rules and regulations that will now follow, potentially for years to come. A weaker economic environment will make life tougher for many financial services operators, which is bound in turn to trickle down to the broader London economy.

As Brexit enthusiasts point out, though, the outlook cannot be that bleak because the stock market, after an initial wobble, bounced back strongly in the weeks after the vote. The focus now will be on the deal that the UK government, after consultation with the financial services industry, manages to extract from the EU. "The key," says one person at the heart of that process, "will be to maintain the strength and eminence of the City, possibly in a different shape, and possibly in a smaller size, but still fundamentally strong."

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The City of London faces up to the future beyond Brexit

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Up until June 23, London was pretty sure of its place in the world. Building on its centuries-old position as a trading hub, it had become increasingly confident as a cultural centre as well as, in recent years, a hotbed of technological innovation.

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How London's skyline could dramatically change - BBC Newsnight - YouTube

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How London's skyline could dramatically change - BBC Newsnight - YouTube

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How London's skyline could dramatically change - BBC Newsnight

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Nine Elms: London's Great Transformation - YouTube

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Nine Elms: London's Great Transformation - YouTube

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Nine Elms: London's Great Transformation

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It's been called by Mayor Boris Johnson, "the last and greatest single prospect for regeneration in central London". In one of the most ambitious plans for the capital, work has already begun on a 15 year project to transform 195 hectares of space stretching along the South Bank from Battersea to Vauxhall in to a cluster of new apartments, business sites and leisure areas, a £15bn regeneration programme providing 18,000 new homes and 25,000 new jobs.

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Post-Brexit London may be less open — and less money-obsessed

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Post-Brexit London may be less open — and less money-obsessed

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I left London in 2002 more or less by accident. A cousin had casually mentioned that you could get a decent flat in Paris for £60,000, so I crossed the Channel and bought one. I didn't plan to live in it, but it felt like compensation for never having bought in London. A few months later, after my London flat-share hit trouble, I tried Paris for a spring. I'm still here, now accompanied by a wife and three Parisian children.

But thoughts of returning to London do occasionally surface. The place looks better than I can ever remember it, and the Brexit vote has deflated property prices a touch. Warren Buffett says: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." So post-Brexit might be the time to buy a share in London. Yet even if the city becomes cheaper, I still don't see that it makes sense for a family.

London starts out with three strikes against: high costs, bad weather and a sprawling expanse that means getting around can take for ever. High costs have a particularly damaging knock-on effect: for most Londoners, money becomes an obsession. You need lots of it to afford a decent life here, so you spend lots of time thinking about money. That's why so many middle-class London conversations are, famously, about house prices. As John Lanchester, author of the novel Capital, has remarked, the most frightening words in the English language aren't "I had a very interesting dream last night" (Oscar Wilde's candidate) but "Did you hear how much they got for that house down the road?"

Median Londoners don't have much money left after paying for their housing, but they keep bumping into rich people. One evening in my late twenties I went out with an old friend, an investment banker, who let slip over cheap Chinese food that he was on a "seven-figure package". I suddenly felt depressed about my own perfectly decent income.

In Paris I don't meet many millionaires. The real luxury in life is not money, but not having to think about money, and that state of being is more attainable in Paris than in London.

Brexit may have the unintended consequence of reducing the role of money in London life. If some rich people like my banker friend are pushed abroad, there will be more air for people like me. However, even before Brexit happens, it is already tarnishing London's biggest asset: its openness to the world.

London's era of peak openness only began about 20 years ago. In 1993 the EU legally became a single market, making it easier for continental Europeans to live in London. The Eurostar opened a year later, and then easyJet and Ryanair connected the city to places all over Europe. Meanwhile, London's financial industry was becoming more global, and the money sucked in people from everywhere.

How serious is the threat - and might there even be some opportunities?

But in the debate over Brexit - even before the vote for it in June - the British public sent an unmistakable signal to the government that it wanted less openness. I can already see the consequences in my own little working world. As a columnist, I'm always looking for ideas. I often try to find them at conferences.

However, since 2015 the rules governing visiting conference speakers seem to have tightened: in many cases, those from outside the EU now need a work permit to give even one paid talk at one conference. I can't see most speakers bothering. Either they will break the law and pretend they are tourists, or London's many conferences are going to get less varied.

The mayor on the capital's global rivals, self-rule, terrorism and that tricky third runway

Another good place to steal ideas is academia. Since the 1990s, British universities have filled up with excellent academics from everywhere. But imagine a German academic who gets an offer of tenure at a British university now. The department trying to hire her might already be losing its European grants. Then she has to guess: will British employment rules change after Brexit? Can her German spouse make a career in London? Families have to make decisions for the long term, and the Brexit vote has deprived London of another of its biggest assets: predictable long-term stability.

London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, knows that his battle will be to keep the capital open. He may even succeed, especially once the rest of the UK realises how dependent it is on London's tax revenues.

But for now I prefer to be two hours, 15 minutes by train from London. In a few days' time I'll be whizzing over again. I will run around meeting work contacts, then have dinner with a group of friends (none of whom live in London any more, mostly because it's too expensive). The next day I'll attend a festival, then go back to raising a family in Paris.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

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Post-Brexit London may be less open - and less money-obsessed

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I left London in 2002 more or less by accident. A cousin had casually mentioned that you could get a decent flat in Paris for £60,000, so I crossed the Channel and bought one. I didn't plan to live in it, but it felt like compensation for never having bought in London.

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It is the eve of the Big Bang and on the floor of the London Stock Exchange gentlemen stockbrokers from firms such as Seligman Harris, Phillips & Drew, Capel Cure Myers and Quilter & Co give orders to jobbers who make the trades. The jobbers - many of them East End boys employed by Akroyd & Smithers, Wedd Durlacher, Pinchin Denny, Smith Brothers, Bisgood Bishop and Charles Pulley - record each transaction by hand in their books.

To today's young stockbroker, the description of the trading floor in the early 1980s seems like an account from a very distant past. The company names are consigned to the history books. The term "jobber" has been replaced with that of "market maker", much of whose role is now done electronically. And, most importantly, the Big Bang in 1986 removed the separation between the stockbroking and market-making functions. Combined with the abolition of exchange controls and corporation tax cuts by Margaret Thatcher's government, it paved the way for London to become a truly international centre again.

"The past 30 years have been the most concentrated period of change the City of London has ever seen," says James Fleming, chief executive of Arbuthnot Latham, a private bank. As the City looks ahead to the next 30 years, it is worth keeping this in mind.

The near-term future of the City is inextricably linked with politics. The rise of the UK Independence Party and continental European nationalist parties in this year's European elections have played into the hands of eurosceptics, who argue that Britain would be better off outside the EU. A referendum on Britain's EU membership looks likely.

Beyond this there has also been concern that London's political influence was waning in Europe after the retirement of key allies such as Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles, who chaired the economics and financial committee, the main forum for negotiating City regulation and holding the European Central Bank to account. The appointment earlier this month of Lord Hill to oversee the financial sector in the EU has, however, been well received in the City.

London's future as a financial centre is intrinsically linked to whether it stays in the EU, says Phillip Souta, head of UK public policy at Clifford Chance, one of the "magic circle" of big UK law firms. "If we are still a member of the EU, the City will be in the most advantageous position it could possibly occupy. If we're not in the EU, it would become a very different proposition," he says.

Then it would depend on what "out" looked like, says Souta - whether Britain clinched deals similar to those won by Switzerland, Norway or Turkey.

Much financial market activity in the EU is concentrated in the UK. London is not only the UK's financial centre - it is Europe's too.

Asia is looking at London and new York quizzically: the moment you regulate the golden goose out of there, they'll be there to pick up the pieces

"Foreign direct investment comes to the UK not just for its benign trading environment but because it has full access to the EU markets through its passporting system," Souta adds. "In 30 years' time there could be no passports and a single, highly liquid European capital market. If the UK is outside that, it risks turning into a large offshore centre. London would have to go through a Doctor Who-like regeneration."

A change in London's accommodating stance on foreign direct investment or immigration could pose a threat to its competitiveness, says Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK, a lobby group for the financial services sector. "We have a very open market for foreign direct investment that gives us a good bargaining chip in other parts of the world. London has built a reputation of being open to immigration at different levels," he says.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip, has advocated a five-year ban on immigrants settling in the UK and wants the UK to leave the EU. Then in May, Labour's shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna threatened to block the proposed £63bn takeover of pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca by its US rival Pfizer, if the party wins the general election. The deal subsequently fell through.

The City is in the midst of a raft of new regulation, from curbs on bankers' bonuses to structural changes such as the ring-fencing of retail and investment banking operations. On the one hand, banks are facing stricter capital requirements. On the other, they are being urged to lend more to small and medium-sized businesses, the lifeblood of the UK economy.

The business of equity research is undergoing a big structural change after the Financial Conduct Authority endorsed European proposals to stop banks charging investors for research out of sharedealing commissions.

All of these could lessen London's competitiveness.

"Asia is looking at London and New York quizzically: the moment you regulate the golden goose out of there, they'll be there to pick up the pieces," says David Buik, a market commentator at stockbroker Panmure Gordon.

Once other emerging economies, such as countries in Africa, start complying with universal corporate governance and business culture, they could also pose a threat, Buik adds.

Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, believes that in 30 years there will be greater global regulatory harmony: "Prudential and financial conduct regulations will substantially harmonise and lead to a gradual globalisation and integration of standards and of the financial supervision process across various key North American, European and Asian markets."

This will play into the development and further automation of processes, says Rolet: "The next 30 years will be about the automation of financial information disclosure as well as the primary capital-raising process."

Developments are also taking place in working practices, following scientific progress and a series of deaths among finance workers that has raised questions about stress levels and the way employees are treated. Thirty years ago it was unheard of to visit the gym in the middle of the working day, but now the merits of physical exercise are undisputed and it has become ubiquitous.

Beyond physical exercise, some in the traditionally conservative City are turning to meditation, which has gained some legitimacy. Many believe the practice can bring greater clarity and improve performance.

An increasing number of City institutions - such as KPMG, Goldman Sachs and the Bank of England - have presented "mindfulness" to staff in seminars.

Might City offices one day be equipped with dedicated meditation pods and areas? Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and business coach, predicts still more surprising developments. "Cognitive enhancement - both from natural and less conventional sources - is gaining more attention, as people realise the role that sleep, exercise and diet, plus supplementation, play in memory and concentration," she says.

"It is only a matter of time before pharmaceutical companies come up with legal performance-enhancing drugs for the workplace."

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It is the eve of the Big Bang and on the floor of the London Stock Exchange gentlemen stockbrokers from firms such as Seligman Harris, Phillips & Drew, Capel Cure Myers and Quilter & Co give orders to jobbers who make the trades.

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In the epigrammatic style he has mastered, Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, says that the ideological axis in the modern world is not left versus right but "open versus closed". Nowhere has pushed openness to such extremes as London in recent decades.

At the turn of the 1980s, it was depopulating, hidebound and still nursing the bruises of post-imperial decline. By the turn of the millennium, it was the entrepôt of globalisation, teeming with migrants and profiting from international capital flows.

Its restaurants, its skyline, its football clubs, its way of earning a living - almost every aspect of London life has been shaken up by outsiders. New York is an American city with a global dimension. London is a global city that happens to be appended to Britain.

It is an unusual revolution that does not provoke a reactionary movement against it and, sure enough, there are incipient challenges to London's openness. National restrictions on non-European immigration limit the capital's access to globetrotting talent.

A thicket of financial regulation is tying up the City. There is a nebulous but insistent feeling that openness has curdled into nihilism, that London has become too hospitable to foreign (especially Russian) money, too tolerant of various strains of extremism, too indifferent to British citizens priced out of their own capital city. The rise of the populist UK Independence party, which does well across the country but not in London, is ultimately a reaction against everything the city embodies.

Politicians would be foolish to indulge this backlash and revert to the closed way. London is not just Britain's moneymaking machine, its wealth skimmed and funnelled to less productive corners of the country. It is also the last trump card that Britain has to play with in the world. The nation's armed forces are diminishing, as is its relative economic weight. Its permanent membership of the UN Security Council might turn out to be decidedly impermanent. The field of middle-ranking powers is becoming congested, with countries such as Turkey and Brazil competing for strategic influence in the world.

The one distinctive and globally coveted asset Britain has left is this city, a place that simultaneously hosts, encompasses and fascinates the world. Foreigners who are not interested in Britain are smitten with London. Investors who might prefer French infrastructure or German productivity end up plumping for the ease of doing international business in London.

This openness carries costs, of course, in economic and social disruption. But if the country resents the presence of a cosmopolis that sucks in the world's money, people and ideas, it should remember what it was like not having these things.

Nostalgia is a kind of amnesia: the romanticisation of old London forgets how shabby and short of opportunity it was, entire neighbourhoods languishing in dilapidation, industries declining and being replaced by nothing in particular.

Where Canary Wharf and City Airport now sit were, as recently as the 1980s, toxic marshes and squalid housing estates. In King's Cross, where the Eurostar zooms in and out from Paris and a new urban village is taking shape, there was desolation and homelessness. This was closed London, when skyscrapers were forbidden and the business culture was a kind of organised slouch that was yet to be blown apart by the Big Bang. It is bizarre to remember all this and conclude that more has been lost than has been gained.

Nostalgia is a kind of amnesia, the romanticisation of old London forgets how shabby and short of opportunity it was

If London abdicates as the unofficial capital of globalisation, other cities to its east are primed to take advantage. Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai - one of these could emerge as the nexus of international trade as Asia becomes the piston of the world economy.

If London has an advantage over all of them, it is not policy (you can find much lower taxes elsewhere) or even geography (somewhere along the Pacific Rim might come to be seen as the real centre of the world in this century) but that culture of boundless openness.

This is a city that makes no demands on newcomers beyond observance of the law. There is almost nothing you can do here, nothing you can wear or say, no obscure code of etiquette you can violate, that will mark you as an outsider. It is, in the grating modern argot, a non-judgmental city.

This kind of culture cannot be replicated overnight by another metropolis. It is a strange brew of ancient British tolerance and hyper-modern liberalism. As the reaction against it builds, we should rally to its defence.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2018. All rights reserved.

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In the epigrammatic style he has mastered, Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, says that the ideological axis in the modern world is not left versus right but "open versus closed". Nowhere has pushed openness to such extremes as London in recent decades.

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BBC - Culture - Move over, New York: Why London is the world’s greatest city

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BBC - Culture - Move over, New York: Why London is the world’s greatest city

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The publishing world has become overrun by books celebrating particular points in time. A few years ago, Bill Bryson wrote an entire book about 1927; just last month, David Hepworth wrote a wonderful case for 1971 as the apotheosis of post-war pop music. Soon there will be a big fat hard-cover devoted to every year of the 20th Century.

One year that is continually celebrated, particularly in London's history, is 1966: first in 2003 by Shaun Levy in Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London, then in 2015 by pop archivist Jon Savage in the more prosaically titled 1966. This most recent book claims, yet again, that 1966 was when the city was at its creative peak.

And if it's not 1966 that was said to be the year in which London was at its cultural, most fashionable height, then it's the London of punk rock, 1977. Or perhaps it was in the mid '90s, when Britpop and the YBAs seemed to rule the city.

The Swinging '60s were only swinging if you were one of 500 lucky people

But the proposition is wrong. London is more exciting now than it's ever been.

The mid '60s may have been a period in which the city became a mecca for American tourists and an international symbol of cultural upheaval. It may have been the time of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kings Road, Carnaby Street, 'dolly birds' and swishy nightclubs like the Ad Lib. But the Swinging '60s were only swinging if you were one of the lucky 500 who frequented the right kind of discotheques.

In fact, all of these periods pale when compared to London as it is today. Not only is London the greatest, most dynamic city in the world, it's never been better than it is now.

Comparison may be the thief of joy, and it might be invidious to square London off against other fashionable cities such as New York, Milan or Paris - which is heavier, a tonne of feathers of a tonne of gold? - but right now, there is no other city in the world like it.

Not only is London the greatest, most dynamic city in the world, it's never been better than it is now

The gentrification of the city has meant that it's now more difficult to get onto the property ladder than at any time in its past. But the benefits of London's financial transformation also mean that it is now not just the economic centre of Europe, it is also an architectural and artistic wonder.

There is more building work in London than in any other city in the world, barring those in China. This makes it a proper showcase for the city's creativity: the new confluence of money and art means that the city now hosts the most important art galleries in the world as well as the most important art fair, Frieze.

There is more building work in London than in any other city in the world, barring those in China

And while 30 years ago it was difficult to find a good steak in the city, and nigh impossible to eat well on a Sunday evening, London now has by far the greatest number of top-class restaurants of any city in the world. While London might still fall short of Paris and NYC in the Michelin-star category, that way of judging restaurants is fundamentally old-fashioned, and if you want to look for ingenuity and panache, you come to London.

Local government has also helped nurture the vital relationships between art and commerce, encouraging the growth of places like the hip east London district of Shoreditch and the start-up belt Tech City. The growth of such places doesn't happen by accident; it is due to infrastructure, education and planning.

This was made easier after 2000, the year a dedicated, singular leadership for London was instituted - before, it was just the 33 boroughs, each with a different mayor. London would never have won the 2012 Olympics without a mayor of London. How would you have got 33 local boroughs to agree on a bid to the International Olympic Committee?

The world of fashion is another example of London's boom. In days gone by, it was often assumed that Paris or possibly Milan were the centres of the fashion industry in Europe, while New York was venerated on the other side of the Atlantic.

But no, now London is the most fashionable city in the world (just ask anyone on the front row, even those in Manhattan) and since the British Fashion Council has been punching way above its weight, we now have the most vibrant fashion weeks in the world for menswear as well as womenswear. (Full disclosure: I am the chairman of London Collections Men.) There is such diversity in London - from street style to tailoring, couture to big brands - that no other city comes close.

This has been shown by the reversal of a well-worn narrative concerning any young hotshot fashion designer: after they had made their name in London, it was once said, they would be snapped up by one of the large international fashion conglomerates and whizzed off to Milan or Paris - where their British creativity would be harnessed, exploited and then sold back to us.

These days, young designers stay in London and encourage the fash-pack to come here rather than anywhere else

Not anymore. These days, young designers stay in London, find backing in London, and encourage the fash-pack to come here rather than anywhere else. After all, if you decide to show your clothes in Milan, then you will be showing your clothes in the ugliest northern European city that isn't in Germany. If you decide to show your clothes in Paris, you'll be showing your clothes in the most bourgeois city in Europe. And if you decide to show your clothes in New York, then you'll be showing them in the most neurotic city in the world.

No, London is where it's at.

There is also our multiculturalism: 37% of Londoners were born outside the UK, just a tick up from New York City's (36%) and 10 percentage points higher than a decade earlier. Our society is fluid, a melting pot of this and that and his and hers. London is a great example of successful immigration, and increasingly one feels as though the city couldn't do without it. If you walk around where I live, in the W2 district near Hyde Park, you can walk along the street and not hear English being spoken all morning. And when you do eventually hear it, it feels as though you've travelled back in time.

Naturally, London is no Xanadu. Its problems are not dissimilar to the problems inherent in any ever-expanding modern metropolis. Parts of the city have certainly become even more divided than they were in the '80, when monolithic steel and glass towers in gated communities sprang up in the middle of dockland slums. This disharmony obviously creates discontent, while silos of hate appear in the most unlikely places.

But still they come and still we grow. Which makes me think that maybe we should turn London into a city state - or a citadel. Not to keep people out, and not to keep them in, but to celebrate the fact that London deserves to be recognised as the most important city on Earth.
Dylan Jones is the editor-in-chief of GQ, the chairman of London Collections Men and the author of London Rules published by Biteback. This story is a part of BBC Britain - a series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to the Britain homepage; you also can see our latest stories by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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Move over, New York: Why London is the world's greatest city

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The publishing world has become overrun by books celebrating particular points in time. A few years ago, Bill Bryson wrote an entire book about 1927; just last month, David Hepworth wrote a wonderful case for 1971 as the apotheosis of post-war pop music.

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The City of London is known for its invisible earnings, as a hub of financial services such as insurance, commodities trading and investment. What is less well known is that the City of London Corporation is the oldest continuous democratic commune in the world. Two thousand years of self-government is quite an achievement. For no one to really notice is perhaps the greatest achievement of all. Invisible earnings, invisible power.

The law and practice of the Romans, the City's founders, became the basis of London's institutions and political language. The status of "citizen" has been retained ever since. The City also adopted through its democratic ward system and court hustings many aspects of Saxon civic practice. The "folk-moot", for example, was a regular meeting of all citizens at St Paul's Cross, called by the ringing of the bells, where matters of concern would be discussed and voted upon. This formed the basis of the Corporation of London and founded its position in the Ancient Constitution.

While laying waste to the rest of the country, William the Conqueror "came friendly" to London, recognised the liberties of its citizens, pledged to defend their freedoms and fortified the City against barbarian attack. London's special status within the constitution was upheld by a stream of charters and privileges that protected the City of London from external interference.

In Magna Carta, the 1215 charter of rights between King John and the barons, not only are the rights of the "whole body" of citizens respected but the mayor of London was designated as one of two guarantors charged with ensuring that the Crown kept its side of the bargain.

The Corporation of London, which announced itself as a "commune" in 1191, was recognised as one of the great institutions of the Ancient Constitution, with a place only one step below the sovereign. The combination of wealth, functioning democratic and legal institutions and an effective system of civic militias meant the Crown could never subordinate the City of London to its rule. London taxed itself, judged itself and governed itself.

In this way the most cosmopolitan city in England, carved out of a forest by the Romans, became the custodian of the ancient liberties of the English people and the champion of common law against state encroachment.

From the 1580s, London became home to 10,000 internal refugees a year, most displaced by enclosure in the north and Midlands. By 1625 it had 400,000 inhabitants - 20 times more than any other English city.

In 1632 the crown asked the Corporation to extend its privileges and institutions to the new areas of London, but the Corporation refused. Instead of expanding and extending its democratic practices and legal protections to the new inhabitants living without civic status in the suburbs of Westminster, Clerkenwell, Whitechapel and Southwark, the City of London turned its back on London as a city. The "great refusal" of 1637 defined the modern history of London. Instead of seeking to integrate the new arrivals, the Corporation put large resources into transferring its unwanted excess population to the Ulster Plantation and the Corporation of Londonderry, which were established for that purpose. The bowler hats and umbrellas of the Orange Orders derive from their sponsorship by the Corporation of London.

The Stuarts made two serious attempts at London reform. One led to the execution of the king, the other - an attempt by Charles II to establish that the monarchy was the source of the Corporation's authority - led to the Stuarts' replacement by William and Mary, whose Second Charter in 1690 leaves no doubt as to who were the greatest beneficiaries of the Glorious Revolution. It declared: "That the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London shall for ever hereafter remain, continue and be, and prescribe to be, a body politic, in re, facto, et nomine ... and shall have and enjoy all their rights, gifts, charters, grants, liberties, privileges, franchises, customs, usages, constitutions, prescriptions, immunities, markets, duties, tolls, lands, tenements, estates and hereditaments whatsoever."

The 18th century was a glorious epoch for the City and its Corporation. Conflict, however, remained between the Corporation and the Crown, and two different concepts of state and empire developed, one based on "free trade" and championed by the Corporation, the other based on prerogative rule and the sovereignty of the Crown. The City of London supported George Washington and provided funds and men for the cause. The citizens of London reminded the king, to the point of treason, that it was they and not he who had won the civil war.

Even as Parliament displaced the Crown as the fundamental unit of sovereignty and democracy displaced the Divine Right of Kings as the principle of legitimacy, the state still refused to subordinate the Corporation of London to national laws and practices. Its assets and its ancient privileges remained untouched.

The City survived each wave of Victorian municipal reform. The Corporation's assets, its property inventory and financial portfolio remain unpublished.

London as a whole was not to have city status. The County Council was ruled from County Hall. The same could be said for today's Greater London Authority. New Labour may have given the Bank of England its independence, but its zeal for modernisation did not extend to the City of London.

In September 2008, we glimpsed for a moment the consequences of having a financial sector, prone to volatility and vice, as the driver of our national economy. Some £1.6tn was transferred to the banks so that the economy could continue to function. The City of London, our most ancient democratic city, had become a lobbyist for globalised capital and there was no accountability. Or rather, we learnt that accountability was too important to be left to accountants.

The moral of the story is that what we learnt in politics is true for the economy: that unless the executive was held to account there would be vice, abuse and unconstrained self-interest. The City of London needs to be held to account by the citizens of London and its inheritance made available for the good of the city. Maybe it is time, after 2,000 years, for all of London to become a city, for the Guildhall to be its parliament and for there to be one mayor of a united city who lives in Mansion House.

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The City of London is known for its invisible earnings, as a hub of financial services such as insurance, commodities trading and investment. What is less well known is that the City of London Corporation is the oldest continuous democratic commune in the world. Two thousand years of self-government is quite an achievement.