A rule dating back to 1937 stipulates that St. Paul’s Cathedral must be seen unobstructed from a dozen different points in the city. For supporters of real estate speculation, it is the best example of the detrimental effect of excess regulation, since it prevents the construction of even more skyscrapers in the City of London (although many have been half empty since the pandemic, with the advance of WFH culture , Work From Home ).
As Sadiq Khan’s third term as mayor begins, the English capital has lost the effervescence that culminated in the 2012 Olympics, it has become a museum and has become more serious (a bit like Barcelona), more interested in combating pollution and neighborhood noise than in stimulating nightlife (since 2020, three thousand pubs and restaurants, and one in four clubs, have closed). The price of food and taxis means that many Londoners who previously went out now choose to stay at home watching television.
It has been said that London is not England (just as Manhattan is not the United States or Paris is not France), that it is the only “global city” in the United Kingdom, or even that it is not a metropolis but a nation in itself. With nine million inhabitants (almost half non-white), all the languages ??on the planet are spoken, it contributes 28% of the country’s total production and generates 18.5% of employment, with a great gravitational force.
But post-Brexit London is poorer and more dynamic than pre-Brexit. It generates 40 billion euros less annually than before leaving the single market. Numerous banking entities and investment funds have moved to Amsterdam or New York, annual growth is a meager 0.2% (compared to 0.9% in Paris), many Europeans have packed their bags, the money of the Russian oligarchs and their entourage has evaporated (Londongrad has passed away) and foreign investment has decreased. The housing shortage has made its cost enormous, there is more inequality and poverty, and almost five thousand homeless people sleep on the streets. Crime, gun and knife crime, robberies and burglaries have increased with police cuts. Families with children are exiled to the suburbs.
The cultural and identity wars leave their mark, such as the change in the names of streets and neighborhoods linked to colonialism, the weekly demonstrations denouncing the drama of Gaza, the crossed accusations of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Young people are angry with the rest of the country for cutting the umbilical cord that linked them to Europe, but it remains inclusive, tolerant, diverse and open. The Trumpist right, however, considers it a new Sodom.
In power since 2016, Mayor Khan’s greatest effort has been to improve air quality, imposing a controversial toll of fifteen euros a day on old and most polluting vehicles, for which the City Council earns 150 million euros a year. He has created cycle paths, launched electric buses and taxis, and promises that within ten years he will swim in the Thames.
That London is not what it was a decade ago, when it competed with New York to be the capital of the world, is evident in Oxford Street, full of ghost buildings, the skeletons of department stores. It is a decline, but to a certain extent, because few cities in the world have the poker of aces of being a financial, artistic, technological and governmental center, with the added wild card of being English-speaking.