Capital in the 21st century

IN HIS history of 20th-century London, published in 2008, Jerry White recalls that at the start of the millennium it seemed impossible that the capital would ever grow larger than its 1939 peak of 8.6m people. That belief was widely held. But this week statisticians announced that London had managed it.

The city is far more suburban than it was in 1939 (see maps). Having cleared their Victorian slums, inner-London boroughs like Islington and Tower Hamlets are much less densely populated—though both are now growing again.

Whether housing gets built depends largely on local councillors. Some boroughs, such as Southwark and Lambeth, are keen on residential towers; others, like Westminster, are less so. The result is erratic growth and high property prices.

But London can build quickly. International pressure, a deadline and lots of money helped turn a huge area of breakers’ yards into the Olympic park in 2012. If the Olympic stadium had been built in the usual way, says Tony Travers of the London School of Economics, it would probably have been ready around 2060.