London's population set to overtake its pre-war peak

[Kaka Tim]

Declining city populations seems to have been a common phenomena in the industrialised nations over the past fifty years.

 

[Pickman's model]

Population was declining from 1939 till the early 90s. So not the war.

that doesn't follow

 

[Pickman's model]

Declining city populations seems to have been a common phenomena in the industrialised nations over the past fifty years.

 

[Crispy]

Why'd it drop so much in the nineties and was so high in thirties? ? (Sorry if it's a dumb question).

The upwards trend was interrupted by the war, which destroyed a lot of housing, as did the post-war clearances and the building of New Towns. People were encouraged to leave London for a more pleasant life in the suburbs and satellite towns.

 

[Flanflinger]

combination of wartime bomb damage, post war 'dispersal' policy - new towns eg basildon, overspill estates eg shearwater (woking) - employers moving out of london for more space.

and commuter types choosing to move further out, particularly as rail services modernised

We were a family of 7 living in a two bedroom flat in Mitcham. Parents managed to get a council house on the newly built Hansel estate in Frimley Surrey in 1961.

 

[Kaka Tim]

please expand on your interjection

 

[brogdale]

which bit of that is the administrative county of london?

That gets to the heart of the problem of comparability of urban population data. Issues of compatability arise because urban boundaries are, by definition, arbitary, (and often bear little relation to the functional morphology of the city), and change over time & the defining criteria vary between countries.

wrt the graph, I suspect that the line labelled "Inner London" relates to the old LCC figures and that "Outer London" includes all of the 1965 GL boroughs not formerly included. The total line obviously putting the two together.

That said, there's plenty of arguments to be put that "London"s actual population is considerably greater than the official figure, with significant swathes of suburb/commuter belt that, whilst functionally part of the capital, fall just outside the the 1965 GL limit.

 

[coley]

Declining city populations seems to have been a common phenomena in the industrialised nations over the past fifty years.

Everything I have read indicates the exact opposite, with the possible exception of Detroit.

 

[brogdale]

Everything I have read indicates the exact opposite, with the possible exception of Detroit.

Yes, there have been areas and periods of time in which developed world urban populations have declined, but the general, aggregated trends do not support Kaka's statement.

(Pale blue & Darker purple lines from 2015 back)

 

[Roadkill]

combination of wartime bomb damage, post war 'dispersal' policy - new towns eg basildon, overspill estates eg shearwater (woking) - employers moving out of london for more space.

and commuter types choosing to move further out, particularly as rail services modernised

Plus the car, which made living in suburbs easier, and the fact that most cities in the mid-twentieth century were pretty grimy places that many people wanted to move out of, increasingly so as urban industries started to decline, unemployment rose and many areas became increasingly shabby and unpleasant to be in.

It's not only London that lost a significant proportion of its population after World War II: all of the major cities did.

 

[brogdale]

Plus the car, which made living in suburbs easier, and the fact that most cities in the mid-twentieth century were pretty grimy places that many people wanted to move out of, increasingly so as urban industries started to decline, unemployment rose and many areas became increasingly shabby and unpleasant to be in.

It's not only London that lost a significant proportion of its population after World War II: all of the major cities did.

Do you mean all in the UK, or more generally?

 

[coley]

Plus the car, which made living in suburbs easier, and the fact that most cities in the mid-twentieth century were pretty grimy places that many people wanted to move out of, increasingly so as urban industries started to decline, unemployment rose and many areas became increasingly shabby and unpleasant to be in.

It's not only London that lost a significant proportion of its population after World War II: all of the major cities did.

Aye, but was that not more a case of abandoning the centres and settling on the peripheries? A situation which seems to be on the reverse with the gentrification of inner city areas.

 

[SpookyFrank]

My nan used to take me to the Polish Club where elderly people reacted to the presence of a child with a mixture of fascination, disgust, and desire to tell war stories

This behaviour is not unique to Polish pensioners.

 

[Crispy]

That gets to the heart of the problem of comparability of urban population data. Issues of compatability arise because urban boundaries are, by definition, arbitary, (and often bear little relation to the functional morphology of the city), and change over time & the defining criteria vary between countries.

The GLA census team have re-factored the data from the last 210 years to align with modern borough boundaries. The data is available here: http://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/historic-census-population

 

[Roadkill]

Do you mean all in the UK, or more generally?

In the UK, though see below:

Aye, but was that not more a case of abandoning the centres and settling on the peripheries?

In many cases, yes, though in London's case, especially, a proportion went further afield to the new towns.

 

[SpookyFrank]

In many cases, yes, though in London's case, especially, a proportion went further afield to the new towns.

...and instantly regretted it.

 

[Favelado]

It would be interesting to see population data for boroughs like Hackney and Lambeth over the same time-scale. You'd assume that they would have had the biggest population drops due to inner-city flight, but maybe the reality was more complex than that.

 

[Pickman's model]

That gets to the heart of the problem of comparability of urban population data. Issues of compatability arise because urban boundaries are, by definition, arbitary, (and often bear little relation to the functional morphology of the city), and change over time & the defining criteria vary between countries.

wrt the graph, I suspect that the line labelled "Inner London" relates to the old LCC figures and that "Outer London" includes all of the 1965 GL boroughs not formerly included. The total line obviously putting the two together.

That said, there's plenty of arguments to be put that "London"s actual population is considerably greater than the official figure, with significant swathes of suburb/commuter belt that, whilst functionally part of the capital, fall just outside the the 1965 GL limit.

which is another thing, do they mean greater london, all 32 boroughs + city of london or metropolitan police district or ...

 

[Pickman's model]

It would be interesting to see population data for boroughs like Hackney and Lambeth over the same time-scale. You'd assume that they would have had the biggest population drops due to inner-city flight, but maybe the reality was more complex than that.

the boundaries of hackney changed to some extent in the 1990s, so like not necessarily with like over time.

 

[Pickman's model]

please expand on your interjection

you say: declining urban populations
the thread about: rising urban population

 

[Pickman's model]

Population was declining from 1939 till the early 90s. So not the war.

not the war. what a load of auld toss. the war did nothing to the population - 60,000 or so killed, less than 1% of the population. however, it did destroy a load of buildings and vast swathes of properties were destroyed if not by bombs then by clearance areas. a look at the lcc bomb damage maps shows this clearly. if people have nowhere in london to live then they're not going to live in london. slum clearance does not necessarily account for all the decline as in the period 1921-1941 there was considerable slum clearance at apparently the same time as a rise in population. however, not all the census data can be taken as accurate as some of the decrease between 1981 and 1991 can be accounted for by people trying to evade the poll tax. oh: and there was no census in 1941, so i don't know where they got that figure from.

 

[Crispy]

It would be interesting to see population data for boroughs like Hackney and Lambeth over the same time-scale. You'd assume that they would have had the biggest population drops due to inner-city flight, but maybe the reality was more complex than that.

 

[davesgcr]

The developing world has seen an explosion in urbanism from circa 1960 (see the old book by Peter Hall (RIP) on the World Cities)

The 19thC era cities saw a post WW2 fall in population - notably Detroit - but also NYC / Berlin etc - but most have seen a rebound - I think NYC is up by over 750.000 since the last census. Some of it due to organic population growth , some by "recapture" of the Inner suburbs (which had lost out post war due to suburbanisation)

 

[co-op]

I'm so ancient I can remember the Location of Offices Bureau, a quango that was supposed to move office jobs out of London - if you wanted to build offices or create office jobs inside the GLC area you had to get a permit from the LOB. Abolished by Thatcher. It was supposed to have moved several hundred thousand jobs out of London.

 

[el-ahrairah]

i wonder where is a good place to go to escape london for ever?

 

[brogdale]

i wonder where is a good place to go to escape london for ever?

Banstead?

 

[el-ahrairah]

Banstead?

sold.

 

[Sasaferrato]

How come so many Polish in 1939?

Something to do with Hitler?

 

[newbie]

economics, according to this
http://migrationeducation.de/25.1.html?&rid=20&cHash=8d83ad503e621157d24ff01e7e3289cb

Poland has been an emigration country for few centuries now. People would leave Poland for two main reasons – political engagement in the struggle for independence and economic needs. The first type of emigration was prominent since 1795 to 1918 and since 1939 to 1989 and it involved upper strata of the society. The second type has been present throughout the centuries until today.

.....

II Republic of Poland (1918- 1939)
In 1918, when Polish independent state was created, the government had to elaborate two approaches to the emigration policy. The management of outflows was strictly connected to the internal policies, and the relations with Polonia were a part of foreign policy. II Republic was a multiethnic state and it pursued the policy of Polonization and assimilation of minorities throughout the 1930s. This influenced the outward migrations, especially emigration of ethnic Germans. Also the ethnic Poles were leaving the country. The economic crisis and unemployment in Poland influenced the new policy towards the economic migrants.

 

[kebabking]

i wonder where is a good place to go to escape london for ever?

anywhere north or west of Banbury?

the Shires surrounding the West Mids are very nice - lots of good countryside and pleasant towns/small cities, easy access into Birmingham should you need to get a fix of exhaust fumes and body odour, lots of relatively cheap housing, and as far as i'm aware, no weird BBQ fetish restaurants that charge £10 for a mushroom sandwich...