LONDON is the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom. It is the largest city in Europe and one of the largest cities in the world (together with Tokyo and New York). Historical and geographical circumstances have made London one of the world's most important commercial and cultural centres, while its range of historical connections and its buildings attract millions of tourists from overseas each year.
London dominates Britain. It is home for the headquarters of all government departments, Parliament, the major legal institutions and the monarch. It is the country's business and banking centre and the centre of its transport network. It contains the headquarters of the national television networks and of all the national newspapers.
The city is at least two thousand years old and was settled long before the first Roman invasion. The original walled city of London was quite small. (Today it is known colloquially as «the square mile»). It did not contain Parliament or the royal court, since this would have interfered with the autonomy of the merchants and traders who lived and worked there. It was in Westminster, another «city» outside London's walls, that these national institutions met. Today both «cities» are just two areas of central London. The square mile is home to the country's main financial organizations, the territory of the stereotypical English «city gent» (*infml or humour: a gentleman).
Two other well-known areas of London are the West End and the East End. The former is known for its many theatres, cinemas and expensive shops. The latter is known as the poorest residential area of central London. It is the home of the Cockney and in this century large number of immigrants have settled there.
There are many other parts of central London, which have their own distinctive characters, and central London itself makes up only a very small part of Greater London (*a local government area including the whole of London and parts of other areas surrounding London, whose length and breadth extends over an area of 700 square miles).
THE EAST END is the industrial district of London, which grew to the east of the city with the spread of industries and the growth of the port of London. The East End is especially famous throughout the world as the centre of clothing industry in London.
The region is densely populated by working class families and people from abroad who have come to find work. Traditionally someone born in the east End is known as a «cockney», which means «true Londoner». However, this name is now given to anyone who speaks like a Londoner.
Cockneys have a special accent and language. One of the most peculiar variants is rhyming slang. Originally rhyming slang had been means by which East End neighbours could talk to one another without making sense to the law or to the outsiders.
East End is the poorest part of London. Its worst quarter is St. Giles, which is the heart of London slums.
The museum that justifies the trip out to a rather desolate area of the East End is Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood. This museum of childhood and social history holds the largest collection of toys in the world.
Like many other cities, London is in some ways untypical of the rest of the country in that it is so cosmopolitan. Although all of Britain's cities have some degree of cultural and racial variety, the variety is by far the greatest in London.
New Homes. The need for housing in the south of England has produced new developments in both rural and urban areas. One example of new large-scale building is in the East End of London where fifty years ago London's docklands were the heart of a busy international port. Today most of the ships have gone but the developers, planners, architects and builders have moved in. A New London is being built at high speed. New roads, an airport and a docklands railway have all been built there; houses, flats and offices are being created from the old docks.
While London's skyline changes there are a number of arguments about the direction in which housing should develop. Much of the new Docklands development was designed for people to have easy access to jobs in financial institutions in the City of London, although some local residents have also benefited from the new housing and transport improvements. The speed of the building has meant that environmental planning has not always been possible. Although some of the new buildings have won architectural award: there has also been criticism of the new architectural styles.
The demand for new homes puts pressure on both city areas and the countryside. The 'Green Belt' of protected land, which used to surround London is now being used for housing, particularly in areas which have become more affluent.
Several projects in London show what the city may look like in the near future. The massive Broadgate development, alongside Liverpool Street Station, is a typical example, using steel frames hung with cladding. Critics call it facadism, but the intimacy of this design, with its courtyards and covered walkways, greenery and sculpture, is a huge improvement on the bleak architecture of the 1960s and 1970s. The featureless buildings will be replaced with much friendlier buildings in the Italianate style, currently all the rage among classicists in the architectural profession. There are those who would dearly turn London into a new Venice, with paved squares, colonnades and soaring belltowers. An example of this is Richmond Riverside.
In recent years it has been claimed that London is in decline. It is losing its place as one of the world's biggest financial centres and, in comparison with many other western European cities, it looks rather dirty and neglected. Nevertheless, its popularity as a tourist destination is still growing. And it is not only tourists who like to visit London. For plenty of businessmen it is a favourite city in the world in which to do business. This popularity is probably the result of its combination of apparently infinite cultural variety and a long history, which has left many visible signs of its richness and drama.
