London Pride

I lived in and around London for four separate periods between 1979 and 1996, but haven’t lived in the UK at all since then. In both of the last two summers, I’ve had a chance to visit London for a few days, and each time I’ve been very impressed.

The London I remember well was rather grimy, not completely safe, and divided into monochrome districts. Transport was unreliable and overpriced. You got the feeling that there was plenty going on, but that it was not accessible to all. The wealthy lived among their own kind inside the circle line, and the young had the energy to get their kicks despite the inconveniences. For everyone else, you may have worked in town but you spent much of the rest of your life within your own suburb.

I suppose some of this is still partially true, but I do sense that things have improved in all these areas. As a visitor, I had a sense of a city where people of all backgrounds and preferences could coalesce easily. Some had a tough life, but for most there was at least opportunity for some fulfillment.

When I got home, I started thinking about these observations about a city I thought I knew so well? Might I be misleading myself? Is it me that changed rather than London? Have many cities changed in the same ways? What lessons could London offer to others? And do I have to rethink my biases about living there again?

I might be misleading myself a bit. When I first lived in London I had little money and had to budget a lot. Later I had a family and schooling and other considerations. Now I was a tourist, one able to stay quite close to the action and travel at less crowded times. Just like everywhere can seem beautiful when the sun shines, everywhere can seem attractive as a relaxed tourist.

But then I am sure some of the changes are real. London was multi-cultural before, but in a segregated kind of way. There are far more parts of the city now which are like Queens, with the ethnicities blending together more seamlessly.

And clearly transport has improved. I remember a subway map with a centre defined by the circle line and everything else as arteries for commuters. The overground was only for commuters, a series of disconnected hubs and spokes of which you rarely used more than the one to your home.

Now the city has expanded and connected, and it is a triumph for the planners. The canary wharf expansion to the east was followed by the Olympic expansion to its north, so now the circle line lies decisively to the west of the centre of gravity of the expanded city. Further, various dilapidated rail lines have been integrated into the network to enable better connections, a process that Crossrail with further enhance from next year. Tickets are flexible, maps are helpful, trains are cleaner and more frequent, and from next years will start to run 24/7 (unions notwithstanding). The congestion charge has helped too, decluttering the middle and encouraging investment in mass transit.

So yes, I changed a bit, and these visits were not in typical circumstances, but I do think London changed more, and overwhelmingly for the better. The next question is about other cities. Have all cities become more livable?

Again, to a degree this is true. Take New York. When I first visited, in 1982, I remember taking a wrong turn only five or so blocks from Times Square and immediately feeling very unsafe indeed. Now in three years I have been carefree in where I have ventured and never felt unsafe once. That is the main change, but here too, mass transit is better, the city is cleaner, and the place is less ghettoized.

As the world’s population has gravitated into cities, those cities have often responded well. But not all. Houston just grows outwards with no soul and ever-greater reliance on the car. LA is still ghettoized and sprawling. Rome is still unsafe and dirty. Delhi is ever more polluted. You can take a whole day getting from one side of Jakarta to the other.

Three keys seem to divide the winners from the losers. These are security, mass transport and housing. London has done a very good job with the first two and somehow muddled through with the last one. Singapore has done well with all three, New York to a degree also, while Manila or Jakarta seem to have failed in all the key areas. Get them right, and also somehow create a magnet for jobs and youth and buzz, and cities can thrive.

All cities have benefited somehow by humanity somehow becoming smarter at entertaining themselves, perhaps helped by technology and communication. It seems to be possible nowadays to follow any passion, to find others with the same preferences. In a big city, now it is possible not just to find a few general choirs, but to find one with just the right combination of size and style.

London has made some excellent moves. I remember Ken Livingstone campaigning for cheaper mass transit back in 1982, and then for the congestion charge in the 1990’s. He may not have been quite as supportive of canary wharf, but at least he didn’t block it. And the specific positioning of the Olympics in Stratford, perfect for regeneration and expansion of the core city, was a stroke of genius. History will look kindly on Mr. Livingstone, I believe, much as Messrs Guiliani and Bloomberg deserve great credit for New York.

On the Olympics, you read a lot of conflicting material about the economic value for cities: from what I observe, it may have cost London a lot, but the value of regenerating so effectively a part adjacent to the centre must be massive, and something it is very hard to do just with incremental steps.

In the twenty years since I lived in the UK, I have had no yearning at all to return. Now I am rethinking that bias. It is worth considering how the bias came about in the first place.

 My view of England became rather tarnished while away. When I returned, it was usually to see my Mum in Eastbourne. I witnessed to terrible transport links outside London and the limiting provincial attitude there too. But that was through the lens of a suffering older person, so I may have been too pessimistic in my conclusions.

A bigger factor may have been the external portrayal of British attitudes through the media and public affairs. The politics and the press and some TV continue to epitomize a place I would rather not live. Now, perhaps the same would be true for any other country if I were somehow connected to those sources. It is certainly true of the US: the gun crazy, arrogant, celebrity-obsessed place described in the media is a long way from the reality of New York City.

So, London has been promoted up the list of possible destinations after New York, in my own mind and in my wife’s as well. Partly this could have come from noticing previous negative bias, partly from observing first hand the great things that London has achieved, and partly just a reflection of a growing preference for cities in general.

It may be a moot point, because what is clear is that many others have reached the same conclusion, and the housing policy of muddling through has houses in and around London very expensive, perhaps too expensive for me. Still, for a while longer we can dream of what might be possible, and also to recover a bit of pride for my native land, or at least its capital.