Expansion in London, which has been its population growth since its inception, what their specific geographical area of \u200b\u200bbirth and where the city grows, it is the subject of this post.
London has always been the main urban agglomeration in the British archipelago. Its development has continued in an almost uninterrupted over a millennium and a fast pace since the early nineteenth century. London
differs from most major cities around the world for its double origin, which is perpetuated today in the duality of the central business district. The Roman town near the bridge and port facilities became in the City, commercial and financial city, while further west, alongside the original ford city settled policy of Westminster, a royal residence and, later, a meeting of parliament (the sea level rise has remove this ford and delay the tidal limit upstream, to Teddington (tide-ending town). When Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) and William the Conqueror (1066-1087) was appointed permanently to London as the capital of the kingdom, then the city had about 20,000 inhabitants (1% of the population of England). In the mid-fourteenth century on the eve of the great plague, had only 35 000.
Under the reign of Elizabeth I (100 000 inhabitants in 1560 to 200 000 to 1600), Westminster and the City was joined by Strand Avenue, since over the same houses were built, London would extend hereinafter constituting a unit. But the asymmetry of the two river persist until today. The City and Westminster are on the north shore, the most advantageous to address the major Roman provinces as well as Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The south shore, "the wrong side of the Thames," was long no more than a simple bridgehead, Southwark, a city of highways and waiters, poorly communicated to the other side by a single bridge that collapsed with frequency. All the attributes of power, the main monuments, the most populous neighborhoods and nearly every port basins are located on the north shore. Generally, today the higher functions are still very scarce in the south and the essence of economic and political activity is displayed on the north shore.
After the great fire of 1666, which completely destroyed the city of wood and adobe, London was quickly rebuilt in stone and brick, more spaced. The beautiful areas of the West End appeared in the Georgian era. Economic and colonial expansion of Great Britain stimulated the port and industries and population growth due to the constant influx of provincial national and foreign. The city already had 500 000 inhabitants at the beginning of the eighteenth century to 960 000 when it became the first population census in 1801, ie 9% of Anglo-Welsh population. Soon surpassed the one million people and became the largest city in the world.
The expansion of Georgian and Victorian London was held as a major oil spill in all directions, with characteristics very different from those of Paris in the same period. This is due to many reasons. First, London has benefited from strategic protection which has provided the insular situation of Great Britain, apart from the Roman wall which some remains in the City, no wall prevented urban sprawl. Authorities never had a need to increase the fortifications, and London has not had those successive walls, in cities such as Paris, Vienna and Moscow, have been identified in a circular development characterized by concentric boulevards.
Secondly, the monarchy soon had to give a great deal of political power to an austere parliament, the people living expression. No sovereign was able to build great civic monuments or draw broad avenues, that would have directed urban development. The opportunity offered by the reconstruction that followed the fire of 1666 was wasted. Buckingham Palace itself was not specifically built for royalty, but simply bought by the king to a powerful noble family who wanted rid of him. Hence the absence of guidelines, confusion of the plot, the monotony of the mainland.
Finally, the construction of the modern districts, was operated for a very liberal regime, with intervention by the central minimized. Each owner (large property owners prevail in London and throughout the East of England) granted to an entrepreneur building entire blocks. The leasehold system (cost sharing between landowners and land speculators) allowed ample time to build in some residential neighborhoods, some (especially the west) for upper classes, others (especially in the east) for classes. Each neighborhood has its internal logic, its architecture, its often flat checkerboard and services together in an imperfect way to the neighboring district. It can say that London is an "archipelago of cities."
The influence of the railroads began to be felt from the mid-nineteenth century. The first metro line data 1863. The lye, 1882 on a reduced price rail fares for commuters, favored the emergence of the first suburbs, including the Lea Valley, becoming a line of city-bedroom around railway stations. Motor Buses (1899), trams (1901) and then the electrification and extension of the metro in turn contributed to the expansion of agglomeration and congestion in the central districts, gradually invaded by offices.
Greater London's population exceeded 2.3 million inhabitants in 1851, 3.7 million in 1881 (14% of the Anglo-Welsh), the 6.5 million in 1901 and 7.5 million in 1921. In 1929, Greater London reached a peak of about 8.7 million inhabitants (21% of the Anglo-Welsh).
Since then, the depopulation until then related only to the central districts, was extended to the whole metropolis: Greater London had no more than 8.2 million in 1961, a little less of 8 000 000 in 1966, 7.38 million in 1971, 6.97 million in 1977, 6,679,699 in 1991, 7,172,091 in 2001 and 7 518 000 (8 505 000) to 2005.
The policy of population redistribution undertaken by the state after the Second World War was partly responsible for the decline of the densities.
Thereafter, the growth of the organism London takes place in the outer circle of the metropolitan area.
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