Tag: London

Tracking Gentrification in London and Manchester Using the 2021 Census Occupational Class Data

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The Office for National Statistics have started to publish the more detailed tables from the new 2021 census. Of particular interest for my research are the variables related to gentrification. In this post I look at the occupational class data (Standard Occupational Class) to identify areas of London and Manchester with the biggest social changes.

The Changing Geography of London
Given that gentrification has been transforming Inner London for over half a century, some researchers had speculated these processes will start to slow with fewer and fewer working class districts left in Inner London that have not already been transformed. The 2021 census data shows however that gentrification has continued at pace between 2011-2021, with substantial changes in the geography of occupational classes, particularly in East and South-East London.

The map below shows the proportion of residents in the three most affluent occupational classes: Managers, Professionals and Associate Professionals in 2021. This is a useful overall indicator of gentrification (though note there are differences between these classes, and deprived populations can also be present in gentrifying areas). The map shows the long established structure of affluent Londoners clustered in Inner and West London, with radial corridors extending South West and North West through historic wealthy areas such as Richmond and Hampstead. The most dramatic changes with the 2021 data are in East London, and South East London, in areas such as Stratford, Walthamstow, Deptford and Greenwich, fitting with widely discussed social trends of these areas in the last ten years. The changes in East London are so substantial that we can identify new radial corridors of relative affluence forming in North East and South East London, mirroring the radial sectors in West London and forming a big red ‘X’ shape on the map. The traditional divisions between East and West are eroding over time with gentrification processes and the substantial transport and planning interventions in East London in recent decades. On the other hand, many of these areas in East and South East London still include high levels of deprivation alongside these gentrification processes, leading to a complex picture.

Below the 2011 and 2021 data are shown side by side with a slider. Gentrification is almost always a spatially clustered process, with newly gentrifying neighbourhoods forming next to existing affluent areas. You can see this very clearly in the maps below as the red areas follow a pattern of organic growth as they expand and strengthen from historic clusters-

We can also map change directly, as shown below. This highlights just how concentrated gentrification is in East and South East London. Some major development sites are picked out, such as the Olympic Park at Stratford, and the developments at North Greenwich. New build gentrification is clearly playing a significant role. But many of the changes are spread across districts such as Walthamstow, Leyton, Bow, Peckham and Deptford, and these changes will be through turnover in the historic housing stock alongside new build housing.

An important difference in 2021 compared the 1990s and early 2000s appears to be more social change in Outer London, at the urban fringe and extending into the more rural Home Counties. This is particularly noticeable in South East London (Bromley, Orpington, Bexley), as well as other parts of Outer London (Barnet, Ruislip, Romford, Coulsdon). This will likely be linked to the extreme unaffordability of Inner London, but the 2021 census may also be picking up some of the demand for larger houses with gardens in 2020 and early 2021 following the pandemic.

On the topic of whether gentrification processes are displacing lower income populations in London, it is not possible to answer with this data. A useful overall perspective comes from looking at the profile of all occupational classes for Greater London in 2011 and 2021. We can clearly observe in the graph below a very large increase in the Professional class, and a big increase in the Management class (Associate Professional is static- this is on average the youngest class, and is probably a sign that this group has been more affected by the price/rent increases). The remaining classes do not however show a decline, they are largely static (except for Administrative, on average the oldest class). This implies that the overall process of increased professionalisation in the last decade has been more about new populations moving to London rather than lower income classes being further displaced, but this conclusion is speculative and migration data would be needed to investigate this. Note also that the professionalisation pattern is clearly visible in the occupational class profile of England and Wales, showing that the growth in knowledge jobs is affecting the entire economy, not just big cities like London.

The Wider Picture Across England
The scale and economic dynamism of London typically makes the capital an outlier compared to other UK cities in terms of processes of urban change. However, devolved governments in city regions such as Greater Manchester and the West Midlands have brought substantial new investment and developments in their cities over the last decade, and we would anticipate some similar processes of social change to be happening. If we look at percentage point change in professional classes for England and Wales (the same measure as the change map above, but this time at local authority scale), we can see the top ranked local authorities are mainly in East and South East London. A crucial difference however is the prominence of Greater Manchester boroughs, including Trafford and Salford. This indicates that major social change is occurring in Manchester. Additionally the West Midlands is also picked up within the top 25 local authorities. Note the national average change in Professional classes is +5.4 percentage points between 2011-2021, so the change towards professional and service jobs is occurring across the economy as a whole.

Local Authorities Ranked by Percentage Point Change in Profess. Classes 2011-2021-

RankLocal AuthorityRegionProf. % 2011Prof. % 2021Percentage Point
Change 11-21
1Waltham ForestLondon (East)39.250.511.3
2Trafford Grt. Manchester48.158.410.3
3Newham London (East)32.041.59.5
4Salford Grt. Manchester36.145.59.4
5Dartford London (OMA)37.346.69.3
6Bromley London (SE)50.659.89.1
7Bexley London (SE)36.745.89.1
8Greenwich London (SE)44.253.18.9
9Lewisham London (SE)48.857.48.5
10S. Cambridgeshire East of England52.360.88.5
11Stockport Grt. Manchester44.352.68.4
12Havering London (East)36.945.38.3
13Warwick West Midlands51.960.18.2
14North Tyneside Tyne & Wear38.346.38.0
15Southwark London (Inner)53.861.88.0
16Broxbourne London (OMA)35.243.28.0
17Epsom and Ewell London (OMA)51.459.27.9
18Sutton London (SW)43.951.77.8
19Hackney London (Inner)56.564.27.8
20Mid Sussex South East48.055.77.7
21Tonbrg. & Malling South East44.151.77.7
22Exeter South West39.246.87.6
23Bromsgrove West Midlands48.255.77.5
24Solihull West Midlands45.452.97.4
25N. Hertfordshire London (OMA)49.657.07.4
26Sevenoaks London (OMA)48.155.47.3
27Epping Forest London (OMA)45.853.17.3
28Bristol, City of West of England44.952.17.2
29Ribble Valley North West45.252.47.2
30Cambridge East of England57.965.17.2

Occupational Class Change in Greater Manchester
It is clear from the table above that alongside London, there are considerable changes in the occupational class geography of Greater Manchester ongoing. The borough of Trafford ranks second in the above table, while Salford is at four and Stockport at eleven. Repeating the mapping exercise below, we can see that occupational class changes are widespread across Greater Manchester, particularly to the west and south of the city centre. In economic terms this is a positive sign that Manchester’s knowledge economy is growing and attracting skilled workers, an important trend given generally low productivity for many UK cities beyond London. On the flip side however, Manchester residents will be less impressed if house prices and levels of inequality start to resemble the extreme situation in the capital.

We can repeat the change map again for Greater Manchester. Some big development sites appear to be picked up in Salford, Ancoats and Sale (the prominent development site of Salford Quays appears to have already gentrified before the 2011 census). But the growth in more affluent occupational classes is not confined to these development sites, it is occurring across most of Greater Manchester and, similar to London, includes many suburban areas. It is only really in Bolton, Rochdale and Oldham where there are few signs of change identifiable.

Summary
The occupational class data from the 2021 census shows that evolution towards knowledge economy and service jobs continues at pace, with Professional and Management classes showing by far the highest growth levels across England and Wales. London has continued to experience significant gentrification levels, with the spatial focus in the last decade concentrated in East and South East London. London centres such as Walthamstow, Stratford, Deptford and Lewisham have changed dramatically, so much so that we can see two new radial corridors of more affluent populations forming in North East and South East London, mirroring the long established structure of West London.

Gentrification is by no means confined to London, and indeed Greater Manchester has several of fastest gentrifying local authorities in England and Wales, particularly the boroughs of Salford and Trafford. This is largely reinforcing the structure of wealthier populations being concentrated to the south and west of Greater Manchester, and in the city centre.

This analysis has looked only at the new occupational class data, which does provide some interesting insights. To look into these issues more deeply however we would need to add analysis on housing markets, tenure, deprivation, age and migration data.

Pandemic Geographies and Challenges with the 2021 England & Wales Census Results

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The Census is the most comprehensive demographic survey in the UK, providing detailed data for government and researchers in many fields, from health and education, to planning and transport. The 2021 Census has a unique context, as the 2021 census day (21st March 2021) occurred when the UK was still in the 3rd national lockdown which began on the 6th of January 2021. The lockdown will likely have various impacts on the census results, particularly on groups who may have changed their residence during lockdown, such as students (many of whom were studying remotely) and employees in the hardest hit sectors, such as retail, arts and hospitality.

The issue is not that the census will be inaccurate per se (indeed the Census has a very thorough survey methodology) but rather that the period in time captured of March 2021 will have aspects unique to the pandemic. These aspects are likely to be temporary as society returns to something more like normality in 2022 and beyond. While Scotland chose to delay its 2021 census for a year (which may prove to be a sensible decision), researchers in England and Wales will need to be make the most of the 2021 results and be made aware of any unusual aspects.

At present only the early population results have been released for the 2021 Census, so more detailed breakdowns of population groups will have to wait for further releases later this year. The following analysis compares the Census 2021 local authority totals to the ONS mid-year population estimates for 2020 to check how the census population results compare to the next most recent population estimate.

The differences between the 2020 data and 2021 Census are likely to reflect several factors-

  1. The higher accuracy of the census methodology. The ONS mid-year estimates can have some errors due to limited data on some groups, such as international migrants, which are better represented in the census. Potentially Brexit could have increased the degree of error in the mid-year estimates, given changes in international migration.
  2. Temporary pandemic changes to places of residence. These could include for example students working remotely from home during term time (including international students not coming to the UK), younger populations returning to live with parents as jobs furloughed/ended/changed to remote working, and wealthier residents choosing to live in second homes.
  3. Longer term pandemic changes to residential preferences. This could reflect changing residential preferences towards larger houses with more space/gardens following a dramatic rise in remote working during the pandemic.

Right now the extent of these different factors is not known, and it is very difficult to separate them without more analysis and data. So the following discussion is speculative in nature.

Comparing the Census 2021 Populations to the 2020 ONS Mid-Year Estimates
The map below shows the percentage differences between the 2020 mid-year population estimates, and the 2021 Census. Blue areas show where the census 2021 population is lower than the 2020 estimates, and red areas where the census 2021 population is higher than the 2020 estimates. The differences are substantial. In South East England there is a strong geographical pattern with Inner London populations down dramatically (Camden and Westminster both have 24% lower populations in the census results). London as a whole has a population of 8.8 million in the 2021 census, which is 200k lower than the estimated 2020 total. In contrast, commuter towns and the home counties surrounding London have distinctly higher populations of around 5-10%. This pattern very much looks like a pandemic geography of Inner London residents leaving during the lockdown. Analysis by the GLA using PAYE income data confirms this general conclusion, and also points to this population drop being concentrated in young adults (note also the GLA analysis shows this population largely returning to Inner London by 2022). It is possible however that other factors such as post-Brexit emigration and very high rents are also reducing Inner London populations, and could have produced errors in the 2020 mid-year estimate data.

It is not just in the South East where there are differences between the 2020 and 2021 data. The South West and the Midlands are also areas where generally 2021 Census populations are higher than the 2020 data. The higher populations are mainly in more rural authorities, as well as some urban areas including Leicester, Lincoln, Derby, Worcester and Swindon, while Coventry and Nottingham have lower 2021 populations (university related?). There is no simple pattern here, and there are likely some 2020 mid-year population errors here in addition to any pandemic related changes. There also appear to be higher populations in areas within 1-2 hour journey times to London, possibly linked to changing residential preferences following the rise in flexible working.

North-West England has a mixed pattern with higher census populations in Cheshire to the South and in Burnley, but not in central Manchester or Liverpool. In Yorkshire and Humberside, Leeds and Hull have higher populations in the 2021 Census, while Sheffield is lower. The North East and Wales generally have a much closer alignment between the 2020 and 2021 data. The higher than expected populations in many rural and smaller town authorities fits with pandemic related patterns, but the mixed picture for many cities implies that the situation is complex, and may include both pandemic changes and errors in the 2020 data.

London and the South East
As mentioned above, the 2021 Census data for London and the South East does look to have been significantly influenced by the pandemic, with much lower than expected populations in Inner London, and higher populations in towns surrounding Greater London, and those with longer distance rail connections, such as Peterborough, Milton Keynes and Reading. We can look in more detail at some of these patterns.

As well as higher populations in commuter towns surrounding London, there are also higher population results recorded in the Outer West London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. This is quite an outlier compared to the rest of Greater London, and it is not clear why pandemic or mid-year population error factors would affect these boroughs in particular. In relation to the student population argument, it is interesting that both Oxford and Cambridge have higher than expected 2021 Census populations, likely because Oxbridge colleges insisted on students being on campus in 2021, and likely because the 2020 data has underpredicted wider population increases.

The big question on the geography of the South East is to what extent these pandemic related changes are a temporary lockdown phenomena, or may relate to longer term trends in residential preferences. The analysis by the GLA using PAYE data pointed to the population decreases in Inner London being a short term trend for younger adults, which in turn could have pushed up populations in the wider South East in 2021. However, an argument can also be made that some of the patterns observed fit trends of households looking for more spacious residences, and adapting to flexible working patterns that do not require daily attendance at the office. Areas beyond 1 hour travel to London with more affordable housing become much more attractive in this context (and have seen big house price increases). The map above shows a ring of local authorities surrounding London with higher than expected populations in 2021 that stretches beyond the South East into the Midlands and South West. We will need to wait for more data to see whether this is a trend beyond the immediate residential changes during the pandemic.

Age Profile Comparison, 2011 and 2021
In the comparison above, it is very difficult to separate out errors in the mid-year estimates from genuine population changes. Another approach is to look at the age profiles in 2011 and 2021 for those areas with significant population differences in the 2021 census. Firstly for Inner London boroughs with lower than expected populations, you can see very clearly in the charts for Westminster and Camden that the lower populations are focussed on younger adults, 20-40. This fits with the temporary pandemic residential changes argument. There are however other factors aside from the pandemic, such as increased rents and post-Brexit visa issues, that could also lower the population of younger adults.

For London as a whole, there is a modest drop in the population in their 20s, and increase in nearly all other age groups, with the average age increasing overall. The comparison between the 2020 population data with the 2021 census above did not pick up unexpectedly lower populations in other large English cities apart from London. Looking at other English cities in terms of age profiles, generally there does not appear to be this fall in the proportion of younger adults. Leeds is a fairly typical example shown below. Manchester on the other hand has a pattern a bit more like London, and perhaps this signals more pandemic related changes here, or maybe more similarity to London in terms of international migration.

Turning to those cities with higher than expected population increases in the 2021 census, we can also look at their age profiles. The examples below of Peterborough and Milton Keynes show really big increases in populations in their 30s and to a lesser extent 40s. Many of these households will have kids, and so there are similar jumps in the population of young children (though this does not appear in the age 0-4 group). This pattern looks very much like these towns are attracting families looking for more affordable housing, and the 2020 data has underestimated this trend. It is possible the pandemic has further encouraged this, but it looks overall like a longer term trend. Note that other towns growing rapidly in the South East such as Reading and Bedford has similar age profile charts (as does Ealing in London). The big outlier is Cambridge, where the population increase is geared more towards adults in their 20s.

Summary
This analysis has found some significant differences between the new 2021 census data, and mid-year population estimate data from 2020. It is very difficult to know whether this is due to errors in the 2020 data, or alternatively pandemic factors affecting the population in March 2021. Some of the biggest differences are in London, and it does appear that London experienced a drop in the younger adult population during the pandemic, particularly in Inner London. Manchester also has signs of a similar trend. GLA analysis indicates this drop was temporary in London, though there are longer term factors such as high rents which could also be playing a role.

Another big difference between the 2020 and 2021 data is much faster growth in many towns and small cities in the South East. Places like Milton Keynes and Bedford have growth of around 17% between 2011 and 2021. The age profile data shows this is driven mainly by adults in their 30s and 40s, often with children. The population differences look more like errors in the 2020 data here, though it is possible that the pandemic has accelerated families moving to more affordable towns to purchase larger housing.

Overall is not straightforward to separate out errors in the ONS mid-year estimates from pandemic changes, or to separate temporary pandemic changes from any longer term trends that are emerging. When the full data is released it will likely be possible to filter out certain demographics (e.g. students, younger populations) more affected by the pandemic. But it does look like the census 2021 data is going to be less certain than usual, particularly for London, and maybe for other large cities. Given that the census is traditionally used as a basis for investment in public services, more caution will be needed when using the 2021 census results (indeed London Councils have already responded that the 2021 census is underpredicting London’s population).

Table of Local Authorities with Greatest Increases Between 2020 ONS and 2021 Census Populations

Name2011 Census Population2020 Mid-year Population2021 Census PopulationPopulation Change 2011-2020Population Change 2011-2021Difference Between 2020 ONS and 2021 Census
Cambridge1238671250631457001.917.616.5
Reading1556981603371742003.211.98.6
Ealing3384493403413671000.38.57.9
Oxford1519061515841621000.96.76.9
Harlow8194487280933006.213.96.9
Peterborough1836312026262157009.817.56.5
Milton Keynes2488212702032870008.115.36.2
Bedford15747917468718530010.717.76.1
Hounslow2539572717672882006.613.56.0
Cherwell1418681518461610006.713.56.0
Burnley8705989344947002.78.86.0
Slough1402051495771585006.313.06.0
Watford90301966231023006.613.35.9
Rushmoor9380794387998000.06.45.7
Luton2032012135282253004.910.95.5
Crawley1065971124741185005.111.25.4
Swindon2091562228812334006.311.64.7
West Northampton.3751014067334257008.213.54.7
Merton1996932064532152002.97.84.2
Basingstoke and Deane1677991777601852005.510.44.2
Leicester3298393540363686007.411.84.1
Pendle8945292145958002.97.14.0

Table of Local Authorities with Greatest Decreases Between 2020 ONS and 2021 Census Populations

Name2011 Census Population2020 Mid-year Population2021 Census PopulationPopulation Change 2011-2020Population Change 2011-2021Difference Between 2020 ONS and 2021 Census
Camden22033827951621010027.0-4.6-24.8
Westminster21939626984820430022.9-6.9-24.3
City of London737510938860047.616.6-21.4
Islington20612524811521660020.35.1-12.7
Coventry31696037938734530019.78.9-9.0
Kensington and Chelsea158649156864143400-0.9-9.6-8.6
Hackney24627028094125920013.75.3-7.7
Richmondshire5196553732497000.8-4.4-7.5
Tower Hamlets25409633196931030029.722.1-6.5
Kingston upon Thames16006017914216800011.75.0-6.2
Gwynedd1218741251711174003.0-3.7-6.2
Isles of Scilly2203222621000.1-4.7-5.7
Canterbury15114516676215740010.74.1-5.6
Sheffield5526985892145565006.80.7-5.6
Brighton and Hove2733692917382772006.91.4-5.0
Newcastle-under-Lyme1238711296101233004.6-0.5-4.9
Guildford1371831503521436009.34.7-4.5
Blaenau Gwent6981470020669000.3-4.2-4.5
Nottingham30568033709832370010.95.9-4.0

New Book – Gilded City: Tour Medieval and Renaissance London

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Have you ever wondered how London began? Or how London grew to become such an influential world city for business, politics and culture? You might be interested in Gilded City, a new book recently published (available on Amazon). Gilded City tells the story of London by touring its most fascinating historic districts and buildings, and describing how the emergence of social groups during the medieval and early modern periods – such as the livery companies, religious orders, scholars and writers – helped shape both London and modern society more generally.

Gilded City tells London’s history visually, with extensive colour photography and mapping. Readers can see how the different ages of London have left their mark in the built-environment, and you can follow nine walking tours to explore these sites, including both famous historic landmarks and more secluded historic locations away from the main tourist trail.

Each chapter follows an influential social class in London’s history. Chapter 4 above covers the religious orders and shows St John’s Gate in Clerkenwell.

Given my background in cartography, lots of new maps have been created for this book. Each of the nine tours is mapped in detail with the architectural form of historic buildings illustrated. The maps are intended to show the important buildings that are still standing today, as well as the site of the many historic buildings lost over time in the Great Fire and other destructive events. These help to show the geography of London during different historical periods, and how the character of different parts of London – such as the financial quarter, Inns of Court and Whitehall – were first established.

Each tour is mapped in detail showing the historic buildings and sites of important features no longer present

Gilded City is published by Unicorn Publishers, and is available to buy online and in bookshops around London-
Gilded City on Amazon
Waterstones
Unicorn Publishers
Bookshop.org
London Review Bookshop
Blackwells
WHSmith
Stanfords

Hopefully it will inspire more people to explore more of London, and connect the city today to its fascinating and complex history.

A Compact City for the Wealthy? Continuing Inner London Gentrification and Impacts on Accessibility Inequalities

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We have a new paper out in the Journal of Transport Geography- “A compact city for the wealthy? Employment accessibility inequalities between occupational classes in the London metropolitan region 2011“. The paper explores how the increasingly affluent nature of Inner London has improved sustainable travel opportunities for more affluent professional and management classes, while less affluent groups have increasingly been priced out to lower accessibility Outer London locations.

The Continuing Gentrification of Inner London
The gentrification of Inner London was first recorded by Ruth Glass back in the 1960s, with middle class residents moving into largely working class neighbourhoods as London’s economy began its long evolution from manufacturing towards service jobs. This process has continued for decades, ultimately transforming most of Inner London. In the 21st century, some researchers have argued that gentrification has stalled (perhaps because there are few neighbourhoods left to gentrify) or has entered a different phase (e.g. processes such as super-gentrification and new-build gentrification as discussed by Davidson and Lees).

This research uses the Standard Occupational Class data as the basis of measuring social class. This classification was found to correspond to differences in income, as well as to a distinct residential geography. In particular, the three most affluent groups (Management, Professional and Associate Professional) cluster together, resulting in the social geography we can see in the map below using the 2011 Census data. There is a clear clustering of professional classes in Inner-West London, with two prominent radial corridors extending northwards through Camden, Islington and Hampstead; and south-westwards through Kensington, Wandsworth and Richmond. Concentrations of non-professional groups are mainly in Outer London to the east, north-east and west, with only smaller pockets remaining in Inner London. This analysis largely matches the description of Inner London now being dominated by professional classes, with lower income groups increasingly in Outer London (with some exceptions remaining in Inner East and South-East London).

Professional Classes (Manag., Prof. & Assoc. Prof.) Residential Percentage 2011. Data: Census 2011 (Office for National Statistics, 2016).

As well as mapping the 2011 geography of occupational class, we looked at more recent changes to see if gentrification is continuing or has slowed, using the ONS Annual Population Survey. Analysing changes between 2006 and 2016, we found had substantial gentrification had continued in Inner London, as shown in the table below. The Management, Professional and Associate Professional groups all grew as a proportion of the Inner London population, while all other occupational classes fell proportionally (green cells are above the average for the metro region, and orange cells are below the average). Interestingly, the biggest growth was in the Management and Professional classes, rather than the younger Associate Professional class, arguably more in line with super-gentrification processes. In contrast, there are proportional increases in several lower income classes in Outer London.

Sub-Regional Occupational Class Percentage Point Change by Residence 2006–2016 (final 2016 sub-regional percentages in brackets)

We can also explore these changes at the more detailed level of local authorities, and show that even more dramatic changes are occurring at the local level. In the chart below, each Local Authority is shown as a trajectory connecting its position in 2006 to its position in 2016 in relation to the percentage of professional classes and the total working population. Generally, Inner Greater London Authority (GLA) boroughs experience high working population growth combined with large increases in the proportion of professional classes. Boroughs with a long history of gentrification, such as Camden and Islington, are higher up in the chart reaching 70% professional classes, while more recent gentrifiers, such as Lewisham and Southwark, are rapidly gentrifying from a lower base. Outer GLA boroughs also show substantial population growth but with lower levels of change in professional classes, and decline in some cases. The exceptions are mainly in South and South-West London, with Croydon, Sutton and Richmond all gentrifying. Outer Metropolitan Area (OMA) local authorities have a mixed picture, with some increases in professional occupational classes with minimal working population growth; while some lower income towns such as Luton and Harlow are not gentrifying.

Local Authority Trajectories for Combined Percentage of Professional Occupational Classes and Total Working Population for 2006 and 2016. Data Source: Annual Population Survey 2005–2017.

What Impacts Does Inner London Gentrification have on Accessibility to Jobs?
We would expect that the dominance of more affluent classes in Inner London translates into accessibility advantages for these classes, as Inner London has substantially better accessibility opportunities by public transport, walking and cycling. We were particularly interested in accessibility by more affordable travel modes in this research. Bus travel is in general considerably cheaper than other public transport options in London. This is reflected in higher rates of more affordable bus and walking trips by lower income classes in the 2011 Census data. We can see in the table below that the three lowest income classes (6, 7 & 9) have around three times higher rates of bus travel and two times higher rates of walking than the most affluent three classes (1, 2 & 3)-

We used network analysis to analyse accessibility differences (see working paper on accessibility model). The analysis was carried out using the 2011 census data. The box plot below shows the cumulative accessibility to jobs for 60 minutes travel by Car, Public Transport (all modes) and Bus Only for the occupational classes. We can see differences between classes, particularly for public transport and bus trips, though there is also much variation within each class.

GLA 60mins Cumulative Accessibility to Employment by SOC Groups: Absolute Results

The accessibility differences between occupational classes can be more clearly seen by plotting differences between how the average accessibility for each group varies from the average accessibility for the entire working population, as shown below. Note in this chart the accessibility differences are normalised by travel mode, so the differences between travel modes in the chart above are normalised in the chart below. We can see clear consistent accessibility advantages for the top three occupational classes, particularly for more affordable slower modes- walking and cycling. The remaining occupational classes have below average accessibility to jobs, particularly for the more car oriented Skilled Trades and Process groups.

Greater London Authority 60mins Cumulative Accessibility to Employment by SOC Groups: Relative Differences in Occupational Class Mode Means and Mode Means for Total Population

The results for bus and walking modes is a particular accessibility challenge. Accessibility by these more affordable modes is generally low in absolute terms outside of Inner London. For the bus mode, less than half the number of jobs are reachable at typical commute times compared to the full public transport network. Given that lower income groups are the most frequent bus and walking commuters, and that these classes are increasingly being priced out of Inner London, these limitations are a significant accessibility challenge going forward.

What Policies Can Planner follow to Mitigate this?
In terms of transport policy, this research supports efforts to improve the affordability and connectivity of public transport for lower income populations. This is indeed a priority of the current London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has committed to freezing public transport fares, and has reformed ticketing to allow multiple bus journeys on a single fare. These measures help offset travel costs for lower income residents in Outer London.

The main policy conclusion is the importance of housing policy in influencing accessibility outcomes in the study area. Low and moderate income groups are being priced out of public transport accessible areas. Without a step-change in the delivery of genuinely affordable housing in accessible locations, the increasing dominance of Inner London by professional classes will continue, resulting in greater accessibility inequalities, and likely increased travel costs for lower income classes.

Note on Covid-19 and Travel Inequalities
This research was completed in 2019, before the recent COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has in the short term shut down public transport networks, and greatly disadvantaged millions of city residents around the world. Longer term it is possible that the pandemic will reduce the attraction of inner city areas such as Inner London, due to perceived risk of future pandemics as well as the acceleration of telecommuting and home-working trends. The overall effect could be to slow gentrification processes, although this is difficult to predict. The alternative view is that  London will recover and adapt as it has done following many crises in the past. East Asian metropolises offer a good model of how to built resilience following their response to the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks.

The wider economic impacts are clearly also important. Certainly we are in line for a very large recession, hitting important sectors such as tourism and hospitality. More specifically in London, the recession may hit development viability for affordable housing, and is a real headache for public transport operators. Transport for London was in financial trouble before the crisis, and is currently dependent on government bailouts to keep running. This will likely curtail the ability of the Mayor to maintain lower public transport fares, and so impact the kind of transport accessibility inequalities this paper discusses.

 

 

 

Planning a Cycling Revolution for Post-Lockdown London

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Overview
London and the UK as a whole have been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, creating multiple health, social and economic crises. Social distancing requirements have drastically reduced the safe capacity of public transport services. The London Mayor and Transport for London (TfL) have quickly responded with a radical plan for transforming Inner London into a walking and cycling city, with major streetspace reallocation and restrictions on car use. Where should this new active travel infrastructure be prioritised? Will it substantially change travel behaviour for the better? This article looks at plans for new cycling infrastructure in Inner London, and includes recent UCL research by Nicolas Palominos.

The Green Active Travel Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic
The concentration of people, activity and global connections in cities is normally their greatest asset, yet now is the source of acute risk and vulnerability during the coronavirus pandemic. Rail, metro and bus systems enable millions of daily trips to be made efficiently and sustainably, but their crowded nature is incompatible with social distancing. Recent estimates of how many passengers can safely use buses, trains and metro systems in London while enforcing a 2 metre social distancing rule are around 15% of full capacity. This restriction is devastating for transit cities to function, preventing people getting to work, school and basic services; as well as crippling the fares revenue for public transport providers. Although there are plausible scenarios where the 15% limit could be moderately relaxed (such as through mandatory mask-wearing and temperature screening, or an adjustment of the UK social distancing rules to 1.5m/1m) we are effectively looking at months (in the worst case years) with public transport operating at a severely reduced capacity.

With public transport now hampered for the short-to-medium term, there is a real danger that there will be a big increase in car use as lockdown restrictions are eased, undoing much of the recent progress towards sustainable cities and tackling urban problems of congestion, poor air quality, carbon emissions and obesity. The alternative is to dramatically increase walking and cycling through a major reallocation of street space to these active travel modes. Measures for new cycle and pedestrian lanes have recently been proposed by many cities including Milan, Paris, Brussels and Bogota, and are being widely discussed in many more. The aim is to provide safe and healthy travel alternatives to increased car use, and to enable cities to continue to function with public transport restrictions. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has joined these progressive cities by advocating an active travel transformation for London with the Streetspace for London plan.

London’s Fragmented Cycle Routes
Cities that have achieved very high rates of cycling, such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen, have done so with comprehensive networks of segregated cycle lanes, allowing all residents to cycle safely, not just experienced cyclists. London has been struggling to catch up with these cities, and still has a fragmented and incomplete network of cycle lanes. The map below shows Inner London cycle lane data in 2019. The dark blue lines are physically segregated cycle lanes (i.e. a physical barrier between the cycle lane and the road). These are mainly found on CS2 (Cycle Superhighway 2) in East London, CS3 (the only complete East-West route through Central London), and parts of CW6 (Cycleway 6) which is the main north-south link across Blackfriars Bridge that has some sections in Central London that are still under construction.

Outside of these segregated routes there is a scattered patchwork of cycle lanes that are based on road markings without a physical barrier with the carriageway, shown in light blue on the map. There are also bus lanes on many major roads (dark red on the map) which offer some protection for cyclists, but are a long way from the safety of fully segregated lanes. Overall Inner London’s cycle network has many gaps that need filled, particularly in Central, West, North-West, North-East and South-East London. This infrastructure gap sits in sharp contrast to the aim of drastically increasing cycling during the post-lockdown period. The lack of segregated routes increases the risk of cycle collisions with cars, and will discourage public transport users from making the switch to cycling.

The Proposals from the Mayor and TfL
In the Streetspace for London plan, the Mayor has proposed developing a network of new walking and cycling routes to allow Londoners to walk and cycle while social distancing, and to redirect public transport trips to active travel rather than driving. Cycling will be critical for public transport substitution, as most tube and bus journeys are 4-10km, considerably longer than typical walking distances (discussed more below). Given the fragmented nature of current cycle routes, major changes and interventions are required to achieve these aims.

The highly ambitious nature of the proposals were made clear last week with a major plan for new Car Free routes to be introduced in the City of London (below). This plan would transform many of London’s busiest roads into bus, cycling and walking corridors, radically improving cycle access across Central London, particularly to major rail stations. It includes:

  • Completing Cycleway 6 with a car free Farringdon Road leading to Kings Cross Station;
  • A car free Waterloo Bridge, leading to a whole new car free north-south route via Kingsway and Southampton Row to Euston Station;
  • A car free London Bridge, leading to two segregated routes, the first via Bank to Moorgate, and and the second via Bisohopsgate to Liverpool Street station;
  • Upgraded east-west routes, with a car free Theobalds Road to Old Street; and improved cycle provision on High Holborn and Cheapside (could this be extended west to Oxford Street, and east to meet Cycleway 2 at Aldgate?);

These proposals show a comprehensive commitment to the active travel plan, and include major restrictions on driving to make this happen. In addition to the Car Free routes, the Congestion Charge and low emission zones have been reinstated, and the cost of the Congestion Charge will rise to £15, and hours of operation extended to 7am-10pm 7 days a week.

The Central London plan also shows that the City of London (the borough authority that controls London’s financial district) share the Mayor’s vision, as this proposal can only happen with their close cooperation. Indeed the City of London had already developed a longer term plan for removing cars from most of the City, and this proposal fits closely with their vision.

While Central London is vital for the Mayor’s active travel plans, the vast majority of journeys begin outside the City. Clearly a much wider vision for all of London is needed. TfL have stated they will create 30km of new permanent cycle lanes this summer. They have released a London-wide map of proposed new ‘Streetspace Routes’ on their website (below). While this map is very much in development (it does not yet have the City of London routes above added), there are several very significant proposals, including-

  • Segregated cycle lanes on Euston Road- a vital busy highway connecting major rail stations (Paddington, Euston, Kings Cross), as well as linking to the north-south routes in the above Central London map. The Euston Road proposal extends all the way west to Acton;
  • adding a further set of new routes in West London, including Cycleway 9 from Hounslow to Brentford and Kensington Olympia;
  • speeding up the completion of CW4 from London Bridge to Greenwich and Woolwich in South East London;
  • improving CS7 to Brixton and Clapham in South West London;
  • completing a North-West link from Regents Park to Golders Green;
  • adding a new link from Hackney to Canary Wharf;

Predicting Where Cycling Demand is Likely to be Highest
While there are lots of excellent proposals in the TfL map above, it does not yet form a complete network (it also does not differentiate between the quality of existing cycle routes which are highly variable). We can use network analysis to consider where cycling demand is likely to be highest, and where new infrastructure should be prioritised. The analysis below by Nicolas Palominos at CASA is based on shortest paths between underground and rail stations, and is indicative of where active travel trips are most likely to be made if passengers are prevented from taking the tube/bus/train (see full working paper here). The map highlights the core network of Inner London’s most prominent links, including its oldest Roman Roads- Edgware Road, Kingsway, Oxford Street. Promisingly, there is considerable overlap between these critical shortest path routes and the cycle network proposals by TfL. We can see the importance of the new north-south Waterloo Bridge-Southampton Row link for example; Euston Road’s importance is clearly shown; as is Theobald’s Road to Old Street. TfL have completed similar analysis in their Strategic Cycling Analysis from 2017, and we can assume this is guiding their plans.

There are however some important links missing highlighted through the network analysis. The most significant missing link is London’s most important east-west route that runs along Hyde Park through Oxford Street all the way to Cheapside and the City (following the route of the Central Line). The City of London proposals cover the eastern section of this vital route, from High Holborn to Bank. There needs to be similar cycling upgrades for the western section: Oxford Street, Bayswater Road and Holland Park Avenue. This intervention requires the Mayor to cooperate closely with the City of Westminster authority. Politically this is difficult, as Westminster has been blocking high profile proposals from the mayor in recent years, most notably the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street. Coming to some agreement will be essential for the western expansion of the cycle network to be joined together effectively.

Other key routes that are not yet part of the proposals include Edgware Road; Peckham Road; Essex Road; Old Kent Road; City Road; Commercial Street; Kingsland Road; and Seven Sisters Road amongst others. These are discussed further in the working paper. Edgware Road is currently the main north-south driving route that avoids the Congestion Charge, and giving space to cycling would be difficult to implement here (although Park Lane is included in TfL’s plans, and indeed the Park Lane cycle lane is already installed on the western carriageway adjacent to Hyde park). The Swiss Cottage to Golders Green link looks like the proposed north-west alternative to Edgware Road, and would benefit from completion through Regents Park to the Euston Road link. The network analysis strongly agrees with the Euston Road cycle provision, though in this analysis this critical link continues further to Pentonville Road, City Road and Commercial Street encircling the City.

Overall, the TfL Streetspace proposals look very promising, and need to be further linked together and expanded as discussions with more boroughs continue. This will also need much more emphasis on Outer London centres and local shopping and school routes, important topics which are not covered in this article.

Estimating the Number of Cycling and Walking Trips Post-Lockdown
What might the the number of trips by different travel modes in London look like in the coming months? This is highly uncertain. Some modelling figures from Transport for London quoted in press releases are anticipating radical changes in behaviour, up to a ten times increase in cycling trips, and up to a five times increase in walking trips. Are these figures realistic?

The chart below shows the distribution of trips pre-lockdown (from TfL Travel in London Report 12), and a series of post-lockdown guesstimate scenarios to discuss where we might be heading. Normally in London we are looking at around 27 million trips per day, with 9.5m by transit, 10m by car, 7m by walking and 0.7m by cycling. The lock-down figures in the chart below are based on TfL’s statement that underground passengers have been at 5% of normal levels, and car traffic has been radically reduced (though is picking up more recently). We don’t know overall walking and cycling levels during lock-down, but given workplaces, schools and most shops are closed, they have likely fallen.

What happens next is massively uncertain. During the lockdown, everyone except for key workers have been staying at home. This will change as the lockdown lifts, depending on the percentage of people who continue to stay at home. There are various reasons for continuing to stay at home: working from home; looking after children at home (particularly if schools remain closed or are only partially opened); and people who are furloughed or become unemployed. Two scenarios are shown above, with 50% of people continuing to stay at home and 20% of people continuing to stay at home. The 50% figure is likely to be closer to reality for at the least the next few months, with infection rates still significant and most schools and workplaces still closed.

Using the 15% social distancing capacity limit estimated by TfL, we can see that 8 million daily public transport trips (or 4 million return trips) can no longer be made. The question then is what happens to these trips. The Active Travel scenarios shown above are based on a big increase in cycling and walking trips remaining constant or increasing. The Car Travel scenarios in contrast estimate what will happen if these trips do not switch to active travel, and significantly more driving occurs. This results in more car trips than pre-lockdown and consequent problems of increased congestion and air pollution.

How realistic is it to assume that public transport trips could switch to active travel modes? One basic way to consider this is using average trip distances by travel mode, as shown below. It is clear that National Rail trips are often long distance, and substitution with active travel is likely going to be unrealistic for most of these trips. This seems to be the assumption in the TfL plans, as the Car Free Streespace corridors prioritise linking up the biggest mainline railway stations. The idea is that mainline rail trips will change the next leg of their journey to cycling and walking, rather than tube or bus. There will likely be significantly more demand for cycle parking/hire facilities at stations and for taking bikes on trains.

The most popular public transport mode in London is the bus, and bus trip lengths are very close to average cycling trip lengths, so prospects for active travel substitution are much better for these trips. Average Underground distances of just under 10km are potentially workable as cycling trips of around 30-40 minutes (or quicker with electric modes), so some substitution is possible for these trips. The network analysis in the working paper found average trip lengths for shortest path between stations in Inner London to be just over 10km. The extent to which public transport trips can be substituted with walking trips is highly questionable for distances above 5km, as this will take most pedestrians an hour or more. The average walking trip in London is less than 1km. This likely makes cycling the key active travel mode for most public transport substitution, as well as there being significant opportunities for expanding recent micromobility options such as e-bikes and e-scooters.

Summary
The Mayor and Transport for London have proposed a radical Streetspace for London plan to redirect trips to walking and cycling as we move out of lockdown, and try to avoid a huge increase in car trips due to social-distancing capacity limits placed on public transport services. The Mayor and his team are essentially using this crisis to rapidly speed up active travel plans for London that were on the drawing board for the next decade. These plans are not empty words, they are backed up with a comprehensive transformation of many Central London routes to car free routes, as well as further restrictions on car use through the Congestion Charge. These measures are already being implemented.

At present, the proposed cycle network has lots of excellent proposals, yet remains incomplete, missing key links such as Oxford Street, as well as lacking proposals for linking Outer London centres. The proposals require support from London’s borough councils to be developed, and so far have support from key boroughs such as the City of London (with other pro-cycling boroughs such as Hackney and Camden also likely to be supportive). Hopefully more agreements will be reached with boroughs such as Wesminster, otherwise the new streetspace links will miss key parts of Inner London.

Open Source Public Transport Accessibility Modelling

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The RGS-IBG annual conference has been on this week, and I presented as part of a series of geocomputation sessions arranged in advance of the 21st anniversary Geocomputation conference in Leeds next year. The topic was current CASA research from the RESOLUTION project, looking at developing fast and consistent methods of measuring public transport accessibility between different cities.

For this task I have been testing the OpenTripPlanner software with encouraging results. PDF of the slides are here.

The data used for the London analysis comes from the Traveline public transport timetable data. The image below shows an example accessibility measure of jobs accessible within 1 hour’s travel time leaving at 8am.

LondonResolution_PT_Accessibility

Tate Modern Switch House: a New Perspective on London

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High rise developments are often exclusive private spaces, as attested by the current glut of luxury flats, hotels and offices rising across Inner London. Even recent developments advertising their public space credentials have come up short, with for example the Shard’s fantastic views costing £25 entry fee, or the Walkie-Talkie’s ‘skygarden’ amounting to an expensive restaurant and some pot plants.

It’s wonderfully refreshing therefore that London’s newest tower is dedicated to public space. Tate Modern’s Switch House extension includes free galleries, spaces for contemplation and discussion, and one of the most spectacular 360 degree viewing locations in London. It all adds up to a big improvement to what was already a very successful gallery.

The Switch House exterior sits right next to brightly coloured flats and office developments. Architects Herzog and de Meuron have opted for a bold angular form that holds its own in this contested space, while still complementing the original Bankside power station through the use of a brickwork lattice.

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The gallery floors are spacious, with the exhibits focusing less on blockbuster artists, and more on international voices, sculpture and performance. For example the Living Cities gallery features works from the Middle East and Africa. The winding nature of the tower staircases also creates many intimate and relaxing spaces, which contrasts nicely with the busier open galleries next to the turbine hall.

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The viewing gallery presents a superb panorama over the City, St Paul’s, East and South London. It’s an amazing perspective, and quite unique compared to other skyline views, particularly with Bankside tower looming just in front, and no glass barriers present. Thew view westwards is more obscured from developments around Blackfriars, but is still fascinating.

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Here’s how the the new tower links with the existing galleries in the internal plan. There’s even a bridge across the turbine hall. High-res versions of these photos are on flickr.

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What can the next mayor do to tackle London’s hazardous air pollution?

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If news emerged that a virus was killing thousands of vulnerable Londoners every year then there would justifiably be public alarm, followed by swift political action. Yet the impacts of this imaginary scenario are similar to what air pollution has been inflicting on Londoners for many years, while the political response has been slow. According to the most up-to-date and comprehensive research, air pollution reduces Londoners’ life expectancy equivalent to the death of 9,400 people of average age every year (5,900 due to NO2 and 3,500 due to PM2.5) as well as exacerbating respiratory diseases in vulnerable populations. Despite the severity of these impacts, it has become standard practice over the last decade for national government and the London Mayor to gloss-over the problem, downplay continued breaches of European law, and for politicians to delay taking any significant responses.

The current London mayor, Boris Johnson, has been slow to face up to the challenge. His tenure began by removing the western extension to the Congestion Charging Zone, thus increasing vehicle numbers in Inner West London, and opting out of using the Congestion Charge to tax the most polluting vehicles. This would have boosted the adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles (still only a meagre 1% of new cars) and reduced heavy emitters in Central London. Furthermore Johnson has not succeeded in comprehensively upgrading London’s bus and taxi fleet to hybrid and electric vehicles, instead embarking on an expensive new Routemaster project which still produces substantial emissions and currently makes up a minority of the overwhelmingly diesel bus fleet.

NO2 Annual concentration in London 2010, modelled by the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. All of Inner London and many major roads in Outer London greatly exceed the EU limit.
NO2 Annual concentration in London 2010, modelled by the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory. All of Inner London and many major roads in Outer London greatly exceed the EU limit.

As recently as 2014, Johnson was still playing down the air pollution problem, in the face of strong evidence of London’s busiest streets like Oxford Street having amongst the highest concentrations of nitrogen dioxide in the world. For much of his time as mayor, he has assumed that the issue is not a public priority, and that driver and transport demands trump health concerns. This approach looks more questionable by the day. Evidence continues to mount that air quality is comparable in its health impacts to passive smoking and obesity. The consequences of the current Volkswagen scandal are still emerging as the huge gap between the advertised environmental performance of diesel vehicles and what we are really breathing in our cities is revealed. And the full costs of poor air quality are only beginning to be counted (e.g. billions of pounds added to NHS bills).

Looking to the future, London must now tackle the air pollution problem with a new mayor in the upcoming 2016 elections. The scope for change looks positive, as the main candidates on both the left and right have been openly discussing the need for change. What then could a new mayor do to address air quality and improve the health of Londoners?

Pricing Out Polluting Vehicles with the Ultra Low Emission Zone
To be fair to Boris Johnson, he did finally respond to pressure and announce a significant air pollution policy in 2013, dubbed the ‘Ultra-Low Emissions Zone‘. The ULEZ is set to come into effect in 2020 and essentially uses the Congestion Charging infrastructure to tackle the most polluting vehicles (similar to what Livingstone proposed way back in 2006). The question is whether the ULEZ goes far enough. It’s based on Euro emission standards, which measure NO2 and PM10/2.5 as well as CO2 emissions. It correctly targets diesel vehicles, requiring them to meet the Euro 6 standard, which only came into force in September 2015, so almost all current diesels on the road would have to change or pay the charge. This means that the main source of NO2 emissions will be appropriately targeted.

The current Congestion Charge boundary will be the basis of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (map by TfL).
The current Congestion Charge boundary will be the basis of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (map by TfL).

There are limitations however. The charge is only going to be £11.50 (except for large buses and HGVs), so it likely many diesel users will continue to drive into Central London and pay the charge. Furthermore the ULEZ will only affect Central London; the rules on diesel taxis and private hire vehicles have not been decided; and ULEZ zone residents get an overly generous exemption until 2023.

The next mayor will have a number of options that could be pursued if they want to be bolder than Johnson’s ULEZ proposal. These include increasing the ULEZ charge and/or Congestion Charge, bringing the ULEZ implementation forward to an earlier date, and potentially reintroducing the Congestion Charge Western Extension. All of these would make significant improvements to air quality, but would be controversial with drivers, many of whom were mis-sold diesel vehicles in the past as a supposedly environmentally benign option. The mayor may also want to re-examine the wider Low Emission Zone (LEZ) that tackles very polluting vehicles entering the whole of Greater London, as this affects the entire city and has not changed since 2012.

Euston Road, one of London's busiest and most polluted routes with NO2 annual concentrations typically twice the EU limit (photo by D Smith).
Euston Road, one of London’s busiest and most polluted routes with NO2 annual concentrations typically twice the EU limit (photo by D Smith).

Banning Diesel?
A more radical approach currently being proposed for Paris is to ban diesel cars all together. This would certainly make a huge improvement to air quality. The problem for London would be that the city’s bus and taxi fleet would fail this restriction, and there would likely be a backlash from thousands of car and van drivers. This would be a very confrontational approach for a new mayor.

The more pragmatic solution for London would be to work with the ULEZ framework, considering stricter measures and higher charges, and implementing the policy earlier. One very important issue for the new mayor is emerging from the current Volkswagen emissions scandal. It looks like the latest Euro 6 diesels produce significantly higher NO2 emissions in real world driving conditions compared to the misleading testing conditions. If this is the case then the proposed ULEZ will be much less effective in improving air quality (as Euro 6 diesels will be exempt from the charge). The ULEZ may have to charge all diesel vehicles, regardless of their Euro rating. This decision would need to made very early, so that there is sufficient time for car users to adjust behaviours accordingly.

Pedestrianising Streets and Upgrading the Bus Fleet
Oxford Street is London’s busiest pedestrian street and has some of the worst NO2 pollution in Europe. A response that is gaining popularity is to pedestrianise the whole street. Certainly this would be an iconic change to both the image of London, and to the experience of the city for thousands of Londoners and tourists. The challenge for this measure is avoiding creating bus jams at either end of Oxford Street, and handling the extra demand levels that would be placed on the already congested Central Line. These challenges are not necessarily permanent however, as the arrival of Crossrail in 2018 (which follows the west to east Central Line route through Inner London) has been described as a ‘game changer’ that makes pedestrianising Oxford Street a realistic option. The new mayor should certainly pursue this possibility.

The wider challenge for the mayor is not to just think about Oxford Street, but to accelerate the upgrading of the entire bus and taxi fleet towards zero emission vehicles and develop wider pedestrianisation policies. This would improve air quality for all of London’s high streets. London is still at the trial stage of pure electric double-decker buses, which represents disappointingly slow progress considering how long we have known about air pollution problems. There’s been better progress on electric/hydrogen single-deckers. Considerable investment will be needed to upgrade the bus fleet, with decision-making based on real evidence and value-for-money. Johnson’s Routemaster project has failed both these criteria, and better leadership is now required.

Heathrow Third Runway
All the main candidates for the London Mayor oppose the expansion of Heathrow, with air pollution alongside noise pollution amongst the most important factors. You can see how Heathrow already dramatically increases emissions in West London in the NO2 annual concentration map at the top of this article using the London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory data. This is due both to emissions for aircraft engines, and the thousands of cars driving to and from Heathrow everyday. The challenge will be how effectively the new mayor can challenge the UK government to reject the Heathrow expansion option.

Overall, the issue of air pollution has gained unprecedented prominence as we approach the 2016 mayoral elections. The main candidates need to respond accordingly in their manifesto commitments, with London having a lot of catching up to do after eight years of little change. It will be interesting to see which candidates are prepared to be bolder.

 

 

 

 

Understanding Household Energy Use in England & Wales

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Household energy use is a key indicator for understanding urban sustainability and fuel poverty, and is a timely topic now that winter has arrived. The LuminoCity3D site maps domestic energy use in England and Wales at 1km2 scale using data from DECC. This map has also just been published as a featured graphic in Regional Studies Regional Science. The household energy use distribution is really fascinating, with large scale regional variation and fine scale intra-urban patterns identifiable-

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Average domestic energy use 2012, click to view interactive map

Graph

The lowest energy use per-household is found in cities and towns in the South-West region such as Plymouth and Exeter, and also along the South coast. While the highest energy use per-household is found in commuter belt towns around London. The variation within city-regions is very high, with for example London and Manchester averages varying by up to a factor of 5, from a mere 8kWh to over 40kWh per year.

The main drivers of energy use are generally housing type (more exposed walls=more energy use; larger house=more energy use), household size, wealth and climate. Often these factors are correlated at household and neighbourhood levels- so for example wealthier households in England and Wales are more likely to live in large detached houses, and these households tend to be clustered together. These trends produce the high energy use pattern seen in London’s commuter belt, as well as in the wealthier suburbs of other large cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. South West England on the other hand benefits from the mildest climate in the UK, has a relatively high proportions of flats and generally lower average household sizes, thus resulting in the lowest energy use.

We can see how these factors play out for London in the map below. The height of the hexagons shows density, with higher density areas clearly using less energy. City centre households have considerably lower energy use, with a strong bias towards Inner East London where incomes are lower.

LondonEnergyUse
London average domestic energy use 2012, click to view interactive map

Energy use areas correlate strongly with the most prevalent housing type map (also on the LuminoCity3D site), with flats and terraced housing the lowest energy users, and detached and semi-detached areas the highest.

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London most prevalent housing type 2011, click to view interactive map

The relationship with household size is less clear cut, but it can be seen that average household sizes are smaller in the city centre. On the other hand, areas with high average household sizes such as Stratford and Wembley, do not have particularly high average energy use.

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London average household size 2011, click to view interactive map

Overall domestic energy use patterns tend to mirror transport sustainability, in that higher density city centre areas perform more efficiently compared to low density suburbs. On the other hand the link to city size (which tends to be strong in transport sustainability relationships, with bigger cities reducing car use) is much weaker, and the most efficient locations are often small and medium sized towns and cities. It is not clear in this analysis whether more recent green policies (such as improved insulation or CHP schemes) are having much effect, but several cities with green reputations like Brighton and Bristol are amongst the best performing cities.

 

Is Developing the Greenbelt the Answer to London’s Housing Crisis?

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Following rapid growth and a chronic lack of new development, housing affordability has reached crisis levels in London. Median house prices are at £300k (8 times median household income) while average prices have passed half a million. London is now amongst the most expensive cities in the world, a situation with severe consequences for economic competitiveness and for inequality. Rents continue to increase faster than wages, ownership is being restricted to affluent populations and the social housing waiting list now stands at 345,000 households, nearly double the figure from 15 years ago.

Recent development figures have been very low. London needs at least 50,000 new homes per year to meet demand, yet only 21,000 were built last financial year, and this figure has been below 20,000 for all of the last five years. Nationally around 200,000 houses a year are needed, and we are building around 100,000. These figures amount to a comprehensive failure of national and mayoral policy.

Clearly substantial changes are needed. Last week the Centre for Cities outlined how this change could happen, launching their ‘Building Change: Delivering Homes Where we Need Them‘ report. It convincingly argues that we are failing to deliver homes where demand in greatest- in the vicinity of rapidly growing towns and cities- resulting in spiralling housing costs.

The report makes a range of positive recommendations for enhancing local authority capacity in relation to delivering new housing, including the streamlining and reform of compulsory purchase orders for faster development and allowing cities to benefit from uplift values in land; allowing local authorities to borrow more with longer term commitments from central government; and enabling greater cooperation between local authorities to tackle city-region challenges. Best practice examples are provided from local authorities that have successfully delivered new housing, such as Bristol and Milton Keynes. The report also provides a useful summary on brownfield capacity, with for example the potential for 350,000 homes on brownfield sites within the GLA.

Releasing Greenbelt Land for Development
By far the most politically controversial aspect of the report is the recommendation to reconsider greenbelt development restrictions. Prioritising brownfield land has been a central foundation of compact city planning over the last twenty years, directing development towards inner city regeneration and away from rural areas. Yet brownfield land can be expensive to develop, and in combination with greenbelt restrictions, land prices have soared. These spiralling land costs have significantly curtailed new housing.

Opportunities for housing on ‘Usable Greenbelt Land’ around London are mapped in the report (figure below), based on locations within 2km of rail stations. The Centre for Cities estimate that there are opportunities for 430,000 housing units on greenbelt land within the GLA, and opportunities for a massive 3 million housing units on the London greenbelt beyond the GLA boundary. This huge housing capacity could effectively solve London and the South East’s housing crisis. So is developing on the greenbelt the answer?

Opportunities for new housing on London greenbelt land, Centre for Cities Delivering Change Report 2014.

Usable Land and the Value of the Greenbelt
The gigantic housing development capacity figures quoted in the Centre for Cities report certainly demand attention. As housing development is such a central issue for planning in the South East, I have decided to repeat the Centre for Cities spatial analysis from a sustainable urbanism perspective and assess how realistic these recommendations are, and what the environmental consequences of the greenbelt development approach are likely to be.

First of all, some details on the Centre for Cities methodology. Their Usable Land definition is a 2km crow-flies buffer of rail and underground stations, excluding several environmental protection area types (SSSIs, AONB, SAC, SPA, Ancient Woodlands). The report does not argue that all this land should be developed, rather that it could be considered for development on a case by case basis. They take a ballpark figure that, given infrastructure, services and removing highly amenable land, 60% of the remaining land could be developed for housing at an overall average of 40 dwellings per hectare (thus each hectare of usable land effectively translates to 24 homes). I have repeated this method below and I get a very similar result of 120,000 hectares / 2.87 million homes on London greenbelt land beyond the GLA boundary. I get a lower (but still substantial) figure of 12,700 hectares / 306,000 homes on greenbelt land within the GLA.

SouthEast_GreenbeltDev_Map1b

There are two main spatial analysis issues with the Centre for Cities method of identifying usable land- firstly there are significant development restrictions missing, and secondly there are problems with using rail station buffers as a proxy for sustainable travel. Regarding the first problem, the most significant restrictions that should be included are flood risk areas, and additional environmental land and habitats (principally Priority Habitat Areas). The impact of these additional restrictions is shown in the map below. Surface water and flooding risk in particular covers large areas of land in the Thames Valley west of the GLA, and north in the Lee Valley, reflecting the role of the greenbelt in flood management. Assuming these areas would not be developed, this removes nearly 40% of the usable land from the analysis, leaving 75,000 hectares. With more data and time, further restrictions could be considered, for example local site access, road congestion, airport flight paths, heritage restrictions etc.

SouthEast_GreenbeltDev_Map2c

The second problem is how to consider public transport accessibility and sustainable travel. The basic principal used by Centre for Cities is sound- directing development to areas of public transport access. But locations within 2km of rail stations in the South East are often very small towns and villages, lacking local retail and services opportunities. Not surprisingly these small towns are generally highly car dependent, with around 80% of commuters driving to work, and similar patterns for other trip purposes. Building further low density housing in these locations would likely reproduce this pattern of car dependence.

Ideally the appropriate method here would be to do some accessibility modelling and network analysis (comparable to the PTAL approach used in the London Plan) to identify locations with access to local services and a range of public transport options. Unfortunately performing accessibility modelling for the whole of the South East is not trivial. The maps below shows a simpler alternative, identifying locations within an estimated local walk/bus trip of a retail and service centre (3km of a large centre, 2km of a medium centre or 1km of a small centre) based on 2010 Valuation Office data, in addition to the 2km buffer of rail stations. It is clear that a stricter definition of accessible locations greatly reduces the resulting volume of usable land, directing potential development to larger settlements with more facilities (and public transport services) like Southend, Maidstone and Hemel Hempstead. In this case it leaves 27,500 hectares of greenbelt land beyond the GLA, or 23% of the original figure. Note we also haven’t considered public transport capacity, which is a critical issue for commuters into London as many services are overcrowded.

This analysis points to the Centre for Cities figure of 3 million potential homes in the greenbelt being a big overestimate if sustainable planning guidance is going to be followed. Yet even with this stricter approach I still get a large figure of 27,500 hectares of potential development land in the greenbelt beyond the GLA, which would be about 650,000 homes at suburban densities or more at higher densities. This could go a long way to alleviating the housing crisis in the South East. The Centre for Cities report is convincing in its wider policy argument that land should be ‘evaluated on its merits’ rather than being fixed by blanket restrictions. Greenbelt development could play an important and perhaps even relatively sustainable role in addressing the housing crisis.

The question then is how any release of greenbelt land can be managed to prevent sprawl and retain the many environmental roles that the greenbelt embodies. There is also the problem of making the case to the public when the greenbelt has traditionally been a popular policy. And so we come back to the issue of local authorities cooperating to tackle regional challenges. A million commuters cross the GLA boundary every weekday, yet regional planning is almost non-existent. Any release of greenbelt land needs to be considered in its regional context and balanced against brownfield opportunities. The biggest housing opportunities are linked to new infrastructure (e.g. Crossrail both West and East of the GLA; the Varsity Line for Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge), again at the regional scale. Its hard to see how the housing crisis can be tackled without much greater regional cooperation and some form of regional planning for the South East.

London’s High Rise Debate

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Last week New London Architecture, centre for built-environment debate and communication, launched a new exhibition on London high rises and high buildings policy. As well as including many spectacular models of present and future buildings, the exhibition presents results from NLA research into London’s current generation of high building proposals.  The most eye-catching finding is that there are over 230 towers of 20 storeys or more proposed or under construction in London, potentially resulting in a dramatic change in London’s urban environment. A high profile campaign has been launched by the Guardian and Architects’ Journal calling for for more discussion and a ‘Skyline Commission’ to assess the impacts of these many developments. The NLA exhibition itself takes a more neutral tone in the debate, and highlights are summarised below.

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NLA “London’s Growing Up” Exhibition, with Leadenhall Building Model

It’s clear from the NLA map below that the majority of proposals are strongly clustered spatially, with many adjacent to existing high rise districts of Canary Wharf and in the City around Bishopsgate and Liverpool Street. There are however many new clusters set to be created, principally Vauxhall-Nine Elms; Waterloo; Blackfriars Bridge; City Road (Islington); Aldgate; Stratford and North Greenwich. Demand for high rises is a result of acute pressures for more housing, and the prioritising of development at public transport nodes, such as Canary Wharf, Vauxhall and Blackfriars. In heritage terms a number of these clusters are controversial, particularly those along the South Bank that affect London’s river views, and those proposals in the vicinity of the world heritage sites of Westminster and the Tower of London.

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NLA Insight Study map of current high building proposals

The main critique from campaigners is that there is a lack of vision from planners regarding high buildings policy, and that current developments are being driven by schemes for luxury residential flats along the river that maximise developer profits. The map above lends support to this view, particularly along the South Bank and at Vauxhall. There are already many medium rise luxury flat developments along the Thames of often limited design quality, and its debatable whether the current batch of taller developments will be any better. Policy restrictions in London are strongly geared towards protecting views of St Pauls Cathedral, effectively preventing new schemes in West Central London. Protection elsewhere is more limited and dependent on borough level interpretations of policy. Westminster has prioritised conservation and prevented new high rises (except at the Paddington Station development) while neighbouring boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark are more inclined to accept proposals, and use the much needed revenue for further housing development.

As well as covering the current planning debate, the exhibition includes many beautiful architectural models of existing and future high building proposals. There are some really unique designs, such as the fountain pen-shaped ‘Pinnacle’ that is back under development in the main City of London cluster.

Overall the exhibition is well worth a visit, and whether you are a fan or a critic of high buildings in London, there is clearly a need for greater awareness and discussion of current changes and what they will mean for the urban environment. There is also a need for more public access to open models and visualisations of how new buildings will appear and change London’s physical structure. Andy Hudson-Smith (@digitalurban) argued for this a few years back in CASA’s Virtual London project, and it appears that trends are currently moving in this direction.

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World City Living and Working Densities: Poles Apart?

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One of the most recognisable visualisation techniques used by LSE Cities in the Urban Age publications is the 3D density map- an intuitive and engaging way to represent built form, and enable comparison of very different city environments across the globe. I’ve been producing 3D density maps in my own research for around five years now, and so it was a nice challenge to produce the 3D density maps for this year’s Urban Age conference, the Electric City in London. In this post I focus on the contrasting densities in three leading world cities- London, New York and Hong Kong- with the added twist that both residential and employment densities are mapped for comparison.

Higher urban densities can facilitate more sustainable travel patterns, improve service delivery efficiency, reduce building energy use and promote urban vitality. These advantages depend of course on good urban planning to minimise congestion and pollution problems. High density mixed-use development is central to the compact city planning movement, and remains a foundation of sustainable planning policy today. Here we map the number of residents in each square kilometre of a 100 by 100 kilometre region for London, New York and Hong Kong. Lower urban densities apply to suburban-like neighbourhoods, while high densities generally represent medium or high rise buildings clustered on a tight urban grid.

The city that stands out in the mapping is Hong Kong, with its extremely high residential densities exceeding 110,000 people per km2. Here planners have responded to scarce land availability with very tall (over 30 storeys) high-density development. Scarce land has also influenced the development of New York City, where Manhattan densities peak at 59,000 people per km2. London in comparison is much lower density. The heritage of suburban housing and generous greenspace has created a residential culture at half the density of New York and a quarter the density of Hong Kong. Despite current intensification in London, residential densities remain a world away from other global cities.

Where people live is not however the only perspective needed to understand urban density. We can also examine employment densities for an important point of comparison (both residential and employment maps are at the same scale). Taller spikes in the employment maps represent higher numbers of jobs concentrated in business centres. London, New York and Hong Kong feature very intensive central employment clusters. The highest peak of over 150,000 jobs per km2 is in Midtown Manhattan. London is surprisingly close behind at over 140,000 jobs per km2, concentrated in the City of London and the West End. Hong Kong peaks at 120,000 jobs per km2 in Central (note the Hong Kong survey data is less comprehensive and may underestimate peak densities). These intense spikes represent very strong agglomeration economies, where financial and business services and creative industries cluster together to access labour markets, share fast-changing information and engage in face-to-face interaction with clients, customers and partners. Despite living in an age of instant telecommunication, proximity is still critical for many world city business activities.

The extreme employment density peaks are indicative of economic success in these world cities. Demand for office space is so stong that developers get sufficient returns to build high and businesses use their space more intensively. Central employment clustering also means these cities are dominated by public transport rather than car travel (particularly Hong Kong). On the other hand the divergence of living and working densities can signify a lack of integration between living and working locations. London is very polarised between its low density living and high density working environments. This contributes to the long distance and long duration commuting travel for many Londoners (recent surveys find an average one-way commute times for Londoners of 38 minutes). New York has a better integration of living and working locations (average commutes are around 31 minutes). Hong Kong appears to have the closest integration of living and working spaces, though unfortunately commuting time survey data is not available to test this.

The analysis here supports the medium-rise inner-city residential intensification that the London Plan prescribes to improve the balance of urban functions, and increase accessibility for residents and businesses. The gap in residential densities between London and many world cities is so large that modest intensification can be achieved while keeping London’s distinct character, providing development is on the much remaining brownfield land rather than London’s treasured greenspaces.

Another interesting thought is whether the highly concentrated office clusters we see in London and New York will continue to be the way most businesses operate in the future. Greg Lindsay gave a good talk last week on how businesses are changing the way they use work space towards more shared and flexible environments that will likely be less space demanding.

To see more detailed analysis of sustainability trends in many more world cities from the Urban Age conference see the Electric City conference newspaper.

Urban Age Electric City Conference

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ElectricCity

I recently began a new job at LSE Cities and have been working for the last month on materials for the Electric City conference in London, taking place on the 6th and 7th December this week. The conference will be exploring smart cities and disruptive urban tech from a sociological slant, and includes talks from famous urbanists such as Ed Glaeser, Saskia Sassen and Deyan Sudjic. You can get a flavour of the debate from Richard Sennett’s provocative article on “Stupefying Smart Cities”.

The whole event will be live streamed on the conference website.

My role, alongside the LSE Cities Research Team, has been in producing comparative urban visualisations and analysis around the theme of sustainable urbanism. These visuals and articles are now online in the conference newspaper.

A Tale of Tech City: the future of Inner East London’s Digital Economy

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Earlier this month Demos published a fascinating report on the hot topic of London’s “Tech City” cluster, which has been promoted by the government as a key growth pole for the UK. The report authors Max Nathan, Emma Vandore and Rob Whitehead, put the Inner East London cluster in the context of similar phenomena in New York and Berlin; and get their hands dirty with some in-depth data analysis and face-to-face interviews of entrepreneurs. Policy recommendations are then made for the best way forward.

There have been some cool efforts at mapping the Silicon Roundabout Shoreditch/Old Street cluster from Wired UK, and from Tech City Map using social networking connections. A more traditional robust approach was taken in this report of using the various business survey datasets to measure firms and their activities. The scale of the cluster (defined more widely to include Clerkenwell, Shoreditch and Hoxton) was found to be larger than previously thought, at around 3,200 digital economy firms and 48,000 jobs, with these industries becoming increasingly important for the London economy.

I got involved with the project doing some density mapping of the core industries that make up the cluster: ICT firms and creative industry firms. The key message that comes from such mapping is that the cluster is embedded in a digital-creative corridor stretching from the West-End and Soho through Clerkenwell and on to Shoreditch.

From a spatial perspective, the cluster is about the Jane Jacobs type urban diversity fusion of IT and creative industries, very similar to Silicon Alley in NYC. High profile success stories like LastFM (music, digital broadcasting and social networking crossover) and Unruly Media (advertising, social network and analytics crossover) are prime examples of this integration. This tech-creative fusion clearly distinguishes the Inner London cluster from the IT software/hardware concentrations you get in Silicon Valley, or in the “Western Wedge” around Heathrow.

A high profile policy objective from the UK government has been to link the Inner East London cluster to future opportunities at the Olympic Park. The Demos report convincingly argues that the focus should rather be on the current cluster, enhancing funding opportunities, skills and growing new businesses. Moving to the Olympic Park is problematic in terms of it lacking the history, creativity and ‘vibe’ of the current cluster. The absence of creative and IT firms around Stratford is apparent in the above maps. Opportunities in the Olympic Park are more likely to suit larger established IT and engineering firms attracted to new high-spec offices.

That’s not to say the Olympic Park can’t have a role however. The firm interviews in the Demos report identified the lack of skilled workers being a big issue, at all levels including graduates:

There just aren’t enough computer scientists in the uk. And we need computer scientists, we don’t need – what do they call it – ICT trained people. We need real computer scientists who do software engineering and programming. No education coupled with visa restrictions is not a particularly good combination.

So apart from lifting the current counter-productive visa restrictions in the UK, there’s a clear role for universities in training more computer scientists with the right skills to succeed in these growing industries. This is what London universities are now in the process of doing at the Olympic Park, with new campuses planned and initiatives such as the UCL-Imperial smart cities institute in the pipeline. Your very own CASA is already involved in training graduates with smart cities skills. Smart Cities industries can themselves be viewed as a built environment-engineering-ICT fusion, likely complimentary to creative industry clusters.

 

 

BBC London Calling Season

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To mark the Olympic year a series of programs on London is being broadcast by the BBC, exploring the dynamic and diverse nature of the capital and its historic roots. There have already been some great documentaries on, with interesting use of maps, archive materials and personal testimonies charting the changing city and built-environment.

Last night saw the start of The Secret History of Our Streets, telling London’s history in microcosm by picking one street to follow in each episode through good times and bad. The first episode told the rather tragic tale of Deptford High Street, which moved from a relatively thriving working class centre in the early 20th century to one of London’s poorest areas in the present.

A shop trader John Price (below) who has lived in Deptford all his life engagingly recounts the close community life of his youth with his extended family all living on the same street. This is brought to an end with the drawn out demolition of the Victorian terraced housing to be replaced by modern estates. The existing community is separated as families move out to suburban new towns.

Modernist planning is unashamedly painted as the bad guy in this narrative. “Tell ’em the truth, tell ’em how they fucked everything up” mutters a passerby in one scene. The father of British Planning, Patrick Abercrombie, appears as a monocled toff in the archive footage, as he expresses his disgust at London’s old housing. This critical view of planning intervention is clearly simplistic, as there were of course very severe housing problems in London.

Yet the filmmakers back up their perspective by uncovering the council’s environmental health archives, showing that John Price’s street was healthy and in a decent state of repair- not the slum that it was labelled. To add salt to this wound, such traditional housing is now in great demand in Deptford and Greenwich, with terraces on nearby streets selling for well over half a million pounds, in stark contrast to the drab and inflexible modernist housing that replaced it and cannot be gentrified. The forthcoming episodes in this series will likely tell more rosy tales of changing London, but Deptford’s history was hard hitting stuff and very well told.

Continuing on the traditional market theme, the BBC has also been exploring London’s remaining wholesale markets in The London Markets. These have moved out of the city centre for cheaper rents and road transport links, with Billingsgate fish market moving to Docklands and Covent Garden fruit and veg going to Vauxhall. Smithfield meat market is still hanging on near the City, but surely not for long. The arcane night-time world of the butchers appears as a weird anachronism surrounded by late night financiers and clubbers in Farringdon.

Lastly on a lighter note, A Picture of London explored artists interpretations of the city across time. As well as picture postcard views from Canaletto and Monet, some of London’s most dramatic moments are depicted such as the burning of the Houses of Parliament by Turner. My personal favourite however was this gem from the archives of a witty and prescient silent movie from the 1920’s of a time traveller guessing what London might be like in the future. Perhaps the oldest urban sci-fi film? Take a look:

Mapping Intra-metropolitan Journey-to-work Sustainability

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As cities expand with multiple centres spread over massive regional hinterlands, the need to better understand the geographical variation across and within cities has become more pressing. This need applies strongly to issues of travel sustainability, where urban centres differ greatly in the accessibility they facilitate for private, public and active transport.

Spatial indicators are a useful tool to summarise complicated intrametropolitan patterns, as illustrated in my new working paper mapping CO2 emissions from journey-to-work travel across the London Region. The results of this indicator show a massive range of travel emissions by workplace of up to 300%, with particular problems for airports and the specialised employment region of the Western Sector, as can be seen in the map above.

This paper was co-authored with Joan Serras at CASA, who helped with the development of the road and public transport network analysis to model realistic routing behaviour from origin and destination flows from the 2001 census. One interesting aspect to this was the inclusion of GPS data to model average road speeds in London as illustrated below:

Full paper abstract:

“This paper develops a methodology for estimating network distances and CO2 emissions for UK census ward-level journey-to-work interactions. Improvements are made on existing empirical measures by providing comprehensive intra-metropolitan analysis; increasing network routing accuracy with UK public transport timetable and GPS-based average road speed data; allowing multimodal travel; and developing metrics suitable for travel sustainability analysis. The output unit of CO2 emissions has been selected to enable the integration of mode-choice and travel distance data, and to aid compatibility with integrated assessment applications. 

The methodology is applied to the case study of the London Region for the year 2001. A very high degree of intra-metropolitan variation is identified in the results. Employment sub-centres diverge in their per-capita CO2 emissions by up to 300%, with specific problems of carbon intensive commuting to major airports and the specialised employment region of the Western Sector. These findings indicate that subcentre travel variation may be intrinsic to polycentric urban structures. The paper discusses means to improve the methodology, in relation to issues of coefficient disaggregation and modelling more complicated multi-modal trips.”

Sponsored Space

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Cities have always been the great spaces of commerce, trade and advertising; and recent decades have seen the corporate realm expand with the privatisation of services such as transport and utilities. Arguably corporate ownership is currently taking a new aspect with the explicit branding of urban places. English football clubs now play at the Emirates, Etihad and Sports Division Arena, rather than at Highbury, City of Manchester and St James’s Park stadiums. Skyscrapers in Canary Wharf project gigantic banking logos across East London. Westfield super-malls have branded entire new urban districts of streets and squares.

This process is not new- corporations have been building places to express their brands for a long time. Disneyland is perhaps the most famous example, and arguably the original UK new towns like Cadbury’s Bournville shared some of the same ideals. Many useful projects would simply not happen without corporate sponsorship, such as the popular (but loss-making)  Barclays Cycle Hire scheme in London, soon to be mimicked with Citi-Bike in New York.

The question however is whether this process represents a ‘slippery slope’ towards a comprehensive corporate branding of urban space. There has been much recent debate in London over the mayor’s decision to develop a cable car project across the Thames at the O2 Arena (another corporate venue). The project is sponsored by Emirates airlines and their name will be attached to two public transport stations, including appearing on London’s classic public transport map for a period of ten years.

The impact is fairly minor, though it does mean London is now in the dubious company of Dubai and Las Vegas in allowing sponsorship of subway stations. It did get me thinking, what would happen if London let rip and allowed the full sponsorship of the public transport network? My guess at the resulting network for London of businesses naming districts where they locate is below.

Obviously this map is satirical and would never actually be allowed to happen. I would argue though that this map does in its own way represent a real geography of corporations and capital flows in London. Is this map a more functionally honest representation of contemporary London than traditional images?