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Those are very interesting. I can't comment on Paris, but I can on Tokyo and NYC.
Tokyo was firebombed severely with more than half of the city destroyed which was significantly more than London. It also went through a much larger population growth period which meant even that which remained had to be destroyed in order to serve such a vastly increased population.
NYC, and many urban cities of the US, were hit by ill conceived urban renewal policies which destroyed a lot of the urban core of US cities. This included throwing freeways through neighborhoods and razing entire neighborhoods and building high-rise towers. The cities were also hit by a flight of people usually higher up on the socioeconomic ladder with many neighborhoods left decrepit or even intentionally destroyed (cases of arson for either insurance purposes or just the sheer joy of fire). The decline and then increase in population for London in the 20th century and early 21st century is actually very close to that of NYC numerically, though the demographic change was more drastic for NYC. Take that as you will.
I did say in recent years, Tokyo had already massively rebuilt by the 1980's, London however still had bomb sites and vast post industrial blight until recent years. In terms of London it's geographically twice the size of NYC and it's population massively declined post war until recent decades. The redevelopment in London in recent years has been far more noticeable, indeed 15 years ago, London barely had a skyscraper in the city of London with the exception of the Nat West Tower and a few mid rises, today there are numerous skyscrapers with more planned. The same is true of Canary Wharf and Docklands and a whole host of areas in London from the Thames Gateway and right the way through London.
To put things in to perspective, Nine Elms at Battersea (opposite fashionable Chelsea) which is very central involves a redevelopment of 195 hectares of post industrial land, that's bigger than Hyde Park, and spans a mile and a half of riverbank. The World Trade Centre site, in New York, is barely seven hectares by comparison and Nine Elms is no where near as big as some of the other developments in the East at Stratford or Greenwich or the Thames Gateway, even the King’s Cross Central redevelopment, which is also in central London covers a substantial 54 hectares and there are numerous such large scale developments going on in London.
That may be so, however NYC did not start from the same position as London, nor is it anywhere near the size of London geographically. NYC had no where near the great swathes of land destroyed by war or the vast abandoned post industrial land in areas such as the docks.
Not only is London being redeveloped at a rapid pace, but is also having to make provision for a further 2 million projected Londoners by the year 2030, taking the population of Greater London to over 10 million.
It's no disrespect to the other cities, but the change in London has been all the more noticeable and indeed remarkable due to it's history.
So your saying London is larger and is improving more simply because its older, NYC used to be gangland, people lived in shacks out in the streets just about 50 years ago, just 15 years ago times square used to be infested with drugs now Disney has changed it, 10 years ago Harlem used to be that ghetto black area that no one wants to go to, now its a wealthy black neighborhood full of upcoming stores. NYC is much larger, the city just completed 100 projects just in the last 2 years, currently buildings 23 skyscrapers, another subway line, soon to have the largest Ferris wheel in the world. If we brought out the cost and added them all up i am sure NYC will have more mostly due to its larger population, nether less almost every single American city is in this huge process of building public transportation, and re doing there downtown areas.
So your saying London is larger and is improving more simply because its older, NYC used to be gangland, people lived in shacks out in the streets just about 50 years ago, just 15 years ago times square used to be infested with drugs now Disney has changed it, 10 years ago Harlem used to be that ghetto black area that no one wants to go to, now its a wealthy black neighborhood full of upcoming stores. NYC is much larger, the city just completed 100 projects just in the last 2 years, currently buildings 23 skyscrapers, another subway line, soon to have the largest Ferris wheel in the world. If we brought out the cost and added them all up i am sure NYC will have more mostly due to its larger population, nether less almost every single American city is in this huge process of building public transportation, and re doing there downtown areas.
I didn't mention the fact that London was older, all I said is that from a city only had a handful of skyscrapers not so long a go it now has an impressive number of skyscrapers, plus vast swathes of land have been redeveloped. If you have virtually no skyscrapers and suddenly build a substantial amount of skyscrapers then surely that constitutes a bigger change than adding a few more skyscrapers to a city that already has an abundance of skyscrapers.
NYC is not larger, indeed geographically Greater London is twice the size of New York, and has had to deal with a good deal of adversity, from WW2 and a bankrupt postwar country on food rationing well in to the 1950's through to the largest docks in the world being displaced by containerisation. In terms of population London has also changed a good deal and is already set to overtake NYC, with an estimated London population of 10 million plus by 2030.
NYC might have a hundred projects but so does London, and most of London's are vast, and in terms of transport I suggest you look at London Overground, Thameslink, the extension of the Tube's Northern Line, the DLR extension, Crossrail which is an underground rail network across London, whilst Crossrail 2 is now in the offing.
It should be noted that everyone of these red dots is a bomb dropped on London during the Blitz - 7 September 1940 – 21 May 1941 (8 months, 1 week and 2 days) - then again later in the war even more bombs were rained down on London via the Nazi V-Rockets.
I did say in recent years, Tokyo had already massively rebuilt by the 1980's, London however still had bomb sites and vast post industrial blight until recent years. In terms of London it's geographically twice the size of NYC and it's population massively declined post war until recent decades. The redevelopment in London in recent years has been far more noticeable, indeed 15 years ago, London barely had a skyscraper in the city of London with the exception of the Nat West Tower and a few mid rises, today there are numerous skyscrapers with more planned. The same is true of Canary Wharf and Docklands and a whole host of areas in London from the Thames Gateway and right the way through London.
To put things in to perspective, Nine Elms at Battersea (opposite fashionable Chelsea) which is very central involves a redevelopment of 195 hectares of post industrial land, that's bigger than Hyde Park, and spans a mile and a half of riverbank. The World Trade Centre site, in New York, is barely seven hectares by comparison and Nine Elms is no where near as big as some of the other developments in the East at Stratford or Greenwich or the Thames Gateway, even the King’s Cross Central redevelopment, which is also in central London covers a substantial 54 hectares and there are numerous such large scale developments going on in London.
Well, we can take your 80s as a cut-off point and try to go from there.
First, how familiar are you with development in NYC and Tokyo? I know NYC best by a large margin, then Tokyo, then London, then Paris. I understand the general history of the cities but that's it.
For NYC, the World Trade Center is a large complex, but it's a pretty small portion of the total redevelopment in NYC either presently or from the last two decades. Other developments over the last two decades have been mostly the rehabilitation of former industrial, manufacturing, shipping neighborhoods (this has happened to nearly every single developed country to some extent) as well as the filling out of some nearly abandoned neighborhoods. NYC's crime rate (as in most US cities) were astronomical compared to anything London experienced and the city emptied out--not just in terms of jobs and residents but in terms of wholesale destruction through arson for fun or insurance and stripping the interiors of abandoned buildings for anything of value until they collapse throughout the late 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s. It's definitely not as destructive as air raids for London and Tokyo from World War II, but the starting base is the 80s anyhow. I understand your point about London not having had much in skyscrapers, so having them now makes a huge impression even though the number of skyscrapers created in London since the 80s is likely far less than the numbers for NYC and Tokyo in the same period.
For Tokyo, though Japan's economy stalled and the population growth stalled and actually reversed, the actual city and metro of Tokyo has kept growing--it's much of the countryside and smaller cities that became depopulated. Tokyo's economy wasn't nearly as blistering hot as it was in the 80s, but it didn't just fall apart either and that sort of growth rate from the past was unsustainable. The largest development in Tokyo during that period, and ongoing, is probably Odaiba which is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay but there are a lot more developments in the city. Tokyo's city government appears to attach very little sentimental value to historic developments so neighborhoods can and do rapidly change--this, in my opinion, isn't a good thing, but it is rapid change since conservation would be trying to put a stop to some forms of change.
Well, we can take your 80s as a cut-off point and try to go from there.
First, how familiar are you with development in NYC and Tokyo? I know NYC best by a large margin, then Tokyo, then London, then Paris. I understand the general history of the cities but that's it.
For NYC, the World Trade Center is a large complex, but it's a pretty small portion of the total redevelopment in NYC either presently or from the last two decades. Other developments over the last two decades have been mostly the rehabilitation of former industrial, manufacturing, shipping neighborhoods (this has happened to nearly every single developed country to some extent) as well as the filling out of some nearly abandoned neighborhoods. NYC's crime rate (as in most US cities) were astronomical compared to anything London experienced and the city emptied out--not just in terms of jobs and residents but in terms of wholesale destruction through arson for fun or insurance and stripping the interiors of abandoned buildings for anything of value until they collapse throughout the late 60s, 70s, 80s, and early 90s. It's definitely not as destructive as air raids for London and Tokyo from World War II, but the starting base is the 80s anyhow. I understand your point about London not having had much in skyscrapers, so having them now makes a huge impression even though the number of skyscrapers created in London since the 80s is likely far less than the numbers for NYC and Tokyo in the same period.
For Tokyo, though Japan's economy stalled and the population growth stalled and actually reversed, the actual city and metro of Tokyo has kept growing--it's much of the countryside and smaller cities that became depopulated. Tokyo's economy wasn't nearly as blistering hot as it was in the 80s, but it didn't just fall apart either and that sort of growth rate from the past was unsustainable. The largest development in Tokyo during that period, and ongoing, is probably Odaiba which is a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay but there are a lot more developments in the city. Tokyo's city government appears to attach very little sentimental value to historic developments so neighborhoods can and do rapidly change--this, in my opinion, isn't a good thing, but it is rapid change since conservation would be trying to put a stop to some forms of change.
The UK very nearly went bankrupt in the 1970's and by the 1980's we had mass unemployment and a lots of our cities were equally devastated. Yes NYC had a bad crime rate, but London also had red hot summers of riots in areas such as Brixton and Tottenham, whilst many areas such as Notting Hill were virtual ghettos at the time, that's the same Notting Hill that's every estate agents dream these days and the same applies to numerous other areas. NYC never had the vast expanses of bombed out Land or the vast industrial East End that London had, the Docks are unimaginable vast and all were lost in the 1960's and 70's due to cointainerisation, you are talking docks that started at Tower Bridge and went right up the river eastward, they were at the time the largest docks in the entire world.
In terms of skyscrapers you don't notice a new skyscraper in NYC, it's just another skyscraper, whilst Paris hasn't changed in centuries in terms of much of the central city, whilst NYC was never destroyed in the way London was. NYC might have been gentrified like London, but large parts of London were also sadly destroyed or had to be rebuilt due to war, post industrialisation or poor quality post war architecture. NYC may have seen some rebuilding but it doesn't have the vast swathes to build upon especially near the Centre that London does as well as further out in to Greater London.
Another poster mentioned Kings Cross and I have to agree, Kings Cross was at one time awful area, that you wouldn't want to be around at night but today it's now totally different. After the war London was a bombed out hole, full of deserters, gangs, black marketeers and was a lawless place, Scotland Yard even set up special squads to deal with it, such was the extent of the problem.
I don't think many Americans actually realise what Londoners went through, or the extent of destruction that the city suffered, a city by the way that has virtually been destroyed three times during it's existence.
London never had any part with a level of deprivation like South Bronx during the 1970's and 1980's.
Every big old industrial cities of the 19th early 20th century has or had large industrial wastle land.
Berlin or Tokyo have been destroyed on a much wider extent than London.
Very few of the old historic heart of Berlin remind.
London never had any part with a level of deprivation like South Bronx during the 1970's and 1980's.
Every big old industrial cities of the 19th early 20th century has or had large industrial wastle land.
Berlin or Tokyo have been destroyed on a much wider extent than London.
Very few of the old historic heart of Berlin remind.
London had a lot of social deprivation in the 1970's and 1980's, and London had vast areas of both bombed out sites and industrial wasteland, which is why so many vast areas are being redeveloped now.
Berlin and Tokyo, may well have been bombed heavily, but in terms of Toyko a lot of the city was rapidly rebuilt and in terms of Berlin it's not one of the cities mentioned in the thread and is nowhere near the size of any of the cities mentioned in this thread.
Furthermore if you actually read what I said it was that in recent years London has seen more change rather than in past decades like the 1970's or 1980's.
Yet, it is you that spoke of the blitz.
The social deprivation in London in the 1980's is nothing like the South Bronx or even Harlem.
We are not here to deny the big changes in London during the last decade but all the boosterism about this city followed with an ignorance about the other cities is very annoying.
Yet, it is you that spoke of the blitz.
The social deprivation in London in the 1980's is nothing like the South Bronx or even Harlem.
We are not here to deny the big changes in London during the last decade but all the boosterism about this city followed with an ignorance about the other cities is very annoying.
I spoke of the Blitz because it resulted in a lot of waste land being created and the same is true of deindustrialisation.
The social deprivation in London in areas such as the East End or South London has always been a factor from the times of Shakespeare through to Dickens through to George Orwell and beyond, whether it is as bad as South Bronx I really don't care. What I am saying is that London as a whole and especially Central London has changed remarkable in recent years and is set for greater change and this change is more evident than in cities such as New York or Tokyo which already have a abundance of built up areas and skyscrapers or indeed Paris where much of the central area has changed little over the centuries.
Nine Elms Redevelopment London - one of a host of major London Redevelopments
Yet, it is you that spoke of the blitz.
The social deprivation in London in the 1980's is nothing like the South Bronx or even Harlem.
We are not here to deny the big changes in London during the last decade but all the boosterism about this city followed with an ignorance about the other cities is very annoying.
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