ACTIVITY: Compare the urban growth from 1951 to 2022: (London)

Introduction:

Located in the northeast of the UK, London has its own history. With 8 million
inhabitants, London’s population has not always been the same. Comprising the
Greater London Authority (GLA), which includes the interior of London as well
as the historic centre, and the exterior of London, which is a large suburban
expanse consisting of detached houses, London has experienced different
demographic growth within and outside these regions. I will therefore describe
the differences in population growth in these two regions and briefly explain
their causes (mainly fertility and migration).
MIGRATION

The GLA is surrounded by the glass belt, established to contain the expansion of
the urban area after World War II and to preserve the biodiversity. Beyond the
greenbelt is the first exurban ring and a second ring.

The post-war years saw a gradual globalization of migration in Britain. After the
conflicts in Europe, those linked to independence gave rise to new waves of
refuagees. This was the Indians living in the Central African colonies who were
expelled by the new governments. About 150,000 people arrived from Uganda,
Kenya, and Tanzania.

Outside London, has also experienced strong growth, from 4.4 million to 4.9
million and is now at its peak (Inner London rose from 2.3 million in 1965 to 3.2
today). Like Inner London, Outer London has also lost domestic workers, with a
net total of 310,000 residents leaving for other parts of the UK.

On 27 October 1986, the day of the deregulation of the financial services

sector, allowing London to compete with Tokyo and New York, a new financial
district developed, Canary Wharf, which became London’s first major modern
regeneration project. Immigrants and foreign investment poured in, and growth
became London’s story for the next 30 years.

From 1997, London experienced a radical change in the composition of the

city’s population, which triggered the decline of its population. In 1991, 21% of
the city’s population was foreign-born, but by 2011 this had risen to 36%.
BREXIT

So far, Brexit has not slowed the pace of immigration, but has only changed the
mix of those arriving. Less migration from EU Member States and more
migration from outside the EU, mainly from South Asia.

In the early 2000s, refugee flows took on a new dimension, mainly from Iraq,
Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Somalia. In the early 1960s, the New
Commonwealth had a population of half a million, plus 45,000 Chinese. This
multiculturalism could be seen as one of the factors behind the vote for Brexit.

BABY BOOM

The baby boom refers to the temporary increase in the birth rate observed in
some industrialized countries between 1945 and 1975, following a recovery in
fertility. In England, the fertility rate also indirectly increased the number of
Londoners, although it was lower than immigration.

CONCLUSION
The size of London's population has changed dramatically over the last century;
from a peak of 8.6 million in the Second World War to around 6.8 million in the
1980s. The fall was most pronounced in Inner London, which saw its population
almost halved in 50 years.
London's population has been recovering since the early 1990s, reaching a new
record of 9 million in 2019. In a reversal of the mid-twentieth century trend,
both Inner and Outer London have continued to grow, although Inner London
is still a million people short of its 1931 population.