# How London became the center of the world

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2018-11-28

affordable-housing, britain, city, housing, housing-supply, laura-parker, london, luca-locatelli, national-geographic, uncategorized, united-kingdom, urbanism

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Some of you may want to debate the “center of the world” title (New York may be more deserving), but Laura Parker of National Geographic recently published a great essay describing the tremendous growth that London has seen over the last 30 years thanks to in part the deregulation of the financial services industry. Here is an excerpt:

> _As the manufacturing industry splintered, the docks of what was once the world’s largest port fell victim to shipping modernization and closed. The death in 1965 of_ [_Winston Churchill_](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/from-the-archive-blog/2015/jan/26/winston-churchill-death-archive-1965)_, the great prime minister, marked “the last time that London would be the capital of the world,” the Observer noted. Population continued a downward slide, bottoming out at 6.7 million in 1988. By then London’s fortunes had changed with deregulation of the financial services industry, known as the_ [_Big Bang_](https://www.bbc.com/news/business-37751599)_, along with the shift to electronic trading, which enabled London to rival Tokyo and New York. A new financial district rose on the ruins of the West India Docks on the_ [_Isle of Dogs_](https://www.airbnb.com/locations/london/isle-of-dogs)_, a marshy nub that juts into the Thames. Canary Wharf, as the district is called, became London’s first modern large-scale regeneration project._

According to National Geographic, London’s population grew by about 1.2 million between 2006 and 2016. That’s a pretty incredible number and is why the city estimates that they need about 66,000 new housing units a year just to keep up the growth. Like many supply constrained big cities, they’re not meeting that target.

For the full essay, [click here](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/urban-expeditions/london-population-city-planning/). It comes packaged with some incredible photographs by Luca Locatelli.

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/how-london-became-the-center-of-the-world)*