Paris, or Lutetia as it was known then, was little more than a small, beloved trading post on the outskirts of Roman Gaul. Conquered by Julius Caesar himself, the village of the Parisii—a small, local tribe of Gauls—was renamed Lutetia. The origins of the name are still hotly debated but many scholars believe it is derived from the Latin word lutum, meaning ‘mud.’ This would certainly be an apt explanation, as the topographical and geological predisposition of Lutetia was that of a regularly flooded marshland. While the local Parisii primarily dwelled upon the Île de la Cité, this island was approximately six meters below its present position.
Upon Roman conquest, the Roman style grid was imposed upon Lutetia. While some residential dwellings certainly existed along the Right Bank, the vast majority of the Roman town was built along the Left Bank. The Seine river, while a boon in many ways, was equally as much of a disadvantage. This was due to the frequent flooding that the region experienced. It was the Romans who engineered a solution to part of the flooding issue via the construction of a grand aqueduct that stretched from the Rungis area all the way to the southernmost part of the city. This enabled the construction of other Roman buildings, such as a basilica on the Île de la Cité, two theatres, a system of public baths and plumbing, and three burial grounds.
While Lutetia certainly served as a strategic trading post, linking the southern parts of the Empire to Roman occupied Britain, it was never a city of great significance to the Empire. Tactically, it played a role as a means of defense against Germanic invasions. However, it possessed neither prestige as a provincial capital (that honor went to Lyon), nor did it possess the economic power of its British cousin across the Channel—Londinium.
Londinium was first founded by the Romans in AD 50. It quickly rose to prominence as a lucrative, commercial trading port. It also held the prestigious rank of capital city for the British provinces. Londinium possessed a formidable military base, ample ramparts, a basilica, a forum, and multiple baths. Its timber-framed buildings were destroyed, first in AD 60 by Boudicca, then in AD 120 by a great fire. The city quickly regained its place, however, as an essential, integral part of the Roman Empire.
As the Empire slowly began its decline, Londinium found itself becoming increasingly more self-sufficient. After a slew of attacks by both the Picts in the north and the Saxons in the east, Rome effectively abandoned Britain in AD 410. The self-sufficiency which Londinium had cultivated aided it much during this period, to such a degree that life continued in a rather undisturbed manner for its citizens.
So thus, the Romans made the foundations for what would eventually become a great and epic rivalry. Both Paris and London grew from the segmented remains of Rome, the greatest of which was the Roman Catholic Church. This body would unite Europe up until the Protestant Reformation (1517-1648). While Lutetia and Londinium may have had limited direct contact with one another, it was their shared Roman history that initially connected them. It would not be until the eleventh century, however, that the rivalry would begin in earnest.
Some scholars believe that the origins of the Anglo-French rivalry lie in the eleventh century with the arrival of the Normans in England. This group of former Viking raiders, led by William the Bastard (later the Conqueror) would take the crown of England by sheer force. The most decisive victory for the Normans was at the Battle of Hastings in October of 1066. It was here that the Norman-French claimant to the English throne, William, defeated Harold, the heir apparent of Edward the Confessor. William would later go on to be crowned as king of England on Christmas Eve of that same year.
Once installed, the Normans selected Westminster as the centermost position of their governmental administration. This choice was largely in part to the defensibility of the site at the time. The present day Tower of London served as the central core, or donjon, of William’s new castle. It was from here that the Normans would rule London as a whole and, by extension, England. It was the first time in English history that a king had complete and total power over the entirety of the land and its people, as can be witnessed in the Domesday Book. The rule of William also marked an abrupt shift from the previous Anglo-Saxon governmental traditions, with a formidable, crushing blow to English culture and language.
The Norman Conquest also marked the beginning of a long and turbulent relationship with the European continent through wars of succession, strategic marital alliances, as well as land and titular disputes. Intermarriage between prominent French houses and the royal court of England (who were by this time French descendants) certainly added to the turmoil. With the passing of time, the English monarchy ceased to view their French cousins as allies and more along the lines of enemies in what would essentially culminate in the Hundred Years’ War—a family rivalry of epic proportions. France and England effectively grew into two distinct nations, with differing agendas and ideologies, regardless of their shared ancestries and histories.
The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453) had its origins in the perilous succession laws of England, which extended onto France via the English monarchs’ claims to Aquitaine (which was equally considered by the French to be a fief of the French crown) and the matter of the English monarchs’ desire to be independent from the kings of France. Neither Paris nor London experienced a dramatic increase in urban development during this era. Indeed, the Black Death temporarily halted development before creating a boom in industry and economy. The Plague also bolstered the emergence of new classes in England and France, permitting the creation of career specializations that had not been seen since the implementation of agriculture.
A few centuries would pass in the aftermath of the Hundred Years’ War before the rivalry would rebound once more under the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715). Louis was, for all intents and purposes, the king of the Continent. He created an expansive empire, the largest in Christendom at the time, thus his capital city needed to reflect this aim. Louis XIV, his father, Louis XIII (1601-1643), and his grandfather, Henry IV (1589-1610), had all drastically altered the face of Paris. What was once a mediocre capital, consisting of cramped and crowded dirt streets, deplorable living conditions, and shoddy construction, had been transformed into a city of grand boulevards, pedestrian sidewalks, substantial stone buildings, and sweeping vistas. Henry IV began the Parisian enterprise of transforming Paris into New Rome. This was accomplished primarily through the construction of public monuments, something to which Louis XIV mastered during his long reign as king.
London, however, retained much of its medieval roots. The city had been marked, not by impressive monuments and vistas, but rather by its laissez-faire style economy and, at times, repugnant filth. London possessed few buildings of cultural importance, save a few theatres. Indeed, the vast majority of its public buildings were pubs. Nearly all housing and minor administrative buildings were timber-framed.
This was a stark contrast to the grandiose, stone structures of Paris during the same period. Up to this point, England had been a somewhat minor power in Europe, occasionally engaging in the odd battle, but generally not a force to be reckoned with. France, however, had emerged as the military, cultural, and religious power whose strength of population and militaristic might gave it somewhat of a monopoly on the Continent. Catholicism reigned as the religious authority of the time, having efficiently suppressed and removed the majority of the Protestant threat from its midst.
The principality of Orange retained a Protestant majority and it was this fact which ultimately changed the position of England and, by extension, London. It also started the rivalry anew. William of Orange, partnered and allied with the Dutch, invaded England and deposed the Catholic king, James II and VII Stuart during the Glorious Revolution in 1688. From that moment onwards, England became the officially governed Protestant opponent to Catholic France. What would follow was a series of succession wars throughout the Continent once more.
The Great Fire of London in 1666 had destroyed most of the city and it was at this time that the city had an opportunity to reinvent itself. While some of the prevailing architects and planners of the day aspired to create in London a better, English version of Paris or Rome, the projected result proved far too costly to the Crown. By the time of the Nine Years’ War in 1688, England had commenced a type of Francophobia. This resulted in a complete rejection of, and retaliation against, all things French including city and urban planning models.
If the French were Catholic then the English were proudly Protestant. This in itself had its origins during the Reformation of the sixteenth century, when Protestantism became associated with patriotism. If the French built grand structures of stone in Paris, then the English countered with buildings of brick and timber in London. If something was to be built from stone, it would hardly have consisted of Caen stone, as was found at the Norman remnants of Westminster. English, and only English, stone would be used.
Paris had been a manufacturer of luxury goods since the times of Henry IV. London, rather than focus on quality, hand-made manufacturing, placed an emphasis upon quantity and profit. London, filled with its many bankers, soon began to operate solely upon credit. While Paris and its reigning monarchy was subject to growth based upon often unfair taxation of the working class, London grew in part thanks to often ludicrous lines of credit. Even the Crown itself was subject to the mercy of bankers within the City of London.
While London’s inhabitants may have seen themselves as the antithesis to their Parisian counterparts, and the Parisians shared the same sentiment, similarities between the two capitals during this era still abounded. Perhaps, the most worthy of note being the development of the Left and Right banks in each city. Aside from both capitals having a major river running through them, essentially dividing the city in half, the development and growth of either bank were more like one another than some may have wished to admit.
The Right bank of both the Seine and the Thames were initially home to the elites. At its origins, this was where the bankers, merchants, and all kinds of ‘new’ money from the emerging middle class chose to build their lavish homes. Historically, the Parisian nobility maintained residences on the Right bank and this certainly did not change during this period. In time, however, these groups eventually migrated westward—transferring residence from Right to Left bank. Likewise, the Left bank developed as an academic and artistic hub, typically housing the working class and those on the outskirts of society. As each city grew and developed, the northeastern parts of the city soon replaced the west as the home of the lower classes as the upper and middle classes migrated towards the undeveloped west.
One difference that certainly played a major role in the development of the capitals was that of the presence of nobility. While the Parisian nobles could often be found at court in Versailles, they were also frequently found in Paris, enjoying their grandes maisons. The landed English gentry, however, spent the vast majority of their time away from the hustle and bustle of London, choosing to remain instead at their country estates. This meant that the people responsible for the development of London were, more often than not, the bankers and merchants who sought to make a profit rather than leaving a lasting, cultural imprint upon the city.
In effect, this emphasis upon profit over aesthetic lent itself to shoddy construction and poor quality of life for the average Londoner. John Stow, a notable historian of London, “saw London as steadily being wrecked by overpopulation, overbuilding, and the greed of developers, City men, and speculators.” (Wilson, 41) Indeed, he was quoted at the end of his life as saying, “[swindlers] more regarded their own private gain than the good of the city.” (Wilson, 41)
The rivalry continued in a somewhat consistent ebb and flow pattern for another century or so before resuming vigorously once more in the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century was, after all, the peak of the Industrial Revolution and the stakes for world renown and industrial domination had never been higher. Francophobia took over London once more during this period, as did Anglophobia in Paris. Indeed, accounts from various Parisians and Londoners concerning the Other were often disparaging.
Théophile Gautier, a French diplomat in London was quoted as saying in 1856:
The English…can forge iron, harness steam, twist matter in every way, invent frighteningly powerful machines…but real art will always escape them…despite their stupendous material advances, they are only polished barbarians.
He had also stated, four years earlier in 1852:
London may become Rome, but it will certainly never be Athens: that destiny is reserved for Paris. In the former we find gold, power, material progress to the highest degree…the useful and the comfortable, yes; but the agreeable and the beautiful, no.
Charles Dickens, English literary legend, was likewise disgusted with Paris. “Paris…is a wicked and detestable place, though wonderfully attractive.”
Queen Victoria herself was extremely distrustful of the French in general.
I fear the French are so fickle, corrupt, and ignorant, so conceited and foolish that it is hopeless to think of their being sensibly governed…I fear they are incurable as a nation though so charming as individuals.
Part of the reason for this great distrust and dislike stemmed from two differing industries that fought for dominance during this period. English cotton was a hot commodity, while French silk was highly desirable. Cotton had become an invaluable export for England (much like wool in previous eras) and London, as a principal manufacturing hub, reaped the economic benefits. It was during this century that the English made a name for themselves as mass producers of cheap goods.
The French, by contrast, had focused on the luxury market, specifically the manufacture and production of silk. It was Francois I who had first brought Italians to Paris, in order to teach the French the silk trade, something which had benefitted Paris ever since. This economic opposition lent itself to a developmental and industrial rivalry between the French and the English, especially concerning their capital cities.
The Prince Regent of England had commanded John Nash, English architect, to make London better than Paris during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—especially with regards to the production and placement of public monuments. When Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann began the reconstruction of Paris, the Emperor instructed Haussmann to use London as his model. This one-upmanship became quite commonplace throughout the century, a means of ‘we’ll do it again, only better.’ As the French and English held different cultural values, ‘better’ was truly a vague notion. It is also important to note that both cities experienced sudden and staggering population growth during this period.
As a result, both Paris and London had differing approaches to the situation. London began by punctuating hygiene. Paris, instead, created appartements—taller buildings which could house more individuals within a single space. London prioritized expansive growth and aggregation; Paris favored a more structured and disciplined approach. The former consisted of a gallimaufry of architectural styles and elements; the latter remained congruous and invariant. London emphasized free markets and liberal administration; Paris maintained central authority and decidedly more rigid economics. Neither was philosophically or ideologically superior to the other, rather they expressed two differing approaches to governance and population growth. Given the general antipathy during the period, however, each respective group believed the Other's position to be particularly egregious.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 brought international renown to London and the British Empire by showcasing British, industrial might and innovation. So thus, Napoleon III of France began, in the 1850’s, the Parisian equivalent—the International Exhibition. This marked France’s foray into regaining international attention after a particularly turbulent century following the Revolution of 1789. Colonialism on the part of the French and British empires continued to steadily increase and with it, so did the rivalry.
The British ambassador, Sir Edmund Monson stated in 1858, "France, in general, is off its head…a standing danger and menace to Europe.”
Théophile Delcasse echoed this statement concerning the French view of the English in 1900. “England is the most domineering and violent of countries.”
By the turn of the century, Anglo-French relations were once more deplorable. The vast majority of the rivalry during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries stemmed from ever-growing empires, industries, and their respective methods of governance, development, population growth, and social issues. Paris was paradoxically described as fascist and modern while London was viewed through the dichotomous lens of being both traditional and liberal. Once more, as the capital cities of two seemingly, diametrically opposed cultures, Paris and London grew and developed out of a cultural war of values. Each were seen as being the antithesis of the other, thereby reflecting the overarching natures of their peoples and histories.
Paris was the cultural and artistic center of the world—a beautiful city which offered all the great pleasures of life. By contrast, London was perceived as a symbol of English freedom, liberty and innovation. While Londoners often critiqued Paris for being stifling, filthy, and amoral, none could accuse it of being an ugly, aesthetically vile city. Likewise, Parisians frequently mocked London’s lack of cultural and artistic venues but none could declare it a city under totalitarian rule.
What should be noted is that London, while more liberal in governance than Paris, also began to create a vast sprawl that would lend itself to many an inconvenience in the future. Furthermore, as profit was a primary focus for English developers, quality was frequently overlooked in favor of quantity and price. Many historically significant buildings were removed in order to make way for rushed building projects. To the present day, many buildings and places of significance from London’s past are still being unearthed, thanks to continual redevelopment.
Paris, while certainly changed under Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann, retained a significantly greater amount of its historical and ancient buildings than any other European capital. Traffic flow in the city was considered more thoughtfully and with greater attention than ever before. Public spaces for discussion, debate, and leisurely activities were developed throughout its history. What Paris may have lacked in industrial economic power, it made up for in cultural and historical might. It is at this point that a more thorough evaluation of each city must be made in order to properly discuss the lasting impacts of these two capitals.
London: the Aggregate Village
London at the dawn of the Middle Ages was a flourishing city, burgeoning with continual influxes of people and capital. As a port city imbued with an exceptional location—one in which access to both sea and Continent was readily available—London became a desirable base of operations for many innovative and industrious merchants who saw the British capital as an opportunity for profit.
This period also witnessed the expansion of the Norman government in Westminster and a steady augmentation of Church control. Each of these led to numerous new governmental and ecclesiastical developments within the City of London, though these did see a temporary halt with the arrival of the Black Plague in 1348. The Plague itself, while certainly a terrible catastrophe with regards to human life, brought with it a steady stream of migrants to the British capital and a more diversified labor force. The Black Death created, in essence, a new kind of social upheaval; one that enabled entirely distinct social classes and the near-elimination of the feudal system in England. This proved to be a boon to the London economy, as the shortage of labor increased working wages and ameliorated the standard of living for those within the City.
The sudden shift in the economy altered the face of London. Prior to the fifteenth century, London’s streets followed the pre-existing network of roads from the Romans and Normans. For the most part, Londoners were satisfied with remaining within the remnants of their ancestral, Roman city walls. Westminster essentially existed as its own entity within the City. It was here that the influence of the Catholic Church was most greatly felt. The settlement that quickly built up around the abbey was directly influenced, and sometimes supported, by the abbey itself. In addition to the abbey, increase in governmental development continued under the reign of Richard II. Richard is credited with having effectively rebuilt the Norman Westminster Hall. Within Westminster at this time, a profitable luxury goods and accommodation industry arose, furthering the independence of this governmental hub within the rest of the City.
The Church created a sort of welfare system, wherein healthcare and shelter were brought to British citizens in the form of hospitals. London was filled with religious institutions of various sorts throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including over one hundred parish churches and a plethora of friaries, monasteries, and nunneries. London itself was the home to a large, influential cathedral—St. Paul’s. This cathedral was originally constructed during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Saint Paul had widely been hailed as the patron saint of London until the thirteenth century. It was at this time that the patronage of Saint Thomas Becket, assassinated Archbishop of Canterbury, was added to London though he never received his own cathedral. The wealth and abundance of the parishes dispersed throughout London proper and its surrounding suburbs greatly aided in the economic power and influence of the capital.
The Catholic Church was not, however, immune to its fair share of detractors. In the fourteenth century, John Wycliffe came under scrutiny for his criticism of traditional Church dogma ultimately culminating in the creation of an early group of dissenters known as the Lollards. These Lollards were never fully eradicated from London and went on in later years to assist in the Reformation under Henry VIII. The vast majority of criticism that the Church received was from Londoners themselves, who believed that the Church had accrued excessive wealth at the expense of the people.
Overall, however, London prospered and owed much of its success in power and wealth to the influence of the Catholic Church. It was one of the most populated and economically strong European capitals of the Middle Ages. The bulk of its development was limited to governmental offices in Westminster and ecclesiastical buildings during this period. With the onset of the sixteenth century and an abrupt shift towards Protestantism, however, London found itself in an urban development boom—the likes of which had never been seen before in British history.
Upon Henry VIII’s ascension in 1509, England as a whole and London in particular began a dramatic transformation into being a new kind of European power. In 1536, Henry ordered the official Dissolution of the Monasteries. While this dissolution may have been marketed to the common person as the removal of ineffective and archaic religious tradition in favor of the new “patriotic” Protestantism, in reality this change was an effort to solidify the king’s authority as head of state and church as well as bring more money and land into the Crown’s coffers. This was accomplished through the acquirement and sale of monastic lands, holdings, and wealth.
This dissolution is turn launched a new means of acquiring wealth for the gentry and emerging merchant classes. The Catholic welfare systems, as well as the Church’s power and influence as a political entity, simultaneously diminished. The novel Protestant religion brought with it a greater emphasis on the rights of the individual and early capitalism. Land speculation began in earnest during the 1540s as a means of quick and easy profit for the vast array of financiers, clothiers, and entrepreneurs of the era. This brought about London’s rapid rise in economic might and spurred a population boom, as more wealth was often synonymous with better quality of life. It was during this time that London emerged as the leading economic power of Europe.
Along with these economic, religious, and political changes came a cultural and architectural revolution that would have lasting effects: the theatre. The theatre emerged as the sole entertainment and cultural venue of London—a place to be thoroughly enjoyed by all manner of citizens. Theatres of the time were frequently large, having the capacity to hold upwards of three thousand people per building. As these structures grew in popularity, so did the quality and influence of English literature and culture. The sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries saw an upsurge of writing and authorship like never before.
It is important to note that though the theatres offered entertainment to the masses, they also provided an irresistible means of profit for their investors and developers. As with much of the developments from the period, emphasis upon money often led to shoddy construction that resulted in poorly finished structures that would need to be replaced in the following centuries. This rush towards profit and disregard for quality lent itself to the Great Fire of 1666. Fireplaces, a recent addition to the London home, were assembled so carelessly that they rapidly transformed from a means of warmth and protection to a dangerous source of risk—likely to catch fire spontaneously and without much warning. The sheer proximity in which houses were built meant that the fire could easily spread to the destruction of entire blocks within a short period.
As London grew and expanded, it began absorbing smaller suburbs and villages. These former offshoots of London, once small Church communities, found themselves sold from parish hands into those of City developers. Ultimately, London commenced its journey to becoming an aggregate village. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries also saw a redefinition of what it was to be English. This was expressed through the aggrandizement of public buildings and using new materials. English architecture until this point had primarily consisted of a combination of timber and stone, though stone was, admittedly, more rare in its application than timber. Brick progressively became more and more the material of choice for new urban developments.
Seventeenth-century London built upon the cultural and religious evolution from the previous two centuries and saw the construction of numerous new public monuments, gardens, churches, and housing developments. London’s population swelled to over half a million by 1700. In general, the wealthier elite began to gravitate towards the westernmost parts of the City. Shortly after the fire of 1666, London experienced a widening of it streets and its first regulated building code, requiring street fronts to be uniform in 1667.
This followed in conjunction with a rise in Francophobia. England, newly “freed” from the power of Rome, became a bastion for Protestants in Europe. France, by contrast, remained mostly and devotedly Catholic. Thus, London had need of monuments and religious structures to reflect this newfound identity and separation from the remaining Continental powers. Here, at this intersection of identities, emerged Sir Christopher Wren to help shape the future of English architecture towards a form based on Classicism—realizing English identity via the modus of architecture in the seventeenth century.
Wren sought to bring about the British equivalent of Rome and Paris in London. After the destruction of the first St. Paul’s during the Great Fire, Wren was tasked with its rebuilding. It was in this cathedral that he gave London its own masterful dome, adding prestige and notoriety to the skyline. To this day, building codes within the city prohibit any construction from blocking the view of St. Paul’s cathedral.
It was also during the seventeenth century that London’s trichotomic arrangement became more readily recognizable; that is to say that its ancient core undulated out into the commercial and industrial institutions. The gentry and elite continued their westward movement, developing new suburbs along the Strand River ever nearer Westminster. This new development would eventually come to be known as the West End. By contrast, the northernmost parts of the city transformed into the base for semi-skilled workers and artisans. The beginnings of London’s future as a sprawling, mega metropolis also have emerged during this era.
The East End transformed during the seventeenth century into a burgeoning, industrial sector due to lower rent and minimal legislative interference. The economic epicenter remained at the core of the City itself. Large, newly constructed squares and gardens began to spring up in various sectors of the capital, allowing for increased rates of fresh air and greater public spaces. Indeed, by the end of the seventeenth century London hardly resembled its ancestral origins. It had nearly doubled in size, no longer a cramped and crowded capital. Rather, after the Great Fire, London had commenced a metamorphosis into a red-bricked, broadened capital city. Building codes had officially been put into place, ensuring uniformity of design. Parks and open-air gardens contributed to this redesign.
At the start of the eighteenth century, hygiene and sanitation began to play a paramount role in the development of London. The outlying suburbs and villages, such as Islington and Twickenham, were quickly incorporated into London proper. Economic power continued to swell within the British capital, ensuring the continued growth and development of the city as a whole. Coffee houses emerged at this time, yet another addition to a growing public sector. These coffeehouses continued their westward expansion, serving as places of meeting, gossip and political intrigue. While better police protection and streetlights had been added by the end of the seventeenth century, crime remained appallingly high in the capital. The crime rate seemed to increase in conjunction with the ever-expanding gap between rich and poor in the urban center. While new, beautiful houses and public spaces sprung up along the West End, the lower classes were forced to make due in squalid living conditions, many in decrepit and dilapidated tenements that needed to be either repaired or rebuilt. The Lighting Act, first introduced in 1738, certainly ameliorated the crime a fair amount but it did not halt all crime across the city.
At the beginning of the century many of the surrounding pasturelands and fields were still visible and discernible. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, London had continued its growth sprawl to such a degree that these were rendered near invisible, either by the sheer area of urban growth or by the increasing smoke pollution throughout the city. The eighteenth century also saw the steady emergence and development of purely residential districts. More and more of the middle class flocked to these areas, evacuating much of the East End and the City, in favor of the West End.
This departure increased the ever-growing social divide within the city. As greater number of immigrants from around England and the rest of Europe swarmed to London, the city slowly but surely divided into east and west. The west, by this time, was filled with elite and middle class merchants, traders, etc. Residential sectors had nearly overtaken the West End. The northeast, an industrial hub for well over a century, became the sector for the lower class and poor.
Schools and hospitals were also heavily developed during the eighteenth-century. It was King George IV who desired to make London a grand, monumental capital. City improvements and a slew of public works began in earnest under his reign. The government increased its spending in the effort to create building initiatives and stipends. John Nash, illustrious English architect, played a significant role in this.
As London continued its rapid expansion, it needed more effective transportation. Prior to the eighteenth century, local parishes were responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of city roads. During the new century, however, the government was forced to take this responsibility upon itself. Street widening only helped to a small degree, the eventual solution being that of the construction of new roads. These roads deviated from the ancient Roman and Norman grid system. Eventually, the development and construction of six new bridges was needed to fully accommodate the increased traffic flow. However much these improvements helped traffic flow during the eighteenth century, the city was entirely ill-equipped for what would come in the following century.
The nineteenth century brought with it an unprecedented increase in population. London, at the turn of the eighteenth century, had a little more than a million people within its environs. By the end of the nineteenth century, this number had intensified to nearly seven million. As the population grew, so did the need for better and more efficient means of transportation. The Underground officially arrived near the end of the century, during the 1890s. While this was certainly of benefit to the upper-middle class, the working poor were unable to afford public transportation fares. This meant that the majority of the lower classes were forced to live near their place of employment.
It was during the Victorian era that London also witnessed the development of the lower-middle class, a group consisting of the like of clerks and bookkeepers. This new social milieu effectively altered the state of consumption within the City. Cheaply produced, manufactured goods replaced the artisanal workshops and luxury-goods as demand for the mass-market increased. Essentially, factories began to force out smaller producers, thereby contributing to urban sprawl and the agglomeration of smaller villages and suburbs into London proper.
The East End remained a deplorable site for poverty throughout the nineteenth century. The disparity between the West End and that of its eastern counterpart was so great that the term “environmental segregation” seems most apt to describe the situation. The Cross Act of 1875 authorized the destruction of slums but banned the new construction of tenements and housing. Due to congestion issues, greater amounts of developers sought to expand the city outwards, creating new crops of villages and suburbs along the way. Flat dwelling had finally taken off in the nineteenth-century, an architectural mode of living borrowed from their Parisian counterparts.
The Victorian age also saw an increased segregation in all manner of construction, from housing to the use of public transportation and public institutions (such as hospitals, theatres, and pubs.) Naturally, the most prestigious of these institutions were housed along the West End. Land zoning was formally introduced at this time, ensuring the sanctity of the residences for the uppermost echelons of society. London sprawled to ever-increasing distances and as it did, so did the classification of social statuses via the suburb of residence.
Under the reign of Queen Victoria, London transformed from a commercial trade port to the height of economic power—a city of industry and massively produced mercantilism. London had rapidly become the economic powerhouse of all Europe thanks to the implementation of industrial production. In this newfound status, the development of corporate, financial, and industrial headquarters found a place in the City like never before.
By the twentieth century, London changed once more: the once individualistic tendencies gave way to a more welfare-based system during the 1950s. The London County Council (LCC) formed after the First World War and had as its goal the provision of newer, safer housing for much of the lower income communities dispersed throughout northeastern London. Indeed, post-war London developed a severe housing crisis due to the augmentation of population during the nineteenth-century. While certainly of noble intent, public housing development projects fell by the wayside rather quickly, coming to a near halt by 1920.
A greater proportion of Londoners increasingly ventured into the suburbs, with the hopes of obtaining improved places of residence. As these people evacuated the city ever outwards, so did the commercial and industrial developments. Thus, London continued to expand and overtake more and more of its surrounding villages and suburbs. Additionally, the twentieth century brought a shift in construction—from multi-level flats to single, semi-detached homes with individual gardens. This idea of the “Garden City”, first suggested by Ebenezer Howard during the 1890s, became a popular one.
The City still suffered from the effects of Victorian class segregation, resulting in the upper and middle class exodus out of the City center towards newly designated residential suburbs, still west of the city. Due to this issue, governance sought to stifle the ever increasing sprawl outwards by purchasing the surrounding lands and forbidding their development during the 1930s. Planning was thoroughly regulated and laid the framework for post-war construction during the 1940s.
Upon the destruction of the City during World War II, the planners of London switched their emphasis from one of suburban development to that of a centralized city. The City also changed from being a commercial trade port to one of international financial markets and tourism. The arts also saw a renaissance of sorts, starting in the 1960s, something which brought about the construction of renovation of many theatres and concert halls. Privatization of building increased once again, seeing the intensification of more numerous but inferior construction. The twentieth century also witnessed a return to more traditional architectural styles in the 1980s, as architectural legacy received greater public attention as a whole.
Transportation congestion did and remains an issue to this day. City and urban planning often took the backseat to the needs and desires of individuals and private developers. Thus, much of London’s growth was poorly accompanied by governmental planning. The emphasis on private capital over public welfare has remained a trend in London since the Reformation era. Arguably, the dissolution of abbeys and parish authorities brought with it a kind of egocentrism the city had not known before, due to a change in culture and identity. Furthermore, this seems to be a contributing factor in the suburbanization of London, a desire to escape the “have nots” of society in favor of one’s own benefit.