LONDON (dpa) – London is bursting at the seams. The city’s resident population is set to grow by 600,000 over the next decade, and the flow of tourists to the British metropolis seems to be constant.
The city’s current population of around 7.5 million is confronted by decrepit physical infrastructure, undermanned and underfunded public services and decades of under-investment.
An astonishing variety of ethnic groups have put their stamp on the city, adding to its colour but making enforcement of uniform regulations difficult. And the closed nature of some of those groups mean policing is a daunting task.
But one man thinks he is up to the job of managing the growth. Ken Livingstone has been mayor of the Greater London Authority since July 2000, and his efforts are beginning to show results.
The popular mayor, who defied the major political parties to win election as an independent, has made getting people out of their cars and onto public transport his top priority, and he aims to promote rather than discourage growth.
“It’s not possible to stop this,” says John Ross, the mayor’s chief adviser.
Livingstone dismisses past attempts to get people to move out of London, talking instead of “the need to embark on a policy of denser and taller office development” and the public transport network required to serve them.
There have been noticeable improvements in the bus service since he took office – the man once known as Red Ken for his leftwing policies boasts three new buses hit the capital’s streets every day.
Quality of life for many Londoners is low. In a recent survey, human resources consultancy William M. Mercer rated London the second dirtiest capital in the European Union after Athens.
Traffic congestion and waste disposal were the culprits, the consultancy found. London was grimier than all the major U.S. cities, with the exception of New York.
And the differences between the rich and the poor parts of the city are stark by E.U. standards. The wealthy reside in well-swept tree-lined streets near large parks. The poor live in endless Victorian terraced housing, the pavements broken and litter-strewn. Heavy traffic thunders past.
“The gulf between very poor and super-affluent at times seems unbridgeable,” the new Lonely Planet tourist guide remarks.
Livingstone aims to change this. “Ken at work,” Londoners say when they see the constant roadworks to create bus and cycle lanes and pedestrian crossings.
Nevertheless, using the public transport system is an “exhausting, debasing grind”, according to Lonely Planet.
Next year a five pound (seven dollar) daily congestion charge will be imposed on all motorists entering central London. Opinion is mixed on whether it will work, but Red Ken is undeterred by the doomsayers.
One of his more ambitious schemes is to pedestrianize the north side of Trafalgar Square. This large square, a gathering place for London’s many political demonstrations and for pigeon-feeding tourists, is currently a bleak island surrounded by a sea of traffic.
Livingstone has a dream of a more congenial and pedestrian- friendly future. But he also aims to keep business onside, going out of his way to woo London’s key financial district.
Business and financial services, located largely in the central area, have created nearly 650,000 jobs since 1973 and are expected to bring in 400,000 more by 2016, whereas manufacturing, scattered across the metropolis, has lost about 620,000 since 1973.
Livingstone is alive to the needs of the wealth creators, but knows he needs the backing of ordinary Londoners to win again in 2004. Investment in environmental improvement is a priority.
Crime is a growing problem for those who cannot escape to the suburbs at the end of the working day but live in one of the depressed inner-city boroughs.
The conservative Sunday Telegraph published figures this month showing stabbings and shootings were more common in the inner London borough of Hackney than in Johannesburg’s notorious Soweto township.
London has 26,000 police officers to New York’s 42,000, and its crime statistics give cause for concern.
Eric Pickles, a member of parliament for the Conservative Party, cited figures for November last year that showed nearly 13,000 violent offences, 5,000 robberies and 14 murders.
“Comparing the same period for the same offences in New York show a Londoner was five times more likely to be a victim of violent crime than a New Yorker,” he said. “It’s a sad day for this country.”
And the Lonely Planet guide painted a picture of London as a city of homeless people, yobs and racial bigots, with “police not always as colour-blind as people would like to believe”. But the tourists are unfazed. Bizarre pub hours, inflated prices and dingy surroundings fail to put them off this vital British city.
And the ethnic minorities are similarly undaunted. Illegal immigrants are pouring into Britain, most of them making for the capital.
Non-white ethnic minorities now make up 27 per cent of London’s population and will represent 31 per cent by 2011, according to Livingstone’s figures.
