Millennial Metropolis

The text offers a critical perspective on complex and consequential aspects of growth and change in London, viewed through the lens of multiscalar space and brought to life through exemplary case studies. It demonstrates how capital, culture and governance have combined to reproduce London, within a frame of relational geographies and historical relayering.

Emphasis is placed on the sequences of political change, capital intensification, industrial restructuring and cultural infusions which have transformed space in London since the 1980s. Tom Hutton contributes to the rich discourse on London’s experiences of urbanization, by producing a fresh perspective on its development saliency. Millennial Metropolis includes a systematic review and synthesis of research literatures on globalizing cities, with reference to the reproduction of space at the metropolitan, district and neighbourhood scales. Hutton offers a nuanced treatment of geographical scale, observed in the blending of global/transnational processes with the fine-grained imprint of governance processes and social relations. These proccesses are manifested in sites of innovation, spectacle and social conviviality, but also produce experiences of displacement and inequality. The author presents a spatial model of metropolitan development by exploring how growth and change in twenty-first-century London is expressed internally as an enlarged zonal structure extending beyond the traditional territories of central and inner London. Serious threats to London are discussed —from the isolating implications of Brexit, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the dire threat of ecological crises and deteriorating public health associated with climate change.

This will be an invaluable text for postgraduate students, established scholars and upper level undergraduates, across diverse disciplines and fields including geography, sociology, governance studies and planning and urban studies.