ABSTRACT
Editors: What makes regeneration in London ‘unique’ or different to other places, different cities?
Peter Hall: If you take a spectrum, with London at one end and places at the other end that are old one-industry mill towns, then what characterises London and makes it absolutely unique is its own extraordinary economic success: you are regenerating against the background of colossal pressures of population increase, economic growth, severe housing shortages, problems with transport infrastructure and also very much increasing income inequality, due to the rises in very high incomes, which make London different from anywhere else. Core cities, like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Newcastle, have some of these characteristics mixed up with some of the characteristics of the one-industry towns. But in London the problem is to regenerate against this background of booming growth, which makes it absolutely special.
