ABSTRACT
In examining the overall development of London since the end of the Second World War, it has been the fi rst factor, the decline of manufacturing industry and transport uses (notably Docklands, but also old canal basins, rail yards and riverside land), that has been crucial in making parts of London available for reuse. This has been a necessary, but not suffi cient, condition for regeneration. It has been the second factor, the growth of fi nancial and business services and particularly their internationalisation, that has been a major driver of regeneration. The internationalisation of the City of London can – of course – be traced back three hundred years but the origin of its current phase can probably be found in the rise of the ‘euro dollar’ market in the late 1950s and, more specifi cally, in the ‘big
bang’ deregulation of fi nancial services in 1986. This has provided the effective demand for new offi ce space that has characterised the redevelopment of London since the 1950s when much of its central area was still manifesting the devastation caused by the wartime bombing.
