ABSTRACT
Central London entered the period following the publication of the Urban Task Force (UTF) report from a substantially different base from other city centres in the UK. The task force ascribed this difference to London’s importance as a global centre for finance and business. Pursuing Hebbert’s (1998) conclusion that London possessed many of the qualities aspired to by the New Urbanists and by implication ‘the urban renaissance’, the report commended central London’s mixed-use areas. The new spectacular projects of the Tate Modern and the IMAX cinema were enthusiastically anticipated. On other matters the report was silent, other than noting a lack of coherent governance for London as a whole (UTF 1999a).
