Everyone's heard the saying "when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold". That saying could not be more apt for our time and the same could arguably be said for London and the UK. London dominates the UK, both culturally as well as economically. More than that though, it dominates in terms of population with no other UK city getting anywhere near it.
This is shown in the fusion table below. A hat tip has to go to a similar one done by The Economist, comparing US states with countries (also worth a look at, here). The interactive map shows the populations of London boroughs and matches them to the nearest equivalent city. Not always straight forward due to the lack of a comparable city, some boroughs like Croydon have two cities combined.
Note: Data taken from recent ONS 2011 census data.
To paraphrase Evan Davis on his BBC2 programme Built in Britain on Monday who asked, "are we going to end up with Britain having its major city as London, or end up with London having a surrounding suburb called Britain?"...
The second of those questions looking at the above could arguably be already true.
Leave a comment
What a user pic? Get a Gravatar!