London by Paul Knox;

Author:Paul Knox;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300277456
Publisher: Yale University Press

55 County Hall, Lambeth, detail.

14 County Hall, Lambeth

ONCE a symbol of metropolitan civic pride, the repurposed County Hall now stands as an uncomfortable reminder of Global London’s free-for-all commercialism. As the headquarters of the London County Council (LCC) between 1922 and 1965, and then of the Greater London Council (GLC) between 1965 and 1986, it was a manifestation of London’s independence and metropolitan identity. In its heyday it was the administrative centre of a powerful municipal government with a reputation for progressiveness and efficiency across a broad spectrum of urban affairs. By the late 1930s, the LCC had responsibility for town planning, building regulations, public housing, state schools and colleges, adult education, parks and open spaces, sewerage and drainage systems, hospitals and asylums, the fire brigade and ambulance services, public assistance, social services for children and the elderly, and a wide range of regulatory functions, including licensing of places of entertainment. Today, the building is occupied by hotels and tourist attractions.

Established in an era of idealism and social reform, the massive building on its prominent riverside site reflected the self-confidence of London as an important international commercial, manufacturing and financial centre in its own right. Unlike most other great cities of the world, London had not grown from a single commercial, ecclesiastical or administrative centre, nor had it been laid out to an overarching plan. Rather, London’s growth had gradually converted a scattering of villages and parishes into mini-towns, which in turn grew into specialised districts – each with distinctive physical, economic and social characteristics – within a single functional metropolitan fabric. London became, famously, a ‘city of villages’.1 The political and administrative legacy was a multitude of independent districts. The creation of the LCC and, later, the GLC provided London with political and administrative cohesion and the chance, at last, for a unified, strategic approach to urban affairs. But across six decades, the buoyant municipal socialism of the LCC and GLC was a thorn in the side of Conservative governments at the national level, with County Hall an unwelcome visual reminder across the Thames from the Palace of Westminster. Margaret Thatcher’s government put an end to the annoyance by peremptorily abolishing the GLC, leaving the metropolis divided and conquered, with no overall framework for metropolitan policies, effectively defenceless against the unwanted side effects of market forces and the competing and often conflicting policies of London’s constituent boroughs.

London’s administrative challenges have always run deep. The City of London Corporation was established in the city’s ancient commercial core in the eleventh century, and it has fiercely guarded its rights and privileges ever since, even as the metropolis has grown around it. Immensely wealthy and powerful, it has always remained beyond the authority of parliament. Its interests are largely those of City banks and financial companies, and it is inherently undemocratic: votes in twenty-one of its twenty-five electoral wards are allocated to business corporations, rather than individual residents; the bigger the business, the larger the share of the vote. Beyond the City

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