Gentrification or local gain? Spatial development under austerity: the case of east london

Abstract

Context of the bromley-by-bow study area. Any long term scenario for future spatial development benefits from a long view into the past to discover the ‘archaeology of spatial memory’. Recovery from the Second World War with its devastating destruction is chosen to trace London’s regeneration strategies and efforts to rebalance London’s East and West. Patrick Abercrombie included rebalancing East and West in the 1944 London County Council (LCC) ‘Greater London Plan’, based on ‘social studies’ in the Charles Booth tradition,1 aimed to establish balanced local neighbourhoods2 and to decongest London into eight self-contained new towns beyond a newly established green belt to contain London’s growth. However, London’s population of 8.6 million in 1939 had shrunk by about half a million 3 and there was a great need to regenerate London’s destroyed fabric.