Contemporary issues of London

Like everything else about London, its current problems are also immense. The most obvious is the growing social polarization of the rich and the poor.

The unemployment rate in London in 1996 was 10%, compared to the national unemployment average of about 7% for the United Kingdom.

Much of this unemployment is a result of the decline in manufacturing jobs and manual and unskilled labor work, as substantial employment growth takes place in sectors such as advertising, marketing, and computing, which require technical and professional skills.

Recent government policies have accentuated the situation. As in other Western nations, cutting taxes has enriched a growing middle class and led to a consumer boom. But lower taxes have also meant less government spending on health, welfare, and public housing, which has weakened Britain’s welfare state.

The spending cuts in the social welfare areas have accentuated class differences, and the disparity is evident when contrasting expensive new developments like the Docklands with the decaying public housing complexes that have not been maintained to the proper standards. It remains to be seen whether national and metropolitan policies will attempt to bridge the growing gap between those who do and don’t benefit from the new prosperity.

Another issue is London’s decaying physical infrastructure. London has an aging and crumbling housing stock, more than a third of which were built before 1919, and some 232,000 dwellings do not meet government standards for human habitation.

London has one of the most comprehensive bus and underground systems in the world, moving some 6.2 million passengers daily, but parts of the system are old and poorly maintained, leading more people to use cars.

Since London was primarily built before the automobile age, its streets cannot handle the increased traffic.

According to the Times of London, the average speed of traffic in the morning rush hour has dropped from 23 km/h (14 mph) in the mid-1970s to 18 km/h (11 mph) in the mid-1990s.

Solutions include a massive reinvestment in public transport, and changing many streets from one-way to two-way traffic, rather than building freeways to handle the increased automobile traffic.