Matt Webb writes an interesting and thoughtful piece on London. I am similarly perplexed by London. I like it and dislike it, it offers anything I could wish for and many things I don't care for. However it is not dull or possible to ignore. It is said that more languages are spoken here and there are more different types of restaurant than anywhere else on earth, yet it is swarmed by branded store, Starbucks are legion, though the italian deli is right next door. It feels like little villages all packed together, not a planned city.
Today we got a card with a map of London from 1822, you can see the centre of London and all of the villages around the outside, like Hackney, Peckham and Brixton. A quick google search found this 1859 interactive map of london from the UCLA epidemology department, who have a study of John Snow. Nice map of Dicken's London, also via google, I do like maps.
London is a great place to walk in, you can see the details closeup, from the vacant site due to bomb damage from the blitz to the shiny new tower rearing up beside it. It is not a even place, you feel it pulls you in different directions, things clamour for your attention or it can be quiet and windswept.
Matt comments that the hidden Londons are the between things places, the maps show how these places formed, as each village grew to touch the next. Then London emerged from it all. London is such variety, turn the corner of one street and the neighbourhood changes. Walk a few tube stops on a sunny day and your footsteps reveal the mixed nature of the city. Desirable and not so, sit beside one another, somewhere might be on the up, hoping to be on the up or passé nothing sits still, but the city has a sense of continuity, London has a presence.
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