of canals are being reinvented as new neigh-
borhoods—and pricey waterfront real estate—
featuring pedestrian-friendly public spaces and
retail shops that favor local entrepreneurs over
chain outlets. King’s Cross, a derelict railroad
transfer point known more recently for prosti-
tution and drugs, is showing Londoners what
a well-rounded makeover looks like. The trans-
formation includes the renewed King’s Cross
and St. Pancras rail stations (the latter home
to the Eurostar train to Paris), a new campus
for an art and design college, music venues,
parks and fountains, and housing—both high-
end and affordable. Google, Deep Mind (Goo-
gle’s artificial intelligence research lab), and
Facebook are building unconventional London
headquarters there. Google’s 11-story “land-
scraper,” large enough to house about 7,000
employees, may be the most original design.
It stretches for a thousand feet, parallel to the
King’s Cross railway platforms, and boasts that
its rooftop garden will grow “fields” of wildflow-
ers and feature a running trail.
Across town, on the Thames’s south side, a
long-bedeviled development is under way that
will reclaim the Nine Elms district, once better
known for the defunct Battersea Power Station
than enticing riverfront views. Reborn upscale,
and helped in part by the new U.S. Embassy
seat that opened here last year, the project also
is positioning itself to be the city’s food quarter,
anchored by the New Covent Garden Market.
The London headquarters of tech giant Apple
will occupy six floors in the massive power
plant’s rebuilt boiler room.
Not surprisingly, London’s run of prosperity
arrived with the usual set of urban headaches,
and as they have worsened, many wonder
whether their great city is losing its allure. Traffic
is terrible. Air pollution is so bad that two million
Londoners are living with illegal levels of toxic
air, according to London’s emissions inventory
agency. Rising land values have pushed housing
prices beyond the reach of average Londoners,
forcing even well-paid professionals to pack up
the kids and move out in search of affordable
suburbs where a family can live.
But three years of uncertainty over Brexit
have trumped every urban annoyance. The
U.K.’s unresolved withdrawal from the Euro-
pean Union has embroiled the government in
political chaos that cost Prime Minister Theresa
May her job, stymied industry planning, and
threatens to bring the boom to an end. “Anyone
who says anything about Brexit, however expert,
is as likely to be wrong as right,” says Simon Jen-
kins, former chairman of the National Trust and
a veteran journalist and author. “Really, no one
has a clue.”
The U.K. economy has slowed, though Lon-
don continues to add jobs. Large manufacturers,
including Airbus and Japanese automakers, have
threatened to leave if Brexit gets inked. On the
other hand, Unilever and HSBC, after threat-
ening to decamp for the Continent, are staying
put. The pound is down, but London remains a
leading source for venture capital and the global
destination of choice for company headquarters,
a distinction it has held since 2003, according to
an analysis by the Centre for London, a progres-
sive think tank.
“Airbus and the Japanese automakers are sin-
gle stories. The one thing Brexit hasn’t done so
far is create this rats-leaving-the-sinking-ship
type of departures,” says Richard Brown, the
center’s research director. “But the mood here
is exhaustion. People are saying that we should
just get on and leave, and to hell with Europe.
Or, alternatively, that we should call the whole
thing off. It’s been a disaster.”
Will boom turn to bust? Can London take
on its challenges and remain the world’s great
trading city and an appealing place to live? The
idea that London teeters on the edge of unrav-
eling seems unimaginable, even, and maybe
especially, at a time like this. Londoners like to
talk about their city’s enduring resilience. They
recite, predictably, London’s ability to carry on
through plague, the Great Fire of 1666, and the
blitz bombing raids during World War II—all
reassuring evidence that London will prevail
again in its European divorce. In the current cri-
sis, London is helped by the fact that there is no
obvious challenger. Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam,
and Frankfurt all have financial services indus-
tries, but none has quite the range of assets or
the historic strengths that have carried London
through 2,000 years, starting with the mother
tongue. English is the universal language.
London’s trading connections, established
when the empire ruled a quarter of the world,
are embedded in its DNA and give London an
edge, especially in Asia, over would-be Euro-
pean competitors.
“London is in a privileged position where it’s
kind of untouchable,” says Peter Griffiths, a cityLONDON RISING 131