Laura Parker wrote about plastic pollution in
the May issue. Luca Locatelli photographed sto-
ries on Dubai and innovations in Dutch agriculture
for the September and October 2017 issues.will be standing alone in the world. “England
went from being an imperial power with a long
history as a trading empire, and then afterwards
as a principal city within the EU,” Brown says.
“The transition to this new status, whether as an
unleashed global city or something less power-
ful, is quite dramatic.”
And yet, despite Brexit anxieties, optimism
about this ancient trading city persists. One of
Canary Wharf ’s newest additions, the station for
the new Elizabeth line, is a rail station for the
ages: seven stories high and loaded with retail,
shops, cafés, a movie theater, and a gym. If you
pass through, take time to go all the way up to
the roof. There, a garden that celebrates Lon-
don’s place in history and geography stretches
for nearly a thousand feet, with east and west
“hemispheres” neatly planted with flora native
to countries visited by the ships of the West India
Docks. I paused in the center, at the dividing
line where the hemispheres meet. We’re just a
short boat ride from Greenwich, where the real
prime meridian line–longitude zero–is painted
on the pavement outside the Royal Observatory.
A replica is drawn here, between the bamboo in
the east and the ferns in the west, and serves as a
reminder: No matter what else befalls it, London
remains at the center of the world. jLONDON RISING 141