I've been talking to people in East London Town Halls about the numbers of citizens they serve. For years, they complain, they've been telling governments - mostly Labour ones - that loads of their residents have been invisible to the official head-counters, resulting in far less taxpayer cash flowing into their areas than they are entitled too.
While the national stats tell one story, pressure on local schools, health care providers and council services in these poor parts of the metropolis have been telling another, they say. That's why results from last year's census are a source of some belated satisfaction. It's emerged that all of the Olympic host boroughs contain many more people than even very recent estimates showed, and it's not only in East London that this has occurred.
These data tell part of the larger story of London's continuing population boom up by 12% since 2001. Everyone agrees that Greater London now contains a full eight million people - no ifs, buts or uses of the word "approximately." This upward trend is unnerving for some, yet we still aren't as full as we were at the start of World War II.
The years when big cities were seen as inherently bad things from which all sane persons longed to escape are long, long gone. The challenge now is to ensure that the potential of their fast-multiplying human resources is fulfilled for the good of the city as a whole. Easy to say, harder to do. But those aspiring to become the next Mayor of London should already be working on their plans.
The Guardian on London
Olympic legacy: are there more East Enders than we knew?
Olympic legacy: creating a community
London local papers move from print to online
Time Out set free in slimmer format
Earls Court project: avoidable unpleasantness?
Mo Farah visits his old school in west London - video
The 101 strangest records on Spotify: Various Artists – Sounds of London
Woman killed by falling tree branch at Kew Gardens
Green Park, ghosts and a Unicef appeal
London blogosphere
From Ian Visits, written on Thursday:
Yesterday, the last of the 50-year old Metropolitan Line trains made its final public trips along the railway, and like an awful lot of people, I took a short trip to say farewell to the old timer. I was going to take a slightly longer trip, but a mishap took place, which I will recount below.
He took pictures too. Now read on.
Coming up
Next week will be quiet in term of City Hall public meetings, but I'll be meeting some interesting people in interesting places all over town. Who knows what they might tell me? You'll be able to find out here. Thanks for reading. Bye!
