London (Fodor's 2012) - Fodor's [1]
HAVE AND HAVE-NOTS
For the people who live here, money is what makes London’s cogs go around. The credit crunch may have pierced its bubble of prosperity, but in 2009 the U.K. still replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading financial center, with London leading the way. London’s housing market enjoys its own economic micro-climate, with prices still rising as they fall elsewhere. Elegant areas such as Kensington and Knightsbridge are in a different world, with gravity-defying prices fed by waves of overseas investors and tycoons. The lead-up to the 2012 Olympics promises a further bonanza but gloom-mongering talk of double-dip recessions may upset the apple cart.
Today, The City contributes about 2.5% of the country’s GDP, which highlights the pivotal role it plays in the country’s economy. But while its Kazakh oligarchs, Saudi playboys, and cash-splashing freewheelers suggest a city endlessly flaunting its wealth, income disparities are colossal. London remains a reasonably safe city but it pays to keep your wits about you; gang culture and incidents of knife and gun crime conspire to make some neighborhoods a grittier and disadvantaged flip side to the city’s flashier boroughs.
DID YOU KNOW?
With more than 7 million residents, London is the most populous city in the European Union, more than twice that of its nearest rival. It’s among the most densely populated, too, after Copenhagen, Brussels, and Paris.
Up to around £2,000 (nearly $4,000) of taxpayers’ money can be used to purchase a wig for a London judge, who often still wears the antiquated accessory. Barristers and solicitors (lawyers) must pay for their own wigs and often buy them used.
More than 120 species of fish, including smelt (which locals say has an odor resembling their beloved cucumber sandwiches), live in the Thames. It may look brown because of the sediment, but the Thames is actually Europe’s cleanest metropolitan estuary.
The Tube (the London Underground) is the world’s oldest subway system, with the first line up and running in 1863. With 253 mi of track and 270 stations, it covers more ground than systems in New York, Paris, and Tokyo. More than a billion passenger journeys are made on the network every year.
London may have been credit-crunched, but the world’s most expensive property—a central London flat—recently sold for more than £115 million.
The city is also the world’s most expensive if you want to park your car. London’s Congestion Charge Zone, where vehicles need to pay on weekdays to use the city center streets, is already the world’s largest.
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Westminster and Royal London. This is the place to embrace the “tourist” label. Snap pictures of the mounted Horse Guards, watch kids clambering onto the lions in Trafalgar Square, and visit stacks of art in the fantastic national galleries. Do brave the crowds to peruse historic Westminster Abbey and its ancient narrative in stone.
St. James’s and Mayfair. You might not have the wallet for London’s most prestigious district, but remember window-shopping in Mayfair is free. St. James’s is the ultimate enclave of old money and gentleman’s London. Here you’ll find the noted private members’ clubs of Pall Mall, and the starched shirts and cigars of Jermyn Street, where you can shop like the Duke of Windsor.
Soho and Covent Garden. More sophisticated than seedy these days, the heart of London puts Theaterland, strip joints, Chinatown, and the trendiest of film studios side by side. Nearby Charing Cross Road is a bibliophile’s dream, but steer clear of the hectic hordes in Leicester Square, London’s crowd-packed answer to Times Square.
Bloomsbury and Legal London. The literary and left-wing set