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Reading Dickens is one way to get a feel for this. Many locations in his books are not yet part of the London conurbation. IIRC, one book has a character walking over fields to get to Hammersmith, for example.
Going back further there is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Martin-in-the-Fields
Hard to see any signifiant difference.
Similarly in almost every photograph there is much less brown/grey space. Either empty spaces, or inner-city car-parks have been replaced by parks, or by new buildings.
I think this is reflected in the population history of the city. Since 2000 the city has grown from 7.2 million to 9.0 million - that's a good 20%, and London within the city limits (not that this is a great measure of city size) now actually had more population than New York.
I lived in Canary Wharf ~2011-2012, on the 42nd floor and with a stunning view west over the city. The shard was being built at the time and I've got plenty of photos of dramatic sunsets, rays streaming through the glass and trusses. As much as I loathed living in London, I quite enjoyed the view.
Edit: reason I ask is because I assume it's costs, I can't imagine your apartment was cheap. I don't see much evidence that even SWE's can comfortably live there.
I lived in Canary Wharf ~2011-2012, on the 42nd floor and with a stunning view west over the city. The shard was being built at the time and I've got plenty of photos of dramatic sunsets, rays streaming through the glass and trusses. As much as I loathed living in London, I quite enjoyed the view.
What was your reason for loathing living in London? Edit: reason I ask is because I assume it's costs, I can't imagine your apartment was cheap. I don't see much evidence that even SWE's can comfortably live there.
Hard to see any signifiant difference.
The real story is one of intensification. Before 2000-or-so there weren't many sky-scrapers in the City-of-London (i.e the central financial district), now it looks like there are upwards of twenty. Similarly in almost every photograph there is much less brown/grey space. Either empty spaces, or inner-city car-parks have been replaced by parks, or by new buildings. I think this is reflected in the population history…
Hard to see any signifiant difference.
Hard to see any signifiant difference.
The real story is one of intensification. Before 2000-or-so there weren't many sky-scrapers in the City-of-London (i.e the central financial district), now it looks like there are upwards of twenty. Similarly in almost every photograph there is much less brown/grey space. Either empty spaces, or inner-city car-parks have been replaced by parks, or by new buildings. I think this is reflected in the population history…
On paper, Paris is much smaller than London (2 million vs 9 million), but Île-de-France has 12 million, but that in turn is a more expansive measure than Greater London. Inner London has 3.5 million. But London is basically a couple of significant cities with loads of towns and dense urban area in between and surrounding; Paris is structured quite differently.