Opportunities of Urban Change

• Employment 


  • ranges from highly paid and highly skilled sectors such as finance, research and medical to low skilled service jobs (cleaners, bar staff)
  • London's economy consists of 96% service industry positions
  • London's fashion week generates over 100 million pounds of orders and over 32,000 hours of digital content watched in the UK from more than 100 countries
  • The London Design festival is now the world's leading event of it's kind, which attracted over 350,000 people to innovative projects and cutting-edge design.
• Leisure and entertainment

  • many theatres such as the national theatre, 860 art galleries like the Tate Modern, music festivals and venues such as Love Box and The Proms.
  • Three of the top ten museums and galleries in the world are in London and four UNESCO world heritage sites: tower of London, Maritime Greenwich, Westminster Palace.
• Cultural diversity 


  • 84% of Londeners think that the city's cultural scene is important in ensuring a high quality of life
  • There are over 300 languages spoken in London, more than any other city in the world
  • Over 250 festivals take place in London every year including the largest free festival the Mayor's Thames festival, and Europe's biggest street festival, The Notting Hill Carnival which attracts near one million people
  • Brick Lane offers a variety of food, art and music form different places making it culturally rich
• Integrated Transport system 


  • London has buses, 240 tube stations, The Docklands light railway, Boris Bikes, bus lanes, ferries, London city airport and Heathrow which are all designed to keep London running
  • More than 90% of Londoners live within 400 metres of a bus stop and an average of 2.7 million tube journeys are made on the London underground daily
• Urban greening 


  - London is already a 'green city' due to its many parks, but maintaining and improving this is important.

  • It is estimated that there are about 8 million trees in London, and about 20% of London is covered in trees.
  • Increasing green infrastructure like roof top gardens ad green walls: there are around 700 green roofs in central London alone, covering an area of over 17.5 hectares
  • Creating a 'green grid' to connect green spaces with rows of trees or green infrastructure to make it easier for wildlife to migrate. This is done through maintaining trees, hedgerows and parks.