Rick Steves’ Europe: London’s regeneration scene

While London sits upon an ancient Roman foundation (Londinium), today’s city was shaped in a powerful way by England’s Industrial Revolution. In 1800, London had about a million people. By 1900, its population had quadrupled to over four million, as people came from the countryside into the big city for the promise of a good job and a better life. “The best of times and the worst of times,” this was the London of Charles Dickens and his A Tale of Two Cities.

Today, London has become a leader in “regeneration” – re-using buildings and spaces from this period to appeal to modern lifestyles, incorporating the city’s rich and rusty industrial heritage as it builds for the future. Seeing these sites is to see some of the best examples of today’s London.

London’s Docklands is a great example of regeneration. In the 19th century, the Docklands was the world’s busiest shipping port. Abandoned with the advent of container shipping, it became an industrial wasteland – but today, it’s a busy zone of skyscrapers, where workers enjoy good public transit and plenty of green spaces for relaxing.

Just up the River Thames, this trend continues at the Battersea Power Station. In the early 20th century, this brick beast produced one-fifth of the city’s energy needs by burning coal – turning lungs black and helping London earn its nickname, “The Big Smoke.” The site was decommissioned in 1983 and stood abandoned for decades. Today, its four iconic stacks still stand tall, but no longer billow smoke. Instead, the site has been smartly converted into a sleek up-market shopping mall, with modern condos and park-like landscaping stretching down to the Thames. Its piers, which once received coal shipments, now receive sightseeing boats.

Speaking of boats: Regent’s Canal is another prime regeneration site. Built around 1820, it helped float the first waves of England’s Industrial Revolution. The early 1800s was all about coal, potatoes, and ceramics, and the canal was part of an extensive network that helped make business boom, connecting England’s industrial heartland (like Birmingham) in the north, and the world’s biggest port (the Docklands). Canals remained key to industrialization until the advent of steam trains drained them of their importance.

Today, while trains still thrive, industrial canals are antiquated. Their barges and tow paths are not used for hauling coal or grain, but for recreation. Regent’s Canal is lined with idyllic greenbelts filled with picnickers and joggers – and its waterways are filled with former cargo boats that are now houseboats, perfect for an unconventional lifestyle or hosting a lazy vacation.

And all around, the post-industrial conversion is in high gear as eye-catching condos and apartment towers come with an echo of what, until recently, was that rusty wasteland. Straddling Regent’s Canal is Coal Drops Yard and Granary Square, where canal boats once loaded up with coal to help power both trains and the Industrial Age. Until recently, this was an area littered with broken glass, drug addicts, and prostitutes. But a 1960s-era pimp wouldn’t recognize the place today, which is a clean, thriving commercial center and shopping complex built upon the foundation of its Industrial Age footprint.

The adjacent St. Pancras Train Station is a reminder that transportation infrastructure has always been a foundation of prosperity. Thanks to an expensive project, now recognized as a great investment, it’s been transformed from sooty to sleek. The slick “Eurostar” terminal, with bullet train service under the English Channel Tunnel (“Chunnel”), connects Londoners and Parisians in just over two hours. And with its dramatic canopy of iron and glass, the station stands like a palace remembering the Industrial Age.